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The Truth About Body Transformations: What Nobody Tells You · Beyond Fat Loss

• Katie & Sean Darlow: Welcome to the Beyond Fat Loss podcast, where we don't I literally are only just finished sipping my coffee and you put a thumb up. Welcome to the Beyond Fat Loss Podcast, where we don't just stop at fat loss. You'll learn about all the good stuff that follows. How to build muscle, how to enjoy more food, and how to stay lean without going to extremes. We are your hosts, Sean Katie, and today we're going to reveal what most coaches won't tell you about chasing a physique goal. Physique change and body transformation is an amazing accomplishment. But make no mistake about it, it is hard work. Not just physically, but mentally too. In our experience, one of the reasons why so many people fall short of achieving their physique goals is due to having unrealistic expectations about what it would really take. Some people think it's an impossible task, therefore they never even get started or give it a proper attempt to begin with. Others start off expecting to see much quicker results than they get, and then the realization that this will take much longer than expected cripples them, so they give up. So in this episode, we're gonna give you a raw version of what you should expect when it comes to changing your physique. Many coaches make out to be far too hardcore, which puts people off doing it entirely. Or potentially what you could class as the other But on the other end of the scale, and potentially what you could class as the worst end of the scale, there are coaches that make it out to be far easier than it is just to get clients to sign up for them, only to have their dreams crushed when they realise eight weeks is barely scratching the surface of body transformation. By listening to this episode, you'll be armed and empowered about approaching your physique goals moving forwards. And I have to give my credit to Katie on this one because she made a fantastic post about this on Instagram. As soon as I saw it, I was like, wow, this is one of the best things you've ever brought up because it's not spoken about enough. ⁓ there's not enough nuance revealed about this. It seems to be one way or the other. Physique transformations are going to be ridiculously difficult, or ⁓ yeah, it's just a cakewalk, it's a walk in the park. ⁓ so yeah, hats off to you, Katie, for the inspiration to this podcast, 'cause it's an amazing topic. Hi. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. And thank you to you guys that are listening in and we'd really appreciate your support to get the pod out there. ⁓ to more listeners. Drop a like or a share. Drop a like or share the episode or podcast with a friend. If you have any feedback or just want to give us a a virtual high five, leave a comment below and subscribe so you don't miss a future episode. You can also find us on Instagram, Sean SKD Coaching and Katie SKD Coaching. So come and connect with with us. So come and connect with us on there for more context about how do they say lean all year round without going to extremes. And you can even drop us a message and have a chat with us. Been lovely to speak with some of the podcasts now so far. Yeah, for sure. And you won't miss out on any amazing posts like the one which inspired this podcast. So you definitely want to get on there because we can't share everything on one platform all the time. We have to be across multiple platforms. So yeah, come and give us a come and give us a follow and see what we're getting up to and get your Open plug. Yeah, come and drop us a follow and make sure you don't miss out on any other super helpful content. So Sean, kick us off then. Why do so many people get turned off their physique goals? I think one of the first ⁓ problems which people face when it comes to physique goals i it's just a lack of general understanding about what it means to change your physique in comparison to just improving a few health markets or Losing a bit of weight, for example. Because to me, there there is a clear distinction between what I would class as having physique-based goals and just general well being or general health-based goals. When I think of physique-based goals, generally they involve building muscle mass, which can also cross over to health based goals as well. But typically the muscle mass that is involved in physique goals tends to be a bit more than the average person. The methods used to get there are typically a little bit more intermediate to advanced. It involves changing your body shape. So looking at specific areas which you're looking to develop, potentially changing how certain body parts look aesthetically. It involves In in many cases, a leaner physique to somebody that's just looking to be in a healthy range of body fat and potentially a different body composition as well. So proportionately higher muscle mass and proportionately lower body fat to your average healthy person. So physique goals tend to be a little bit more specific, ⁓ and they they do tend to be. A little bit more on the side of training is a bit more serious, the diet is a bit more serious, and and you're looking for visible ⁓ change in in site specific areas of the body. as well as having a balance between all the muscle groups you want to develop too to to provide that aesthetic look. Why d s why why do I think some people get turned off by this? Well because I think many people start out their fitness journeys with the expectation that they'll just lose ten to twenty pounds and their body will look significantly different. You know, you can go to the gym for six to eight weeks and your body's gonna look significantly different. If I just lose twenty pounds and I lift weights for the next eight weeks, I'm gonna transform completely. And that might be just through a a lack of a lack of education. It might be because they've consumed misleading information online, but The reality of how long it actually takes to truly see significant physique change is is quite daunting when that reality strikes. I think you hit the nail on the head there. That's you explain physique transformation very well. that snippet and there quite often is unrealistic expectations on how quickly that can be achieved, right? I think even for my for myself, years and years ago, you know, you think, ⁓ if I just keep losing body fat, for example, then surely I'm just going to end up looking lean enough that I like what I see underneath. But one, it's really hard to get super lean, right? That it is hard, it's difficult, it's a challenge. And two, generally, if you haven't spent time building muscle for years, you're gonna be a little unhappy with what's revealed underneath. And I think that isn't, to my understanding, just common knowledge. Just common knowledge when it comes to perhaps if someone's starting out with their physique goals, if obviously if you're you're very well experienced in in physique change and you've been doing it for a long while, that that will be obvious to you. And you've probably done a few cycles of build in and cut in by now. But if you're an individual listening to this that hasn't done that before or didn't even know about, you know, a build-in sphere specifically to build muscle, they're not gonna have a clue how long that takes. And like muscle actually it's it's a slow process to build muscle. Not to put anyone off, because my God don't, because you want to be building muscle for the rest of your life. But so it goes hand in hand with health goals for sure. But it's it's the fact that it does take time and it's not going to happen in a in a ⁓ Eight weeks you can get a pretty fantastic fat loss result in eight weeks, right? But even that, that's still not going to absolutely transform your physique. You're gonna just lose some body fat. So I think I think you're right there. I think a lot ties to unrealistic expectations, not necessarily because the person is not necessarily because the person has these crazy unrealistic expectations based on their. Their knowledge, it's more that that's what's kind of been put out in in the social media world, I think. ⁓ you see, you know, people ripped online, six packs online, fitness models, etc. But it it that's not doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen in a couple of weeks, right? It takes time and it takes commitment. Yeah, you often see the result of like a fat loss phase. What are you doing, Beb? Sorry, it's really distracting. This is spider. Distracted me whole system. Is that is that really relevant right now? Distracted me the whole thing. That's really important. Sorry, but distracted me, that's all. Really distracted me. Can you try and refocus, please? Can't remember how I introduced that segment now. That's really frustrating, Katie. A lot of the time what we see online is a snapshot of what that person's been doing most recently. So for example, you'll see an individual leaning down for a photo shoot. The physique which is revealed in that photo shoot has not been built in the eight weeks that they've been cutting down, or the 12 weeks, or even the 16 weeks that they've been cutting down for that photo shoot. The physique has been built over a number of years prior to the stage where they cut down to get in shape for that photo shoot. The fat loss result is what reveals the the f the physique that was built underneath. And I think until you've had the experience of going through fat loss phase, building phase, fat loss phase, you won't really understand what that looks like and you won't really understand the impact that that has on your on your look. This can happen in as little time as around a year, but to many people, a year sounds like a really long period of time. For people that have done this for five to ten years and they've been training for that long and aiming to try and improve their appearance specifically for that long, not just building muscle to get stronger or not just building muscle to be healthy, but we're talking the individuals here that have a little bit more of an aesthetic goal in mind. You know, five to ten years is not that long when you think about those types of individuals because they're they're they're probably gonna be doing it for that time anyway. They enjoy it. They they enjoy having that structure and routines of their week where they go into the gym on a regular basis and training frequently. It's it's part of their everyday lives by that stage. I think there's there's a bit of a ⁓ a miss. I would say miscommunication with how these results are presented in the online space. And again, I'm not thro I'm not throwing any blame around because we write content ourselves. It's virtually impossible to detail every single step of somebody's journey for the last five to ten years for what you reveal with your fat loss phase working with that client. This it's hard enough to get to hold somebody's attention online as it is, ⁓ and to get them to read. you know, a paragraph of a couple of hundred words as it is, because of the way that social media is designed. So w can't go into all those details. And I don't think coaches are deliberately taking all of the credit for everything that that client has done for the last, say, three to five years to get to that photo shoot muscle level to then cut it down and re I don't think I don't think coaches are taking all the credit for what that person has done. prior to that particular cut for the photo shoot. But sometimes that is how it comes across. And if if you're the type of individual where you haven't had a lot of experience of working with coaches or or experience of body transformation yourself ⁓ successfully, then that is how that sometimes comes across and that can be misleading. I fully agree. I d I don't think it's necessarily anyone's fault per se. I think the world we're living in with social media and and you know, having to work with algorithms, all of this jazz has an imp influence and impact for sure. but I just think f for years it's not even recently with social media, for years and years there's always been ⁓ fitness models around and what a perfect image looks like and etc etcetera. I think it's it's it's not talked about openly enough. What it actually takes to achieve that if you're not genetically blessed like that naturally, right? I think. ⁓ and even those people have probably have got habits that allow them to stay that way, that lean, that muscular, that very much align with what you as an individual would need to do to get to that level anyway. But even that though, Casey, I think again it's a misnomer that everyone that is lean can be naturally lean. Like that's certainly not the case. Some individuals get lean and they hold that lean composition all year round because they they adapt and change their lifestyles to enable them to do that. Like it's a higher priority for them than having more liberal eating on the weekends and having more of a social life and going out for food multiple times a week and picking whatever they want off the menu, having you know, free. Completely free eating, if there's ever such a thing, which there isn't. But you know, these individuals make significant changes to their lifestyle and make particular decisions and sacrifices that enable them to do that. That's part of that process. That's part of what they buy into in that in that long term. So I do feel like. There is a bit of misunderstanding there. I too feel like people just naturally assume, ⁓ well, they're lucky and they're blessed genetically to be that way. ⁓ and that's certainly not the case. There there are some