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Wanting to Look Better Isn’t Vain (The Truth About Aesthetic Goals) · Beyond Fat Loss

• Katie & Sean Darlow: Welcome to the Beyond Fat Loss podcast. Where we don't just stop at fat loss, you 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, Shaun and Katie, and today we're going to remove some of the stigmas about having ascetic goals. We're going to be sharing our opinion on why wanting to look better is nothing to be ashamed of, and why wanting to be in better shape doesn't immediately make you vain or self-centered. We've both battled with ourselves over the years about whether chasing aesthetic goals are good or not, whether we're doing them for the right reasons or not. and it's probably held us back from achieving the results we really wanted. At the end of this episode, you'll understand why having an aesthetic goal is no less valid than any other goal, nor does it make you any worse as a person for chasing that type of goal. If you enjoy this podcast and would like to show your support, please leave us a like or comment and subscribe on whatever platform you're listening on. We'd also love to connect with you on social media. We're active every single day. Pop us a follow on our Instagram or Facebook profiles below. So Katie, let's talk aesthetic goals. Okay. Have you ever had any negative thoughts about wanting to look a certain do I begin ⁓ this one then? That's Well, I feel that's a hefty question. I imagine people listening to this. Did you feel the weight of that question? ⁓ I feel the weight of that question. And I certainly felt it for ⁓ years years at one time, I would say. I think for me, ⁓ from story anyway, from my background. from a teenager really. I'd always wanted to lose body fat. I'd done that successfully in a very short space of time, maintained that for a while. But then that wasn't quite enough. It wasn't really the end image I had in mind for myself. I just wanted more. I wanted something different than just losing body fat. and not that that isn't a great achievement alone, wanted more for myself. But I guess I used to feel embarrassed for ⁓ to chase that goal further and take it to the next level. There was likely a lack of self-belief there too. Like, could I do it? Is it possible? Would I even be able to first admit that's what I want to even get to the end goal? And secondly, a lack of capability. How was I going to do it? Would I be able to get there? How is that going to look different to what I'm doing already? So it kind of falls hand in hand with the self-belief. You haven't had experience of doing it or you haven't been shown how to do it. Then it was going to be hard for you to believe that you were capable of doing it. You took us back to your teenagers. It's quite common for anybody that early on in their journey to not fully know where they want to go with things and what they want to achieve. So I don't think you should be too hard on yourself for that because it's good to try things and then you kind of figure it out as you go. You've got your whole lifetime to work out what you really want to put your time and effort into when it comes to training, right? Yeah, for sure. Because of how well I know you, know that this was also something which you had to tackle into your 20s then as well. So it wasn't just your teenagers. We're talking like nearly 10 years later. You still felt like you had physique goals and physique aspirations, but... You weren't able to fully buy into that process. Yeah, I fully committed to it. I think it's the best way, isn't it? I'm kind of putting the spotlight on you here, but tell us a little bit more about that. So fast forward 10 years or so to your mid 20s. Did that feeling go away? Had you solved that problem by that stage? I think I was edging closer to it, but yet still felt really far away from it. I think is the best way I can describe that because there was still many actions that I was doing regularly that was, or I least was convincing myself, I was getting closer to the end goal that I wanted to get to. But yet still, we're chasing other goals in other areas. And I think... It took a while for me to... admit to myself and admit out loud. But actually, I do want to go all in on physicals and I'd like to see what I'm capable of and how far I can take that. And when I say how far I can take that, I don't mean bodybuilding, I don't mean jumping on stage. I just mean what I'm capable of achieving. in my body and what I want and what I want to look like on a regular basis, not for a particular end point, if that makes sense. And I know I ⁓ for ⁓ I it's possible and other people are doing it. I just wasn't brave enough to admit that's I wanted. probably for many of the reasons that we're going to discuss as we go through this podcast today. So this is a lot more of an open discussion and it's going to be interesting to unpack some of the psychology, our own psychology, some of the things that we've heard from others over the years, because I think this holds a lot of people back from really buying into the physical side of transformation, the aesthetic side of transformation. When we say being in shape, This is what we're to talk about for this podcast. Like a lot of people might have their own interpretations of being in shape. You you might class your fitness levels and things as part of that. for the sake of this conversation, when we're talking about being in shape, we're talking about having the best physique that you can have. It's the physique that you want to have, what you want to look like in your head. And like Katie said, having that day to day as well, not just particular events or particular timeframes. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but we're looking at something that most people would like to achieve for most of their time in terms of aesthetic appearance. Yeah, I agree. You're absolutely right. There's going to be a lot to unpack. And I kind of had to hold back on having a word vomit then, think, but I was just going to spiral loads and loads of stuff out. You'll have your time. ⁓ I know, I think plenty to talk about. sure, for sure. And I think it's something important you said there, Sean was obviously with what for purpose of this podcast, we're talking about that kind of image that we probably all have in our head that we'd like to achieve and aim towards. I think that sometimes can be separated and completely separated from other areas of health and fitness. in terms of being fit, being healthy, but actually, and I think as we go through this podcast, it'll come to your light that actually a lot of the actions required to get those as equals align with a lot of other health and fitness goals as well. Yeah, it doesn't always have to be one or the other. definitely doesn't need to be black and white. I think it can be seen as quite black and white a lot the time in health and fitness and by a lot of ⁓ general too. Phil then Sean, I think I'd like to flip this question back to you. Tell me a little bit about any negative thoughts you may have experienced or thought about when it comes to looking a certain way. Similarly to you, think I can break my experience into two different sections of my life. teenagers were absolutely riddled with insecurities. And I think when I first started training, it was almost like there was a large part of me that wanted to share the fact that I was doing the training because I wanted some acknowledgement. I wanted some admiration for doing it. But I wasn't confident enough to go and do that in public. So. My early years of training was just a set of weights and dumbbells and stuff in my bedroom. And I kind of hid it away from everyone. And that was probably because I didn't want to be embarrassed by, well, I guess the capability side of things like you mentioned, like was I doing this stuff properly? secondly, ⁓ felt embarrassed for having those aesthetic goals because it almost exposed my insecurities with myself and with my own body. After a while, I kind of started training a bit more publicly. There was a performance element to that as well me playing rugby at the time. I got quite settled into my routine of going to the gym and I really enjoyed it. I took more away from it than just the physical side of the transformation, but ⁓ was absolutely obsessed with that physical appearance side of things. was, even when I was training slightly more for performance, it was always on my mind that I didn't want to sacrifice the physical appearance for the performance elements. I found that quite difficult. So I got comfortable with wanting aesthetic goals. And as I started going to gym, I realized that there were more people that also were training for aesthetic goals. So I felt like I found a space for me where I could be myself. But the more time I spent in the gym and the more I started seeing people that were further ahead of me in their journeys, then I started to feel embarrassed again. So it kind of flip-flopped because I think it triggered a bit more of my body dysmorphia. I think... those insecurities I started with. They kind of got exposed and highlighted then when I got into the gym space. Because I was looking at other people and I was thinking, God, how many years are going to take me to look like them? How much would I have to train? How much time am I going to have to put into this? Am I capable of doing that? Is my diet good enough? Is my training good enough? Am I training enough? So all that kind of stuff then me feel a bit more embarrassed because I was like, well, I want to look like that, but I'm no when you're there. It's going to take me really long to get there. I'm not sure if I'm to be capable of that. It was as if you actually managed to, whether you were aware of kind of the body dysmorphia you had at a younger age, it was as if that was kind of put to bed when you started taking control of certain elements of your life, you know, training at home with dumbbells, looking after your diet, etc. But when you go off to the gym, that wound was kind of reopened again because you were exposed to... other people with different bodies, training experience, etc. Not initially, but I think when I started training in the gym, at first, you go in with that youthful exuberance and enthusiasm, you think that everything's going to happen for you really quickly. And if you do any sort of reading about training, you'll know that as a beginner, get your best results early on, especially in terms of