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Weight Loss Plateau? Why You're Not Losing Fat & How to Stop Snacking After a Diet · Beyond Fat Loss

• Katie & Sean Darlow: Welcome to the Beyond Fat Loss Podcast, where we don't just stop at fat loss, but you learn about all the good stuff that follows, how to build muscle, how to enjoy more food and how to say leans out go into extremes. We are your host, Katie and Sean, and today we're going to put each other to the test and break down how we would handle some tricky client scenarios. If we don't completely crumble under the pressure, in this episode you'll learn how to assess problems, apply critical thinking skills, and weigh up the best course of actions on an individual basis to get better outcomes. Wow. I'm feeling the pressure already after just reading that, Katie. I'm just waiting for you to drop me right in it, I am. I've been planning for this all week. I've been sweating even more than ⁓ I'm already sweating on 30 nearly 30 degrees heat at ⁓ What, nine o'clock in the morning? Yeah, we're we're just not prepared for this heat. ⁓ the fan is on. We're currently drinking coffee, which may or may not be a stupid move. But yeah, we're gonna put put each other in the pressure cooker even more with this pod today. So it's gonna become a sweaty morning in the ⁓ Beyond Fatlos recording office. Beyond Fatlos recording studio. Yeah, the swanky, swanky beyond fat loss. Podcast studio. I'm in my recording chair. That's as good as a studio for me. Yeah, Griffin's too happy about that though, is he? Stalling his pot. So then this episode, it may give you a different perspective and open up a new way of thinking. If you ever find yourself in the situations that we discuss or are in them currently, this will massively help to pull you out of that tough spot. But before we try to snitch each other up, we need your help. We never thought a pod would get to over twenty episodes and over fifteen hundred downloads so far. And we couldn't have done this without all your support. We'd love for the pod to continue to grow so we can attract some amazing guests on and really delve into the topics our audience would like to see the most. So it'd be a huge help if you could drop us a like or a comment on the episode below, or even better, share the podcast to your social media pages so we can get a little bit more reach. And if your current problem or scenario comes up in this podcast and you realize we can offer the exact solution and guidance you need to overcome it, there's also a link in the description to contact us about coaching. You can fill in a short inquiry form and one of us will reach out to you personally. And you can also select who you want to reach out to, just in case you don't want ⁓ grump bells shone. How rude. Katie, do you want to know the best part about you finishing that segment? ⁓ no. I know it's coming. It means I get to ask the first question and throw you under the bus. Wonderful. Wonderful. I'm ready for it. Let's not waste any time. Let's get cracking. Give it me. Scenario one. You've been working with a client for a few months. They're currently in a fat loss phase, but their weight has not moved for the last three weeks. Then you receive this message. My waitress isn't budging at the moment. I'm doing everything I could be doing. I know you've told me to trust the process, but right now it feels like I'm stuck. I've started to question everything. Do I need to drop my calories or do I need to be doing something else? Think I've had this scenario. About four times a week? ⁓ I I I couldn't even find a sentence to summarise how many times I've had this scenario. It's very, very common for many different reasons, and then I'll go through that in a moment. And I think it's ⁓ it's a very valid question, right? Because you could put your heart and soul into your journey to try and achieve the results that you want, and in this particular scenario, the fat loss results you want. So when there are certain results that aren't going as you expect them to go, it can alarm bells can ring in your mind and you c can lead you second guessing yourself, right? So this is a question that sometimes I actually welcome and encourage clients to to check in over rather than just sit there and and hope things are going in the right direction. Because one hundred percent. I couldn't agree more. I think Weight is one of those things that you can track on a week to week basis, and you can track it on a short term basis. So naturally you're going to want to see some changes in those short-term basis, in the in those short-term time frames, because that will then correlate with greater long term results. And it helps to keep you motivated, it helps to give you something to work towards each week. But weight doesn't always respond in the way that we expect it to. I do think that people are better off measuring and keeping track of their weight than not doing it at all. But there are many scenarios like the one which we presented where it can provide some confusion, potentially some frustration. and it's good to investigate that. I couldn't agree more. Because the investigation is going to tell you one or two things, right? It's either going to tell you you're doing absolutely everything you need to do and you can have full conviction that you can trust the process. Or on the other hand, there is some there's something not quite that in a pure This is what you need to change. And either either answer is going to give you some clarity in what you need to do. So where do we start? So first of all, it's looking at the weight data. And this is what a coach can do well. This is well, don't want to put ⁓ don't want to big ourselves up too much, but something I do feel we can coach quite well, ⁓ pretty well even. But looking at our weight data initially, because sometimes if you haven't had exposure to regular weigh ins, you haven't had exposure to scene fluctuations, or knowing when your body does. Fluctuate around certain scenarios, it's can be quite easy to think you are stuck because of maybe a couple of ways in a in a row that are exactly the same. Perhaps a couple of weeks the average is is is hovering around a similar spot and make you think you're stuck. But sometimes it could just be that it's it's maybe a little slower than you like to see. But also have this has this person even been weighing regularly? 'Cause that is something to investigate too because there's a big difference between having one or two weigh-ins from a three week period to having at least three to four a week up to, you know, a a way in every day. Bang on. I mean, even with being in an aggressive diet like the ones that we're in at the moment, Katie, there is still variability with daily weighing. Sometimes that can vary between a pound to two pounds within one week. So it's entirely possible that if you just weigh once a week or less than that, less frequently than that, over a few weeks, you could just coincidentally weigh on your highest. fluctuating days. Absolutely. And and be convinced that you're not making any progress at all. and then that leaves you in the dark. Rather than actually using the the tool, the scales as a tool to empower you and show you whether you're going in the right direction or not, you're likely to get hung up on a number that really, really doesn't even tell 0.1% of the picture. So I think that is the first point to call is ⁓ for me as a coach i is to look at the weight data ⁓ and pull apart I don't want to say a story, but pull apart or paint a bigger picture of what has actually been happening over over the last three weeks. How many times does a client exaggerate this where they say, I'm not losing any weight? And when you actually look at it, they're losing about half a pound of weight a week. But they're saying I'm not losing any weight because they're not seeing it come down by a whole number or it it's not as quick as they'd like. I think that's a really important thing to consider. Like saying you're not losing any weight at all, or saying I am losing weight, but it's it's it's a bit slower. They're two completely different scenarios. And even Sean, I would go to say s a lot of people will say it's slow, even when it's not actually slow. ⁓ I think perhaps and this isn't everyone, but there are certain individuals that will have an unrealistic expectation of what they should be seeing on the scales on a week to week basis. I'll give you example for myself right now in this aggressive diet cycle, right? So I'm in my second cycle right now. First cycle, my gosh, scales pretty good down every day, that's unrealistic. But over the span of that first three weeks, you're looking at around eight and a half pounds loss in that three weeks, right? Now, I'm not gonna question or argue or any of that. I'm gonna go, woohoo, landed, winner, it's working. Second cycle, I'm now over halfway through. Well well, well away over that actually, nearly coming up to the end of my third week. Have the scales played ball this time? In comparison to if I was re if I was going to compare it to the first cycle? No. And if I only had the scales to go by and I put all of my kind of decision making around the scales, I would be in a really bad spot right now. Because they have not gone down as swimmingly. They keep going back up, they drop back down. Overall, they've gone down around about He loss or two just over two pounds, I know for sure that I'm losing body fat. I know for sure that it's going in the right direction. But the scales wouldn't indicate that in comparison to what happened in my first cycle. And that's where the scales can really trip people up. Because I'm going into that third week now where there hasn't technically really been massive changes on the scales. Absolutely. I I think the ballpark is zero point one to one percent. Zero point five to one percent of body weight loss per week as an average. There will always be some weeks where you might experience greater weight loss than this. For example, in Katie's first few weeks of being in an aggressive diet, significantly greater than one percent of her body weight per week. But there will also be weeks where you're less than that as well. So looking at data points like weigh-ins, it's it's a question of averages, not individual data points. You have to you have to take more stock in the averages and give more of your focus to your averages than individual weigh-ins. Individual weigh ins are practically meaningless. They are, they are. It doesn't mean you can't celebrate a new weigh-in, right? Because that's showing an indicator things are going in the right direction in the fat loss phase. But it's not to get hung up on the fact that they might go back up the next couple of days. just cannot do that because you will be sabotaging yourself. And with a block of fat loss as well, you should also consider what the average loss is per week over the course of a given time frame. So you might look at it for the