individuals that are perhaps blessed genetically to be leaner. But they st they still would need to be upholding some kind of habits and standards, but also making micro decisions on a daily basis that align with Holding that body composition, right? It's a reality. It's it's and we're not just talking about being lean here. When we talk about a physique, you know, anybody can get lean without a lot of muscle and still look like they haven't built a lot of muscle. So there is there is a balance to that as well. The point that I want to bring this all back around to as we're discussing this, right, is is myself and Katie. We we we all have a clear impression in our heads of what we want to look like in terms of our physique. And we're used to working with people that have an impression in their heads of what their physique or what physique they would like to have. ⁓ one of the things that we ask members, for example, when we start working with them, is not for the sake of comparison, but for more of a realistic comparison, for more of a realistic viewpoint, for for more of a direction purpose. We will say, can you send me some examples of a physique that you find to be really inspiring? And when we see those example physiques, it gives us a really good idea of how this client thinks about their body shape and what body shape they would like to achieve. Because we can sit here and describe it from what we would like to see, or we can make assumptions about what we think they are imagining in their heads as they're telling us, you know, I want leaner arms, I want a leaner torso, ⁓ I want to grow my thighs, I want to grow my glutes. All of these things can be said to us, but then how do we determine whether we want that individual to look like somebody who's been going to the gym for a few years, training three to five times a week, or somebody that wants to be jumping on stage for a bodybuilding show in a few years' time? There's a big gap between those types of physiques. So having some sort of visualization to go by, or have some sort of visual image to go by, can be really helpful and Obviously, a of these individuals haven't have not achieved that image themselves. They can't send a picture of themselves. They can't say, ⁓ I want why would they be hiring us to get the physique if they already look like that? So using examples from other people that they've seen online or people that they know are useful representations of the sort of direction they like to go. It's just about understanding that you can't get caught in the comparison trap of trying to look exactly like somebody else because there are so many variables that might stop you from looking exactly like that. Person. It's just a bit of a benchmark, isn't it? And a a timeline, I think, of more a realistic approach of how long it'll take you to get there. Because from experience, it's going to take you longer than you think, and it's probably going to mean you need to build more muscle mass than you realise, and probably lose more body fat than you realise too. So understanding what's required of you can help you decide whether that is something that you actually want to pursue and chase. And also Allow you to ride out the hard patches as you go through the journey. Again, fitness has this habit of wanting to polarize everything, you know. You're either training for health or you're training for for physique goals or whatever. Like w we're not trying to split the crowd entirely here, but what we're trying to do is help the individuals that feel like their goals are a little bit more towards the physique end of the spectrum. And they feel like they're starting to grow into this space that is quite unusual, that's quite different, that Perhaps you don't get a lot of recognition for from the people that you spend a lot of time with in life because this goal is a lot more personal to you. It's a lot more unique. ⁓ it might be a little bit more unusual to the average person to see. Like most people wouldn't really understand why you'd want to spend seven to ten hours in the gym a week training as hard as possible, why you would want to, you know, remove certain things for your diet for a a couple of months a year to just try and get a little bit more ab definition. Most people don't think like that, and most people don't understand that logic and that way of thinking. But there are many people that do. They're just in a slightly different space. So we're just trying to help those individuals that realize that their goal does go beyond just being ⁓ an everyday, healthy, happy individual. Being a healthy individual You know, with a bit of muscle, with a bit of strength, which is what we would promote for for everyone, your goals might go a little bit beyond that. I think sometimes the realization hits you when you perhaps have gone through part of a weight loss journey or you know, you've gone through a couple of months in the gym and you your language changes about how you talk about your goals and what you'd like to achieve. Like for example, we might get members that start out with us where you know the initial goal is I want to lose two stone. No problem. So let's get you set up to lose two stone or any particular areas that you'd like to see a little bit of fat reduction in. And you might get around my stomach, you might get, ⁓ I want to lose a bit on my on my on my on my legs or my hips, ⁓ particularly around my stomach, my arms. And that's the initial goal. So you get started and you set out with that. But then you have your catch-up calls for them every, every, every few weeks, and you do your progress reviews. And a few months down the line they're starting to say things like Feel like I'd like to grow my glutes now. I feel like I'd like to get a little bit more definition in my back. I've got this upcoming event. So the wedding is coming up, and I've got backless dress. ⁓ I'm gonna be a bridesmaid. I'd like to try and get my get my back muscles to show a little bit more. then that's where they're talking about site-specific areas. They'd like to have more shape, have more definition, have more muscle development in. That's a clear sign that the goal is now shifting from just more of what we would class as a as as a general broader goal to this is more of a physique based goal because this is no longer just going to be achieved by twenty pounds of body fat reduction. We n we need to target those muscles in that area with the right exercises, with the right intensity, to build the muscle and make sure that there's less fat covering that muscle. I think it's fair to say that when you when some individuals start out They perhaps don't believe that they can even ever get to that point. So they don't even it doesn't even cross their mind to think, ⁓ I could have, you know, a defined back, I could have a Motor waist, I could have fuller glutes, whatever it may be. I think there's a lot of and I can talk about this from experience with clients, it's my own experience is like when you first start out, it's like, well, gosh, I can't even fathom losing twenty, thirty pounds right now. Like the I don't even know if I'm capable of getting there. Never mind the next level. So it's really actually it's quite nice to see people's confidence levels in what they want to achieve grow and realize that they are actually capable of achieving that next level if they want it. And if they don't want it, no worries. Like you're a happy, healthy individual by that point. You're confident in your body, you're confident in your ability to be disciplined, lead a healthy lifestyle. But what you unlock next. It it only really appears at the right time once you've got to that that that that point in your journey. ⁓ it's quite exciting when someone gets to that point because they realise, well, I can do this, I am capable of this. That's one end of the scale with individuals that haven't had the experience yet of trying to achieve a physique transformation and and that puts them off trying to push that bit further initially because they don't realize that it's just the next couple of steps in their journey to what they've already been doing well for the goals that they have. And it's absolutely fine if you're not interested in that stuff as well. There are many people that just want to lose a few pounds for holiday or lose a few pounds to be healthier. And don't care about any sort of physique changes, like that's absolutely fine. And if you're listening to this podcast and that's you, just know that we don't think anything less of you, and you're absolutely fine to do that. But I can imagine, based on what we talk about in the podcast on a regular basis, that most people that listen to this probably will have some slightly more body composition, physique based goals where they're looking to change certain aspects of their body. They want to have a bit more of a ⁓ of an aesthetic defined toned leaner ⁓ body composition where you're you're thinking about okay how is this exercise in the gym going to change my body in a positive way ⁓ so we're gonna we're gonna give And for those some of those individuals that already accept and understand that they have physique goals, they can be put off by some of the alpha coaches in the industry that their entire identity identity their entire identity is built around the gym and It's hard and fast. You've got to do this, or you don't get results. My way is the only way. This is what everyone does. This is what everyone around me does. So there's no other way to get this result. And those coaches are often quite extreme, and they put people off as eek transformation as well. Because most people. can't necessarily adhere to those rigid Absolutely e excessive methods for too long. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Sometimes it can be made out that it's too difficult. Not so much made out that it's too difficult. I don't think that's the right way to to say it. Perceived to be too difficult because perhaps an individual doesn't want to live their life like what they see in this really jacked, lean individual on online is leading their life, you know? Most coaches will expose a bit about how they life, how they live it. And I think in Mm, I don't to live my life like that. So they think that's that's the only way to perhaps get to that that physique goal, which isn't isn't the case, right? I'm not gonna give it much airtime, but you you also don't know what substances these people are taking either when you see them online. It is getting better on social media, in my opinion, in terms of the people that are openly admitting that they're taking drugs for for for enhancement for sport or whatever or competition. Or even just general general recreational use, to be honest. But it's typically people that are looking to compete that end up going down that pathway and announce it online. There's a lot of gray area still, though, where individuals are taking performance-enhancing drugs and not being open about it. To me, it's absolutely the same boat for individuals that are taking ⁓ weight loss medication, ⁓ GLP one receptor blo I can't talk today. ⁓ taking the weight loss the weight loss drugs ⁓ and not telling people openly that that's what they're doing for their transformation, it's it's the same thing. ⁓ it's it's misleading and for individuals that look at those individuals and see the results they're getting and see what they are achieving. They can sometimes get caught in the trap of thinking, well, maybe I should be getting results like that. And I and then they have unrealistic expectations for themselves. So it's not easy for somebody to identify unless you've had experience with this. it's not e always easy to to to to know what people are doing with their with their s you know so not always easy to know what people are doing with their with their drugs use in in in their in their health and fitness. so it's something to be mindful of when you're when you're looking at other people for inspiration online. Yeah, I agree fully you It can be easy for your results to be compared incorrectly to someone else if they are ⁓ using kind of any kind of enhancement. I'm not saying by any means that say for example you have a highly successful enhanced bodybuilder that is evidence based that works with a lot of general pop that gets fantastic results. I'm not saying for any for any means that People should not look towards or people should not look for advice from that individual or that they're not a good coach because that simply isn't true. What I'm saying is choose your source very, very carefully. It it might be a warning sign if you're not the type of person that wants to go to the gym five or six days a week meal prepping every Sunday for all your meals in the week. You don't want to compete. You don't want to take steroids, and then you go and sign up with a coach just doing all that stuff. That might be a warning sign to you. The coach might be absolutely fantastic, saying, This is what I do. You don't have to do what I do. Here are some ways that would work really well for you. Like if meal prep doesn't work for your lifestyle, what can we do to make convenient meals on the fly? How can we make sure that we're We're getting the most out of whatever time you've got in the gym. If that's three hours a week, then let's maximize that. ⁓ I know you're not going to be wanting to get as lean as what bodybuilders do for competitions. So how can we get you to a place where you're really comfortable to go on your holiday? Like there's nuance to it. And there might be coaches out there like that, but don't be surprised on the flip side of it. If you sign up for