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Summer Fat Loss: How to Stay Lean Without Missing Out · 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, how to stay lean without going to extremes. We are your hosts, Katie and Sean, and today we're going to give you some nuggets of wisdom to enjoy the summer months without resembling a beach ball by the start of September. In this episode, you'll learn how to set realistic expectations to uphold throughout the summer months. and how to manage high calorie events or experiences without it being a big setback. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, please leave a like or comment on whichever platform you're listening on. Share the podcast on your socials or send it to a friend who'd find it helpful. You can also find us on social media, Sean at. Sean, SKD coaching and Katie, SKD coaching. You'll be able to check out the aggressive diets we're currently running up until the end of July. You'll be able to follow along our journeys where we are currently in aggressive dra- you'll be able to chat to us or you can follow along our journey. We're doing our aggressive deficits. And what are you doing? is so hard. didn't... Pop us a follow, send us a message or follow along our current journeys. You'll be able to see what we're doing, how we're planning out and how we're getting along with our aggressive deficits. The irony of I just find it really ironic how we're sat here about to film the summer podcast when currently we've got all our clothes hanging up and the heating on, trying to dry them off after the dog walk this morning because it's absolutely hammered down today. And it has been for like last seven out of 10 days, isn't it? The wonderful weather, hey? I know. I don't think we've reached about 15 degrees for about two weeks now. But yeah. We're going to talk about summer anyway, even though we may not currently get a summer in Wales. I'm still wishful and hopeful that we're going to get a good couple of weeks at some point between July and September. By the time you listen to this podcast, you'll actually be listening to this podcast on Katie's birthday. So I'd highly recommend getting over to Instagram and seeing if we managed to make it out the garden for Katie's birthday barbecue weekend. the plan is to try and have all the family around for a barbecue but of course Welsh weather might have other plans so yeah come and see if we manage to get the barbecue going in some decent weather for a change. But before we dive into the summer prep pod fully I want to ask you Katie how are you finding your aggressive diet so far? You know what, I'm really enjoying the challenge of it. And I never thought I'd say that about being in a diet or trying to lose body fat. But I really am. It is hard. It is challenging. I think I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a challenge. I'm really enjoying the process and the results that are coming from the back of it. It's taken me to places that I've never been before and I think that is really adding fuel to my fire. Which parts of it are you finding challenging? You know what, it's not not being able to have certain meals or have chocolate. No, I have a sweet tooth. It's none of that because that's just ruled out in my mind for now. It's goodbye for now. You'll be back soon. For me right now, it's how. I feel by afternoon towards the evening when I'm used to I see pretty much endless energy but I can keep going, I can keep going. So I think the hardest part for me at the moment is juggling, doing studies, juggling, a business. on lower calories. I think that's probably the biggest trade off for doing a more aggressive diet approach. All forms of calorie deficit and fat loss are restrictive. All forms of it will feel like you're going to be more tired and depending on what approach you follow, you're going to feel hungry at certain times in the day and you're going to feel hungry for certain durations, as in like you might feel hungry for a number of weeks and not get used to that feeling of hunger for quite a long time, particularly if you're on kind of the slower and steady approach. So one of the advantages of the aggressive diet, it? The fact that you get to a point where your hunger hormones do calm down a hell of a lot because they have to because you don't have the energy to produce those hunger hormones and the hunger does die off quite considerably and I can very much vouch for that. Like after day five of the first cycle of the aggressive diet, it was as if my hunger just disappeared and it didn't come back really until the very end of the first cycle. But it's the tiredness and the fatigue, I think that is the one thing. Like you can manage the restriction because you're only doing it for three weeks until you have a break. And that thing just makes the whole process feel like it's much shorter. And the results are really, really positive in those three weeks if you're doing the aggressive diet correctly. So you can kind of put up with the restriction because it feels like it's worth it and it doesn't feel like it's going to last forever. But the tiredness and the fatigue, I do find to be the most challenging part as well. I think it's very, very noticeable for myself and you probably could say the same, Usually our nutrition and our recovery and our sleep runs like clockwork when we do remove those calories then. We really do notice the drop in kind of guess energy levels and foot gas. Well look, your honour, the cycle one was a 1000 calories deficit a day. So 7000 calorie deficit for the week because there was no chopping and changing on the weekends. There's no high days on the weekends, is it? It's flat out. Yeah. Yeah, 7,000 calorie deficit for the week is hard. That's really, really challenging. I was a little bit less than that. I was on about 700 to 800 calorie deficit per day. And I noticed that. I found that challenging. whereas my calorie deficit for the week was 4,900, also, yours was 7,000. That's quite a considerable difference. It is. It really is, I think. The results are just worth it because, like you mentioned earlier, Sean, if you do a slow and steady approach, you still have the levels of fatigue, tiredness, maybe not quite as extreme, but it does get like that because you've done it for so long that I think it's sometimes worse because it's dragged out. Yeah, it starts off like you might not feel like you're as tired. You might not feel like you're as hungry for those first few days. As time goes on, you get more hungry and you get more fatigued. It just kind of snowballs a bit more, doesn't it? I find with a slow and steady approach. You can take those breaks with a slow and steady approach. You could choose to take breaks, but the fact that the aggressive diet... builds those breaks in from the start means that you already know what to expect. You already know when you're going to get those breaks and it's kind of like you're motivated to get to them. Whereas sometimes with the slow and steady approach, there's not those clear guidelines and it sometimes feels like it's just going on and on forever. Yeah, it does. does. And results I think are one of the biggest drivers for me. I like to know I've completed something well too. Like I get a good feeling from that. But the results for sure, you know, what I lost in three weeks in past fat loss phases years ago, that would have taken anywhere from six to 10 weeks to lose what I've done in three weeks. What did you lose in three weeks? Eight and a half pounds, which I'm really happy with for my body fat levels. It's ⁓ decent chunk of weight for three weeks and That would have taken me six to 10 weeks to win a moderate or full or steady approach in the past. There's just no comparison for me personally. Just to be 100 % clear as well, you're obviously going to lose a significant amount of water weight and carb stores initially when you go into any sort of calorie deficit, but particularly this aggressive diet approach. You were eating 2,700 calories per day. consistently for months and months months on end, feeling really well replenished. We're probably holding a regular amount of water and carb stores