last month or last four weeks. You look you look at it and say, right, what is my average rate of loss? Your first week, your second week might be a bit greater than the third week or the fourth week. But generally speaking, ballpark figure, 0.5 to 1% of body weight loss per week is a great rate of fat loss. It will limit the amount of muscle mass that you lose. And it's probably sustainable for a lot of people whilst also providing that benefit of seeing visual results in a reasonably quick fashion. Brilliant point, Sean, brilliant point looking at the the ⁓ and the averages over that that time frame that you've been in fat loss, right? just go back to that example of of myself right now. So I'm I'm close to, if not over now 10 pounds loss in total. I'll take that in five weeks, just over five weeks. That's on average, that's just over two pound loss a week. Fantastic. That's actually quite a rapid ⁓ rate of of fat loss. But if I looked at it individually, there's some weeks where hasn't changed, and I think, ⁓ I'm failing, but it's not. You need to zoom out and look at the the bigger picture. So let's say that the going back to our initial scenario then, let's say that the individual has been weighing regularly. They have checked their averages and their averages show that they wait And their averages show their weight has stalled, right? It has plateaued. What next? This is where you go a little bit deeper now. This is a this may not just be you need to get used to and comfortable with the the number you're seeing on the scales and trust in the process. This could be a potential execution of action problem, right? It could be let's start off with the the bigger player in the game when it comes to fat loss, and that is Your nutritional intake, your tracking. Is everything logged and reported? Not just logged and reported, not just chucked in your tracker, not just any old thing put in there because you should be tracking. Are you weighing your food correctly? And are you tracking that food accurately? Because if you're not putting that detail or that if you're not putting enough effort into that and you just putting any old thing down in your tracker, you might as well not be tracking because you're not going to understand. And have full confidence in the amount of food that you're eating. So I would check that and I'd have that conversation with with the client in an open way because this I've had to ask this correct question to every client at some part in their journey. Not necessarily because they're doing it wrong, but because it's just such an important part of the journey to get right and to check in that you're doing it right. Otherwise you could just be thinking you're failing and blaming the wrong thing. I'll have a look at the client's tracker and I will just have a gander through it, see if the measures of foods kind of marry up to what a normal portion size would be, because sometimes clients will track five grams of cheese when the reality is they probably have in 20 or 25 grams of cheese, right? What are some of the red flags of of this calorie tracking? So, like obviously, like cheese is one, like if you see somebody Try five grams of cheese. Wait out five grams of cheese. Like you're not putting any cheese on anything with five grams of cheese, right? So we know it's not five grams. What are some of the other red flags that you see ⁓ when you're looking at food diaries, Katie? It's usually the smallest stuff that goes unnoticed, if I'm honest, right? Rather than, you know, your potatoes, your chicken, the main parts of the the meal. It's normally the additional stuff, like butter, potentially not being aware of much oil. person's use in potentially being how many cups of tea or coffee do you have a day and you're not aware of the milk. So if you think milk in your tea or coffee isn't being tracked, right? That might yeah, okay, that might only be 50 hundred calories a day, depending on how many, you know, hot drinks you drink. But then you also have button your toast and you don't you just chuck down five grams when actually you're having 15 grams. You're talking about another 50 to 100 calories there. So those two small things alone are already putting you two hundred calories over what you think you're tracking. And that's just two things, right? So never You never really want to underestimate the impact of one small thing in your eyes, because if you're doing that with one thing, I can guarantee you're probably doing that with other things that you're consuming as well. That statement for me is one of the golden rules of nutrition. If you're under reporting something, or if you're under reporting one thing, there's a very good chance you're under reporting something else as well. Like the this scenario is just it can be quite mind blowing to get your head around right, but you have to start thinking of your food in terms of calories when it comes to fat loss goals and when it comes to actually maintaining body composition. So if you want to maintain a reasonably low level of body fat, once you've lost body fat, you don't want to pile it all back on. You have to start thinking of your food in terms of calorie intake. And the best way to look at this is just to accept that every single thing you eat and drink Unless it's states otherwise, it's going to have quite a lot of calories in it, or it's going to have calories in it. And the more calorie dense things you you build up, the more at risk you are of over consuming calories and gaining fat. There are no exceptions to this, you know, like it might not seem like you're consuming a lot of milk, but if you're having eight to ten cups of tea a day, my stepdad can easily go through that amount of cups of tea a day. Easily. So my dad. You know, it's hundreds of milliliters of milk consumed every day, right? This adds up to a couple of hundred calories. That's that's just one thing that's not being considered, right? On top of that, you mentioned about sandwiches, bread, toast, like You can easily put butter on those things, estimate the amount of butter, and you're consuming twice the amount of butter that you think. And then what goes in those sandwiches? So let's say you have a bacon, an egg sandwich, right? For your breakfast. You're frying that egg in oil, you're frying the bacon in oil. You might some people don't even track oils, right? But you might track the oil. You might have a guesstimate of how much oil you put in. Before you know it, your whole day. you you've not eaten anything more, but you're actually consuming four hundred to five hundred calories more than what you think. Just because of the oil, because of the butter, if you have multiple bread sauces a day, because of all the milk in your teas And you know what? Don't take these figures and put them in your calorie tracker and try and work out exactly what I'm saying here. But my point is, it's really common to under-report calories. We see this in the science. There's there's a very good chance even the most experienced calorie trackers will be under-reporting slightly. That there's just less margin for error. There's just there's just less of a variance. But if you're not experienced with this and you haven't practiced this, then I cannot encourage you enough to try and give it your best possible attempt. Because you're gonna miss stuff anyway. And the only way you're gonna get better at not missing stuff is by giving it your full attention and detail. And then if you do happen to miss one or two things across the week, the the the impact that's gonna have is gonna be very, very minimal, right? But like we're not saying this to make you fear calories or make you fear food at all. It's quite the opposite. This and accepting this and understanding this is empowering because I think far too many people will blame something else as a problem why they're not losing body fat, yet haven't addressed the Main cause of of why they're not losing body fat and it is that they're consuming too many calories. It's just that simple. And I think it's that trying to figure out why that is happening to you rather than trying to find something else to blame, because that's going to empower you a hell of a lot more and give you so much more knowledge and understanding around your nutrition, so that you don't have to be so hung up and caught up on your nutrition for the rest of your life. We don't make the rules. We don't make we didn't make calories a thing. We didn't make human bodies utilize ⁓ calories as energy. But that is how human bodies function. And you either get on board with that or you keep fighting against it. Yeah, we gain absolutely nothing by encouraging people to track the calories and weigh their food on scales. Like what how do we benefit from that? How do we get any benefit? We're not getting paid by the scales companies. You know, we've not got a sponsorship with Salter Scales. We've not got some sort of contract with My FitnessPal or MyNet Diary or any of the calorie tracking apps. Like we're not getting, we're not getting paid off by encouraging people to do this. The reason why we're encouraging you to do this is because this is what educates you about your calorie intake. And when you get control of that, you control your body composition and in some ways you control your health. This is an investment of time. That is massively over exaggerated. I've grown very tired of hearing people say how much time it takes them and how stressful it is. Because I understand that logistically, when you first start, it can be a little bit finicky and it can be a little bit muddly, right? But once you start building up a database of foods that go in a food diary, it's ten times easier to pull from them and just drop them into the meals for each day. It's so frickin' simple to just put your plate on the scales and dish up your food onto the scales onto the on Like straight onto the plate, on the scales, get the way in. You can have your food op you can have your phone open next to it and just tap things down. Or while you're like who is eating their food straight out of the pan when it's boiling hot and there's steam coming off it? Like, you've got to at least wait a couple of seconds for that food to be edible if you've just taken it out of the pan and then you're putting it on the sc so while that food is just cooling down enough for you to put it in your mouth, just track just track your calories while you do it. I guarantee people are sat there with their phone in front of them. Anyway, when they're having dinner and they start scrolling on Instagram or they start answering a text message, take the time to just put the food in your tracker. Please don't tell me you don't have time because it literally takes minutes. I track I track six meals a day, every single day, and have done for numerous years. It takes me minutes. So I'm tracking probably more food than the vast majority of people listening to this podcast will ever track. I'm tracking meticulously. So please don't