a coach that's lifestyle, that's training habits, that's mindset is completely different to yours. And then you sign up with them and their methods are just completely out of out of sync with what you want to achieve from your physique transformation. I think it's very hard for general public to understand the nuance when it comes to training and nutrition. Because if they understood the nuance then they probably wouldn't need any help from a coach anyway, right? So I think the The best advice I could give here when you are choosing a coach is are they talking about nuance? Do they do different different approaches and methods with different clients? Or is it more of a one size fits all? And that's where you can make your decision whether you think that one size fits all is right for you or not? Because it's not anything to say it's absolutely not going to work for you, but it's just going in with that understanding and accepting that that's their method, that's their approach. or is a coach chatting about the nuance of different methods and client scenarios and will they then be able to weigh up your specific scenario to get the best results for you possible and also help you with your expectations with the goals that you'd like to achieve. I think that's that's the best bit of advice I can give when it it comes to choosing a coach. Because it can be hard to online because there's so many people out there now coaching whether they're qualified or not and it can be an absolute mindfield. So it's Can be hard to do your due diligence when you don't know what you don't know. ⁓ but it's more take a common sense approach with that, I think. Yeah, it could be a podcast in itself, to be honest, to talk about like how to identify good sources of information around around and and how not to, but Yeah, I agree. I think that might be a helpful one too. A really good rule of thumb is just think of the person, think of the individual. ⁓ are they promoting a way of living and a way of achieving this result that aligns well with you or not? Are they living a lifestyle that you could either see yourself having or Is somewhat relatable to you. Don't have to be identical, of course, but somewhat relatable. Consider the person, not just the education, not just the knowledge, because to varying degrees, we've all got knowledge as coaches, right? We've all got knowledge, we've all got information, we all know how to write training programs, we all know how to give calories out. A lot of the time the quality of coaching comes down to the person, not just the knowledge, not just the education. It comes down to how well they can communicate, how well they can empathize, how well they can adapt their thinking, how well they can really listen and understand t and put themselves in somebody else's shoes. their own biases aside to help you. Yeah, sometimes choose a less optimal approach that is one that actually can be stuck to rather than just picking the most optimal approach on paper that somebody is just absolutely not going to be able to fit into their lives. Like all of this stuff matters a lot when it comes to selecting a coach. So You're gonna want somebody that you can have understanding, relatability, and rapport with, in in my opinion. That's that's what I would look for. If I was gonna go looking for a coach today, I'd want somebody that I know I can I can I can trust to be a really good human as well as a really good coach. I agree fully. And I'm not gonna say any more on the matter because I think the like you mentioned, son, it's a it's quite a big topic on its own. for sure. So I'm not gonna I think you summarised that perfectly and g and give some good advice there to help individuals seek the co right coach for them if as and when they need it. What about the flip side of it, Katie? What about The coaches that kind of oversell how easy it is to to change your physique and to transform. I think that's setting up people for fake it as well, right? Because you go in with a an idea then that, ⁓ this is gonna be a breeze. We'll need a change match, I'll still be able to do, you know, all my social events, I'll still be able to eat liberally, all of these things, and then bam, you're not getting the results you want. Then gonna make changes that you're not too happy about. And it could be a recipe for disaster because how can you agree to go in and achieve something or achieve a goal. Without really knowing what's required. And I think that's really unfair. And then can actually really damage a relationship with coach client. Yeah, absolutely. And to be fair, there's a number of reasons why I think this stuff happens. I think Mostly it's just over compensation for how hard it's ⁓ been ⁓ made to sound by the coaches or the influencers or whatever on the other end of the scale that are the hardcore, that are the kind of, you know crowd that will make out that physique change is one of the hardest things you'll ever do and you you've got to do every single method perfectly and you've you've you've got to do this for like thirty to forty years to get a result. I think that the compensation then is that some of the other coaches that don't have the experience of working with people for long durations or achieving significant physique transformation to try and get themselves out there and to try and attract people into their space, they go the other way. So they they try and dumb it down to make it as easy as possible. We've worked we've worked with marketing advice ourselves in the past, Katie, where it's almost been we've we've we've sat there and we've disagreed with the marketing consultant. Because the marketing consultant suggested that we try and make this problem as small as possible and try and make it sound as easy as possible to fix. And we both were looking at one another as if to say, Do you know what this isn't right? Because this could be misleading people. Like I'd rather turn some individuals away that realize that it's not for them and get clients that I know are going to. deal with the ups and downs of a challenging journey that are going to be prepared to face some of the struggles and some of the difficulties along the way, than to attract loads and loads and loads of individuals in that all wanna quit after the first mental, the second mental, the third third ment. And then they're turning around to me and saying, Well, you told me it was going to be easy. You told me that these problems were going to shrink and they were going to be significantly easier to handle than what you're now telling me. And they all want a refund or they all want to leave after month month one, month, two, month, three. ⁓ yeah, morally we couldn't do it, could we? We couldn't sit there and and allow that to happen. Because if it was easy, then everyone would be walking round ripped right now. But it's not the case. And I think I think it's really unfair to do that just to get some money in the bank. I don't yeah, ⁓ it it is, absolutely. And I don't know if it's always just down to money either. Sometimes There's an element of if you don't make it sound doable and achievable, then people won't buy into it to begin with anyway. And we fully get that. We fully understand that. If if you If you tell everyone about all the shit stuff up front, then they'll never want to do it. So Well there's absolutely a balance to get right. You're you're spot on there, She's a balance to get right, isn't it? But it's about just not being misleading, I think, with the the the the plan of action, I guess, because no I think everyone knows there's gonna be elements of challenge because they're already struggling with certain elements, right? Before otherwise they wouldn't be looking for help or support. To then not be honest about what it takes to change something doesn't mean you've had to portray that in a very hard way because the reality is they're gonna find it way easier than what they're doing right now. But to make something sound too simple and too easy and like it's just gonna fall on your lap, that's just unrealistic. Yeah, you're doing you're doing that person a disservice then because they're always gonna feel like they should be getting better results and they deserve better results than what they're getting. And that might keep them stuck for a very long period of time and actually feel quite resentful. They might start to blame certain things like their genetics, for example. Or they might start to blame blame themselves for not getting better results. Just naturally be like, Why is he not working for me? Well Actually it's because we need to do XYZ. But you told me at the start it'd be as simple as this. Yeah. probably fair to say that when it comes to physique transformation It's not as hard as you think it's gonna be. But there will be challenges. And there are some difficulties that you'll have to accept and there is some discomfort that you'll have to accept as part of that journey. It's probably going to be much more enjoyable than you expect it to be. And overcoming those challenges is going to feel much more rewarding than what you expect them to be. But if you go into it with the wrong expectations from the start, then you're you're likely to end up bitterly disappointed. Yeah, well said. Well said. I do agree it's not as hard as as people think. ⁓ 'Cause what's hard now will not be hard in a few years' time. In fact, what's hard now might not be hard in a few weeks' time. But then you'll have something else that's hard. And then you deal with that. That might take a few weeks. This one might take a few months. But each time you move that little bit further, it's not like the progress that you've all that you've accumulated so far is just forgotten about. All of that stuff that you used to find hard is now easier. So now you're just tackling the next hard. But yeah. You just gotta ask yourself, if it's something you want, what's harder? You sitting thinking about it all the time, being on your mind all the time, or just running away with it and proving to yourself that you can do it and that actually you really enjoy it along the way. I don't think we've had any clients say, ⁓ gosh, like this is ridiculously hard, I'm out. It's like, ⁓ wow, like I can't believe how much I'm enjoying this lifestyle and how much I get back from it. And that light bulb moment does hit at different times for everyone, but it hits and it's like, ⁓ man, the pennies dropped. I love this. An example like this like so spoke about Tish on the podcast before, right? ⁓ so her first aggressive diet that she did ⁓ last year, Tish spoke to me at the end of it and said, I've never been so disciplined in my life, and I've never meal prepped so much in my life. I can't believe how disciplined I've been, and I never would have done this without you. Comes around to her the next year. She's done her building phase. Summer's coming around again. She wants to go. I ask her if she wants to go back into another aggressive diet. Because it did work really well for her results last time. But there were still those comments about how hard it was, without hesitation. ⁓ yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I I want to do that again. Like I know I can handle it this time. So it was really hard. She was able to accept that it was really hard and an elements were challenging. She's done even better this time round. Like it's felt natural for her to be more disciplined. I haven't even had a comment about the meal prep this time. It just goes to show, doesn't it, that what was once hard will not be hard again in the future. And what she's done by doing these aggressive diets is that she's cut her fat loss time down in half. She's been able to have more time building muscle. She doesn't have to think about fat loss for as many months of the year. Just because just because she's done the hard experience once already. Yeah, you see hard differently when you know how to manage a hard well. And I think that's the difference is once you Heart doesn't feel as hard when it's something that's more of a an exciting challenge rather than being a mountain to climb that's just seems endless. So yeah, it it's it changes, but you can only get that through your own experience. I could bang on to you all day about how how it could be life changing for you. But it's only gonna be life changing if you go through that experience yourself. You can't it can't it just can't be bought. It just can't. But I know you won't be di you won't be disappointed exploring it. That was a long opening segment, but I feel like there was a lot of information in there that needs to be discussed so we could really set the scene for this. So Katie, take us away now with your first point that most coaches won't tell you about physique transformation. What's going be one of the biggest challenges that people face when they first start this journey? I think these things we're going to discuss, they're in no particular order. And I think some of these things you'll experience at different times of your journey. The first one I'd like us to chat about is doubt creeping in. Even when you've got a coach, even when you've got a plan that you know is going to work for you because you've got full trust in your coach. Doubt will creep in. You will Have weeks where there's just not plain sailing. Even when you've done everything, everything right by the book, you ticked all those boxes, you know you need to tick, you still have those moments of, hmm, is this even working? I don't know. Is it working? Is it changing fast enough? Should I be getting more out of this? Is there more I could be doing? I think that's the golden question. Is