during that time. Then going down to like a 1700 calorie day where you're in a thousand calorie deficit, you're going to drop a lot of water weight and carb stores initially. But what is completely undeniable and something that I think for anybody listening to this, you really need to take note of this is that your progress pictures have shown significant body composition change. You've dropped a lot of body fat. So yes, you see a big drop on the scales and yes, you will see a lot of water weight loss. But even if half of that was water weight and the remainder, the four pounds over the three weeks remainder was from body fats, the difference that makes to you aesthetically when you lose... like, you know, four pounds of pure body fat can be quite a lot. ⁓ gosh, yes, it can. There's every possibility that if you plan on doing two or three cycles of this, by the end of that, you could have lost anywhere from like 15 to 20 pounds. ⁓ Based on the current rate that you've got, it may slow down a little bit, but think it's fair to assume you'd be capable of losing 15 to 20 pounds. In three months, that would do so much for your physique. Less than three than three months, yeah. Two to two and a half months. That's the biggest... driver for me is the time frame and what you can achieve, what you can achieve in a small time frame. So then that the rest of the year and the rest of the time can be spent at higher calories, more quality nutrition and building muscle mass, right? So yeah, it's, it's, it's, I've loved it so far, even though it's been a challenge, but I quite like a challenge. Quite like a challenge. How would you summarize yours, Sean? If I were to say, could you summarize your first cycle of AD in one phrase? What would it be? I would say it's been surprisingly easy. Interesting. Tell me more. I wasn't expecting it to be difficult because I've done it before and I kind of know what to expect. It does come with its challenges. And exactly the same as you, think the mental fatigue that comes with it is the hardest part. For me personally, you get used to hunger. I was really hungry for the start and then there were a couple of days towards the end where was really hungry as well. And I made a few small diet changes which backfired and I was even more hungry as an adult. So I've learned from that and that won't be happening again next time. you kind of just get used to hunger. You're not dying, you're going to be okay. The mental fatigue, cognitive fatigue is challenging. I do find that challenging. despite that, I did find it surprisingly easy. Like three weeks absolutely flew by. I'm not letting myself into a false sense of security with that because I know that when you do the aggressive diet, you typically tend to need more than one block of the aggressive diet to get the end result you want. You can use it as a kind of a short term kind of mini cut, let's say, to drop. fairly decent amount of body fat in a short space of time. But if you want to get to a particular level of body fat to last the whole summer, for example, or to start your next building phase, you typically need more than one cycle. And that second cycle is where it really starts to feel like you're digging a bit deeper. The third cycle after that can be even more so. So I'm not lulling myself into a false sense of security that it's always going to be this easy. But yeah, I was just taken back by of how quickly the three weeks flew by and just how manageable it was. think that comes down to the experience that you've had over many years right of knowing what works and what doesn't work for you in a fat loss phase. You've got that nailed down now I would say but I guess I can give our listeners some confidence so the more you do it the easier it does become. because you can make those phases run more like clockwork rather than being overwhelming and stressful like they may be when you first start doing them. I'll tell you the mental challenge that I have had this time round and again this is very unique to my circumstances but My calorie deficit isn't enormous. I have dieted on a much lower amount of calories than this in the past. It's not as aggressive as what I have done previously. I'm putting my full faith in the aggressive diet calculators that we've got, that we had from the course that we completed. I'm putting my full faith and trust in those. I have no reason not to because they worked so well for me in the past and they've worked so well for our members. It does feel like I'm having to keep my calories a bit higher than what perhaps I would be used to. It's kind of been a bit of a shock to me to be cutting down on this many calories every single day. And there are times where I'm like, is it feeling a bit easier than it should? Should I be losing fat a little bit quicker than this? Should I be pushing the boundaries a little bit more and trying to shoot for faster results? But As I mentioned, it's not normally the first phase that feels really hard. It's the second and the third phase. And based on how my body composition is looking now, currently, the second and third phase, I'm going to be getting a fair bit leaner than where I've been over the last few months. I'm possibly going to be getting down to a leaner body composition than what I did on my last aggressive diet by the end of this kind of phase of my life. And I am expecting to... encounter some more challenges as I go. Just having those realistic expectations in mind. it's been challenging for me personally to not get ahead of myself and not try and push things too far. There have still been days where I have gone 100 calories under my target and thought, what's the risk? Am I going to lose that much more muscle if I go just 100 calories under my deficit target? And I... slightly ignore the aggressive diet calculator that tells me don't eat too much more, otherwise you might lose, sorry, don't come back the calories too much because you might increase your risk of muscle loss. I don't want to lose muscle. I want to look muscular when I finish this process. I still want to have my muscle and shape. So I'm trying not to lose muscle. yeah, it's been a bit of a battle. guess you could say I'm being a little bit impatient but I'm also not. I'm just aware of the fact that there's a small part of my brain that's telling me go fast, go fast, go a little bit faster, go on, go a little bit harder and let's see how much you can get off in a short space of time. It is a challenge, think, especially the leaner you get. Because the lower your body fat levels, less aggressive you could actually go with your cut, right? And that can be hard to accept the leaner you get because generally the leaner you get, the more challenges you put yourself through to get to that place already, unless you're a genetically blessed lean individual. But you've already been through challenges. You're used to pushing yourself. You're used to going to the extremes of, go on, what can I achieve? Can I take that extra step further? But then when you get to those lower levels of body fat, and I'm not in the place where you're at at the moment, Sean, I can, my body fat levels aren't low enough to be concerned about this yet, but I know I probably will find a challenge with if and when I get to your stage now. But it's kind of going, I've got to accept that I can't actually go faster right now with my fat loss. and chase that if I don't want to risk losing muscle mass. I can, I could take it more aggressively. I could cut back another two, three, 400 calories a day. But why, what for? Yeah, okay, you know, I might lose a little bit more muscle mass if I do. Yeah, okay, I could gain it back. But then it's kind of like, is that counterproductive? So it's accepting what you know is the right thing for you, even if actually there's a part of your brain going. go on, you can push a little bit more, you can push a bit harder. And I can imagine being around myself at the moment where perhaps I'm seeing a big loss in the scale, perhaps I'm seeing a bit of a bigger reduction in the body fat, you know, in the same space of time. It can then trigger that, oh, I want to go a bit faster, I want to go a bit