strength. Muscle, yes, maybe after the first sort of six months or so, or three to six months of training, depending on how well you're doing it. The muscle gains come slightly after the strength gains, but eventually it all leads to the same sort of destination. You're gonna get stronger, you're gonna get bigger, you're gonna grow more muscle. And you know that you're to get that in those early years of training. So I think you already go into it with an expectation of, I'm going to do amazing at this. I'm going do amazing at this. I'm going to build a body really quickly. I think when you're met with the reality that you might get really, really fast muscle growth in your early year relative to every other year of your training journey, but then that year is still only going to take you a very small fraction of the way. I think when that realization finally hits, like it did for me, that's where you start to then experience that bit more self-doubt again. It's like, wow, I've... These are my best possible results that I can get in a year and I've only got this far. But the reality was I was also not doing a lot of things very well and I just didn't realize it at the time. start to learn more you realize that actually there's a heck of a lot out there to know, isn't there? ⁓ And when you start anything, I can speak for myself here and you first do your first PT course, you're like, ⁓ I'm on for this. I know so much about it. the more research you do, the more you start learning, the more courses you do, you actually think, wow, there's a lot more for me to know here. And that self-doubt made me feel a bit more ashamed and a bit more embarrassed to admit that I really wanted this physique result. Because I felt like people would look down on me for having that goal when I was so far away from having it. So I kind of put myself in a bit of a box, I think, with that. makes sense and I can relate to that. Perhaps slightly different reasons or a slightly different angle, I think I didn't want to be... judged for wanting to change my appearance, guess, my body image, even though I really wanted it myself. So yeah, I can relate to that. I think it's gonna be important for us to chat about this because obviously both of us have had experiences with this and struggled with it for many years. But it's not just us, is it that they're struggling with this? of our clients that we worked with, people we've spoken with on ⁓ media, ⁓ the gym, et cetera, also have negative or struggle to admit that's the goal they want and go all in on it for. various different reasons, It is a struggle for many, I think. A lot of it is internal. It's kind of like internal messaging and it's the stuff that we tell ourselves. I absolutely agree. Couldn't agree more with that point. But I also think that there is a large element of judgmental comments being sent your direction and external, I guess, comments being passed your way. It's what those external comments do. to then your internal thoughts sometimes, isn't it? Yeah, it of your internal thoughts. If you've got a bias forming in your head or you've got a lack of self-belief and then you hear a few other people around you kind of running the thing down that you're most interested in, you're probably going to then go along with that opinion a little bit more. your a little maybe. Yeah, certain types of characters, certainly so. Were you met with any particular impressions about having physique goals when you started focusing on this in your training KT? think it was even before starting putting a major focus on it because it was these impressions that I guess held me back for years wanting to just go, do know what, I'm all in. Of course, yeah. There's a couple of things that spring to mind. Things like, oh, you don't want to be too obsessive. You don't want look like a body or a lido. It's not healthy. It's not healthy to chase that. It's not functional to just lift weights. potentially even seen as... They're a few that spring to my mind and I think we can, you know, pick those apart a little bit more in a moment. what about you, Sean? Any other ones you'd add to that? You're being selfish by having this as a goal. vain. You don't want to be vain. very ego driven, you only care about your looks. I think some of the those are some of the comments which come to mind when I think of what I heard many different sources whilst I was in my early years. Yeah, have to agree with those ones as well, actually. Let's go into some of those. Let's debunk some of those because I'm sure a lot of the listeners would have been exposed to these types of comments as well. Are they even true? Where have they stemmed from? Where have they come from? Can we really say are people training to look good, have these traits or are striving for those outcomes? I mean, how can we say that? How can we say that every single person shares all those same traits, selfishness, ego-driven? Obsessive. I'm sure you could find ⁓ good examples of people that you know that are in good shape that are family people, they do maybe ⁓ in their community, their job is very service-based where they're serving others. They keep up good friendships, they keep up good relationships. and they still have a very impressive physique to look at. I think it's really unfair to say that all people that have that goal can be given these labels and these traits. Yeah, I agree fully. It's just one element and one part of a person's life and their choices. Because they choose to chase a zika for example, doesn't mean that they're not caring, supportive, giving in any other areas of their life. Obsessive is just an opinion, in my opinion. Here we are. like it. A great way to put it. It just an opinion. Like, I have to say, I think that having to go to the pub every single Saturday because there's sport on ⁓ or that's what you do is an obsessive behaviour. Not being able to unwind unless you've got some form of alcohol on the weekends is to me an obsessive behaviour. I think that... or humans have a tendency to slip into certain habits and routines and patterns, how do you determine whether an obsessive behaviour is good or bad? Very good point and I think that's where it's important to reflect on because it's whether those actions that are being seen as obsessive, they contributing to negative thoughts, negative outcomes, are they impacting the people around you in a negative way and let's be real. could do. Being with going to the gym, being obsessed with your nutrition, being obsessed with getting everything absolutely spot on. That could be an obsession that ends up going in the wrong direction and impacting not just you mentally and physically, but also the people around you that you care about, you love and want in your life. That could be, right? But that's a ⁓ very case. scenario where that can happen and that still can be dialed back even if that happens terms of making that more of a healthier relationship with those elements then. don't think obsession can just exist on A good or bad skill it's either one or the other. ⁓ you can have slightly more obsessive behaviors or slightly less obsessive you can obsess over something a bit more. or a bit less, but like you correctly identified, Katie, this can be dialed back a little bit if it goes too far. I think... When we think of obsession, does have a negative connotation because it probably means that we're fixing on it or fixating on it a little bit more than perhaps we should do. And it might be taking us away from other areas of life. It might be something that's preventing us from being productive in work. It might be taking time away from our relationships. It might be making us very irritable if we can't do the thing that we've got on our minds. I fully agree that there probably is more of a negative side to being obsessed with something than a positive side, but you can easily make a case for a small bit of obsession that's well managed could lead to incredibly successful results. I fully agree with you there. And I think it's important for you as an individual ⁓ understand your personality traits around this. because they're naturally, like you said earlier, Sean, I think we all have some sort of obsessive tendencies for certain things, there are some individuals that have more of an addictive personality and can get fixated on things a lot easier than others. And I think as an individual, it's ⁓ to us to kind of be aware of those. and then understand how we channel that behavior into a positive experience or positive habits that are going to serve us. Because if you are an individual that does get quite fixated on things, does get quite addicted to certain things, then that can easily be into something that's really negative ⁓ your ⁓ and your well-being, such as gambling, I'm going to say gaming, right? could be that, it could be anything, it could be the if to an extreme, if it's not, if it's taken to its absolute extremes, like anything though, right? Extremes, we don't want to be on extremes, we want to find our middle ground, whatever that is. And again, we change for each person. But I think ⁓ if are a person that does struggle with and find that you have more obsessive traits, then try not to punish for that and see... take the positives from it and channel it into something that is going to benefit your wellbeing, benefit the goals that you want to achieve and the life that you want to live because it can be channeled into those habits as well. Not all people that chase a physical result are obsessive about it and they don't all neglect responsibilities in other areas of their life in order to obtain it. So this is a Again, a label that needs to be taken into context. If you are the partner or a family member or a friend of somebody that has slightly more obsessive tendencies towards getting in shape, then be supportive of them. Try and understand where they're coming from. Try and understand what the underlying emotions are that driving them to want to achieve this result so badly. think having a bit more understanding is never a bad idea with this. So find the time and space to have a bit more of a conversation with those individuals and highlight that. But again, it's a case by case basis. We should not be giving everyone that is trying to get leaner and build muscle the label of being obsessive. fully. Let's talk about the selfish angle because it's very related. in the same vein that being obsessive can sometimes be seen as selfish. we can't say that everyone that's for good or