it is there more I could be doing when sometimes Physic transformation, as we discussed, the process is I don't want to call it slow. It's slow because it just takes time because you can't speed up the process per se. But sometimes you doubt yourself in terms of could I be given more? Could I push more? Is there something else that I could do? But changing your seat doesn't happen overnight, right? It really doesn't happen overnight. And let's be real, as we people probably know from listening to the podcast now, it doesn't take a few weeks either. ⁓ This takes longer than a few months. But those moments of doubts They may even appear more frequently when you're ⁓ in the early stages of your of your journey. I won't say they'll ever go fully, but the weeks where you do push past the doubt and really trust the process, they're the weeks that tend to take you into new territory that you haven't been before. And perhaps they push you past points when that you may have given up in the past. I think it's really important when that doubt creeps in to split the emotions away from the logics and try and ask yourself, right, am I doing what is required in terms of, you know, your nutrition, your activity, your training sessions? And if you if you're saying yes to all of those things, and that's not 100% perfect, by the way, that's you know, I am yes, I'm taking those boxes. And you can tell that self doubt to to sit down and and shut up because you were doing what you need to do to move along the journey. self doubt it does have the ability Really set you back if you allow it. If you allow it to take over and allow you, allow it to tell you that you're you're not doing enough, you should be doing more, are you even making progress? It has the ability to allow you to sabotage, really, self-sabotage. Which could keep you stuck or end up sending you backwards. Why could it keep you stuck or end up sending you backwards? Stop making in this podcast so far, you've made a load of just really overgeneralized claims. And there's there's very little context to back it up. Okay. So can you stop making big bold, like kind of just generalized comments, generalized claims? You've been you've made a lot of definitive statements, but you've not backed it up. Finding it very, very difficult. Okay. Okay. Think about the person you're talking to. If they're experiencing doubt, why is that a problem to them? And remember the framing of all this. You're trying to say that doubt is normal. You're trying to explain to them why doubt is normal. Like, this is what other coaches won't tell you. You're going to doubt yourself a lot. Yeah. Like I know. I thought we were gonna have a bit more conversation, but you stop talking. I I have no idea where you're taking this. Like I'm just letting you talk. You read off both points at once. Okay. Like I didn't get a chance to reply to the first one. You just went straight into second one. So I'm just having I'm I'm gonna come in with stuff, but You you just seem to keep taking it off on a different tangent all the time. Okay. Okay. If you're done talking, hand something back to me, send it back over to me. Like I I what am I supposed to do? Okay. I hear you. That segment may need to go and t and back delete that bit until it goes back to when you talked about is it even working? On the flip side, I would actually say that if you're not experiencing any doubt at all, I think this is a problem. Because I think that there's gonna be times in your journey where you put doubt to one side and you're really confident in your approach. And that's great. Like those are really positive experiences for your confidence levels. You're probably gonna get some really good results in that time frame. Probably where you feel like you're the most locked in when you don't have those doubts. But I I I can't think of anybody But I don't think it's realistic for anyone to chase a goal for a long period of time and not experience at least some doubt along that way. And sometimes the doubt can reveal to you some things that may need to change. Spoke about guilt a lot on one of the other podcasts and how that can be an alarm system. And sometimes doubt can sometimes be a little bit of an alarm system as well. Like I'll give you a prime example that's really relevant to me right now. Last last week, over the last week, I've had a little bit of doubt about my calories on the aggressive diet. Because I haven't experienced as quick results as what I did in the first block for a start. I don't feel like my weight is coming down as much as it could be doing compared to my aggressive diet in the previous year. And I actually feel like I'm not finding this block quite as challenging as what I should be doing at this stage. I'm also seeing myself visually and thinking my body is not changing that much. Now, yes, it's a short time frame, but I'm I'm experienced with this. I've got past data to go by. And my coach is my coaching hat is is going, Are you being a little bit too conservative because of the calculations you've done? And are you sticking a bit too close to these calculations or or should you drop your calories down a little bit? I was having that doubt. And I've gone over the data and I've gone and I've compared back to last time and I've crunched all the numbers. And I think that the calculator's overestimating. Sorry. I think the calculator is is underestimating my body fat levels currently and is putting me on slightly higher calories to preserve muscle mass than what it should be doing. So I'm making an adjustment. That doubt was important. That doubt was revealing to me that something's off. And I think sometimes you need that doubt as a little bit of a reminder. Like Katie said, when you get that doubt, it's important to go, right, am I doing all I can be doing? Is this a normal rate of results for what I would expect from my current input? Is there anything I can change? And is it even worth changing it? The phrase, is the juice, is the juice. Worth the squeeze. Even if you do change something, what is the impact of that? Is it gonna make a difference? Is it gonna move the needle? Because if it doesn't, it might be really inconvenient for you to change that thing for very, very little benefit and very little return. It might be a disproportionate amount of upheaval, ⁓ logistical difficulty, emotional challenge for very little result. So be realistic about it. But if you don't experience doubt throughout your entire journey at all, I think that you could be missing things. You could be missing blind spots. And it may even be a small case of you being a little bit arrogant. It's always two sides of the coin, isn't there? And the same with doubt. Doubt sometimes will need to be squashed because you're doing what you need to be doing. And doubt sometimes will be an alarm bell because actually you're not experiencing what you thought you may and for good reason. So that's why doubt and doubt creeping in is absolutely normal and expect it. But also be aware you need to analyse both sides of that coin when doubt creeps in. It's not just self-doubt. ⁓ it's going wrong and let it send you south. Because actually, hang on a moment. Is this doubt telling me ac it's an alarm? I need to make changes. Or is this doubt actually just I don't want to say a load of nonsense, but it it's it's needs to be curbed and kicked aside because Nothing needs to change, you just need to trust the process. But that will come. And I think there's a you know, s on a physique journey, there's a number of things that can influence that, can't it? Depending on what phase you're in as well. So many variables that can influence and make you doubt doubt yourself or doubt the process, whether that be the skills, whether that be your training, whether that be your nutrition, whatever it may be. ⁓ Yeah, it's harmful to tell yourself you're not doing well when you are, or it's harmful to keep beating yourself up over the rate of results you're getting when your rate of results are actually reasonable for for what what you've got going on and what you're doing. But at the same time it's also very harmful to tell yourself you're doing well when you're not, and to just ignore any doubt if i if you could be doing more, if you should be doing more, or if you are under reporting calories or your training is not the quality it should be, you you're not putting maximum effort into your training in the gym. Then all of these things You know, they should raise some concern, they should raise some doubt, and then it's dealing with that appropriately. So Yeah, I think to summarize this segment, you should experience doubt. It's what you do with it afterwards that that really counts. If you're not experiencing any at all, then this is probably a red flag to you. Might be a bit of Dunning Kruger going in there where you're not ⁓ you're not actually able to assess what you don't know. Like there might be things that you don't know that you're that you're missing. ⁓ the y You know, it's impossible to know everything. It's impossible to be doing everything right and everything perfect at any one given period of time or ever. So, you know, remember that. But at the same time, don't go too hard on yourself if things are progressing. They are going well, they are going at a reasonable rate, or even if sometimes they're not progressing as well. But that's the current stage you're at, because you have to just maintain for this time period there's too much. too much stress going on in your life to be pushing fat loss. You have to just maintain for now and then you can push it a bit harder once you get, you know, all the all the life's life stresses out the way and you're in a clearer space to be able to really go all out with your fat loss goals. So Expect out but handle it accordingly. Yeah, I agree, Sean, and I think just being aware of that and knowing that that's normal can really help people along their physique transformation journey. Is that statement helpful? I don't know how to bridge it too. I'm finding this really That's not bridging, that's just adding a statement on the end. Like I I I summarized it perfectly. Yeah you did. So you can just move on to the next section. You don't need to add another comment to the end. Just move on to the next section. That's why I did it. Okay. Okay. Well said, Sean. Well said, spot on. Let's chat about the bore in middle next. I think this is an important topic because quite often people find themselves in the boring middle and perhaps having a bit of shiny object syndrome, shall we say, where it's like, ooh, could this new method I've seen online or this new thing help spice things up or make things change quicker or could I achieve my results in a faster time frame if I do. X Y Z. What the hell has that got to do with the bowling? I'm really struggling today, I'm sorry. I I know you are, babe. It's really, really, really difficult to follow your floating. Babe, I know, I can't even follow my own. I'm serious. I'm struggling so much with this. We haven't been doing it an hour already, mind. Have we really? Yeah. It's forty five minutes the back the the start of it. Forty five minutes. ⁓ The intro was forty five minutes. ⁓ okay. Right, well, let's just carry on, right? I can f I can cut down shitloads of the intro, right? We can get rid of loads of the intro. So I'll just have to carry on I'll just have to be ruthless with the editing, right? But it was for I I didn't want to tell you because you always you always tell me not to tell you. So I didn't I can tell the time's gone on a lot, bab. I can tell that intro took fucking forever. Yeah, it was like forty five minutes. There was so much crap in that intro. We waffled on a lot. Okay. Back to the bottom middle. It's likely you and my staff romanticising starting again instead of staying in the ball in the middle, right? The reality is Border middle is where you need to be. The day to day stuff it isn't flashy. Bip This just isn't working today. These you're not thinking about our listeners at all, right? You're just not. How the fuck do they know what the bore in middle is? You make it you describe something, describe it to them. They don't know what you're on about. I'm not being spoken to like this. Okay. Can we end the podcast? No, Bib, we have not got time. We'll record this again another time. We have not got time for that. It's rubbish, bib. It's rubbish today. It's absolutely rubbish. I know. We spent 45 minutes on the fucking intro. Yeah, you spent a lot of time talking crap as well. Babe, you you don't I'm not getting into an argument with you. I hardly spoke. Babe, I I'm This is your topic. You need to be you need to be more confident with this. Yes, Sean, I understand. And like we discussed in AD, after an hour I start finding it even more difficult. Babe, you weren't good from the start. Right, what do you want to do? I'm not sitting here arguing with you. I don't think we have time to re record this. When are we going to reco re record this? Realistically. We haven't got the time. This podcast is not working at moment. Babe. That's too taking up far too much of my time and not getting other stuff done. Right now. Okay. Let's chat about the bore in middle. Because there may be times throughout your journey where you might find it a little bit boring. You're in your rhythm, you're in your routine, you've got your habits nailed. And you might start romantic more romanticising about starting again or getting a bit of shiny object syndrome and wanting to jump ship onto the next thing. Why does that happen? novelty dies off and for some people Novelty of what? Your descriptives are rubbish