complain to me about lack of time for tracking. It's just something that initially is going to feel like it's a little bit muddly, it's a little bit new, just like anything else. Takes you a bit more time and a little bit more thought when you first start. After a while, it becomes second nature. You don't even think about it. You don't think about it because for two main reasons. One, it's a skill that just comes easy to you. And two, you've got such a vast amount of knowledge that you've built up from doing the tracking initially. Because without understanding the calories, the macronutrient, the micro regional foods, how are you ever going to make informed decisions? You can't. So for that little bit of time investment now. You could change your relationship with food for the rest of your life. You could be dieting for weeks, you could be dieting for months and not making any progress. Think about all that time that you're potentially wasting for the sake of spending 10, 15 minutes a day learning how to track your food properly. It it's quite it's quite literally that simple as a trade-off. And I think it gets over exaggerated far too much. Far too much. I understand there's nuances and I'm not gonna go into them all because it's probably not the time and the place, but This is a very small investment of time when you consider the bigger picture of things. You probably spend more time getting your steps in every day and walking than you do tracking. That's the reality of it. And the impact of it probably surpasses everything else when it comes to control over your nutrition, control over your calorie intake, and just knowledge about what's actually in your foods. So yeah, that's my rant, but let's bring it back to the client scenario and I'm gonna return back to a calm state as best as I can, even though I'm absolutely cooking in here. Let's say you you've spotted some discrepancies in in the client tracking. You look at the portion sizes and you think, hang on a minute. Is this right? You you you see numerous bread sauces in the tracker and you're like, does this person have it dry? Like because some people do. They don't they don't put butter on things. But like I haven't been putting butter on things throughout this entire aggressive diet. But maybe you know this individual a little bit better and you know that they're not they're not the dry toast kind of gal. What about How would you then approach this scenario when you know that there are some potential discrepancies? You doomed, you failed. I don't want to work with you anymore. Zacked. No, absolutely not, right? Bringing awareness of things is what empowers us. So I just have a conversation. Human to human, I'll have a chat with our client and I will go ask them honestly about how they're tracking that particular food. Do they have butter? on on their their bread because I have had clients who go, no, I don't. And I've had clients go, yes, I do. Perhaps that is where I could be going wrong. And this isn't always even just new clients. This could be clients I've been working with for a year, two years. Because guess what? Sometimes as human beings we get a bit complacent. We get a bit complacent. We think, ⁓ well nothing bad's happened because I haven't weighed that today. So I won't weigh for a couple of days, a couple of weeks go by, and then that five grams of butter that you were initially weighing out is now turned into 15 or 20. So It's just about having a conversation, bringing the awareness. ⁓ and with every client I work with, I'll always encourage open and honest communication from the start. Because that is how I function with my clients. That's how I get the best results with my clients. I'm not here to scold you. I'm not here to tell you off. I am here to empower you with the knowledge that you need to make the right decisions for yourself in whatever moment you're in. Well well that's that's one for one coaching, isn't it? Like if you're not going to have communication, if there's going to be no back and forth with your coach, then you're not you're not being coached, are you? You've just been handed a plan or handed an instruction that you're left to follow. That's not coaching. Coaching is a relationship, it's built up it's built upon trust. There's there's open conversation and discussion that goes back and forth. There's room for disagreement just as much as there is room for correction. So That goes both ways. Coach combined. One hundred percent. One hundred percent. Of course there's gonna be some hierarchy. There has to be some hierarchy. That's how coaching works. But you look at every single successful sports team, every single organization. None of them would be successful without communication. Because reality is there's something that you're doing that's not working for you. Otherwise you wouldn't have been going or coming to coaching in the first place. Or if you're stuck in a tricky spot now and you haven't got coaching, right? You're gonna have to ask yourself these honest questions and known up to them. But without having that communication, whether it's with yourself or with your coach, you're not gonna be able to correct course. You're not gonna be able to bring awareness to what's happening. And to understand whether you're on the right path or not and if you need to make changes or not towards this fat loss goal now because you've you've had the same average for a couple of weeks. you need to be able to recognise whether something's going right or wrong and where that lies. We've spoken a lot about calorie intake, Katie. Anything you would do outside of sort of the calorie intake side of things? Activity plays a big part as well, right? I'm not just talking, you know, have you missed a gym session? Because let's be real, a gym session overall plays such a small part in your calorie intake for the day and for the overall week intake. But just talking general activity in terms of of step count, or perhaps if you do play sport if you had, you know, you train and you match off that week, because that would have a bit more of an impact. Have your steps dropped down 10,000, 20,000 because life's been really hectic and busy. Has work ramped up, so you're actually way more sedentary than you usually are. There's all of these factors to consider because that will play a big part in in your day-to-day calorie expenditure, and could be why it's potentially stalled. So I think it is an important part, especially if you know your tracking is on point and you are honest with it, and you can't find any discrepancies there. then activity is the other element to to consider, I would say. I think you can get a picture from this, can't you? When when when you hear us talking that it's not so much one thing, but if you combine a few of those things together, so some of the tracking inaccuracies, some of the things that are not logged on the tracker, then potentially other things that are being estimated. You know, you're just putting in like one serving, one one ⁓ half a packet of this, when you haven't actually weighed stuff out. Then you compound that with variable. ⁓ activity levels. And we're not just talking like minor changes here. Not talking like, you know, your steps are down by 2,000 for the average for the whole week. Like that's not going to put a dent in it. But if your steps are 10,000 less, 15,000 less, 20,000 less than what they were the week before, or the what they have been for the over the last few weeks. Combined with all those sort of tracking errors and reporting errors, you can expect there to be You can expect there to be some inconsistencies with your weight data, you're probably going to see less reduction in your in your in your weight because your body fat probably isn't coming down because you're not consistently in a calorie deficit and F. So it's putting all these things together. Which is quite hard to do if you haven't got the experience and the knowledge to go to go alongside it, right? It's it's quite hard to do. So you've done all your in investigation into these scenarios. ⁓ sorry. You've done all your investigation into this scenario. Where do you go from here? What solutions are you presenting? So there's two clear paths here for me. First one, if any of those points that we've discussed, tracking, activity, things have changed, aren't where they need to be, not being done, whatever, that needs to change. That is what is causing the average distall. Because you're likely not in. enough of a calorie deficit or a calorie deficit at all to be driving fat loss. The second path is if all of those are being done, your tracking x-ray is spot on, your activity hasn't changed, nothing's really changed in terms of your day-to-day kind of live-in, stress levels, sleep, etc., all of those things, then that's where I would consider recalculating calories, consider potentially dropping calories or potentially increasing expenditure depending on what is most appropriat for for that client. I got zero arguments with that. It's quite that simple really. The the solutions are quite simple. It's just get into that solution. There's a few different paths to navigate through first. Yeah, I think it's fair to say that the first of all, first of all, you you check the data to make sure there's no errors. Calories are being reported correctly, activity levels are being consistent. Basically, we're looking for consistency, aren't we? If there's consistency in the approach and in and in the process, then it could be a case that we just need to know. Create a scenario where the client is in a little bit more of a calorie deficit. As you lose body weight, your calorie expenditure naturally drops each day because there's less tissue that is using up energy each day. So we're going to see a natural reduction in the amount of calories you burn. And it might be the case that we just haven't adjusted for that drop in body weight. And this might not be something that affects you in your first couple of pounds of weight. loss, but by the time you might have lost twenty ten pounds, twenty pounds, you've done a you know, a a an eight to twelve week stint of fat loss, for example, you probably are gonna start to have to make some adjustments. And without going into too much detail, you will naturally burn less calories through fidgeting and moving about. Your neat calories will will tend to drop. Even if you're being really on it with your physical activity, you know, you're keeping your steps high, you're training, you're still doing a bit of cardio, whatever. ⁓ you might still be playing sport. There will be movements throughout the day which naturally reduce when you're in a calorie deficit. Your body just starts to slow those movements down to conserve energy for when it needs it most. You can't necessarily change that. You can try and account for it by doing some more steps, but it's part of the process. So it might be the case that you just simply need a small reduction of your calorie intake now at this stage. It's it's just a natural. It's that's not your fault. That's just the natural process that needs to happen as a result of your body burning less calories each day. Absolutely. And and that's not because your metabolism's broken. I just want to make that clear, because that's going around in the in the social media realm at the moment. It's your body doing what it shouldn't do. You weigh less, you are fidgeting less because you've got less calories to to ⁓ burn off. It's just a natural part of the process. Yeah, this this fearmongering about metabolism. ⁓ I'm sure we'll cover it on a podcast. See you the next podcast. Sneak preview. This will actually be something we discuss a little bit more of in the next podcast. Sorry, we split it out. It might be, but we're already 40 minutes into this one. So we might need to do two scenarios today. And then maybe the other two are another one. So I don't know if we're going to get through four scenarios today. 