training to look good is a selfish person either. No, where has that come from, right? Because... Training and eating healthy can have a ripple effect on so many other areas of your life. At what point did that become then seen as a selfish habit or trait to have as part of your life, when... when there are other things people can do to themselves look good cosmetically, hairs, claws, etc. But I don't think I ever really hear anyone say those are selfish habits to have or they're selfish because they've gone and had their hair done or cosmetic treatment. Or nails done or got a tattoo or where do we draw the line with these things? Where do we draw the line? Because you'll hear a lot of people speak very positively about, it's your body, it's your choice to do what you want with it. If you want to have tattoos and you want to have the sins, don't rush into those decisions. Take your time, make sure that's what you really want, et cetera, et cetera, all that. there's a lot of portions of society that are very pro, you do what makes you feel good. You do what makes you feel good in yourself. but in the same vein, some of these people are criticizing those that go to gym on a regular basis and calling them obsessive and selfish. They're just doing the same as what these other people are doing. We're all trying to make ourselves feel good about ourselves and doing what we enjoy. It's another method to do that, right? It's another way to, in your eyes, in your opinion, make yourself feel good, make yourself more attractive, make yourself look good, whatever it may be, it's another method to do that. I think... rather than. to put a politely shitting on someone for that. It's about... recognizing the good that they're doing for themselves and praising them for that. Yeah, there's a lot to be said for saying, it's not necessarily what I like or it's not necessarily what I want, but good for you. If you enjoy it, go and enjoy it. There's a lot to be said for that. I agree. I agree fully. think everyone's always going to want to live their lives differently, have different goals. but just being an individual that can seek to understand someone, hold back your judgment if it doesn't align with what you want, but just accept people for who they are and what they want to achieve, then it'll be a much happier place to live in and much nicer world to live in, right? But let's chat about some of the claims like, it's not healthy, it's not functional. Because they're quite bold claims that chasing physicals, lifting weights to build muscle are actually detrimental really to your well-being and health. I think it's pretty easy to put these ones to bed. Again, this is where I think. people's minds go to the most extreme ends of the scale, like extreme bodybuilding levels of physique transformation. There are many, elite level bodybuilders that will acknowledge that their pursuits ⁓ bodybuilding competitions are not necessarily healthy behaviors. They're doing things for a very specific result, for a very specific ⁓ timeframe. This isn't what their whole is meant to ⁓ It's something that they're doing for a of their life as a challenge and as an accomplishment. It's important to note that. But for the majority of the population, the overwhelming majority of the population, we're not bodybuilders. We're not going to take it as far as doing a contest prep and jumping on stage with. Quite frankly, unhealthy levels of body fat for most people to sustain all year round. We're not doing that. What those bodybuilders are setting out to achieve is they're trying to win a competition. It's a sporting event. It's a challenge, like you said, Sean. And a lot of them will still try and do it in the most healthy way possible for them in those circumstances too. But it's like any other sporting competition, right? People in the Olympics, whatever sport they're in, some of the methods and protocols they'll have to follow to get themselves to a level of performance that is elite. That's not necessarily what their everyday is going to look like outside of prep for that. I think bodybuilding doesn't get that same respect. I can certainly say I didn't used to give it that same respect. I'll see it as a, I guess, a sport that takes preparation, commitment, discipline to become elite in that area. But they are the extremes. They are taking the human body to the levels of absolute maximum capacity. You're pushing it to see what that body, that human can achieve. That's not necessarily everyday living. That's not necessarily general population goals. You could actually make a very strong case for saying that it's far less healthy to have no muscle mass or to carry very high levels of body fat. So the individuals that... have a goal of losing body fat and building muscle likely going to be healthier than those that don't have that goal. I fully agree with you, Sean. I fully agree. And I think this element is quite often overlooked. when it comes to our set of goals, because everyone drones in on that final end result, whatever that is in their mind, or what they think people are working towards, without actually acknowledging what's done on a day to day basis to actually get them to that end goal. And like you said, that is increasing your muscle mass, lowering your body fat, and you decide what extreme you take that to, where you take that right. The reality is most people are going to end up taking themselves on a position of potentially overweight. potentially carrying bit too much body fat to a place where they're in a really good place for their health. They carry more muscle mass. They're carrying less body fat overall. The actions you have to take to get there and the behaviours you have to take are going to be more healthy for you. training on a regular basis, moving more daily, any additional cardio you do along the way. I mean, you can't get in shape without having a healthy diet. It just doesn't work. And having a healthy diet is going to be a sustainable habit that you can keep up for the rest of your life. It's like what we've talked in some of the past podcasts, right? It's that foundation of habits that are in place. They're there all the time. It's just that perhaps when you've got physique goals, there'll be certain frames of the year where you just dial those into a little bit more accuracy, a little bit more restriction to drive specific results. But actually, the foundations of body composition change are going to be building more muscle mass, spending more time fueling that correctly, which are all healthy habits, right? Don't assume that ⁓ everyone wants to improve how they look wants to be a bodybuilder. and go to those extreme levels. Don't assume that. And it's only at the utmost extreme levels that it is unhealthy. And just to cover bodybuilders, because as we've said, we've got a hell of a lot of respect for what they do. A lot of them will prioritize getting back to a healthy place after they've pushed themselves to those extremes either. They're very aware of what they're doing and they will prioritize getting themselves back to a sustainable, healthy level afterwards. They're monitoring their health and their markers very closely, even when they're in those extreme elements. those extreme periods of their life when they get close to competition. These individuals are very, very aware of that. like said, bring themselves back to a more baseline state afterwards. I think put the, it's not healthy to bed there, to be honest. But the other one that gets shouted about a lot is it's not functional. And I've heard this time and time again for many, different reasons. And I feel it. I think you have to, Shaun, that I am getting from you right now. Take the floor. I've got to be careful here because I could go off on this one right but I mean just sense. Your muscles are attached to your bones. When those muscles contract it moves your limbs around, it moves your body around. All we're doing when we're lifting weights is more resistance to move those limbs to cause those muscles to contract with more force to move your limbs. All the actions that we do in the gym. A lot of them are actions that we would do in day-to-day life. We're just training the muscles a little bit more intensively than what we do in day-to-day life and progressing that over time. To say that some of the movements that you do in the gym to get in shape are not functional. It's just absolute bullshit. I have to say it is. Like, as if, if somebody couldn't bend their arms, or somebody couldn't bend their legs properly, or somebody couldn't put their arm up above their head, then that would be deemed as dysfunctional. But performing those exercises in the gym to those actions because they build a bit of muscle isn't functional. We should all be moving our bodies a certain way based on a certain exercise prescription normally provided by some sort of functional fitness coach. It's just such a poor narrative and it's just such a poor argument. Well said, sir. Well said. I need to stop saying I couldn't agree more, but it's hard because every point you're saying, I'm like, yep, I agree. But I do agree, right? It's like, gonna find it hard not to say that in this episode. Your body moves every day many different functions and through different movements that you've got to do. Whether that's cleaning your house, going shopping, picking up your kids, going for a walk, whatever it may be. To able to perform those well, to be able to perform them without fatiguing easily, you want to have muscles that are strong, resilient, are able to go through full ranges of motion. And that's achieved through lifting weights, right? That's achieved through lifting weights. That's not achieved solely by doing stretching every day or... I don't even know what other wild functional claims there are, Yoga flows and Pilates and full body movements. All the weird and wonderful things we see with the kettlebell that seem to be better for more optimized human movements than... doing traditional bodybuilding style exercises. It's rubbish. Yeah, it's a claim that these things are more optimal. It's how. How are they more optimal? All of those things could serve a purpose in someone's fitness regime. Yeah, they're more optimal if you like training with kettlebells and don't like going to a gym and lifting normal weights. But bodybuilding by... bodybuilding training by nature is functional. You are literally making your body stronger. you're giving it more muscle mass so that it can function and function