today, Bebe. Conversation about it though, and I work better than we have a conversation. What do you mean? I just asked you what do you mean, Beb? I asked you what do you mean? That's a that's I'm encouraging a descriptive comment, and you're not describing it. What is the middle? What is the middle? You give it a bit of an explanation, and then it's like, so so what is happening here? Like I can describe this, I can describe this like boom boom boom boom boom. I'm not taking over every section with my descriptives. It can't be me on the podcast. I thought I did. I thought I was talking about when you found your groove. ⁓ was that the top? Yeah, no, that was eas that was decent, but how is this person feeling? Like what has led to them getting to the middle? Like what what has got them there? What is the middle? What is the middle? What it what defines the middle point? What's so different about the middle to the start that they now want to jump ship? You're not describing this to them. No, I'm not. You're just reading off the points on there and not saying any context. You're not giving any context to the I would like your help with this. I can't do all the help all the time, babe. You're not, Sean. I I bounce off you. Babe. ⁓ this is so unfair. Novelty can wear off when when you start something new, it can be feel exciting, right? You've got a new challenge. It's like, how I gonna overcome this? I'm gonna I've got new exciting goals to work towards. You've got new skills that I've got to learn. I'm learning more about nutrition, more about my training. And all of that is it's taking up space in your mind, it's making you feel exciting. It's a new challenge to overcome. And the results come really quickly early on as well. Because naturally when you're new at something, Everything feels like a win and everything feels like a reward. Every gym session, your lifting technique has a bit better. We know that beginners get the best strength gains early on and they then get the best muscle growth in their early year of training, in their in their first year of training as well. And sometimes when you w when you're at your heaviest or and for individuals that are carrying most of their body fat, the early stages of body fat reduction are also the quickest as well. And they they probably do feel easier than when you start to get leaner and leaner and leaner and leaner. And once you get past that point, right, and you you've had those I want to say quicker wins, but you've seen progress at a quite a pr fast rate, ⁓ at a pretty fast rate. And it gets to a point then where things slow down. Not necessarily because they're slowing down because you're doing things wrong, but they slow down because you're no longer in that beginner spell, that beginner stage of your journey. You might have already lost a lot of body fat. You might have already spent years building muscle, and your your technique is pretty good in the gym. So to eke out the next. To figure out the next part of your progress, it's gonna take a lot of repetition of the same things over and over and over again to push you past that point, to take you further. And perhaps you're not used to having slower results at the moment because so far your journey's been I've had quite quick results. I've seen big dramatic lot drops in my body fat loss. I've seen new muscle being grown. I've seen big changes in my diet day to day. And it's like, wow, these are amazing. But the next part of your journey where, you know, this boring middle, where your habits are more autonomous, the day-to-day actions are more repeatable, they're not quite as exciting anymore because they're things you do day in, day out, but they're the things that are needed to keep you progressing. But you've got to then Flip your mindset to accept that this is the new progress, this is the new rate of gain. And sometimes that can be tricky to accept. For sure. I think part of the excitement comes from the challenge of being new to something and having to learn it from scratch and build those habits f from scratch. Once you've built some habits and once you're in a routine and once you've got your diet in a really good place, you're just repeating it day to day to day. There's not as much of a challenge. The the biggest challenge you're going to encounter and face, unless something changes from week to week, which it does do from time to time, the biggest challenge you face when you get to that middle phase of your journey beyond the first year or so of lifting is consistency and patience. Those are the biggest challenges. There's no quick fix for either of those. There's always something you can improve on in terms of you know diet quality and training performance, but at that stage, I think it's fair to say for most individuals. Especially if you've done your due diligence and you've potentially worked with a coach up until that point, you're gonna have training habits, diet structure, locked down pretty well. It's gonna be in a good place, you know, it's gonna it's gonna be enough to get you results. So it's not going to be like major differences from changing a few of your lifting techniques in the gym or changing an exercise in your training program or changing a training split. Despite what everybody tells you on social media, all the blooming TikTokers that have barely been in the gym long enough to make a video about going to the gym, telling you that certain exercises are going to drastically accelerate your muscle growth. It's absolute nonsense. It might drastically accelerate their muscle growth. Because if they walk into a gym and pick up a dumbbell ten times over the next couple of weeks, they're probably going to grow already because they're so inexperienced. When you get genuine experience, genuinely experienced at lifting, it's not quite as simple as you can just four times your muscle growth by doing any particular exercise. It's it's not it's not a case of changing one thing. It's a case of can you can you do this to a really high standard with intensity for X amount of hundreds of times a year on repeat for the next three to five years. ⁓ but that sounds really boring. Well sadly it is. It is. It's nobody wants to hear this stuff, but it's the truth. The boring stuff repeated day to day is what builds the best physiques and it's what gets the best results. It's the delay gratification for that then, isn't it? And that's the the rewards are great when they come, but they're not always weekly, monthly. Like when you first start out your journey, because there's a lot of things that you can improve and develop on. There's lots of wins happening and all in one go. But when you get past that point and you get to a level where all of those things are just running like clockwork, it's then repeating those things that run like clockwork for months upon month. And that's that boring middle that you just gotta ride out. You've got to accept you're gonna have We have to wait for delayed gratification. Then experience the next wow, I done that. That is me. But that bore in middle, you gotta write it out. And it doesn't have to be boring all the time. Like we're not saying that you shouldn't change things because you absolutely should. Like use that feeling of being a beginner again to your advantage. And if you want some novelty, then you can have some novelty. You know, when you change your training program and start doing new activities. new exercises, it does feel exciting again for a short time. Yeah, okay, eventually that wears off. But use that to your advantage. Just don't change it all the time because then you're unlikely to get really, really good at the stuff you do and be able to really consistently achieve progress in what you do. What about Improving your lifting performance, you know, tracking your lifting numbers, having targets for lifting improvements in the gym. That's another fantastic example of feeling like you're making progress and giving yourself that sense of being a beginner again. And you know what? I think people don't really use a fat loss phase effectively enough to give themselves that boost and that novelty effect. Because I think that this is one of the easiest ways to achieve a quick win with your physique. I think going into a fat loss phase and absolutely fully committing to a fat loss phase for a short period, even if it's just four to six weeks, right? Just go absolutely all in with it, get a really good result in a short space of time. Look mortifying, look leaner, reveal a lot of the muscle you've been building. The novelty of that sometimes and seeing the shape which you haven't seen f before is is amazing and it really does give people a big confidence lift. And I think was there's always this negative impression presented about fat loss, how it doesn't it doesn't do anything but just make you feel restricted and make you feel like you've got to do it. Like this it's just absolute rubbish for people that want to do physique transformation because that is one of the very few things that you can still do. When you're an experienced lifter that is that is somewhat quick to achieve. We're talking like physique transformation over multiple years, but fat loss can be done over a few weeks. It's incomparable really, the time scale. Like a little bit less of flexib a little bit less flexible eating, a little bit more restriction, but you get that wow factor again. And sometimes that can be highly motivating to people. It can give them real excitement about their journey. I I agree fully. It has for me right now, being in this AD, you know, it's that it's the challenge of being in the AD and what's gonna come at the end of it before I go back to that what we call the border middle for another eight to ten months. But I I just want to say here that with the border middle, I'm calling it the border middle, right? Because when you get to this point for the first time, that patience and that consistency, that is a new challenge to get through, right? But it's not it's it can be seen as boring, but actually when you are living that and you've got to that place, it's actually really peaceful and calm because you are in control of your training, you're in control of your nutrition, you're at peace with your health and it just runs like clockwork. But sometimes you've got to allow yourself to experience that so called boring middle for long enough to really get the benefits from that and feel it day to day. Yeah, I I couldn't agree more, Katie. Once you get comfortable with doing things repeatedly and doing things consistently, and you come up with your own little coping mechanisms for how you're going to do that same thing consistently and repeatedly, then it doesn't actually feel that boring. It's actually quite enjoyable. It's quite enjoyable to not have to feel overwhelmed about chopping and changing things all the time. and it's it's quite comforting to know that the actions that you're doing on repeat are going to get results because You've got proof that it works if you're doing things repeatedly and consistently and you're making progress, even if it's you know some and you're making progress, some sometimes it's slow and steady progress, but you you got proof that it's working. So I don't I don't ever hear anybody feel bored about results, like about getting results. Like everyone wants to experience progress and get results. So what are you really bored by? I I do I do think it makes sense that when you first start doing things a little bit more and repeat, yes, you're likely to experience that sense of boredom where it's like, God, is it gonna be the same as this forever? I think that point you're at the stage of it's, you know, you're you're in that place where your habits and and daily actions are just kind of on repeat, but you're not at the stage yet where you're like, wow, I'm really changed my physique. So it can be a bit of that kind of period where it's like, ⁓ do I wanna be doing this? Is it gonna get me the results I want quick enough? That's when it's kind of like a Is the boring middle where I need to be? But usually that is where you need to be to get to the point in the future where you're like, wow, look at this physique transformation. Sometimes you just gotta ride that phase out a little bit and you realise actually it's really not as bad as what you think. I think a lot of people are are quite uncomfortable with boredom and feeling bored. Like I know I know I get quite uncomfortable feeling bored, but Sometimes that's you having too high expectations of experiencing significant change, significant pro progress, being happier if you weren't so bored. And sometimes you realise that's that's not the case because like just a a small example, life can be really frantic and really stressful at times. And there'd be many times where I've I wish life would just slow down and be a bit more boring. Like when I'm on holiday sometimes and I'm sat there and there's not a lot to do think sometimes ⁓ there is a case to be made for a little bit more boredom in this moment might actually be a good thing, not a bad thing. So Yeah, have less decisions to make. Get less decision. Just happy be happy being settled in your groove. Yeah. Absolutely. Jeff, do you want to go out? Mean out the back. You would have thought that. What do you mean at the back? Go bed. Go on the bed. Good boy. Leave that open bit of the things on. May not. Just shut the door, babe. It's not, it's fine. Good boy. Look, come come to bed. Come to bed. Come on. Look. Look. There we go. Go bet. Good boy. Good boy. He's just unsettled. He was sleeping better then, so I was gonna Was that no, he was in bed. We'd