harder, more, because you're around perhaps what I'm doing, but then it's also going, hang on, take a step back. I'm, my body fat levels are much lower than Katie's, I shouldn't be expecting the same rate of loss as her right now. Yeah, think staying in your own lane and for me, staying in my own lane has been really important. let's be honest, Katie, you do have below the average levels of body fat for a female, particularly of your age group, of a trained female. you you'll in a bit modest when you say about the difference in our body fat levels. But no, I think part of part of the. Part of the psychology comes from the fact that typically males will see greater reductions in body weight than females, especially in the early stages of dieting. There's a lot of narrative pushed out that it's harder for women to lose weight than men. In some ways, you can argue that that is the case. looking at our history when we've done diets in the past or calorie deficits in the past. Typically, I do see a greater reduction than you. And that's not for want of effort. That's not because you're not trying as much as me. That's not because the deficit isn't necessarily as aggressive as mine. Sometimes we're on a similar amount of calorie deficit. It's just because metabolically, I probably burn more calories per day and I'm probably losing a lot of weight initially from water weight because I've got a bit more muscle mass and then also... You account for the fact that there might be certain times of the month, certain times of the cycle where fat loss is slower for whatever reason. And that then leads to a slightly lower average rate of fat loss if you compare it over the same timeframe as what I would experience. But this time around, it's been completely the opposite where your rate of loss has not been far off double what my rate of loss has been. So it's getting your head around that and it's understanding that. I'm not concerned by the number on the scales on what I drop by because I got the progress pictures week to week to week to week to show what's happening in terms of changing my body. So I'm not concerned by the numbers. in of themselves, but when you look at like the rate of loss of somebody else, you do sometimes question, could I be going a bit harder with this? Could I be going a bit faster? I've just had to decide what is worth more to me. Do I want to risk losing a bit of muscle ⁓ to get slightly faster fat loss results? Because it's not going to be that much different. There's not going be anything I can do at this stage. It's going to be considerably different in terms of, let's say I matched your calorie deficit and went to a thousand calorie deficit per day. I might lose anywhere up to maybe half a pound of fat a week more. But then if I increase my muscle loss to half a pound a week as well. How's that going to change my physique? Is that going to make me feel much better about how I look? So yeah, it's just weighing everything up, isn't it? And it's important for me to stay in my lane and focus on where I'm at, what I want for my body, what results do I want to finish at the end. The leaner I get, if I can hold onto more muscle mass and just keep continually chipping away fat, then I'm going to end up with a physique that I'm going to be really happy with. So, yeah. I think it just highlights that it's always important to stay in your own lane, And even as coaches, we can question that sometimes. ⁓ And it's always, yeah, so it's important to just sometimes take a step back, zoom out and look at your journey and what you want objectively rather than trying, rather than getting caught up on someone else's results, for example. And I think that's an important point to note, slight side tangent to the topic of this podcast, but I think an important one nonetheless. ⁓ Yeah, I think it really is an important one. Shaun, shall we actually get stuck into the purpose of this podcast now? Yeah, the anti-beach ball plan. Yeah, the anti-beach ball plan. Brilliant. I wonder if that'll stick. It's got a bit of a ring to it, hasn't it? So you probably fall into a category of. So let's set the scene a little. You've likely either got a fat loss goal, which will extend over the summer months, or you're in a position where you want to take some time away from fat loss over summer months. Maybe enjoy a little bit more flexibility, maybe you've got some events on, maybe you've reached the end point of your fat loss goal and you're going to go into a building phase. Both of these scenarios come with different challenges. And we'll discuss these over. And we'll discuss both of these scenarios throughout this podcast. There's a common assumption that most people do their fat loss phase before the summer and then... they take time away from fat loss in the summer. That seems to be the traditional approach that most of our members have followed. But there's other nuances to that where some individuals find that summer is the most effective time of year for them to be able to do fat loss. Others have holidays later on in the year, so they time their fat loss phases in anticipation of those holidays that might be happening. end of July, August, September, maybe even October at times. So it's about recognizing what's right for you and your schedule. For many people, summer is a great time to shift away from fat loss and learn how to manage higher calories around certain events. You might have lots of sociable things on. You might be spending a bit more time with the family. When the kids break up from school, if you've got kids, you might find that there's a lot more. food accessibility around the house that provides more temptation to your environment and you might not feel like you want to constantly deal with all those. food challenges when you're feeling like you're in a restricted state. You can actually gain really valuable experience of higher calorie eating throughout the summer months without experiencing fat gain. And this is something that we would encourage every single person to do at some point in their lives, dedicating their period to... eating more calories but in a controlled manner and in a controlled state. So you learn how to make sure you're not going to gain fat uncontrollably and you learn how to manage the emotions and the decisions which come with having pretty much unrestricted access to all foods. but at the same time, being able to moderate the intake of them and not going overboard. It's a skill which is completely irreplaceable and it's something which you have to go through and you have to earn the experience with to be able to do it well. It can be bought, it can be guided, it can be taught, it can be shown, but to really feel competent with. your nutritional choices outside of fat loss when there's no, maybe no hard and fast rules. It's such a valuable skill for life. And we're realists, myself and Katie, we both really enjoy the summer. It tends to be the time of the year where we have the most social events on. It tends to be where we do a lot of stuff with our families. Quite often we have weekends away and things like that. It's a time of year that we want to enjoy. So we normally set the time aside to say this is going to be a time where we're allowing ourselves access to some higher calories so that we can enjoy those memories and experiences. But if you're listening to this podcast, then you're likely the type of person that doesn't want to let all your standards slip and gain loads of fat for just the sake of a few months a year. So we're going to help you to reach a happy medium because that's what we promote, that's what we do ourselves, there is a balance to be had between enjoying yourself and having fun and not letting all your body composition or fitness goals go to shit. There's reason that you have these habits and standards in place already, right? In your kind of usual day to day or when you're trying to strive for a goal because they work for you. They make you feel good. They allow you to thrive day to day. So knowing which ones you can keep up with and keep going with and keep ticking over just means that you're putting yourself in a great position to still feel good in times where