well on a day-to-day basis. The only time where it can be less functional is again at extreme levels. So for example, if you're a marathon runner who's got an obsession with lifting weights, I'm just laughing as I'm saying this. you're a marathon runner who's got an obsession with lifting weights ⁓ you want to try and get your marathon times down, it probably doesn't serve you that well in terms of your function to gain 10 kilograms of muscle mass. Come on, you're going to weigh more, you're going to be slower. But you can make a case for there are many people that run marathons that are a bit heavier and do carry more muscle mass. They're just perhaps not going to get their most competitive times against elite level marathon runners. So you sacrifice a little bit in terms of your levels of performance in order to have a little bit of the muscle building element and the more static element. the most elite and extreme ⁓ marathon runners are trying to compete for, you know, world record elite level times. Most people aren't interested. So you'd have to go quite far along that process in order to be less functional at that particular, that particular exercise. It's like, we just imagine that The thing that I imagine right, is I imagine one day I'm going to get on a plane where I'm flying somewhere on holiday and I'm sat next to a 130 kilogram bodybuilder who's off season. I just imagine this enormous ⁓ of a person trying to get onto the plane, get down that aisle, scoot across those seats. He's got the window seat, so he's kind of like squeezing his way in. If this was you, you'd be sweating now, right? I have a hard time doing that. I'm not the biggest guy in the world, but I have a hard time doing it six foot, 92 kilos. I find those environments quite restrained and quite confined. Somewhere there is this guy and again, I say guy, but you can get some absolutely enormous female bodybuilders as well. ⁓ And just thinking, yeah, that might be the point where I'm thinking maybe this is less functional for my day to day life. But that is such an extreme. Like is such, such an extreme. Like things like being able to move, being able to run, being able to jump and stuff. has to go so far the other way of building mass to get to the point where you still can't do that stuff. There are plenty of people that don't train at all that absolutely cannot do any of that stuff as well. So you've got a better chance of being able to do some of that stuff if you have a little bit more muscle mass and you've been training for aesthetic purposes and you've built some muscle than if you don't do any training at all. Again, it's the angle you said, right? It's the extremes, but there's also the the mindset of because you're training to build muscle that you neglect. function and other areas, you still have your warmups where you're doing mobility before you're going into your full session, right? You're still going to be exposed to cardio training. Like, it's that you don't take off all other areas either. It's not like you just, you know, bicep curl for days and that's it. Like, it's not the case. It's against, it's not being black and white with these approaches. It's carrying a really high level of body fat functional. no, it's not, ⁓ It's not as functional as carrying lower levels of body fat. So wanting be leaner and wanting to look leaner and wanting to look trimmer, more defined, more whatever term you put on it for an aesthetic purpose, it's more functional than carrying way too much body fat. So again, we put the... wanting to train for aesthetics isn't functional to bed because from a muscle building perspective, from a losing body fat perspective, it is more functional. Let's talk a little about social media, Do you think social media has contributed to this in a negative way? Yes, I think so. I can say that with a very high degree of confidence and I think social media has... has really exposed a lot of people's insecurities about either wanting to get in shape Their insecurities about seeing other people in shape. We're just frequently exposed to other bodies now. in our day-to-day space and often bodies which are quite unusual to see in everyday life. wouldn't see people looking like that just walking around your local area. You wouldn't see many people like that in your local gym, but we can guarantee that every day you go online, you're probably going to, if you follow just a few accounts, you'll see people. on your feed every single day that are in very, very, very good shape. So I think that can be quite triggering to a lot of people. And I think, again, we're just getting exposed to that extreme example more often than what we would actually see in reality if we weren't on social media. Yeah, that's a very good point. Very good point. And it can trigger then. Yeah, it really can trigger those negative thoughts in your mind, can't it? Comparing yourself to XYZ on the internet, when it's a snapshot of they look like. It can make you feel a little bit more self-conscious. It's a highlight as well, isn't it? Because it's a highlight of their aesthetic prowess when you see that image online. All these things can be manipulated for a start and we're not saying that everyone edits their profile pictures or sorry, their progress pictures. We're not saying that it's always done with good posing in mind and the best lighting. We're not, we're not saying that and you, you've got to have something to show that side of things anyway in the first place. I fully agree. But It's very glamorized online, isn't it? It's very, very well done, let's say, to put it into that space. It's a highlight. It's a highlight and good lighting, good photography can make a decent ship look absolutely insane. And even through our natural eyesight on a day-to-day basis, we wouldn't even see what is often captured by camera. And I think that's important to note. It's not that the camera is necessarily not capturing what's in front of the camera, it's that the lighting, the editing can enhance it quite considerably compared to what the human eye can see. And that can lead to unrealistic expectations, comparing where you're at or where you're at to this image seen online and et cetera. ⁓ And can be quite damaging, I think. I agree and we could probably go into a whole podcast on social media itself, but even before social media. there was still a lot of image focused. material and media getting put out to the general public. For example, we had women's health magazines, had bodybuilding magazines. even just your average day to day. JT Daily magazine, what's another JT magazine? All of these presented us with quite extreme images. mean, if we look at the modeling industry, this contributed to a lot of image obsessive behavior. I've coached a number of women over the years who have been influenced by wanting to look like models in magazines. And then years later on, it ⁓ gets exposed these models were basically starving themselves for days ⁓ to have do a photo shoot. Some of were fainting on set. and things in order to try and get this shot. Hollywood actors for movies will dehydrate themselves considerably before going on set for one particular scene in a film. And we see that and we go, ⁓ my God, yeah, they look incredible. I want to look like that. And it's like the protocols that they've had to go through for that shot are so rigorous. they don't look like that day to day. They don't even look like that a couple of hours, maybe even minutes after doing that shot. We have to be so careful with what we see in the media and how we allow that to influence our impressions of getting in shape. That's key, isn't it? We're not gonna be able to switch off all of that because it's there. It's gonna always be there. There might be a little bit different trend on what's supposedly what people should look like, X, Y, Z, but it's reflecting on what you see and reminding yourself that is a picture perfect image. If you've seen that person live in front of you in that moment, you probably have a different image imprinted in your brain. So it's trying to take them with a bit of pinch of salt. so that those negative thoughts don't ripple into your life in a negative way. think humans have always been a bit image obsessed. I think we can look back to history of this in terms of how certain members of society back when class systems were more obvious, they would dress a certain way. They would wear certain clothing. I think we all have an image in mind of what we want people to see us for. And we want people to see us for who we think we are. Things like how we dress, things like how our body shapes look. That's all a part of the image we want to portray to others. quite natural for you to want to present yourself in a certain way. So I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of, providing that, as we mentioned earlier, it's not taken away from other areas of your life and it's upsetting other people around you. It doesn't matter if it upsets somebody else online that doesn't know you, they're gonna judge you anyway. But the people that you care about and the people that are closest to you, they're the ones that you want to be most concerned with about how habits, your behaviors are affecting them on your quest to look a certain way. But think we've all, I think. There's a part of all of us that wants to look a certain way and to be seen to be, I don't know, for want of a better word, more attractive to others to be... seen as we think we want to look. quite simply, who doesn't want to look and feel good? That's different in everyone's eyes. Who doesn't want that? I don't think there's many people that don't want it. It's just some people are more hungry and driven to want to do the changes to get to that position. When can being shape? be used negatively. So let's balance the argument because. We've provided counter arguments to all the criticisms that have been made of people that want to train for aesthetic purposes. We should also consider where perhaps some individuals have this for personal gain or to their own advantage. just so that we can be aware of where some of these criticisms may have stemmed from. Because they've come from somewhere, right, these criticisms. And again, it's trying not to tarnish everyone with the same brush, but also being aware that... there can be people out there that potentially use body image for their own personal gain. That could be things like... You know, I've got. six pack, a heady body, I'm to put myself on a big leaflet