gone round and round and round. He was under my feet for ages. Something else that happens and it quite o often happens at the same time as reaching this kind of boring middle ground. Is your identity shifting from where you first started? Tell us a bit more about that, Katie. I think is something that's really underestimated actually when it comes to going on a physique transformation is how much of an identity shift that is required. And it might and to be honest, it can be even hard to accept that initially. Or even just admit that that's even something that's required for physique transformation. And what I mean by this is a lot of the potential maybe habits or the environments that you're currently in and how you conduct yourself, ⁓ the choices that you make in them will likely look very different. When it comes to changing your physique, there'd be a lot of decisions that you'd need to make on a on a daily basis or doing certain certain events around certain people that will require you to give a different answer, will require you to make decision different decisions to someone else in the room. And that can be quite uncomfortable initially and quite hard to do initially. For many different reasons, right? For many different reasons. And when Katie says that And that you'll be required to make different decisions. That's not because your coach is telling you you have to. In some cases, it might be encouraged. But all coaches can lead a horse to water, but they can't force it to drink. You'll be encouraged to change your behaviors because of the goals that you set yourself, because of the standards that you set yourself. If you're pushing for physique change and physique transformation, then There's a good chance that you're Goals and habits will be your goals and habits to achieve those goals will be deemed more valuable than some of the actions and the decisions which take you further away from those goals. For example, it's less valuable to stay up late at night. watching Netflix shows on repeat, snacking uncontrollably, than it is to unwind, turn the TV off earlier, go to bed, get a really good night's sleep, recover well and get back to the gym the following morning. There'll be certain habits like that that I don't want to say old you, but previous you would have done, and whether you were comfortable or not comfortable to do them, that's a behaviour and habit that was part of your life then, part of your lifestyle then. And that behaviour and habit may have not just impacted you, it might have impacted been something you've done with your partner, with your children, the person that you live with, whatever it may be. But will need to be changed, not because you have to do that, like you said, Sean, because those behaviours don't align with the goal that you're trying to achieve. So something needs to change. Otherwise you are just trying to Frankly, you're trying to achieve a goal that's just not going to be possible based on on the actions that you're taking out every day. And that's just one of them, right? That's just one example. The same could be meal choices when you're out in a certain environment, for example. You may opt for something that's a little bit more lower calorie, a little bit, you know, higher in protein, seen as the more healthy option, because you know. That that is a habit and decision that's going to align with your nutritional choices at that moment in time. But previous you might have gone for the double-stack burger chips. And the people around you may be like, Well, that's not like you to go for that. ⁓ you're trying to be healthy now. You know, why aren't you having that? And it can be hard sometimes to Stick with what the new you wants because you're around an environment that hasn't seen that version of you yet. But yet you do value that, but you can also be it. You can also be tempted not to follow suit with the new you because of the environment that you're you're in. pushes you towards more of the older habits that you had. And that can be really hard in the moment sometimes to go, ⁓ do I really want this? Because you start doubting yourself, you start second guessing yourself then. And that takes, you know, it takes a bit of an identity shift to do that time and time again to realise that actually, okay, I've made that healthier choice in that environment, even though it was you know, perhaps a harder for me to do so because there were comments from other people. But afterwards you go I feel bloody great for making that decision because actually now I know I've I've stuck with the nutritional targets that are working for me and my goals right now. I didn't actually need or want that burger. I would have just been given in to the the environment that I was in. But until you go through those experiences and actually make decisions that are more aligned with the behaviours that get you to the goal that you want. That identity shift. I'm gonna say would will probably never happen, won't happen, if you don't try and push past those hard moments. But it will mean that your identity does shift slightly. No, not even gonna say slightly, your identity will shift. Because the decisions and choices that you're making in those moments are very different to what you would have done previously. I think the way that I would describe this is that you will have these mini identity crises. Mini identity mini identity crises. I like that. You're presented with the same scenario which you may have been presented with a hundred times, but your brain starts to think differently within i in those environments and in those scenarios. And like Katie said, the more experienced you are at being presented with that scenario, and the more times you make a new decision or a different decision to perhaps what the old you made in the past, the more you start to lean into the new identity, and the old one tends to get forgotten about. But on the first few occasions of being ex- of of have of having that experience. It feels really weird and uncomfortable. Uncomfortable for some words. You pro and depending on the environment you might get a lot of pushback around you. I care much less about this sort of stuff now. But like an example, when I was in my twenties and I was really trying to get into my fitness more, ⁓ I was trying to drink less because it was just holding me back in terms of so many elements of my my my fitness goals and my lifestyle. But I still wanted to keep up a relationship with some of my some of my childhood friends, some of my rug my rugby mates. And it it was just so, so difficult to be accepted in those environments, like immensely difficult. I just never felt like no matter even no matter how f how badly I tried to be confident enough to just fit in with that and to stick to my guns, like just the amount of For want of a better way of putting it, the amount of crap that I had to take for trying to be confident enough to just do my own thing in those environments, it just wasn't worth going out with them in the end. I just realized it's just not worth the hassle. It's just not worth the jibbing and the jibes and the and the and the kind of the poking. And that's a that's a part of my identity that I had to accept was was shifting. Now I'm not saying that you have to lose all your friends. This was my choice. This is a choice that I had to make. But now I feel much more comfortable going out in any setting and just being like, Yeah, I I'm only having like one or two drinks. Or even I'm like more so this year than ever. I'm not I'm not I'm not drinking, I'm not, I'm not having a drink. You I had to go through all those uncomfortable experiences to realize what I really wanted. And there were times where I shifted back towards when I was out with my mates in my twenties or, you know, a couple of years ago maybe, I had to shift back towards that old I I chose to shift back towards that old identity of myself. And I really didn't like it. I really didn't like the outcome. I really didn't like who it who it who it made me become in that moment. And I realized how much it took away from the person that. I enjoy being on a day-to-day basis. I I enjoy being that fit and active person. I don't really want to have those other behaviors in my life. They don't they don't give me the same value as other stuff. So yeah, it's having those experiences and realizing what's changed for you and and realizing the how everything contributes towards Your values in life. Having those experiences that allow you to decide for yourself what behaviours and habits you want to uphold and what is gonna make you feel better or or worse about those decisions afterwards. I think it'd be a a little I'm not gonna say it naive, right? A little naive to think that your behaviours, your habits, which are all part of your identity, aren't going to change when you go through a journey like this. And I think I s the reason why I can say this is 'cause I think I was perhaps a little naive about about it. I just I guess it was a bit like a bull in the China shop and just went for it 'cause that's what I wanted. But If you keep doing the same things that you're doing currently, then you're not going to get a different outcome, right? So common sense says that your behaviours, your habits, which are aligned to your identity, who you are, how you live your day to day, they will need to change. Doesn't mean it's gonna be easy along the journey journey, doesn't mean there's not gonna be hiccups along the road where y that identity that you want to be isn't challenged, isn't made to feel uncomfortable in certain environments. It doesn't always have to be one or the other either. Sometimes you might choose to to do something similar to how you used to do it. But then You know, you you have to take it on the chin and deal with the consequences of that. Sometimes that might backfire and you might go, ⁓ well, that was a really poor decision, I'm not doing that again. Sometimes you might go, ⁓ I quite enjoy doing that on this one occasion, but if I do it too much, it's gonna take away from the other stuff. It's it's doing it in an informed manner. But yeah, you will bottom line is that you will have these mini identity crises as you go and you are gonna be faced with, ⁓ do I do this or do I do that do that? and I I would say this is just not this is not just a fitness thing. This is part of life. This is part of being a human being and being a mature adult and and actually having to make decisions about yourself and having to apply critical thinking skills. I know that can be quite challenging at times, but it's it's a really important part of life. Yeah, I think ⁓ otherwise those identity crises or crises, those identity crises that you find yourself in will just be happening too frequent and potentially become a bit more harmful for you because you don't know where you want to be, and that can be quite stressful. I think going through the uncomfortable stages of that shift in your identity is part of the process. Expect it to to arise and Give yourself the space to trial different things so you can know what is right for you. Almost in parallel to having an identity crisis is wanting to choose an easy outcome when you're feeling discomfort. I would coin this like having one eye on the exit at all times. You're always looking for the nearest escape. And I think this can be a real hindrance to people that want to achieve physique goals. One eye on the exit. I like that. I like that. It's like it's there's always an easy way out when it gets hard or when something crops up that I don't really want to solve this problem now, so let's just jump ship and do this. Yeah, the default stance is, ⁓ this isn't working, I'm out. Yeah. Brother, let's sit and sit and assess what can be approved. Why isn't it working? Why is this making me feel uncomfortable? Should I get some help with this? It's just ⁓ not doing that. And that r rarely ever solves a deeper problem, right? It just masks over it temporarily with an with a with a Yeah, it just masks over it temporarily. And then a few weeks later that prop same problem or a different problem will arise and then you mask over it again. Rather than just just riding through the emotional discomfort, the uncomfortable moments and going, right, why is this actually happening? Why is it making me feel like this? Why is it making me act like that? How many times do we work with people, Katie, that come into our space where they were actually doing the right thing at one point in time, but they changed it. And they changed it because they started to feel uncomfortable. They might have reached that boring middle that we spoke about earlier. And instead of just trying to work out how they could deal with the discomfort a little bit better in that moment, how could they make that discomfort feel a bit more normal for them? They change their plan. And then they change it again. And then they change it again. And then they change it again. They've changed it so many times by that stage. They forgot what actually worked and what didn't. But they actually had had the right methods at one point in time. It's just they didn't allow themselves to feel uncomfortable for long enough. And now all of a sudden they're starting again. And don't really know what works and what doesn't work because there's been too many swaps, changes, mixes up, new methods. Because even if you want To try a new method that's absolutely fine, but still understand why the current one A works, the elements that do work, because they will always be part of every method that there are elements that would work for you, and there'll be elements that