you actually really want to enjoy yourself. So I agree, that is a happy medium to be found. It doesn't have to be one or the other. really doesn't. You can enjoy yourself and still be healthy. You can enjoy yourself and still keep up some standards and some habits so that you don't end up feeling like it's on or off. It's all on earth in. Because as we've discussed many times in this podcast and across many episodes, that mentality is more harmful and more damaging to your health and your psychology. than learning to have some moderation and learning to accept some of the challenges which come with trying to find the right balance for you. You've got your whole life to figure this stuff out. It doesn't matter if you have to do a bit of trial and error with finding the right balance for you. It doesn't matter if you end up having a few setbacks as you go. It's still better. to explore the possibility of having both, it's still better to explore the opportunity. of maintaining standards and goals whilst having a bit more flexibility than it is to just keep yo-yoing from one way to the other. Because we see in the data, we see in individuals that we work with, the yo-yo mentality of, I'm focusing on it really heavily and then not focusing on it at all is immensely harmful. I agree. It's really drastic highs when things are going well and then really drastic lows when things aren't going so well. And that kind of, those big waves, they're not steady. they can be quite volatile. And I think it's about steadying that ship. and having less drastic spikes in what's going well when you're on plan and then it go really bad when you're off plan. It doesn't need to be that, does it? You can have both and make that work every day, every week, every month of the year. Yeah, it's far more sustainable. So let's discuss part one and talk about fat loss in the summer. So for individuals that will be doing fat loss throughout the summer, what sort of challenges are you likely to experience and how would we recommend navigating through those challenges? Motivation is a big topic here, I think. It's in the build up to summer or build up to a holiday, for example, whatever it may be, motivation can be higher. There's that drive to go, the sun's coming, I want to feel bloody good. I want to be able to check on anything I want for my wardrobe. I want to be able to go on a holiday, feel confident, not worry about my photo taken. That motivation can be quite high and it's a big driver, isn't it, to chase your fat loss goals. you introduced that really well, I would make a point of saying. Some not all individuals will find that this motivation drops off as summer begins, but I've worked with some people that actually find fat loss to be even more motivating in the summer. Here are some of the reasons why. I'm a bit confused, sorry. I want to keep going with that but... I just explained it to you. I know, I don't understand it to be able to explain it in my words. Are you able to carry on or is it not a conversational... No, because you stopped with intonation on the end like you were going to continue so you need to continue. Okay. Okay. This motivation for some people then can maybe drop off in summer months because summer's here, it's closer. They may or may not have reached their fat loss goal or they may not even start their fat loss goal yet and want to try and push on with their fat loss goal through summer. The motivation is not dropping off that they want to push on through that loss. I'm bit confused, Sean, sorry. I'm confused. This is off put in December, is how you frame this. No, no, forget about that. You need to bring it back to this topic now. Okay. You mentioned that some people's motivation will drop off going into the summer. Then you need to start talking about that's not everyone. You need to make it individualized and say some people find that motivation drops off throughout the summer, which might be a sign that you need to go back to building, but there are others that have got a really strong motivation for fat loss throughout the summer. And it doesn't make sense to pull yourself away from a state that you're motivated to achieve and as a result for. Okay. Okay. These are some of the reasons why that motivation is there for those who want to lose fat in the summer. Some, this motivation may drop off in the summer months to lose more body fat. And if that's the case, then perhaps the building phase is the best move for you, returning to some higher calories rather than restricting yourself. But for others, the drive to lose body fat is still quite high throughout the summer months. And if that is you, then ride on that high, ride on that drive. keep pushing for fat loss doesn't mean you have to stop because summer months are here and other people around you aren't pushing for a fat loss goal. Why can the summer months be so beneficial for motivating people for a fat loss result. because we've worked with a lot of members, Katie, that actually are more motivated by doing fat loss in the summer than they are about doing it before the summer. So what are some of the potential reasons for that? literally written down in front of you. think it's about being real, like you are where you are. And if you don't make any changes, that's absolutely fine. But if you do decide you want to push on with fat loss, you can be, you could be much better off than where you started your summer by chasing a fat loss goal, right? Just because it's summer, it doesn't mean you have to be all or nothing. You don't have to go all in on fat loss and not enjoy any events. You can. push on with fat loss and still have some events in your diary that you enjoy and you have some higher calories for. So I think it doesn't have to be an on and off switch. I'm chasing fat loss or I'm not chasing fat loss. And for some individuals, there's some of months that actually are a bit more motivating to do that because perhaps they enjoy getting out and doing their steps more. Perhaps they enjoy being in the sunshine more. Perhaps the environment that they're around actually is easier for them to navigate their routine depending on their family, their work situation. So there's times for... this time of year for some people is the right time to push on with fat loss goals. think the events in themselves can serve as some motivation for times as well. Like, for example, if you've got a particular festival or a particular beach holiday or particular wedding where you're going to be wearing clothing that's a bit more revealing, this can serve as a really good motivational pitch for getting in to slightly leaner body composition or getting to slightly leaner body composition for that event. And yes, even though the events themselves might not necessarily serve the fat loss goals that you want, the build up to them can be managed really well to allow yourself to lose some fat in those events. And then those events almost feel like a bit of an extra reward. They almost feel like they're checkpoints for you to tick off each stage of the journey. So, yeah, I completely agree that sometimes you can use events in the build up to events and events throughout the summer as a fat loss. motivator rather than this thing that stops you from achieving fat loss. ⁓ absolutely. Because you decide you want to achieve fat loss, fat loss during summer months, it doesn't mean you can't have some dire breaks throughout those periods to enjoy the events that you've got going on. But you can still around that time, execute fat loss well and feel bloody fantastic for it. I can talk from my perspective. Like starting a fat loss phase later this year, which is going to eat into summer, which currently seems to be a non-existent summer. But eventually summer is going to arrive and I probably will be in a fat loss phase for some of that summer this time round. I think what's motivating me is Yeah, okay, I might have to sacrifice a little bit in terms of calories and I might have to be a little bit more strategic with how I manage certain social events, but. There's also a high degree of visibility about the body composition that I have now and the shape that I have now. Like any