35 five minutes. Because that was a really good conversation. But I don't think we should do four today, because I think it'll be too long. No, so this will be part one and then we're gonna do part two next week. I think so. Yeah, okay, okay. Do you think? Yep. So yeah, just so you can get spit right. I'm not gonna go into too much depth of this because I think it's something that we will discuss in a future podcast, talking about metabolism, talking about metabolic changes in response to dieting. But What people put down to their metabolism, and when we talk about metabolism, we're talking about resting metabolic rate. The biggest changes we see are in total daily energy expenditure, which is different to rest in metabolic rate. When we talk about rest in metabolic rate decreases, these will decrease with weight loss. So the amount of calories you burn when you're not doing anything, when you're not moving around, that will decrease with weight loss naturally as you lose weight. One of the biggest decreases in the amount of calories you burn each day comes from the amount of activity you do. And the largest block of that activity comes from the subconscious activity that you do. So what we call neat. So that's just the fidgeting, the moving about, the day-to-day movements that we don't class as physical activity. So that's not necessarily steps. It's not going to the gym. It's not doing cardio. All those stuff are our conscious activities that we're making a choice to go and do. And we're aware of us doing them. It's more all the other stuff that we're not quite as aware of that just happens naturally and occur naturally throughout the day, you know, tap in your foot. ⁓ fidgeting about. That accounts for a lot of calories, which people are unaware of. And we see a lot of reduction in those, reducing the total daily energy expenditure. When people talk about this metabolic adaptation and then metabolism slowing down, that's normally what they're describing. That's normally what they're seeing. It's not that their body naturally starts burning much less calories every day in response to dieting. It's not quite that simple. That can happen, but it's A very, very, very small impact. We're probably talking a hundred to two hundred calories a day, maybe at most, if it does occur, if you do naturally, if your body just naturally starts burning less calories every single day because your metabolism has adapted to being in a lower calorie state. Most of the time your calories need to be lower and you're burning less calories each day because A, you've lost weight, and B, you're just moving a little bit less than what you were prior to going into that diet state. That's the that's the broken down explanation that you should be aware of. And the simple answer to that is you're not broken. There's absolutely nothing wrong with your metabolism. You just need slightly less calories to you you're just burning slightly less calories every day than what you were when you started. So you need to adjust your calorie intake accordingly. Yeah, absolutely. Well said. Well said. I'm quite looking forward to doing that future podcasts. on on metabolism actually I think it'll be a very interesting one and and give a lot of people clarity over over metabolism and how it how it functions and the impact it has on them. Just should we do a training scenario? So we got we got two nutrition scenarios in this one and then we can either say ⁓ right part two we're gonna discuss two more training specific scenarios so we separate them 'cause that might we might be able to see like who listens to which one. Yeah, let's do that. Okay, cool. Should we? Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Well, my grilling of Katie didn't necessarily go that well there because she answered it really well and I agreed with most things that she said. What can I say? I just got skills. Damn, didn't stitcher up as well as I'd hoped. Now it's my turn. Dun dun dun Okay, Mr Dalo, the scenario. Client has finished a fat loss phase and is a couple of weeks into a building phase. They feel like they're drifting back to old habits. Hunger is really prominent. It's it's elevated. Snacking is creeping back in too much. Not a little bit, too much. They'll tend to say to you I think I'm snacking too much. It feels like I'm getting a bit out of control. I can't seem to get full and my cravings are high. Where do you go from there? Mm. Again, this is another scenario that like the way in one that which which were which I presented you with, Katie, this is another scenario which I've got pretty frequently. I've had pretty frequently in my time coaching. Me too, me too. What's really interesting about this one is this isn't necessarily a problem that I personally struggle with. So I have had to really develop a skill set as a coach. And develop a lot of understanding for this particular problem because I'm not a snacker. I'm not a snacky type of person. I don't necessarily have a sweet tooth. I don't get those really intense feelings of pleasure and satisfaction from foods that I just want to continually keep eating over and over and over again. I can pretty much eat any food like that, to be honest, with the way my appetite is. But I I don't, if I'm hungry. The last thing that I want to do is reach for something that's snacky. If I'm feeling like I want to be full, I instantly want to go for just more food, a larger meal, right? Rather than snacks. So this is this is actually something which, if I'm honest, I've had I've had to really work hard to understand throughout my years of coaching, right? So If you're trying to stitch me up, you've chosen a good topic to try and do that with. I did think well about this one, you know. But I think I think it's an important one to cover because whilst you don't necessarily find it a struggle, Sean, there are many people that do. I've had I've had the you're this isn't needed, it's state in the obvious. It's it's just not needed. But it is definitely something that comes up a lot, Katie. Especially things like cravings get thrown out as well. ⁓ cravings get brought up as well. And that tends to be a common a common trend, especially females around particular times of the month. They seem to have more in intense food signaling than perhaps ⁓ some of our our males in the community. So it's it's something that definitely needs to be considered and addressed. Fully agree. So kick us off then, Sean, with this scenario of this particular client now that has just finished that fat loss phase, couple of weeks into building phase, what do you need to consider to begin? There's a phrase I like to use when I'm handling some of these scenarios, and that phrase is I like to consider the individual rather than the problem. So I'm aware of what the problem is, but I need to look at the individual first. So My first point of call would be how lean is this individual? So If an individual has got really lean, like I'm not I'm not talking like just lost a bit of weight here. I'm talking like very low levels of body fat, like much, much lower than the average. Their body is almost going to be primed for wanting to regain weight. It's it's in a really depleted psychologically and physiologically challenging state. Now, this probably isn't going to be that common. You would typically see this with individuals that have got like super, super ripped, like six pack lean, photo shoot prep, bodybuilding show, especially if they've done a bodybuilding show. They're not typically the clients that I tend to work with on a day-to-day basis. But it's not to say that this can't happen with somebody that's got much, much, much leaner this time around than where they've ever been before. It's about understanding that in those moments, if that individual has been cutting down for a very long period of time, if they've achieved really low levels of body fat compared to where they naturally sit most of the time, then there's potentially going to be some increased food noise. There's going to be dis some disruption of hunger hormones. There's to be some intense cravings as a result of being in that state. So If that is the case, and if that individual is a very, very lean individual, then the solution would simply be we we just have to get them to regain a little bit of body weight and potentially, and people are gonna hate to hear me say this, but potentially regain a little bit of fat, just so we can rebalance the system, just so we can get the hunger hormones to calm down a little bit. Because things like leptin are produced in fat cells, in fat tissue. So we want to get control of leptin, which helps to provide that feeling of fullness and satiety. So if we can satisfy the leptin, or if we can If we can regain just enough fat for leptin to be produced at a more balanced level so that we're able to then feel full after food and not feel those those strong hunger pans and cravings for hours after eating or in between eating, then that is a net positive for health because it means that we're not going to then dramatically overshoot because we're trying to say it's too lean, but we're fighting all this food noise and food signaling. That's quite a nuanced scenario. And that would be for individuals that that are very, very, very lean. So Not going to be the typical thing, but it'd probably be the first thing that I would think of. And that can be crossed off very, very quickly. Because even with, you know, that's mostly individuals that have got very, very low body fat levels. But even with individuals outside of that scope, it can take a little while for I'm gonna call them the hunger hormones, you know, ghrelin and letin too I wanna say settle after post diet anyway. ⁓ they're just probably ⁓ they're more likely to be In a more dangerous spot, should we say, for the people who are a real low levels of body fat. But it doesn't, it's not to say it doesn't impact individuals who have lost weight and been in a diet phase for a long time either. It's being aware of that, I think, isn't it, sometimes that the