and say that this supplement made me burn through body fat without having to worry about my diet or whatever it may be, whoever both claim. That's when body image, because it is a, you know, an image that's been sold as attractive as both people want, that's where it can be very misleading and not only set people up for failure, but also make that person gain profitably from it financially. Selling supplements, selling certain training programs. my 30 day ab program, do this for your six pack abs. It's like, you've got to be kidding me. And you're doing like 200 sit ups a day for a month. All right, you might get abs of steel, but you're not going to reveal those if you don't know how to drop body fat. right? So it's, and I don't want to overgeneralize here, but many I've fallen for these in the past, right? I think I can say this from personal experience. And I bought a lot of supplements for things that didn't do anything. Most people will generally look for something that is going to help them fix a problem or an insecurity or challenge that they're currently facing and can be misled quite easily. Got to ask yourself. Who's really gaining from this? really gaining from this? Is it you or is it them? In a lot of cases, you're not going to gain that much, but they seek to gain a lot more. But do you really think that this could be done without having a good diet or? just by training on this program for six to eight weeks or 30 days when there are people that dedicate 20 to 30 years of training and eating healthily to get a particular body result? Do you really think you're gonna look like the cover model or the magazine cover the person on the that you see online in six to eight weeks? I think it's... I don't want to blame the consumer here, right? Because I think it's just so wrong these things are out there in the first place. But we have to protect ourselves from this. As consumers, and I say we because I have bought the supplements in the past as well. God, what have I bought? I'm trying to think now. Like ⁓ were one for many, many years, buying BCAA tablets, PCAA powder. it's going to help me build more muscle. and I was eating like 250 grams of protein a day. Like, I don't need BCAAs, we don't need that. It's our responsibility to before we this stuff and not fall to these scams. Which I think there's less of nowadays, but they are still out there. ⁓ They're definitely out there. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. But it's really sad that there are people utilising body image. to profitably at the expense of other people. I really don't like it. I like it either. It does happen, right? And again, I have to say it because ⁓ it come up a lot online. There are a lot of people in the fitness industry, lot of coaches, lot of trainers that are taking steroids and not openly admitting they are as well. And they're using their bodies and they're using their accomplishments their billboard really for marketing. And it's false marketing then isn't it? It's false advertising, it's very misleading. And again, if someone wants to use steroids, that's their call. Same with weight loss injections, that's their call. But if you were going to market yourself to make from other people. then transparency is extremely important and how you got to that result. Yeah, I think have a duty of care online. If you're posting any sort of result, physical result, aesthetic result, you have a duty of care for everyone else. to be transparent about what you've done to get that result. especially if you're a fitness coach, especially if you're an online coach, selling a program, selling coaching services. And influencers, I'm sorry, because the influencers are ones that tend to make the biggest buck off affiliate marketing or sponsorship, yet may not be fully transparent on how they have either gotten to where they are or that what they're using is absolute nonsense anyway. Yeah, and I think one of the things which frustrates me a lot while we're on this topic is the fact that you're always held accountable as a coach because you work with clients that will have to validate their experience with you. Like if you do a poor job as a coach, clients that you work with and the feedback that they will give others about you is going to be negative. So Kind of what goes around comes around with that. You'll get figured out eventually if you're pulling a fast one or you're misleading people as a coach. What accountability do influencers have on that level when they're using multi-level marketing schemes, when people are using their discount codes to buy products or their viral videos are getting paid sponsorship money. They go to bed at night not worrying about it. No, no, because those 1000 comments they receive of hate and negativity on social media are actually just paying their bills because it's pushing their content out more. It's getting their content in front of more eyes and more people. At least us as coaches, whilst the industry does need a lot more regulation, our clients act as a form of regulation. And trust me, because we've taken on a lot of clients that have had really poor experiences with other coaches, they will talk about it. They will talk about it quite openly and quite honestly. So it's integral that you clear and honest about ⁓ you do to get certain results. not mislead anyone into thinking that they're gonna get a particular outcome when it comes to body transformation. in a ridiculously short space of time or with a really unrealistic method. Hopefully as the years go on we'll see less and less of this happening but I don't think it'll ever be fully gone. Unfortunately some people value being rich more than they value doing the right thing by people. If you want to avoid that stuff then you just need to find good quality sources of information. So this is your chance. on that social media, drop us a follow, make sure that you've got us in your space because We've got your best interests at heart here. Very easy to follow too. It's Katie, SKD Coaching and Sean, Coaching. I got question to ask you, Katie, because speaking of social media, you actually made a post about your embarrassment recently. I did. About wanting to get in shape. I did. I really like the way you put it on this post. So you said you used to think of getting leaner and building muscle as a less than goal. Tell me a little bit more about that. Okay. This particular course, it took me a little while to put together to get, so I could get my, I guess my point of my opinion across the right way. because there's absolutely no judgment towards else, but... I did used to consider physique goals to be less than valuable to me than other goals. Bat, and here's the big bat. The reality was, whatever goal I chased, I completed and was successful at. Nothing made up the fact I really wanted to look a certain way. doesn't replace it does it? It doesn't. It really doesn't. Not that I'm not proud of those past achievements and goals accomplished. I absolutely am. And they absolutely would have put some coins in my confidence bank and show me that I'm capable and I can do hard things and I can show up and do what I need to do to get to a certain result etc. But they didn't ever get rid of or replace my desire and want to change my body shape and change my physique. I liken this to a retired sports athlete that you hear in interviews after they've retired and they're asked about their careers and somebody will say like, you have any regrets? And you'll hear a lot of them say, No regrets, but I'm absolutely gutted that I didn't win that particular competition. I'm absolutely gutted that I didn't win this medal with my team. they can still reflect on all the other stuff really positively and be proud of their accomplishments. But it always feels like there's that one that got away. And if the one that got away is the thing that you dreamt most about. When you started that journey as a child, as a teenager, whatever age you started it, it eats away at you. It does. It plays on your mind. And you always, you always think, what if, what if. It's one of the parts of psychology that I find really interesting actually about professional athletes. Coming back to the physique space, had a very similar experience. I tried so many different things to distract myself from ⁓ aesthetic goals I really wanted to achieve. And over time, I just grew less and less invested in my training and in my goals as a result. The distractions were not fulfilling enough to me. They were not exciting enough to me because deep down, what I really wanted to do was work towards my physique goals. It's like a temporary plaster, isn't it? just then gets away and reveals the wound again. ⁓ Absolutely. on the flip side, some people try something else and they're much more passionate about that than achieving physique goals. And that's absolutely great. ⁓ Like is ⁓ absolutely If you find a facet of fitness that you are really invested and passionate about and you love it, then good on you. ⁓ Just keep that. Just keep doing that. Don't let anybody else pressure you into doing something that's not as interesting to you or not as exciting to you. I go with what you really love and what you really enjoy. There are health components to wanting to have a little bit of a balance of things, but for your real passion, for your main priority, go with what you enjoy, go with what excites you. And it's absolutely okay if that looks different to someone else because the reality is it's going to look different. It's probably going to look different to those other courses too you as well. But yeah, at this point of it being a less than goal, Katie, do you feel about that now? Honestly, I feel embarrassed now I even ever believed that it was a less than goal ⁓ the first place. It's just like that's flipped itself on its head, isn't it? I was embarrassed to have this goal initially, now I'm embarrassed to say that I felt embarrassed about that goal. ⁓ absolutely. There's absolutely ⁓ less than about setting an ambitious goal, right? Striving to it. achieving that goal and then becoming someone that you are proud of. Because I think we all put a real pressure on this end goal and forget about the stepping stones that allow us to get to that goal. They're the things that we can be proud of because it's those actions, if we don't do those actions, we'll never get to that end goal, right? And those actions are generally positive actions that are our physical, mental, social wellbeing. if obviously handled, managed