fat I take off now is going to be revealed in those events and in those summer months. And I know that that might be off put in to some people to think about their body's going to be more revealed over the next couple of months and they're going to be wearing clothing that is a little bit more exposed in over the next couple of months. But it's how you frame it, right? We're all where we are in terms of our body shape and our body composition. If you're listening to this now, you are where you are, right? There's nothing that's gonna change that overnight. There's nothing that's gonna make you wake up tomorrow and be 10 pounds lighter or, you know, 6 % body fat lower. There's nothing that's gonna do that for you, right? So you either accept where you are and ask yourself, would I be happy with this staying exactly the same throughout the next few months? Or would you like to make some change to that and stack those wins week to week so that as each week goes on, you're getting a little bit better than where you start today? There's no right or wrong to that answer. If you're not feeling like you're in your best shape right now, but you're happy to stay this way to enjoy a bit more summer, then that's a choice that you have to make. But you do need to ask yourself about what you want to achieve in the coming months and what's going to make you feel better about yourself as you approach the next few months of your life. think that's a key point. What is it that you want? That's the golden question. You need to understand that so you can decide your next move. decided. you're happy where you're at or if you actually want to push on with fat loss throughout the summer months, that's when you set your expectations on how you want your summer to go. You can have a think about the events that you've got on and how you can factor those in. You map out a little bit of a plan to know when you are pushing on with a calorie deficit and when perhaps you have some higher calorie days to factor in the events that you've got on. This is where challenging and all or nothing mindset is really important because you will have days where you will achieve a successful calorie deficit, which will be driving for fat loss. But then if you have some events on, you're going to have to accept that that's going to slow down the rate of fat loss just a little because you're going to have higher calories, right? And it's reminding yourself that you're choosing to still push on with the fat loss goal of the summer. Also enjoy some sporadic events throughout the period. and that it's okay to have some higher calories those days. because overall in that week I'm going to still aim for a calorie deficit which will be taking me a step closer to my fat loss goal. Yeah, this is where understanding how calories in versus calories out works is a complete game changer for people. So simply you've got your calories in, which is what you eat and drink, and you've got your calories out, which is all the energy that you burn every single day. And if you've got more calories coming in than what you've got going out, then you're going to gain fat. And it's not just like you instantly go over for one day, you gain a huge amount of body fat. That's not how this works. In order to gain a pound of roughly. You need several thousands of calories to gain a pound of body fat. So you need to be over your total daily energy expenditure by thousands of calories. Cumulatively to gain a pound of body fat so that one weekend you went over most of that weight increase You see on the scales is not body fat. It's just water weight It's just carbs or especially if you've been cutting down for the week beforehand You just replenish and you've like June stores just like me and Katie did in our aggressive diets where we both gained about three or four pounds over the course of three days of refeeding like Look at us visually. Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed, but we're three or four pounds heavier because water weight and carb stores have increased. If anything, we just look a bit fuller, our muscles look a bit fuller, but we still got that definition. point of imagining all this is to let you know that... This isn't like an on-off switch with fat loss. It's more about accepting the rate of fat loss that you're going to get. If all your events are taking you over on calories every single day, so you've got more calories going in than what you've got going out every single day, and your goal is to lose fat, then all that's doing is those days that take you over are slowing down your fat loss results. And you may choose to accept that. Understanding calories in versus calories out beats the all or nothing mentality because you know that it's not possible for you to just cancel out fat loss altogether just because you've gone over by a couple hundred calories on one Saturday. But at the same time, it's also appreciating that this is eaten into your calorie deficit and similarly to how you've got to eat so many calories over what we call maintenance calories or your total daily energy expenditure to gain weight. You also need to eat below a certain amount of calories and do that consistently in order for you to lose weight or for you to lose fat. So you're just balancing the books basically when it comes to your energy intake and the lower you can and the more times you can be under what you burn every day and the greater amount you can be under what you burn every day, the faster you're going to experience fat loss. So just bear that in mind when you approach all of your events. go into it informed and empowered to know that. this is going to play a part on how the rate of fat loss goes, but it's not the thing which determines whether you're going to be successful or not. No, if you manage that well and not see that as an event as a free for all, you can still achieve a decent calorie deficit for the week overall, which means that you will still keep chipping away at fat loss and still be able to enjoy some summer events along the way, which is really, really important. It's worth noting that the more events you have, and especially if they're all in the same few weeks, if you have multiple events in one week, there's a greater chance of you not experiencing a very significant rate of fat loss that week. And if you have got a couple of events in one week, I'd probably even argue, it worth even pushing for a fat loss goal for that particular week? Or if that would be more appropriate to have a diet break, because it can be quite stressful to achieve fat loss when you've got a number of events on, because the reality is calories are gonna be higher. There's no two ways about it. And is it worth fighting that battle? Or is it worth just going, right, this is a week where I am going to aim to maintain my body fat levels, have the flexibility of higher calories, because I know for the next week or two, I don't have many events on and then I can just do a good two weeks calorie deficit and chip away fat loss pretty decently during that time. Again, this is very unique to each individual. For somebody that is of the experience level of myself and Katie, I could do three events in one week and I could still lose fat. Like it would be more logistically challenging. I might find it a little bit more stressful, but I'm confident that I could go out to eat out three times in one week, or I could go to a barbecue on the weekend after going out to eat two times that week. And I could stick to my fat loss goals. I probably could too, but I would find it. It's not so much the stressful side of managing the calories I would find challenging. It's the sheer amount of calories that I would need to save for those particular events that would really impact me on the other days of the week and that particular day with hunger levels because I'd have to save so many calories for those events. Depending on what you chose to eat though, Katie, because the reality is most places where you eat out will have options that are much lower in calories. It's just not necessarily what you want to eat. I don't disagree that you're being too all or nothing with this. Someone else carries