the body does need time to kind of catch up to the fact that you were giving it more fuel again. Absolutely. And the difference is if you've got an individual that's very, very, very lean. You might actually need to put them into surplus calories for a very short period just to regain that bit of weight initially, just to regain that little bit of fat initially. We're not talking massive amounts, you know. An individual who's very lean who gains a little bit of fat would still look lean. So, you know, we're not talking massive amounts, but we're talking just enough just to get the body back to its its state of equilibrium, because that's what we're looking for. We're just looking for a state of a positive balance where ⁓ You're not experiencing experiencing all those negative symptoms that are associated with being super lean ⁓ and and essentially ⁓ having a a very depleted state. So that would be going slightly that would be going into a small surplus and then probably balancing out close to maintenance calories after some of the initial gains happen. But for individuals who aren't getting super, super lean. Then we look at have that has that individual actually got themselves out of a calorie deficit. And are they starting to recover from that state of dieting? So are they back to maintenance calories? Have we seen some positive weight regain, which is really important and for me is the gold standard way of assessing whether an individual has actually successfully completed their diet? If they have not experienced some degree of positive weight regain, to show that their body is replenished, to show that they've they've recovered glycogen storage, so their carb stores are filled again, they've regained some of the lost water weight, which is is is part of that process of of of regaining the carb stores, then if if we don't see that. Then there's a very good chance they're not out of a calorie deficit yet and they've not recovered from dieting and they're not going to experience the positive benefits of ⁓ leaving a diet state until they have that. So I would then look for that. That's understandable why that would be the first point of call, right? Rather than is there anything else going on? Is actually has this individual left a diet state and have they reached a recover full recovery state? Because that is so important and guess looked, overlooked far too much in the fitness industry, in my in my opinion. It's not talked about positive weight beginning is not talked about nowhere near enough. And I unfortunately I think a lot of people are in the extremes of either extremely diet in or the other end of the scale. whereas this this recovery state is actually probably a very not probably, it is. A very, very important transition period in a in a client's journey. And we have spoken about this in previous podcasts. In particular, the podcast about transitioning out of a fat loss phase and going into a balanced build phase. Essentially, what we're looking for here is a two week period, there or thereabouts, of an individual experiencing weight gain on the scales when they take their calories back to maintenance after a period of diet of calorie deficit ending. This allows them to feel fully replenished and recover from the symptoms of dieting. So, for example, the low energy levels, the increased hunger signaling, performance being impaired in training, cognitive function improving. Decreased food noise, a lot of this will be alleviated within those two weeks of returning back to maintenance calories. It will not be achieved if you're sitting in a calorie deficit because you're still in a calorie deficit. Your body is still in a negative energy balance. There's less calories going in than what you're burning each day. That is the definition of a calorie deficit. And until you go back to a place where you're at maintenance calories. i.e., you're eating the same amount of calories as you're burning every day, you're not going to experience those those recovery benefits from the diet. So it's really important to get those calories back up again. And to allow your body a chance to recover. With one big caveat. In that transition period for the first week or two weeks, when you're experiencing that positive weight regain, because your body is now filling its carb stores back up, because it's now s now holding on to water weight a little bit more again. You can sometimes experience increased hunger levels. And potentially even increase food cravings. Hunger levels increasing is what we call a physiological process. It's natural. It's what your body is naturally doing. Because imagine your body's been running on go slow mode, it's not being able to produce those hunger hormones. So hunger hormone potenti ⁓ primarily is grelling. Production of grelling slows where I'm in a calorie deficit, eventually it gets to a point where it's it's not being produced as much because there's less energy to produce it. When we start introducing more energy, there's a short period where it's like whoosh, grelling starts getting produced a little bit more again. And that can feel quite intensive. And I often feel this when I go back to maintenance. I feel like the first week or two of maintenance, I'm starving. I'm more hungry than I was in my calorie deficit. There's also imp impacts on things like ⁓ when you're in a calorie deficit. You experience what we call delayed gastric emptying. So your stomach tends to digest and break down food a little bit more slowly. When you've got more energy, the system's well oiled, everything happens a bit quicker. So your stomach is emptying a little bit faster. It's breaking down, foods are getting absorbed into your system, foods getting absorbed into your muscles, everything's happening a bit faster, which leaves your stomach feeling empty a little bit quicker, which then makes you feel like you want to eat again. And you start getting those hunger signals again. So it's just understanding that your body is transitioning. Okay. It's going into a new state and it takes a while to get used to being in that new state. So that's a that's what we call like a physiological thing. When it comes to the food signaling, that can be a bit more of a psychological thing. You've been eating in a restrictive state for a period of time to lose fat. You've been restricting calorie intake in order to lose fat. You start reintroducing more food to your diet, more calories to your diet, potentially your activity levels pick up with that. And then on top of that, you might be introducing some foods that you haven't had any access to whilst you've been dieting. So particular food sources could be things like chocolate. It could be things like like your your bread and butter. It could be things like a little bit of ice cream in the summer. It could be a bit of alcohol. Whatever it is that you've really looked forward to and you've gone without in order to keep your calories low to get the successful fat loss result. Now you start to reintroduce. And your brain goes, ⁓ my God, it's so good. Give me more. You can't help yourself. You just want to keep eating it. You want to keep eating it. This is something which Some individuals get a stronger response to to others. So again, it's coaching that individuals understanding if we introduce too much of this too quickly, the wheels are going to fall off. So it's about trying to Create an environment where for those first two weeks there's enough structure, there's enough consistency to the pre-diet state, accepting that your body's going through a transition in a period of change, and that that is normal. So Going back to our initial scenario. I have to ask myself as a coach, based on this timeline, where is this individual? Because we say they're a couple of weeks into the balance build phase, right? But where are they within those few weeks? Well, their first few weeks still in a calorie deficit because maybe I set their calories on what I thought would be maintenance, but their maintenance is a little bit higher than that. So they're still in a calorie deficit. So I need to be able to assess that. I need to be able to see that. has their weight changed? If their weight hasn't gone back up again a little bit, then chances are they're still in a calorie deficit. So I might then put their calories up a little bit more. We see that weight change, but then they hit that one to two week transition period that I've just discussed, where potentially hunger levels are a bit higher, potentially food noise a little bit greater, gastrogantian sped up. Sometimes that can feel maybe harder than to to tolerate and to get used to than the state you're in when you were dieting. 'Cause you got comfortable with that, you're familiar with it, and now you've got all these new feelings coming in. Long segment for me there, but You'll understand this is one of the most challenging and complex transitions as part of the fitness journey. Everyone makes out the fat loss is the hardest part. For me, I think this part, transitioning from fat loss to either what we call maintenance or a building phase, is the hardest part. Hands down. Hands down. It's not to say that fat loss is easy, because it's it's not, it's really not. But it's a challenge. Most people know what it entails and what's required of them what's expected. There there's easy yeses, easy no's. There's not much food noise. It's I'm just all in, I'm gonna go all in on this and get it done. But when there's more decisions at play, there's more kind of food noise, there's, let's be honest, a longer time frame eventually when you get into this in the long haul that you spend in this this f est state. There's not enough education around positive week, great getting, as we said, it's not enough education around what actually happens physiologically with your body post diet. ⁓ so most people are going into the unknown. And yes, I do think it is one of the hardest parts. of of the journey and one that might take more than one time to practice to get right. It does. And you know, you've you've covered one point, one or two points really there, Sean. And there's a lot of nuance in that. And we could probably even go in more depth and more individualized individualisation, even on those points you said alone there. Because there's lots of variables that as a coach we will look at when we assess this for client. before giving the client what they need to know and do, right? So so that's the first point of call. You kind of understood now where this client's at, where the calories are. And if you're kind of you know, happy with what you see in there and ⁓ understand what you see in there, what would you look at next? I've spoken a lot about the processes that happen in the body, which We can influence but we can't necessarily control. They're they're just what naturally occurs. Things like your hunger hormones, they they naturally occur. We can influence them, but we can't necessarily control them. I would then look at the