appropriately. But they're all things ⁓ that are positive steps and positive additions to our life. And that shouldn't be something that you're ever embarrassed about striving for, achieving for. And I think for me, I got so, I don't know, brainwashed, got in my head that it was all about the aesthetics and the end goal and the after photo. and putting a lot of pressure on that element of it without actually zooming out and looking at the bigger picture that changing your body shape isn't just about that. It's really not just about the before and after shot. It's about the person that you become during that process, right? the challenges that you ⁓ overcome that you never thought you were capable of the habits that you build that you only dreamt of having, the standards that you raise that ⁓ are your go-to standards then are things you hold accountable to because they feel right for you. You don't grow the body you have and become the person you want to be. You grow into the person you want to be as you grow the body you want to have. I think that's the best way to ⁓ it. That probably would have been my whole post in one sentence. Just having my little Chris Williamson moment. ⁓ was spot on. It brilliant. It is that. You'll never get to that end point without becoming the person that you want. become and that when you realize that that's really empowering that gives you that confidence in the goals that you choose and what you chase. And on that note, I just want to say, where is the evidence that having aesthetic goals are less worthy of admiration, praise or recognition than other performance goals? is the evidence that... ⁓ Winning a powerlifting competition, completing a high rocks, running a marathon, doing a triathlon, doing an Ironman. are they more ⁓ of praise or recognition than somebody getting in the best shape of their lives? It all just comes down to opinion and what you value as an individual the most. You can still have respect, admiration and praise somebody for their accomplishments, if it's not in your particular area of interest or field of interest. Just saying it as it is, I could not care less about doing a high rocks. I could not care less. But if want to do a high rocks and you complete a high rocks and you feel proud of yourself about doing a high rocks, then good on you. And if you told me I'm proud of myself and complete that high rocks, I'd say, well done, good effort. I'm glad you had a good time. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Will you be doing another one? There's just nothing to be gained from pulling somebody else down about what they in terms of their goals and what they want to achieve. Like, all you're doing is driving a wedge between... people that are all just trying to make themselves feel a little bit better about what they're achieving in life? And doing things that make them feel good. You don't need to share your negative opinions on that. It doesn't mean you have to go and do the same goal or chase the same goal or have the same opinions, but you can still recognise and award people for the things that they're doing well. Give them credit where credit's deserved and recognise their accomplishments. Yeah, absolutely. Allow the other person to save face is what I'm saying here. Allow the other person to save face. If it's not your thing, that's fine. But just say it's not my thing. You might have your negative views, might have your negative impressions, but that doesn't mean that your opinion is more valuable than theirs. It doesn't mean that the things that you like and that you enjoy are more valuable than the things that they like and they enjoy. And I do get quite passionate about this stuff because... I've worked with a lot of people that have probably not committed as much to the goals that they want because of the fears of other comments from people around them. And based on the experience that I have had, when I've spoken to these individuals and I've said, who are these comments coming from? Who are these negative comments about not having a life or being too obsessive or, you know, it's a bit selfish, isn't it? Who are they coming from? And nine times out of 10, these comments seem to be coming from people that aren't in shape, that don't look at themselves, that don't lead a healthy lifestyle from a day-to-day basis. They're just trying to level the playing field a little bit. They're lashing out over the things that they're then questioning themselves over. Should I be doing that stuff? Does that make me a so-and-so person because I'm not doing it when my friend is? The takeaway from this is we shouldn't be too quick to judge a person based on their body image and the preferences for what they want their bodies to look like. Because imagine the shoe was on the other foot with that. We're all seeing the body positivity stuff going online at the moment, you know, about not beating yourself up. If you are an obese person or if you're an overweight person, don't beat yourself up. Don't keep running yourself down. You you should learn to love your body, whatever body you're in, all of that stuff. And it's a positive movement. It's meant to encourage positivity and change. because that's a much more productive and helpful place to want to improve your health and want to improve your body form. And I really like that element. Why is it acceptable then to start saying all the negative stuff about the people that either are in good shape or are wanting to get in good shape? Those individuals deserve just as much body positivity as those that are struggling with their body image or those that are struggling to change their body composition. We all deserve the same amount of respect. And if you want the fitness space to be more inclusive, if you want to be able to walk in a gym and see somebody in their 70s, somebody in their 50s, somebody in their 30s, somebody age 16, people from 10 % body fat all the way up to 35 or 40 % body fat, everyone's in there to progress. Everyone's in there to change their lives. Everyone's in there to feel better about themselves. Everyone's in there to add something to their lives. then we need to stop shaming people for wanting to look a certain way, for their training preferences, for their goals. It just needs to be left outside of that space. very well said very well said Sean You don't always know how. harmful or the comments either you to someone ⁓ or sees online how harmful they can be to that person in how they think about themselves, think about their goals, make their decisions on the next step they're going to take. So it's about being mindful about that, I think. As people we can be quite easily influenced by people's opinions we care about, by what we see online. Whether we mean to be or not, that information that we take in can play on our mind and make a second guess what we really want to do or even worse hold us back from... taking a step forward to achieve what we really want to achieve. And that can be a really... destructive place to be in mentally. Because you're constantly questioning what you want, where to go, should you do it, shouldn't you do it? Do I want it? Can I do it? Am I capable of it? What's the point? Stuck in that kind of cycle. when the reality is. You should just feel free and empowered to go after what you want to go after. Katie, you made that change. You became unstuck and you allowed yourself to focus much more on the aesthetic side of fitness, building muscle, getting leaner, maintaining leaner levels of body fat all year round. What changed in order for you to be able to focus on this? I was two and four in for mentally, going around in circles in my own head. telling myself I didn't want to take it further, I was happy where I was. Don't get me wrong, take the word happy lightly here, because it's not that I was unhappy living my life day to day, it's just that I wanted more from my body shape. I am quite conscious that work could sometimes be misinterpreted or misunderstood. But this to and from was still there. And I am a person and once I decide to do something, pretty much will find a way to make that work for myself. To help me stop to inter-fro in, there was a really helpful task. I'm not the best at deeply, thinking internally ⁓ saying what I want, right? I'm not the best at that and I'll hold my hands up to this. ⁓ in a sea of many when it comes to that, trust me. That's a hard task to do. Without and guidance, it's challenging. ⁓ It it ⁓ is. when you've got... All these other thoughts were around your brain from all of these other sources that potentially go against your real desire. Right. So Sean set me a task, because I gotta be honest, he knows me through and through, but yet, but he always encourage me to come to my own conclusions. Even though he probably knew answers anyway, I knew what I wanted. He encouraged to do ⁓ a task allowed me connect to my true goals. And I think I'll share a little bit of that with the listeners. Please do. I mean, I completely forgot we did this until we started writing the podcast notes for this episode. And I remember the... I remember setting you the task and I was like... I wonder what she's going to take away from this. what is going to reveal. So yeah, please share the ⁓ task I set you, the questions, and tell the listeners what you found out as well. I'm excited share this, right? Because it's given me lot of peace of mind. And if you're a person right now that is to and froing for what you want, this is going to be really helpful. Clients of mine as well, I've even chatted to because it's hard to really reveal sometimes and be honest with what we really want. So you're going imagine you are going to be answering these questions as if no one else in the whole entire world is going to see your answers. It's just you, your notepad and pen or your notes on your phone, whatever you want to do it. You're not going to show these to anyone else. You just need to write down exactly what you feel and what you want. Bear in mind at this stage, this doesn't mean you're acting upon it. It doesn't mean you decided to do it. Remove all of that pressure of what it may take to get there, what you may have to do. You're not at that stage yet. So this is where your step one, you're removing all of the pressure of other people's opinions. You're moving all of the pressure what you need to do to get to this outcome. No logistics, ⁓ at all, just you, your notepad. and some questions that you are going to be absolutely honest over. Now