them on. No, it's not. have to not eat a lot. You're in an aggressive diet. Most of these people aren't in an aggressive diet. You'll be in too. You'll be in too nuanced. OK. Just maybe go back to before I said anything about about. Now, obviously, this is more challenging if you're on an aggressive diet. I'm in a fortunate position where even my most aggressive calorie deficit right now is still. ⁓ much higher calories than what most people even consider to be a fat loss phase. even if you weren't going really aggressive with things and you weren't on a thousand calorie a day deficit like Katie was right now. As long as you are armed with the knowledge of roughly what calories are in food or you've got access to calories on food menus and things, you can still manage events. You can still manage going out a few times and stick to fat loss. The question is, do you really want to? Because it can be logistically stressful. It can be logistically challenging. You may need to bank some calories for it. That may mean that you're more hungry on other days. Is it worth the hassle? Is it worth the stress? That's what you've got to ask yourself in those scenarios. You've always got the power to make that decision for yourself. It doesn't mean you fail because you've chosen to not strive for fat loss that week. Or doesn't mean you've failed because you've chosen to strive for a slower rate of fat loss that week. Just be confident in your decision that you can chip away at it without having to put the pressure on achieving optimal levels of fat loss every week. Yeah, for sure. And if you've got events on every week, all the way throughout the summer, then you might need to build your approach around that because it's... It's not a conventional way to be able to stick to or achieve fat loss goals. If your events are spread out and they got a few weeks between each event that you go into, then you could potentially use these events as diet breaks. So you could go pretty hard at the fat loss in between. This would probably look more similar to what myself and Katie do with our aggressive diets, where you go into fat loss a little bit harder for a few weeks and then you have a break. You could do that around certain events that you've got on in summer if you've got fat loss goals. Yeah, I agree for sure. I agree for sure. Like for example, in the aggressive diet right now, got my birthday coming up in a couple of weeks, I'm not going to take a full on diet break for that, but I am going to take a maintenance day or two depending on what we get up to and whether we can have the barbecue at all in this Welsh weather. you know, there are tools available to allow you to do that and still get great fat loss results. Even things like If you have most of your events on the weekend for example and you can tolerate a lower calorie deficit in the week you can also do a bit of a 5-2 approach where you have lower days for the five days in the week, some slightly higher calories then on the weekend and overall you're still in a fairly decent calorie deficit for the week. That can allow you to balance things too. Yeah, and this is something that we put a lot of time and attention into with our members. We ask them what sort of events they've got on throughout the summer. We ask them what they would like to achieve, what's the ideal scenario for them. And we can plan this out. Because two people might be completely different. We might have some members that doing, that haven't got as many events on and they're more spread out. Some members might have an event every single weekend or multiple events a week. you can't always follow the same strategy as somebody else. You have to work out what the best strategy is for you. And that will be the easiest approach for you to stick to. Yeah, I agree. When it's tailored to you and what you've got going on, what you like, what you dislike, what you can handle, then it's so much easier to buy into that process and see it through fully. You can also use some calorie banking to great effect. So you can lower down some of the days in the week, for example, to have some lower days like Katie mentioned with the five two approach to then have more calories on the weekend. You could do this on a spontaneous basis. You could do what we call calorie rebalancing, which is essentially where let's say, for example, Tuesday afternoon, you come home from work and your partner's like. booked us a table at this restaurant, we're going out for food tonight and you're like, ⁓ shit, I haven't burnt calories for this. Okay, no problem. It'll be a nice night. So you go out and you go and have a meal. might have a glass of wine. Your calories go by a couple of hundred calories. Instead of going, ⁓ no, I've ruined it. I've blown it this week. Let's write it off and let's start again next Monday and you trash the whole rest of the week, which is the worst thing you can do in this scenario. You can then rebalance the calories for the next couple of days. So just think what we said about calorie banking, but in reverse. So for the next few days, let's say you went over by 500 calories to have your meal out on the Tuesday, you spread those 500 calories out throughout the remainder of the week. You might take 100 calories off each day. And before you know it, you're on exactly the same amount of calorie deficit. So you've got exactly the same rate of fat loss for that week. There's always a tool available, isn't there, to allow you to have a little bit of flexibility. It doesn't mean you always want to opt to have that flexibility, but there will be certain scenarios where you might want to go, actually, I do want a bit of best of both worlds. I want to go out and enjoy this spontaneous meal tonight, but I also want to stick with my fat loss goals. So how do I do that? And that's a really good approach because you can't always, like you said, plan for certain moments. So it's... Okay, I just need to adjust what I'm to do over the next few days instead. I just want to give another completely shameless plug to the aggressive diet here because I do feel like it is the most optimal approach for fat loss. And one of the reasons for this is because people go, oh, but it sounds like it's really rigid and really restrictive. It's like, wait a minute, let's just use our brains here a second. If you wanted to stay in a calorie deficit, but you wanted more calories and you were doing an aggressive diet, let's say you needed 500 extra calories. Kate, to your example, you're in a thousand calorie deficit a day. You could have 500 calorie deficit. could have 600 calorie deficit. Sorry. You could go up by 500 calories. You can go up by 600 calories and you'd still be in a sizable calorie deficit. You'd still be net fat loss for that particular day. But you could still have all those extra calories if you wanted to have say a particular meal out or if you wanted to have more food for whatever reason on that particular day. So for me, that is yet another reason why the aggressive diet is better than the slow and steady approach for fat loss. Because if you go up in calories on the slow and steady approach when you've only got a small calorie deficit each day, then you're out of fat loss for that day. So the rate of results slows down a bit more than if you're still ⁓ in a fat loss state. But you've just gone up a little bit more, so you're just in a slightly less of a deficit. Yeah, I agree, Feli. There's more wiggle room, isn't there? do go a little bit more aggressive. You've got more wiggle room to sometimes be a little bit more flexible or make a few mistakes along the way and still be in a very large calorie deficit. likelihood there's going to be temptations around over some of the months. that sends out your fancy ice cream, whether that's the barbecue smell down the street, you're like, I want a barbecue now or I'm going to a barbecue. beer garden's full, your friends are going over there, there could be many different scenarios where the temptations are around in the summer months. I think you've got to just ask yourself honestly, what will help you with your fat loss adherence the most? Is that having some moderation and flexibility