controllables. So, what can I do to put my body in the best state possible to deal with this hunger and these in in intense cravings that are coming on? So I then look at the food habits and I look at the structure once I've understood where that individual is at. So again, looking at the food diary. The importance of the food diary cannot be understated. Fuck's sake, I always make that mistake. The importance of the food diary cannot be overstated enough when it comes to being able to make these adjustments to nutrition because you're so much more informed when you actually have a log of what you've been eating. So assess things like your protein and fiber intake because they they are satiating. They do make you feel more full. And they they provide that feeling of having more food in the stomach and they take longer to digest and break. Consider the individual food choices within those meals and so not just looking at nutrients like protein and fibre. Let's have a look at some of the foods that are actually being used to to pull the meals together. So are they eating foods that are more satiating? Things like more whole food sources, things like potatoes, which are a more filling food source. That was the first one that comes to mind for me because I'm eating literal fields of potatoes every week in this aggressive diet at the moment. To try and satisfy my hunger levels. Are they opting for much more highly processed food that is a little bit easier for the body to break down? Is there an over-reliance on getting protein through things like protein powder than actual food sources, for example? So all of these things do play a part because it could just be that the diet structure is lacking filling foods. They've gone back up in calories, so they've got more flexibility available. They might not be eating. for maximum fullness like they were when they were in a fat loss phase. I would also consider whether the individual ⁓ is skipping meals, maybe allocating too many of their calories to what we would class as more pleasure foods, because this this this has happened on a number of occasions with with members I've coached, where say for example, they finish their calorie deficit on fifteen hundred calories. Their maintenance calories are then two thousand calories, so they have five hundred extra calories available. They take the same structure of meals as what they've had for their calorie deficit, which is 1500 calories, and they they add the extra 500 calories back in. But all of those 500 calories come from things like cakes, biscuits, sweets, chocolate, crisps. None of that is filling. But now this individual is probably burning a few more calories every day. They're a little bit more active. As we've mentioned, those fungal hormones can be quite aggressive in the first week or two. When you when you when you cease your dieting for some individuals. And all of those extra calories are coming from things which do not necessarily satisfy their hunger levels. And then what often happens if you're consuming 500 extra calories to get up to maintenance calories of Essentially lower energy density foods and things that are wrong description of high calorie foods that aren't very filling, and you're leaving yourself still feeling hungry, and your brain's going, I need more food, I need more food, and I want more really tasty food, then you end up over consuming the hyper palatable foods. Trying to work with the fact that your body is trying to rebalance itself right now. And if you're not supporting that with filling options that is sending signals to your brain to tell you that you're full, you're kind of just setting yourself up for a harder time because already your body is trying to rebalance itself. It's already trying to find this state in energy balance now and settling there. But that can happen. ⁓ it doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen in a couple of weeks. It takes time. So it's thinking, right, what can I do in my day to support that? ⁓ but like you said, Sean, if those extra calories, and it could be anywhere from, you know, 500 up to a thousand sometimes, depending on how an individual approaches their diet in phase, if all of those extra calories are filled with foods that are are highly palatable, you know, high fat, high sugar, not very many filling nutrients in them. Then you're not giving your brain, so your body initially, but your brain that correct signal or the signal it needs to go, ⁓ I'm full now. I've had a good feed-in. It's still going, I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry. Because our body responds differently to the types of foods that we eat. We don't our brains will respond better in terms of satiation from foods that are. High protein, high, high fibre fill-in options in comparison to cakes, biscuits, chocolates. It's it's not going to go, I'm full now. It's gonna go, I'm still hungry. Give me more, give me more, give me more. Yeah, and that's that's connected to the gut as well, isn't it? Like, yes, there's there's a lot of things that are unexplored about the gut, but what we do know from the limited information that we have currently is that the gut and the brain are very closely connected. Very closely. So if your gut and your stomach feels really full, then your brain gets a signal that you're full. Yeah. And if it doesn't, then that's a s that's the simplest way to put it, Sean. It absolutely is the simplest way to put it. So when you're choosing your options when it comes to snacking in those extra calories, it's going, Okay, I need to tell my gut that I'm I'm full now, the foods I'm eating is gonna fill me up. That's not gonna be three of your cakes and ebickies. It's not. So yeah, and ⁓ looking at the food diary and looking at the choices that the individual is making with their food really helps to paint a bigger picture on and why they might be more hungry in these circumstances. I then also would consider their eating habits. So Three key terms. Where are they? When are they eating these things? And who are they with when they're eating these things? Because these are environmental factors that will have an influence on their eating habits and eating behaviours. All of these little things, again, in combination, can have a big impact. It's not that any one of these individual things is the thing that's gonna dramatically change their hunger response or their cravings, but it's considering all these things in combination. So if they sat, and we know this from some of the research, right? If they sat on the sofa at night, eating their meal on their lap, watching TV, then It's easier to overconsume. It's easier to not experience as much satiation as if you're sat there at the table without any distraction, eating mindfully, you know, chewing your food a little bit more. All of that stuff has a has a ⁓ positive impact on how full you're going to feel after that meal. So that's that's one thing that you can consider is. Where are they when they're consuming those foods? It could be in an office environment. It could be that they're sat in a car in traffic on the way home from work. When is that happening? So that often falls in line with where. When and where are very closely connected, but it could be a frequent habit at a particular time of the day, no matter where they are. Half four in the afternoon. That's the snack time. Rine time, isn't it? Rhyme time. Eight thirty or nine o'clock in the evening. Mm-hmm. It could be that there's a pattern and a habit there. And then who are you with? So are you around other people that have those food habits and those snacking habits as well? Are they encouraging those behaviors? Are you influenced by temptation around you? These aren't always easy to change, right? They're not always easy to change, especially if it comes to the influence of others around you. This is where I would open a line of conversation where I I would encourage communication. If it's a partner or if it's a family member, I would encourage communication with the family, with the partner. To explain why. This potentially could be harmful to you. But also To try and find a compromise. Because your goals might not always be exactly the same as your partners, but I would really like to think that partners would be supportive over each other's goals and and and be prepared to find a compromise over this. Like, it might not be the case that they want to give up their bit of evening chocolate because you can't stand the sight of it when they're eating it and end up eating thousands of calories of it if they're eating it in front of you. But their compromise may be that they have their bit of chocolate, but they don't start poking it under your nose, going, ⁓ go on, do you want a bit? Do you want a bit? ⁓ go on, just have one bit. ⁓ go on, you go on, it won't hurt. Like that's not supportive to somebody that will eat one square of chocolate and accidentally end up consuming three thousand calories of the entire bar. Gross over exaggeration, but I've seen what people do with chocolate. Looking at you here, Katie. Excuse me. I have my handle on chocolate these days, ⁓ I'll have you know. You do, you do, to be fair. But my point is that sometimes it's a case of having a cu having a a conversation with somebody that is feeding the habit and feeding the beast as I spoke about in previous podcasts rather than supporting that. It's bringing the awareness, isn't it? I think that's it's a it's ⁓ another area that's overlooked is where when and who. Do the habits that are s are serving you happen. And without actually reflecting on that and understanding when it's happening, you can't change it. And I think sometimes it's not even the fact that you wouldn't change it if you're aware of it. It's just you're not aware of it. You're not really putting two and two together. And sometimes that is all it takes. I've done this a number of times, right? And it's been incredibly insightful with with clients because It's revealed how much they are doing things which they were unaware of and how much they were regulating emotions through their food. So sometimes when you spot a pattern with where certain things are occurring, it it shines a light on the emotional state that the individual's in at the time of that snack inhabit occurring. So I'll give some I'll give some brief examples, and I'm not going to name anybody by names. ⁓ if they listen to this podcast, they will know it's them. ⁓ and they will know how much of a great job they've done to change this. This has only changed because of the level of awareness that that's come about from it. And thank you to these individuals for being open and honest about this because it can be It can be framed quite negatively and it can make you feel like a bit of a failure or make you feel quite inconsistent or ill-disciplined if you have these snacking habits. But even a bit embarrassed, right? Because you can't get a handle on it. Yeah, absolutely. So a particular scenario. Client gets in for a really