that's in your mind. These are some of the questions you can follow. And these are particularly aligned with physiques, right? Because this is what the podcast is about. First question, what is dream body? What do I really want? Write that down, describe it in the best way you possibly can. Write down to how it looks, how body fat does it carry? How much muscle does it carry? Where do you see the definition? I don't want to lead this too much because I think it's something you just need to be open to and be honest with yourself what that dream body is because this is going to look different person to person. Once you've got that question answered, what is an example of someone who has a body you'd like to have? Have a look, research it, take a look. Take off any comparison hat, judgment hat, this isn't to build a comparison and make you feel crappy about yourself. It's just to give you an idea of something that potentially could be realistic or unrealistic for you. This isn't to knock you down, this is to build you up. This is to become inspired, this is to see what really appeals to you. It's all understanding about yourself and what's desirable to you. And right now you might think that's never going to be possible for you and that is okay. Just be honest with where you want it to go. Because even if you fall a little short of that, you're still going to be much closer to where you are right now. And you know what, sometimes it's absolutely relieving to look at a particular result and to realize that it's highly unrealistic for you to achieve. Sometimes that eases a lot of mental burden in itself because you're not doing that mental toing and froing, it's clear to you that, okay, that's not what I'm able to apply myself to achieve. That's unrealistic. And that's absolutely fine now because you've got your options narrowed down. You now know what's realistic. that's easier pill to swallow than chasing a completely unrealistic result and wondering why you're not able to achieve it. Once you've got that, you've had a look. Ask yourself honestly, am I prepared to do what it takes to get there? You may not know exactly what that looks like right now and that is okay, but does that image that you've got in your mind inspire you enough to want to do the work to get there. It'll either be a yes or it'll be a no. And if not... Why? Is there anything that may be holding you back from it? Is there anything that could potentially limit you? Right? a think about the if not why's. It's important to do that. And that's physical barriers. So that could be something to do with. time it could be something to do with your training skill whatever it is or it could be something psychological So it could be your self doubt. It could be a lack of confidence. could be something practical. I'll give you an example from me here and that was one of the points I wrote down. I've actually got my note from when I done this years ago that was Nepal Mahinda, the end outcome of what I want because part of my training, a percentage of my training will still need to be geared towards the sport I'm currently performing and still love and still want to perform well in. So it's sometimes then understanding the elements of other elements of of your life that you don't necessarily want to give up as well and how that works with the goal that you want to achieve. Because again, it's about those unrealistic expectations. Because if I wasn't playing that sport, perhaps my physique goal I could take a little bit further every year. But am I willing to accept a little bit less? Yes or no? Only I can make that decision. Then ask yourself what excites you about the next leg of your journey? If you would take on this goal and if you were going to run with it, what excites you about it? This isn't a really important step because you are being honest with yourself about what really excites you about what this particular goal could do for you and your life. Last question. What fears do I have about the next stage of my journey? What internal fears do I have? is where you really want to be honest because these are the things that are probably holding you back from actually taking that step forward for this goal right now. And I will share mine with you, which I've kind of come out of this podcast anyway, but for me, it was fear of judgment for wanting to get lean, wanting to shape my body, for wanting to get more defined, judgment in how I live my day-to-day life. I was scared of being laughed at for wanting it. I was scared of not being capable of wanting to achieve it. Be honest, right? There might be more than one thing that you're battling with internally that stops you from exploring that next stage. But remember, do this as if no one is going to see your answers and the pressure of actually committing to this goal. That's what allowed me to really put down what I wanted to because there was no swaying from other areas. was this ⁓ what I want. And once you've done that, you can sit in it, you can reflect it and you can go, my God, am I really gonna let that hold me back? Is that really what's holding you back right now? Because a lot of these things will be in your head that you can reframe. If you do that exercise, what it will reveal is it will reveal what you really want, what is an ideal outcome for you, what's exciting about it and what's motivating you to do it and what's going to hold you back. If you've identified those main things, then you can put all of those together when you're ready. and you can start to work out what is realistic for me in order to start working towards that goal. So Katie, I'm going to ask you again now, after you did this exercise. How did you feel? First of all, I was kicking myself for not doing it earlier and not being really honest with myself and what I wanted. Because I had peace of mind. It was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders because this moral to-ing and fro-ing going through my mind. It was just removed, it was gone, it was like banished. And it gave me the courage and conviction in the goals that I wanted to achieve, which allowed me just to act with confidence over the decisions that I made to follow. What about the fears and the barriers? How did you perceive those? I realised it was all in my head that there were stories I was telling myself. which is absolutely insane really because that made me realise that I was the person holding myself back. All of my fears, they shrunk. They just went from all of these big wooing problems that I made in my head and they just shrunk. Got smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. And that probably made them feel a lot more manageable. Absolutely. They sometimes rear their little head now and again. But I've banked so many confidence coins in my bank and actions that actually work for me that they're easier to just back down when they do arise. We're all humans the end of day. You're not invincible from feeling self doubt and fears and all of this jazz. you can overcome them and manage them a lot better. There's something really powerful with that exercise and writing things down. When something's written down, you connect to it a lot more. So we would highly encourage you to give that exercise a go. And actually, we're going to pop the questions in the document in the description for you. So if you want to have a go at this exercise yourself and you want to answer the same questions, head to the description. Click the link and you can get the goal setting document. Yeah, yeah we will, we will. You don't have to share the answers with us, but if you would like to, you're more than welcome to. Yes, because I'll add to this, right? I went in with the thought of, I'm not going to show anyone this, to go in, ⁓ actually, I want to share what I found with Sean. I want to share what I found with someone that understands, but wants similar things to me. yeah, absolutely feel free if you want to chat about what revealed to yourself with one us. I'd encourage it. I'd absolutely encourage it. You won't feel quite as alone either with ⁓ what you to achieve. So what do we truly believe in when it comes to? Aesthetic goals, aesthetic transformation. What are our closing thoughts on this? I believe and I think you're probably very much on a similar level this is that ⁓ any is to be respected and deserves credit. Even if not personally interested in achieving that goal yourself, you can still have respect and admiration for the effort, the discipline, the tenacity had to go after what they... believe in and what they want to achieve. Absolutely. It's all the same stuff. It's just applied in a different way. It's just applied with different methods or different strategies to achieve a different outcome. But it's the same sort of behaviors. It's the same sort of traits. Whoever's chasing a goal and they're working towards a goal, they're trying to accomplish something. They're trying to push themselves outside of their comfort zone. They're out to complete a challenge they've never completed before. Regardless of what that's for and the reason for that, that a wonderful thing and deserves to be applauded. Getting in shape aesthetically takes a lot of dedication, consistency and commitment. These are qualities to be admired. They are, they are. should be admired, they should be respected, and I think even people on the journey themselves need to. be proud of those things that they're doing because I think a lot of people on the journey to athletic goals can sometimes not even day to day recognize those things, be proud of themselves and admire about themselves and be. and recognize, guess, is what I'm trying to say. Consistency can do that to you. That's the thing with consistency. You end up getting into habits and routines that almost run on autopilot without really thinking about them too much. And you kind of lose track of all the positive steps that you take along the way. You blow the setbacks out of proportion because they're infrequent. So they're quite vivid when they happen. They're quite a shock to the system because they don't happen very often. That's the kind of the birds and of being consistent is you kind of forget. that those small decisions you make on a day-to-day basis without thinking about them are actually positive ones and they deserve a bit of credit, they deserve a bit of recognition. part of enjoying the process, in my opinion, for these longer term outcomes like aesthetic body transformation. is learning to just appreciate those