throughout those months where that temptation is high and is something that you value and you want to enjoy? Or is it a hard no, I'm not going to do any of it? What do you think will actually help you the most? Yeah. That's a really important point you've brought up, Katie, because nobody can decide what's best for you other than you, maybe a coach, but for you, you need to really dial into what you want out of this outcome. For some individuals, moderation and flexibility goes out the window as soon as you introduce any moderation or flexibility. If you give them one thing, if you say, can go out and have... I think this is why so many of the diet plans fail where they have off-plan meals because the off-plan meal is basically an all-you-can-eat buffet of about 5,000 calories. This is why cheat days are an absolute load of nonsense for God knows how many different reasons. But again, the cheat day is just sometimes an excuse to just go absolutely off the rails and binge uncontrollably. And where does that leave the individual then? out of control, completely disempowered, feeling like getting back into the diet after all that indulgence is going to be an absolute grind and hating every second of going back to slightly healthier food. That's not the place you want to be in. So if more flexibility and more moderation... lead you astray or for some people like myself, it stresses me out more. Like I would just rather just stick to the same plan week after week after week. I just find it so much more easy to do. I find that having to keep moving around my calories and playing around with calories or, you know, not knowing how much of this can I have, can I trust myself to just have one beer because I might want another one or I might want another one after that, or I might then decide, oh, it doesn't matter if I'm not in deficit today, but All these things. I don't want to talk about beer. I don't want to talk about alcohol. No. I just don't want to fucking go there. I really can't be asked. No, I think... I get more stressed about juggling things. I get more stressed thinking about, am I going to be more hungry if I take calories off this day and put it onto that day? Is it going to affect my training recovery and my training performance on the next morning if I have less food to account for this event today? I would just rather be consistent and I know where I'm at and I know I'm going to be done with fat loss quicker and then get all my calories right back up to the higher levels that I know they can be and enjoy the period to follow. that might not be the right approach for you. And it all depends on what's right for you in terms of what's gonna help you to adhere the most. You're absolutely right. Again, there's no one size fits all, right? And even within your own journey, there may be weeks where a hard, fast no is the best option to get the most out of the fat loss results where you've got a clear run of no events. But then the next couple of weeks, it might be okay, now I actually do need to take the approach of, ⁓ I do need a little bit more flexibility here. because there are a number of events on. It doesn't mean you have to just choose one tool and one method and only run with that either. The beauty of understanding the tool and methods that work for you at the right time is so crucial for your journey because you may need to adapt and change method and that's empowering when you know how to do that for yourself. Let's say there's six weeks of a summer, right? A member's summer could look like this. Week one, they've got one event on it on the first weekend of the summer. So they decide that they're going to do calorie banking for that event. So they're in fat loss the whole way through the week. Then they get to the end of the weekend. They have one day where it's higher calories of maintenance. They've banked some calories for it. So if it goes slightly above maintenance, then it doesn't matter. And then they're back into fat loss for the next week. The next two weeks, they haven't got an event on. So they're going to go harder at a more aggressive approach for two weeks. They don't bank calories for the weekends. They stay strict. They hold their fat loss over the weekends. The week after those two weeks, we're going into then week four. In week four, they've got four social events. So they've got a barbecue, they've got somebody's wedding, and then they're away on the weekend with friends, and they've got two nights out with those friends. So that fourth week then is a diet break. Then for weeks five and six, they're... Then for week five and week six, they're midweeks are quiet, but they've got busy things on the weekend. So they've got a music festival on the weekend of week five. On week six, they've got family coming down to stay. So they do five, two for those. So that individual has gone through calorie banking. They've gone through aggressive dieting with a diet break. They've gone through the five, two approach. All the different tools in the toolbox. They get to the end of summer and their net result is they've lost fat compared to where they started. They might be five to ten pounds down from where they started the summer and they haven't had to give up any of their social events. The reason why they've been able to achieve this is because they've stuck to what we would class as our golden rule for going into the summer months. And that's not winging it. If you have fat loss goals, and if you care about losing fat over this period in time, you absolutely shouldn't be winging it. If you've got an approach to follow, it will make it far easier to stick to, and you can build the approach specifically to suit you. Because everyone's events are going to be different. Now we appreciate this can be quite challenging if you haven't had the help and support to do this up until this stage. But if you think you would like having a plan mapped out specifically for you so you know exactly what you're doing, you can be taught exactly what to do with each individual or social event to the point where we can help you look at menus, we can help you determine how many calories you need to bank for certain events if you're not sure of how many calories you're going to need to consume. without having to default to the laziest strategies known to man, where it's just throwing loads of extra cardio or throwing loads of extra steps at you and not teaching you anything about how to actually manage these events mentally or emotionally. and head to the description of the pod. fill in the enquiry form so we can help you to build the best approach for you to achieve fat loss and enjoyment throughout the summer months. but that's all well, don't even know where to go. Move on to the next section. the best thing to do. Let's move on to part two of this podcast now then, which is maintaining body composition or going into a building phase over the summer months. Because like we mentioned earlier, not everyone's highly motivated for fat loss during the summer months. And that's okay. You don't have to be. You don't have to put yourself through fat loss if you don't want to. So what are your other options? First of all, let's address the elephant in the room. A lot of people are quite nervous about cutting down ready for the summer and then gaining fat throughout the summer. using the terminology a building phase throughout the summer probably scares the life out Because you probably think, I don't want to get fat. I've just spent all this time getting lean. I want to try and look this lean the whole way throughout the summer months. You don't want to necessarily keep going with a calorie deficit. You're ready to start enjoying some more events and some more flexibility and some more experiences. But you also don't want to have a big setback and turn into a beach ball. So. How can you avoid doing that? How can you get the balance right with... have a bit more food and flexibility, but, sorry. So let's just explain that in a bit more detail. Like when we say a building phase throughout the summer, what is that building phase gonna look like? You're gonna be a thousand calorie surplus. You're gonna be gaining