long day at work, like long shifts, NHS worker, absolutely starving when they get in. They've had a really emotionally draining day. Christ, you can imagine what they're going through if the weather is like it is at the moment as well, with no blooming air con in the hospitals. ⁓ my god, that must be rough. They've been around temptation all day because there's always something around ⁓ the hospital desks. They gotta wait for their tea. So they come in, they're absolutely starving, energy levels are really low, emotionally drained. They know they got to jump in the shower, do their hair, or whatever before they come down for tea. So they just go and grab something out of the fridge, something small, something quick, or grab something out of cupboard. But because they're hungry and because of the emotional state they're in, they could easily go two, three, four times the amount of the snack that they're reaching for without even being aware of it. And then afterwards, they put it back in their tracker and they realize. ⁓ shit, I've gone over by 200, 300, 400 calories here. Or they have to then eat a little bit less to try and stay within their rough calorie target for the day. And they're hungry as a result of that. So they wake up the following morning really hungry. They might have another shift coming up. So this then compounds itself and it's then this then like multiplies into multiple days, right? So, what is a solution? A simple framework and a simple rule. Like you can have your treats, but do not have them first thing when you come in because it's the timing of those. Setting a kind of non negotiable or a promise for yourself. The promise to me is I know that this isn't working for me. So I'm just not going to do it. It's just a habit that doesn't work for you. So two simple solutions for that individual. Have some meal prep prepared. So when you come home, you can eat straight away. Or at least, you know, you jump in the shower, you know that. The meal's not gonna take long to prepare. Or you opt for something to eat in that gap in between that is far less hyper palatable, but will be enough just to make you feel like you've eaten something to just get you through to that meal. And I'll give you a prime example of what I've done for this to great effect on this aggressive diet. I've had a rice cake and I've had sugar free syrup. Like it's it's it's sweet enough. It it feels like I'm eating something, it's not gone in one mouthful. Sure, there are people listening to this could probably eat a rice cake in one mouthful, but I I certainly can't. It's just enough. And it's like what, 30 calories? Rice cakes are so helpful for those scenarios, actually, because they just fill a little bit of gap, they're really low calorie. You can even get some little bit more more tasty flavour some now as well. ⁓ so yeah, they're really, really handy for that. If I if I grabbed a handful of nuts in that scenario, right? I'd consume probably two hundred calories of nuts. And some probably. You know, you're probably not gonna opt for the ⁓ what the the salt or the spice free version or the sugar free version, you know, not the quarters or something. You're probably gonna opt for the really tasty version, which could actually end up being a handful, which is, you know, five. Well not five, but three, four hundred calories, or you end up having four biscuits because you just can't stop. If I grabbed a couple of biscuits or, you know, I had a handful of sweets, or if I if I grabbed A chocolate bar or a handful of chocolate. It's like I I consume way more than that. So easy. Yeah, something small like that. it might not be the thing that you really want and really crave in that moment, but you can then have your chocolate a little bit later on, or the sweet treat later on, and account for that in your calorie intake, and you're less likely to overconsume it and less likely to overeat it, and you're not screwing your hunger hormones, and you're not screwing your hunger levels. So it's again finding balance with that. That's that's one particular scenario when it comes to snack. Like four of these and I've gotten them all. I I it's okay. I don't know if you need to go into loads and loads of them. ⁓ see if I can just get one more. Another scenario, I got a client that does a lot of care for an elderly relative. So it's a lot of travel to get there. The elderly relative has The LDU relative is a bit more vulnerable, she gets very confused, can be very stressful while this member is looking after her. ⁓ they have a carer that live in and there's often a lot of things to be organised with the carer. ⁓ there's a lot of logistical stress. There's medication that needs to be provided at certain times. ⁓ And one of the few things that this relative gets a lot of pleasure from is having a sweet treat. So there's often a lot of sweet stuff and a lot of temptation there. So this member's traveling, traveling and spending a lot of time in this environment that can be quite stressful, quite time consuming. And then there's that extra temptation of sweet stuff on top. So on a day where perhaps they're more stress than they would normally be. It's really easy for them to have a moment of pleasure and a moment of satisfaction and distract themselves away from all that pent up emotional stress. by having something like a couple of biscuits or a slice of cake. But in that environment, there is absolutely zero judgment by anyone else there. It's really comfortable for that individual to have an extra slice of cake, to have an extra couple of biscuits, because nobody there is going to judge them for it. They're all having the same thing. And in the moment it feels quite nice and it feels quite satisfying. But then of course, later on the reflection happens. ⁓ my god, I've consumed way too many calories of this. So This is a habit, it's a pattern. It's not happening when that individual's at home. It's not happening in their own environment. It's happening in somebody else's environment and when they're around certain people. And they can't just, you know, not go visit this relative. They've committed themselves to looking after and being part of this person's life. So what what can be done? So what this individual has done is and what we wrote out together was we need to try and make a a better choice in the environment that they are facing so that we can at least control some of the calorie intake in that environment. So this member has created a little ⁓ emergency treat corner. And it's three different types of of sugar-free, hard-boiled sweets. So when there's a really stressful moment or really stressful day, and the sweets are getting handed out, or the the cakes are getting handed out, or the biscuits are getting handed out, and they're all sat down for a cup of tea and that, rather than have the things going to be really calorie dense. This member can go and have a couple of the hard boiled sugar free sweets, which then get tracked, which aren't necessarily super hyper palatable. They're not super enjoyable. So they're not likely to be over consumed. And even if they did have one too many of them, the calories in them are much lower than what the alternative would be. About working with your environment sometimes, isn't it? Because not all environments can be avoided. ⁓ sometimes you've got to make the best of a situation, and it's not going well, you shouldn't have a sweetheart. You've just got to say no. God, you're a fool for not being able to do it. It's none of that, it's none of that because that environment is already a challenging environment, having to care for another person with that much intention. you know, intensity and frequency. It's going, okay, I do have a sweet tooth. I like it, it's probably never gonna change about me. So what can I do to just limit the amount of damage I can do? Because it's not just a one-off. If that was a one-off in, you know, every couple of months, then go bloody enjoy that cake. But if that's something that's you know, three, four, five times a week, it could even be seven days a week that this person's in that environment. If that person they're caring for needs that support every day. So you're talking, if that's every day, you're talking that could be thousands upon thousands of calories a week that that individual is consuming. Whereas if they just had the cake once a week and the other days then had the boiled sweets, they're saving thousands and thousands and thousands of calories, which is one simple decision can just absolutely change the outlook of their week. One hundred percent. So what you'll take away from this section is that a lot of individuals will have different reasons for snacking. It's not always black and white. But I like to view this from the top down. So consider the individual in question, consider their current state of body composition, consider how that transition from the diet state has been and where they are at. In terms of timeline and time scale. Then we zoom in a little bit closer and we look at the food habits. ⁓ the we look at the food choices. We consider what those habits sake. We also consider what food habits are occurring and potentially the environments and the emotional states the individual's in when this snacking is occurring. And we try and put some measures in place and some frameworks in place to help to prevent this from from occurring. Sometimes individuals, if they haven't gone through the period of transitioning from fat loss phase to balance building phases, they don't understand the importance of managing things like hunger levels in satiety. They're not aware of the consequences of what happens because they've never worked on a period of keeping body fat levels a bit lower and staying a bit leaner for longer after a fat loss phase in a more controlled. State where they're they're keeping an eye on things like their calorie intake and they're being consistent with their food choices. A lot of the time, what happens with most people is they diet, finish their diet. They go back to whatever they were doing before. They don't continue habits and lifestyle choices and diet choices that they were making in their fat loss phases, and they don't pay attention to What they They don't give enough attention to their nutrition and to their diet in a higher calorie state. They just assume, ⁓ well, the diet's done, so I I'll I'll be okay now for a little while if I just go back to eating whatever. and if worse comes to worst, I'll go back to dieting again. But this very rarely works for people. It's very rarely ends up being a successful call it weight maintenance or body fat maintenance strategy. How you explained that is absolutely spot on. And I don't think there's anything more I can add to that, to be honest, Sean. I think you've absolutely nailed that topic. So why you were sweating about that when I first asked you is beyond me because the rationales and the nuance that you incorporated in that I think will help a lot of people