small moments and appreciate those steps that take you in the right direction, finding enjoyment in those. that's improving something in the gym, improving lifting technique, doing good session, working hard, hitting a PB, whether it's making a better decision with your diet, whether it's cooking something healthy but really tasty, all those little things. Just remind yourself to yourself a bit of a pat on the back for doing them. Don't just take those actions for granted because you've done them so many times. stop and give yourself a little bit of appreciation for them as you go. It's being present, isn't it? It's being present and mindful is really important for our health and wellbeing anyway. And I think sometimes that can be lost when you chase a goal because you're so driven and determined to chase a goal, right? But never forget the here and now and being present and giving yourself a big pat on the back for what you're doing right now, not just what you achieve at the end goal. Do you think getting in shape is all about before and after or a photo shoot Katie? not and we've touched upon this already in this podcast but I don't think it is, I really really don't. It's a phase, it's a part of the journey right, it's a part of the journey. I think it's an important part, I think it shows an how far they've come and what they've achieved. I am a big fan of before and after photos Lots of people aren't, lots of coaches aren't, but I think it is a bit of a medal of how far you've come because you do forget what you look like at a certain point, right? They validate your efforts, in my opinion. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Yeah, they validate them. to able to get that before and after that validates your effort, right? It's ⁓ about lifestyle that you've created for yourself and most of that and the that you have. not just adopted but embedded into your life. As a counter argument to that though, because I do think that there will be a lot of habits that you pick up along the way. I think it's important to note that having a particular event, a particular shoot or time frame can be really useful for motivation. It can keep you on it or locked in for a period of time. A lot of the times when you aim for those events or aim for those short-term accomplishments, you might use strategies which aren't necessarily your long-term habits and your long-term behaviors. A lot of those will. will be left with that phase when that phase ends. at the same time. There are still many things which will become long-term habits. Like many parts of your diet, for example, your training might not necessarily be quite as intensive or quite as frequent, but training will probably form a part of your everyday life for the rest of your life. You're always gonna wanna try and look after your stress levels and your sleep pattern. A lot of these things will naturally continue afterwards and... those will be sustainable habits for your life. Yeah, I agree fully and it's understanding those habits that are those, I like to call them the foundation habits and then they, there's certain habits within that that tend to then get either dialed in a little bit more, focus on a little bit more when you're looking to drive a particular goal or outcome. But you always come back to kind of a baseline of habits that are evergreen like we call them in previous podcasts. It's those, you know, the daily movement, the regular weights training, regular exercise, high protein, high fiber diet, lots of variety becomes your fruits and veggies. Those things, your sleep, like you mentioned, your recovery, stress levels. Now that might sound a little overwhelming, but once you've got those habits in place and they are, you know, consistent with those 80 % of the time. then you set yourself up for a great place to be and they stay constant in your life. But elements of those then get tweaked, dialed in more, pushed a little bit further, whatever way you want to call it when you're working towards a particular goal, if that's for an event, a timeline, whatever it may be. And it's not just the practical stuff and the physical stuff either, It's the mindset shifts that you go through and how those can spill over into other areas of your life. Yeah, absolutely, I could not agree more. And this is the one that the mindset shift, my mindset is the fluffy stuff that maybe people don't really want to out to achieve, but are so powerful when you're going through the journey, you know, the discipline you build, the and that spills into the other areas. That comes through your experience of going through the journey and You want to say, you know, mindset is fluffy stuff. mean, if you think mindset stuff is fluffy stuff, you're going to get fluffy results. Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh that, but yeah, it's so powerful. So powerful. you will very rarely see anybody that achieves impressive results in any walk of life without taking the mindset part of it seriously and without thinking about the psychology behind some of the stuff that they do. So yeah, wanna stay fluffy, then call mindset fluffy. But if you want a really, really impressive result and one that you can be proud of for the rest of your life, You might want to start to take your mindset stuff and your mindfulness just a little bit more seriously. For sure. For sure. It the key to unlock. powerful outlook on life. I think that's the best way I can describe that. like, gosh, for example, I we talked about Charlotte last week, in the episode, my gosh, that girl, she's now started her own business. The business is flourishing. She's shown herself, she's more than capable. She can do all of these hard things, that she can grind it out when things might not be given immediate returns. And she's created a life that she once only ever dreamt of. Over the last year or so, how many members of Texas has tell us they've gone for that promotion in work or they've had that promotion they're inspiring one of their friends to take up something for the first time? I mean, those mindset shifts are just to fitness. They're having an impact on other areas of their life. other people around them. And we spoke about this last week. I'll bring it up again. I do believe that a lot of the habits and lot of the behaviors that you form around fitness embed into other parts of your life. You don't just leave your discipline and your consistency at the door when you go to the gym, unless, as we mentioned earlier, you are extremely obsessive and all of your other responsibilities go to shit when you are hyper obsessing over a particular result. Most people, once they have these traits, it's a case of then just saying, well, if I can do it for this one thing, then why can't I do it for something else? If I can be brave and put myself outside of my comfort zone to get this physique transformation, if I can be patient, if I can take my time, if I can work through things one step, one problem at a time, why can't you do that for your personal relationships? Why can't you do that for your work? Why can't you do that everyday life? It's just methodology then at that stage. You already have the capabilities. You already have the... the mental frameworks to be able to do this stuff. You just need to apply it to a different context. And that's practice, experience. Sometimes it's a bit of guidance, sometimes it's a bit of support. It does carry over. Yeah, has a ripple effect. we've had a pretty lengthy discussion about aesthetic goals, what they meant to us. our opinions on whether or not they're a good or bad thing. Let's summarize it ⁓ for the and leave them with a few takeaway points. The big bold one, it's not just the appearance you're leveling up, it's everything else has a ripple effect. Don't judge the person based on the goal or the outcome. acknowledge that there may be differences in terms of what they want to achieve, but respect the work, the effort and the dedication It takes to get there. Be an optimist, not a pessimist in life. Look for the positives and the reasons to give credit, not for the negatives and the reasons to tear someone down. And perhaps the biggest point of them all, having an aesthetic goal is just as valid as any other goal. Celebrate it and enjoy the process. Boom. One thing is for certain, we won't ever judge you at SKD coaching for having aesthetic goals. In fact, the main reasons why most of our members start with us in the first place. Alongside building muscle and losing fat to improve their self-confidence, they get stronger, improve their longevity, and build a fantastic relationship with their diets. It all falls hand in hand. The hardest part though is starting. Whether that's starting altogether or taking on a new challenge. It helps to have direction and purpose to whatever you're doing. So in the description, we have linked a free quiz to help you out here, to help you decide what you should focus on next. And you'll get a personalized answer about whether you should start with building muscle or losing fat to help you transform your physique. Just click the link below, pop in your name and email to get started. And don't forget that we are also going to leave the questions that Katie answered earlier. which allowed her to gain a true understanding of the results she wanted to achieve and what she really wanted to focus on in this journey. yes, be sure to that. If you're turning and throwing in your head, it will give you peace of mind. It ⁓ really doesn't take too to do. So yeah, download that, get on it and give yourself that peace of mind. In fact, what I will say is this, answer the questions first, then go and take the quiz. Because once you've done the questions, you'll have the overall understanding of the exact result you want to achieve. And you'll know what barriers could potentially hold you back. shrink those down, and then to take the action stage that could be guided by our lose fat or build muscle quiz. Perfect. I would recommend that too. I second that. And then you can tune back in next week where we will be talking through the basic training techniques that we wish we knew when we first started. You can tune in to learn the best bang for your buck methods. and how mastering these skills will support your muscle building from day one all the way through to complete mastery. What an episode that will be. It will. I'm really excited to deliver that one actually. Thank you very much for listening this time round. We'll see you on the next one.