don't work from you. There'll be pros and cons to every method approach that you choose. But if you go along without actually thinking about the pros and cons, you'll never be able to settle on A longer term approach that does work for you. You'll always feel like you want to jump ship or change plan. And that to me, anyway, is quite a stressful place to be because you're not really finding answers for yourself. You're not really getting to know what works for you as an individual. You're just hoping there'll be another new answer soon that will will fix that particular problem at that time. Yeah. ⁓ And your problems may change throughout life, throughout different circumstances. So knowing and understanding why different approaches work for you different times will allow you to choose the right one at the right moment for you. Think a lot of people will coin themselves inconsistent when they change the plan a lot of the time. And if I'm gonna Be a bit impartial here. I will say, yeah, you are being inconsistent. The default of you I think this is where inconsistency creeps in for a lot of people because they change things far too frequently and that leaves that feeling of inconsistency. But the reality is they probably are being inconsistent. If you if you're not doing something consistently, then anything that isn't done consistently is is the opposite. It's inconsistent. And in my experience, at least, more often than not, it's not a logistical problem, it's an emotional problem. Inconsistency, a lot of the time, stems from not being able to sit in discomfort or handle or manage discomfort for long enough. And it doesn't matter how many times you change your exercises, it doesn't matter how many times you change your diet, it doesn't matter how many times you change your program or change your coach. None of that shit matters because you've still got the inconsistency problem. You've still got the the problem with handling discomfort. Cause every single one of those things you change is eventually going to reach a point where it feels uncomfortable. Either it's gonna get harder, it's gonna take longer to see progress, it's gonna get a bit boring and repetitive. So many different variables that will make this challenging and make you feel uncomfortable. You're gonna be in those in those environments like we discussed in the last section, where your identity is being challenged. This new identity that you've now spent a couple of months or years forming is now being challenged. What do you do? All of these things are part of the journey. They are perfectly normal for you to experience. If you keep changing things up every single time you encounter a roadblock, you're going to feel inconsistent. And you're never going to solve the problem, which is causing all of these inconsistencies to begin with, which is how do I deal with the discomforts that comes from feeling like I'm not entirely sure what the best outcome is right now? When there's some doubt in the mix, when you're feeling impatient. Or you're feeling guilty because you've just slipped up but now you're but you're blaming your diet because apparently your diet was too restrictive. Maybe the problem's an emotional one. how you're handling your emotions both during and after Whatever problem happens. I lost it. Okay, 'cause th before that last sentence it was really, really, really good. I was really enjoying listening to it. Okay. I agree fully, Sean, and from experience with myself and clients too, that I'd argue it's the most important part to explore rather than trying to ex escape what's happening, it's to explore. Deeper issue, that that discomfort that you're feeling with whatever that problem is, or whatever those thoughts are happening in your mind, it's not to just ignore them and hope they never turn up again because they will, they will come back at some point and you'd have the same problem again and again. So I think it's really important to Not jump ship and understand why these problems are happening and why you're thinking in that way and why you're reacting in that way. Again, I think this stuff is the stuff that extends beyond fitness, like being able to stay calm under pressure, being able to s to sit with discomfort for a little while so you can figure out why you're feeling that way. So you can figure out if anything needs to change or or if it doesn't. There's only so many things you can you can try and change before you just end up going in bloody circles. There's only so many different training splits you can do before you've done them all and you're just you're just changing back to the same one that you've done before. There's only s there's only so many different exercises you're gonna have access to and there's so many different machines you're gonna have access to in your gym. Right? You change gym, okay, you get some different kids. Eventually you're just gonna end up doing the same stuff again. Same with diets. If you don't truly understand the whys behind or you're not aware of the decisions you're making around your diet. then it doesn't matter how many different diets you label them as or try, you can just keep going round in circles with those two. Yeah, ⁓ and it doesn't matter how many diets you choose to try losing fat. If When you come off a diet, you can't keep your habits up and you're gonna regain fat at an accelerated rate, and you you can't stay as lean as perhaps what you'd like when you come off the diet. Doesn't matter what diet you did in the first place, doesn't matter how many times you try something different, or try this different this time, because last time I regained afterwards and it was too restrictive, so I regained afterwards. It doesn't it doesn't matter what diet you do. You you're gonna regain fat if you don't handle that period afterwards better in the future anyway. And guess what? Learning to Hold your calories back and not just eat liberally when you come off a diet and not just go grabbing everything inside is really challenging. It's really, really hard to do. It's uncomfortable to have to hold yourself back for a couple of weeks just while your hunger hormones calm down a little bit and while your cravings get reduced and while you just settle into eating more calories again and feeling like you're in control of things. It's gonna feel uncomfortable, but it will get you the outcome you want. If your first reaction is to Change your plan. So not keep up the habits that you use to lose fat in the first place, to not keep an eye on your calorie intake, to not eat with moderation, to not be sensible because it feels uncomfortable to do that. So you change. Then the next change is gonna happen after that, where you go back to a diet because you've you gained too much fat, but you go back to a different diet this time because you blame the diet in the first one. You're just going round in circles. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And here's the final point about being being uncomfortable, right? And this is this is what again, most people won't tell you this because they don't want to scare you or put you off. But if you sit with something that's uncomfortable for long enough, eventually you get comfortable with it. And I can guarantee that there's going to be a lot of people listening to this podcast that have been uncomfortable with something like their body composition, for example, for a very long period of time, and will hold their hands up and say, I've got comfortable being uncomfortable. Like you are your own proof that that can happen. So if you can Get comfortable with not feeling your best, with not being in the best shape, with perhaps not quite achieving your physique goals. Then use that to your advantage and flip it on its head and say, Well, actually, if I just stuck this out for a little bit longer, even though it feels uncomfortable, maybe I would get comfortable with it. Maybe I'm just jumping chip ship too early. Apply the same logic. Hm, I really like how you explained that. leads us nicely onto the the final point of the pod. Plus you can't avoid the shit parts altogether. In case that hasn't been made clear to you by this stage. Yeah. I really don't want this podcast to sound absolutely like a negative Nelly podcast. because it's not all negative, but it's just I think bringing to light that it's not all sunshine and roses either. And you won't always feel your best while doing everything right. You're not always gonna feel positive, you're not always gonna feel like everything's going at a steady rate. You're a human being. You're a human being with complex emotions, with complex responsibilities in life. Complex physiology, but it is so many layers to it. It is impossible to feel bloody good about everything, every minute of every day. ⁓ one hundred percent. I I just think it's so naive to expect to enjoy every element of Well for the for the purposes podcast, yeah. I think it's incredibly naive to think that you're gonna enjoy everything all the time. You know, specifically if we're talking about chasing physique goals. Ask me every single week if I enjoy taking a set of Bulgarian split squats or even my leg press which comes after my Bulgarian split squats to near failure every single week on repeat for six months in a row. Yeah, I absolutely love that, yeah, and twice on Sundays. No, of course I bloody don't. It's really frickin' hard, it really hurts, but I know that that moment of gratification will come. When the sun eventually comes out in Wales and I can actually have a barbecue, or when I go on a holiday later on the year and I put my holiday shorts on, and they're fitting me really nicely, and I don't look like I've got two little twiglets dangling out from the bottom of my shorts because I decided to take those leg sets to failure. And I and I and I live for that moment and I'm gonna sit in that discomfort for as long as it takes because I want to feel more comfortable. in a different environment, in a different space as a result of my hard work. And I can't have it all. So I either suck up and do the legwork, or I get twiglets. ⁓ dear Sean. Just imagine these pair of twiglets now, so I don't think. ⁓ my mind these I'm not blessed with with naturally muscular legs, okay? I've had to work immensely hard to get any muscle on my lower body. It's not an area that I'm fortunate enough to grow quickly. It's you know This isn't me throwing me a pity party. It's just it's just how I work. It's how my body works. You accepting how your body works and doing something about it, right? That's that's what it is. It's accepting that okay, my upper body grows a lot quicker than my lower body, and now I'm gonna have to really put a graft in in my lower body so that I feel comfortable and confident. And I feel like I've got a balanced approach when I don't have piglets as legs, for example. And it is a hard It is a hard one to accept. It's hard to accept that some days you will still have a really shit mood day. You may get frustrated with the process. Or you may even have a body bad or you may even have a bad body image day. Because some people suffer with this more than others, right? Just because you're chasing a physical and you're changing your body trans body and you're changing your body shape. It doesn't mean that there won't be any wobbles along the way or you won't feel bad about your body some days. You know, it's there's a lot of people that may suffer with body dysmorphia, right? And Those days aren't just gonna disappear because you're in the process of changing your physique transf physique. Yeah, like to that I'd say like you could be the you could have just gone through like So that I would say you could have just gone through a process of transformation and achieved amazing results. Your before and afters have gone up on social media, you've had loads of support, all your friends are singing your praises, they all think you look amazing. Two days after that, you've got to put on an outfit to go to the gym, and you're having a bad body confidence day, and you're like, I can't wear this at the gym today. I look awful in this. And it's like, well, that doesn't make sense. You've just had all this praise, you've just had all this validation. for your efforts that you put in. Like why do I now feel really bad about it? And that could easily spiral into thinking, ⁓ I maybe I haven't gone far enough. Maybe I need to do a bit more. Maybe I need to this, maybe I need that. Or maybe, just maybe, you're just having a bad body confidence day. You might feel completely different about this tomorrow. Like we've spoken about in previous podcasts, y your negative thoughts can spiral out of control quite quickly if you allow them to as well. This isn't me being all doom and gloom, but I think it's just worth accepting that there are gonna be some days where you feel a bit shitter. There are gonna be some parts of this journey where you do feel a bit shitter, where you may want to quit, where you may where you may be thinking, ⁓ God, is it even worth this? That's normal. I think it's just a temporary feeling. It will pass. And it'll pass much quicker if you just allow yourself to accept it's just temporary feeling. I'm not going to allow myself to engage in it too much. I'm gonna allow myself to feel it and I'm gonna park it and move on with my day as I normally would. I saw an incident in the gym the other day and Girl was training with her leggings and her sports bra on. She came into the gym with a baggy top. She took the top off while she was training, so she had a sports bra and her leggings on. She done an exercise or two and then she put the top back on. The ⁓ baggy top. And somebody said to me in the gym, ⁓ well You know, like why'd she why'd she take the top off and then put it back on? They were like, ⁓ if you're confident enough to wear it, then or if you're not confident enough to wear it, that's what he said. If you're not confident enough to wear it, then why wear it in the first place? Kind of thing. And I thought to myself I can understand that point, but It actually made me 'cause I'm I I've had problems with body conference myself. And it actually made me think, Well, this person might have actually tried that outfit on. Been s I c I can just imagine the scenario, right? They stood in their bedroom, sports bra leggings go on, look in the mirror. I'm not sure I like that. Put the baggy top on. Baggy top goes on, it's like, mm, no, I'm gonna try and be brave and push through this. Baggy top comes back off. Sports bra sports bra leggings on. That's I'm going to the gym. But now I'm second guessing myself. Baggy top goes back on. They get to the gym, they start training. They feel like they're working those muscles. They feel a bit more confident. They a bit of a pump. Whatever. Right? All that artificial stuff. I don't really care. Take the baggy top off. They've got hot when they're working out. Take the baggy top off. Now they're in their sports brown leggings. Then all of a sudden they're resting in between their sets. They look over and suddenly like Katie's back performing a lap pull down or a chit up. And they're like, ⁓ my God, look at that girl's muscles in her back. Baggy talk goes back on. Confidence squashed again. That person's confidence has gone up, down, up, down, up, down, up in the space of like fifteen, twenty minutes. You have no idea what somebody else is experiencing. You have no idea. Like It's just an example of how changeable people's emotions are. And Look, I really don't want to blow my own tremor here, but some people might not be as emotionally intelligent as me, but I can only be emotionally emotionally intelligent over this particular matter because I've been the type of person where I wouldn't wear a vest to the gym for years and years and years and years because I was so conscious of my arms looking skinny. I'd be the type person where I was afraid to show my legs in shorts. Because of my legs looking so skinny. Or afraid to take my top off in the be ⁓ the I still have have mental battles sometimes about doing that. So I can understand what it's like to have changing body composition and ⁓ sorry, change in body comp changing body confidence. And it can change sometimes quite quickly in short spaces of time. So I guess the point of all that is to say that, well, firstly, don't be too quick to judge somebody else. Just let them be. Just let them deal with their own emotions. They're probably dealing with enough as it is without having to worry about what you're thinking about them as well on top. Like why does it matter to you? Secondly You are gonna have these wavering emotions. Some people will have these wavering emotions. And you've just got to ride the waves. Spot on Sean. I I'm proud of you for sharing that because it's not easy to Talk about body dysmorphia if you do ex experience it. And I've seen it first hand with you, how quickly it can change, you know, in a in an instant Could be anything that that that triggers that that change, right? And it can happen pretty quickly. So I think I've not experienced this myself. I can't say it from a from my experience. I can only talk about it from from being with you. But all I know is that I've got to encourage you to go, it's a momentarity feel it. Mom momentarily, ⁓ God. Momentary. It's a momentary feeling that will pass. And you handle that so much better now. And I see you at peace with it so much more now. And that's not just one variable changing that, right? You there's many things that have contributed to that. But it's not to say that it'll it'll totally go, that those bad body images will totally go up. It's knowing and understanding that they they're just they're a moment that you are capable of overcoming and just trying to ride those waves. Again, it gets better with experience because I have grown more comfortable sitting in that discomfort. I I now wear a vest in my gym most sessions I train. Judge me all you want for that. I don't really care. I've judged myself enough times that I no longer care how other people judge me. Trust me. But it gets to a point where it's just like, yeah, okay, this is the norm now. ⁓ even, even like you take me to a beach tomorrow and it's a boiling hot day. I'm gonna have a few moments of not sure I want to take my top off yet. Not sure I want to take my top off there. Yeah, and then I'll just do it. Because you get comfortable enough with feeling discomfort that you realize it's it's not actually going to hurt you that much, it's not going to cause that much problem. Like what's the worst that can happen kind of thing. So you just kind of get on with it. And for those that lack body confidence, I'm not saying that you you go parading around half naked to try and deal with your body confidence issues, but there are ways that you can make micro changes and micro commitments to yourself in order for you to start improving that. So giving yourself some exposure to those things that you feel uncomfortable about and realizing they're not actually as bad as what I thought. And again, it's not letting those negative thoughts spiral, right? Because they will come and they'll probably come with vengeance and you you've got to try and rein them back in. Because Yeah, exactly. I also expect that these thoughts are gonna come back from time to time. I don't expect just because I was confident a couple of weeks ago or last year when I went to the beach, I I'm gonna feel better this time round. I don't have those expectations. I don't I don't start beating myself up and start feeling like I failed if those moments of poor body confidence come back at any point. I just go, Yeah, well, that's how I'm feeling today. That's it, it is what it is. Could be different tomorrow. Who knows? So you just respond accordingly in that moment. And it's not even sometimes the case. It could be better tomorrow. Sometimes within an hour, it's different. Could be better ten seconds later once I've taken my top on and gone, ⁓ that's not so bad. It's ⁓ yeah. And I have seen that first hand video. It's like, ⁓ you let go. Yep. Nope. Didn't need a stress of that. Okay, let's move on. But that wouldn't have happened many years ago, right? It would it wouldn't have. No, not at all. Absolutely not. And people wouldn't necessarily know that about me if they were listening to this podcast, but that's that's that's the reality and that's the truth. So very raw share of that. And I'm proud of you doing so 'cause I'm sure there's many people that would be able to relate to that. Another part of the physique journey that's gonna be shit, Katie, that I think we can all agree on being quite shit, the fat loss phase. I'm loving the challenge, but you will be tired, you will lack some energy, you're gonna feel like your muscles are like flat as a pancake. That happens, it's natural. That can add to you feeling a bit shitty about your body image in that moment, in that time, because you're not quite feeling as as defined or or or hard as you were when you had ⁓ more pump muscles, more glycogen-filled muscles. You know, all of that can contribute to you not feeling so great in the moment and and feeling about a bit shitty about about yourself. But again, it's temporary. It's a temporary feeling. Absolutely. I mean the few things that people actually enjoy about fat loss phases are far outweighed by those negatives. In the day to day anyway, at least in the day to day, because you don't see enough of a result day to day in fat loss to make up for the fact that you're hungry, you're tired, you're probably having to be a bit more mindful of your food. You're having to be super accurate with everything you weigh on the scales and you're probably having to say no to certain things that on a normal day you might go, Yeah, I'm gonna have a little bit of that today. Your physique isn't changing that much overnight to to to make up for that. People might reflect on the fact that I'm actually enjoying the foods I'm eating because I'm eating different things to what I'd normally eat. And it's shown me that healthier foods can be more enjoyable and it's making me get get creative and stuff. That's more of a byproduct of what you're doing. That's not That's not specifically the fat loss that's fun. That's some of the methodology that you're doing. That's some of the creativity that you're putting in place in order to to get the result. And again, that novelty will die off after a while as well, wouldn't it? You know, there's so many times I've I've cooked a prawn stir fry over the last couple of weeks. That I've actually sat down and gone, I'm really enjoying these prawn stir fries now. Yeah, okay, they're nice. I eat them. But it's like I was saying to Kate the other walk yesterday, I was like, I'm I'm really starting to get fed up of prawns. Yeah, because you're not the one cooking them every week. I don't think it's ever gonna come off a menu. We might have to have those four times a week. Well, I was I was I was thinking last night, I was like, ⁓ what I'd give to swap these prauls for a piece of salmon right now. I really would. But you know, it's more it's more calories, it's better protein per gram of foods. It's you know, it is what it is. ⁓ sorry, it's praarls are less calories, better grams of protein per per calorie. Just gotta get on with it. But look. Fat loss as a whole is pretty rubbish. We don't really tend to do it for the enjoyment of doing it. We do it for the results. We do it for the reward. And we do it a lot of the time for the enjoyment of the challenge as well. So use that to your advantage. embrace it as part of the challenge and then perhaps You'll learn to enjoy hard stuff because what because of what you are able to achieve and accomplish by putting yourself through the hard stuff. And also the feeling that it gives you as a person. Speaking about that new identity, it's the discipline, it's the commitment to your goals. It's following through with the with the targets you set yourself and the actions and the behaviors, which you've already identified are required to get to those goals. Those are the true rewards, those are the bits which which really feel valuable, but you have got to go through some some crap to get there, Sadly. Those feelings can't be can't be bought. They can't just be waved in like a magic wand with a magic wand. They they need to be earned over time. They wouldn't feel as rewarding if they were just given to one a player to either. Reward becomes because you got all of the heart. Chasing a physique goal, it is a long-term project. It takes commitment, discipline, and patience. You don't need to have it all figured out before you start, but you must be open to it being long-term, and then there will be some challenging parts along the way, and then they're normal. It's normal to experience those. But once you commit to your own physique goals, Your discipline will be strengthened throughout the journey and you learn to be patient as you go. There's nothing worse than having unrealistic expectations. They can make you feel like a failure even when you're not. They can make you want to change things when they're working. They can leave you in one head of a mess. This is where having a coach can be a massive advantage. All of our clients know exactly what they can expect in order to achieve. All of our clients know what they can expect to achieve in every phase of the journey they're working in. Because we map out their journeys together. We factor in things like their holidays, their events, their work trips. We make it so personalized that everything feels like it's got a plan, even if it's not necessarily a traditional part of a fat loss or muscle building plan, for example. Members never feel lost or unmotivated because there's always something that they can focus on. There's always something that they can improve, whether it's making simple decisions, whether it's making simple switches, whether it's tweaking, adjusting things in the gym, or just learning how to be a little bit more flexible with not tracking over the course of a weekend. They feel excited about the challenges which they face. And they embrace the difficulties that come with them as part of the journey. And when a moment of, ⁓ is this even working? creeps in for them. Because it will, and it does, and it's unrealistic to expect this to never happen again. Myself and Katie are there to reassure them that they're either doing exactly what they need to be doing or to provide clear, structured advice on what they can do to change it. If you'd like to have a chat with one of us about how coaching could work for you or what options that are available to you, then head to the description, fill in the inquiry form, and one of us will be in chat. And one of us will be in contact. And one of us will be in contact to have a chat with you. That's it for today's episode. But next week, we're going to be back with some client specific scenarios. We're going to grill each other to demonstrate how we would handle some tricky real life scenarios as coaches. You'll learn how important it is to avoid a one size fits all thinking, and how you you learn how important it is to avoid one size fits all thinking. And how you don't always have to do everything the same as someone else or even another coach. See you then.