understand and hopefully make some changes themselves in a positive way to their to their lifestyle and their choices. One thing I didn't mention, which I think is important, and it has occurred, is where sometimes an individual will skip meals and as a result of skipping meals, they then have a snack because they can't quite last until the next meal. But the thing which they choose in that moment is like the classic analogy of going to a supermarket when you're hungry. You never go to a supermarket when you're hungry because things end up in the trolley that you're unaware of being there. And it's quite often the stuff that is going to be quite high in calories, quite hyper palatable, because our brains are interpreting things a little bit differently in those states. ⁓ and similar to this is like skipping meals. And and sometimes, you know, it can be difficult to make time for food if you've got a really busy day, if you do a lot of running around, if you've got back to back meetings, etcetera. But the consequence of that then is you're probably going to grab the nearest thing available to you, and that might just happen to be the tub of brownies or the tub of flapjacks or the bo all the box of sweets that sat on the desk. And before you know it, you've contri consumed hundreds, if not potentially thousands of calories of that food source all in a flash. And there's very little satiety from it. So you're then going to be jo twice as hungry later on. So that is an environmental consideration, but it's also ⁓ a structural problem where skipping those meals and not leaving time for those meals actually can lead to worse decisions in in in in later hours. And leads you thinking that you're failing and you're this uncontrollable person that just can't control snacking. But actually it's not that. It's that you're just bloody hungry. ⁓ so you're going to turn to wherever's near us. And I think the way I like to look at that is because sometimes if life doesn't go perfect, right? You know you can't always have your meals at exactly the the same time every day, or work gets in the way, or the kids get in the way, whatever they may be. And it's about having those either non negotiables or the promises you like to keep to yourself, right? And I look like to look at them in that way because They're kind of, I guess, rules that you can put in place for yourself that will help you and aid you in those decisions where your mind is working against you. Absolutely. I think far too many people expect far too much of their own willpower. A absolutely absolutely. And and like you overestimate your willpower massively. When you're hungry g when you're hungry, you're gonna wanna just eat whatever. Whatever's in front of you, and if it tastes pretty good, you're gonna want to know more of it. Right. There's no human on this planet that that I don't think would would experience that. You're not gonna out discipline and out willpower that. And i I think it's a completely unrealistic unrealistic expectation to think that you're gonna all of all of a ⁓ all of a sudden conjure up this willpower and this discipline when you're providing yourself with that much temptation to want to eat that stuff. Like You're not you're not wrong or broken if you haven't got the willpower and the discipline to not eat the thing when it's there in front of you, when you're already hungry, when you're already in an emotionally drained state. Like, I would say the vast majority of people would would give in to that temptation in that environment. Like the people that don't are complete outliers. And they probably have different struggles as a result of that. I agree fully and I think that's where the the non-negotiables and the promises really play a big part and and I got them for myself is that if I haven't had a meal on time or if I haven't, you know, whatever whatever's happened that I I skipped a meal and I'm absolutely ravenous or so bit later than usual, my absolute non-negotiable is I do not go for chocolate, I do not go for biscuits, I do not go for a piece of jam on toast, because quite frankly, I would need the whole loaf, the whole bar. Whole pack of biscuits. Maybe even touch the surface. So it's it's not that I know that's a risky territory. So I'm just not going to do it. My promise to myself in that situation is I'm going to have something that is just low, low in calorie, can fill the gap, like a rice cake, like maybe ⁓ a Lindell protein yogurt, probably about it, maybe an an apple, something like that that fills that gap. But outside of that, That that promise I can heat myself, I'm not going to to venture into anything else. You're not relying on willpower in that moment to bail you out when you haven't eaten something that's filled you at a different time of day, and then expecting yourself to be able to say no to the chocolate when you're presented with it. And you're not expecting to have enough discipline in that moment to decide, yeah, I'm gonna go for the apple instead. What you're saying is I'm gonna. Get ahead of myself and use my discipline effectively. And that discipline is going to structure my meals for the day. It's going to make sure that my meals are filling. It's going to make sure that I've got good food sources that are going to leave me feeling like I'm getting all my nutrients in and leave me feeling like I'm not going to be hungry all day. And then as a result, this snacking. Problem, this need to rely on willpower and discipline to bail me out isn't even going to be a problem in the first place. And on top of that, to add further benefit, I can then enjoy some of the things that I want to enjoy, like the bit of chocolate I would have snacked on if I if I skipped all my meals. I can enjoy that intentionally with a more controlled portion size and a more controlled serving size that fits in my calories, that doesn't change my body composition negatively. And feel like I'm doing that in a completely controlled state. And in a positive state. And a state that's going to feed positivity in your mind. Not a state that's gonna tell you that you're failing, that you've got no willpower, that you're not disciplined, that you can't control yourself. They're completely different environments. And it's really important that you protect the environment that you have these foods in, because that's the narrative that you're telling yourself. And if that's the environment you live in the vast majority of the time, then the odd few occasions where you slip up, you lose a tiny bit of structure, there's not enough willpower to draw upon, and you're just feeling a little bit ill-disciplined, a little bit naughty on that day, they have less impact because the vast majority of time you are consistent, you have got the structures in place, you're not relying on yourself to bail yourself out when you're you're in a really compromised position. So in this podcast, we have discussed two very common but by no means easy scenarios. We have discussed how to manage weight plateauing, whether the weight is actually plateaued or not, and how and Katie explained how she would work out whether this client is actually in enough of a calorie deficit or not to see continual weight loss. I described how I would. help to resolve a snacking issue. When an individual feels like their hunger levels are getting a little bit out of control, there's an increased amount of cravings towards more palatable foods and they feel like their habits are slipping when it comes to being able to manage control over over snacking. Now, if any of those scenarios jump out at you and you have experienced those scenarios and you struggle to manage them on your own, first and foremost, do not be alarmed by this because they are very tricky. Many of the points that we've raised in this podcast will help you to get better understanding over what to do if your weight is plateauing and you're feeling confused and frustrated by it and you feel like you're doing all you can be doing, but you might be missing something. There will also be things you can take away from the snacking section to help to structure your day and structure yourself so that you're not as likely to reach out for snacks, or what you can do to potentially mitigate some of the damage from snacking if you do have a moment of call it weakness, call it a lack of willpower. And like many of our members who've listened to podcasts just like this one, who've read all the social media posts, who've watched all the YouTube videos, who've even read books on this stuff, knowing how to do it and applying it. Are two different struggles. Knowledge may not be enough, and awareness may not be enough in itself to solve the issue. Because knowing what to do with something and theoretically how to do it is not the same as putting it into practice and acting upon it. If you would like either of our help to start applying. If you'd like either of our help. to be able to have problems broken down into a step-by-step procedure to remove the decision making from them so you don't feel overwhelmed trying to figure out what's going wrong, how do I change this, what do I change first? Then head to the description. Fill in the inquiry form. It'll only take a couple of minutes. You can arrange a free call with one of us with zero pressure, zero obligation. Have a chat to us about your goals. Have a chat to us about what you're struggling with. And we'll be able to tell you openly and honestly if we can provide an approach. If we can provide one to one guidance and support. To help you to overcome this problem. really enjoyed chatting about these today, actually, Sean. I've really enjoyed ⁓ the conversations we've had about the two different client scenarios. They have been very nutrition focused this week, which is great because it's a b nutrition is one of the major players in the game, right? That a lot of people struggle with. But next week I think it'd be great if we come back and chat about two scenarios that revolve around training and grill each other over those. So I'm gonna get my thinking cap on for next week about what I can grill you over with training. And perhaps a scenario though, maybe I know. Cause I know you can talk about training all day long. Every day, right? Until literally it's your absolute passion. So I'm gonna have to think of a scenario that's going to challenge you. But also mean we won't be here until next ⁓ next summer as well. ⁓ god, that sounds more challenging than thinking of a scenario is gonna challenge me. I think so, I think so. So that is all for this one. But we will be back next week with two training scenarios. we share our coaching knowledge, our experience and expertise with you so that any tough tricky spots in your training, you have a better awareness of overcoming. Didn't like that ending. Mm. I don't know how to end this one then. What are you gonna throw at me this time, Katie? Who knows? All will be revealed next week. Hope you enjoyed this episode, guys. See you next time.