fast, quickly as you gain your muscle. And you are gonna resemble a beach ball by the end of it. I'm only joking. Not at all, right? I think sometimes the building phase, bulking phase is well known in the fitness world and that can scare people, right? But entering a building phase does not mean you're just going to gain a lot of body fat. And if you are, and if you are, then... you're probably overshooting by by some margin. OK, rewrite all the thoughts and preconceptions you've had about what a bulking phase or building phase is. And from now on, we just want you to go by the SKD version of a building phase. So we actually call a building phase the balanced building phase with our members. Right. And the reason why we say this is because it softens the terminology. So people don't just instantly assume they're going to turn into a mass monster and they're going to gain loads of fat, which is then going to take them half a year to cut down again in preparation for any particular event. That's not what we're going to do. And that's not what we aim to do with our building phases. What we like to do is we like to encourage individuals to try and build as much muscle as possible whilst gaining as little fat as possible. And this differs from individual to individual because some individuals are more comfortable with fat gain than others. But for the majority of people that we've worked with and for ourselves, we like being leaner for a little bit longer. We like to be able to see our muscle growing and developing as we're gaining it. We don't want it to be covered by fat. We don't want to keep going through drastic body composition changes. We want it to be more stable than this. So in order to do this, our building phases are done at either maintenance calories where you've got the same amount of calories going in as what you've got going out every day or in a very small surplus. So you've just got slightly more calories going in than what you've got going out. By slightly more, it's probably going to be anywhere from like 100 to 300 calories more. It's really not a massive amount more than what you're burning every single day. The important question to ask yourself is how much fat gain are you comfortable with? And then you need to plan your summer accordingly to match that. I think that's an important, very important question actually because... slightly you will gain a little bit of body fat back when you go into a building phase or even just a maintenance phase after dieting. It's natural. The longer time you spend in it, then there will be some fat gain as you go on. But it doesn't have to be a lot. It really doesn't. I think first of all, accepting that it's okay and it's normal, it's natural to see a bit of body fat gain ⁓ over time when you come out to dieting is empowering, enlightening, because chasing too lean all the time is counterproductive when you try and change your physique. But you want to ask yourself, do I want to try and stay a little bit leader throughout the summer months and not risk putting too much body fat on too quickly? And if you're in that camp... then sitting closer to your maintenance calories is probably where you want to be. Yeah, spot on Katie. It should go without saying, but the more relaxed you are with your nutrition, with your diet, with your calorie awareness over the summer months, the greater risk you've got of overshooting what you're burning every single day and gaining a lot of fat. So we're not here to tell you what to do. We're not here to tell you that gaining too much fat is bad if you're comfortable with it. But you just need to be informed and know that... You can't cheap this system. If you're eating way more calories than you burn every day, you're going to gain fat at an accelerated rate. And it's up to you to choose what you want to do with that information. I can only speak for myself. If I've just worked my ass off to try and keep fat off with a balanced build phase through most of the year so I'm not gaining that much fat, so I can do a shorter term cut to go into the summer months, the last thing that I want to do after basically preparing myself for the last nine to 10 months is to then blow it all in my first weeks of summer. It's a time of the year that I really enjoy having those social events and having those experiences. But at the same time for that, it's also a time where I really enjoy being able to. Go to the beach from my top off where I enjoy wearing my summer clothes which are a little bit tighter, little bit more fitted, a little bit more revealing. And I want to feel as comfortable as possible in those. I don't want to feel like... I'm reflecting on the physique I had at the start of the summer, two or three weeks into the summer, and not wanting to take my shirt off because I've lost the six pack that I had when I first started just because I haven't been able to contain and control my cravings for the first couple of weeks. I haven't been able to just hold back myself a little bit and just be a little bit closer to my maintenance calories when I've got the whole summer to be able to do that and enjoy those foods for. Again, that's my own personal experience, but I'm sharing that with you because I'm sure there a lot of people that will listen to this that would feel exactly the same. They don't want the results to be just gone in a puff of smoke on the barbecue. I've done both avenues, right? I've done it where I've, after a fat loss phase, just, I wouldn't say free for all, but got lax with tracking, lax with my nutritional choices, and then found myself in position where I'm actually a bit more uncomfortable than... I wanted to be by this stage. And then I've the other side of the coin where I come out of a fat loss phase, I've stuck to around my maintenance calories for a long period of time. And that little bit of effort to... to manage moderation better has been the winner for me. It really, really has. Because that has allowed me to enjoy moderation for much longer, have more flexibility in my diet for much longer than totally just going, well, just take a couple of months off now. Because the reality is when you're doing those couple of months off, know you've... you're not doing really the standards that you want for yourself anyway, so that plays in your mind. And then you end up a couple of weeks, a couple of months down the line thinking, oh God, I've got a month to decline now. When for me personally, being able to just live with flexibility, live with moderation, the majority of my year. is way more important to me than just going, I'm out of fat loss now, let's just enjoy whatever I want to enjoy. Because that clearly wasn't working for me before, so why would it work now? Makes complete sense Katie, it really does. I like there's always an element of... Not beating yourself up too much how you look over the summer as well and not getting too caught up in the body image things. And I know all about that myself and perhaps at times I'm quite harsh on myself for my body image and wanting to look a little bit better and maybe compare myself to others where I should just be comfortable with as I am. ultimately, I think our ideal body image for us exists on a spectrum. I think that there are times when we're closer to our ideal body image and we feel much more comfortable in ourselves. And there are times where we allow it to drift a little bit too far. And that's where we kind of tip, tip across that middle line of being more uncomfortable with your body image than comfortable. So, you know, that's the way that I look at this in my head. Like I've got, I've got the comfortable range and I've got the uncomfortable range. And there are certain times a year where I might allow myself, for example, if I'm in a period of long term period of building muscle, I might allow myself to drift closer to the range where I'm uncomfortable. If I go too far, then I've gone too far and I need to look at my habits and my behaviors because I've put myself in a position now that I'm feeling much more uncomfortable. But I have to accept some variability with that because otherwise I'm putting myself into really tight parameters and tight restrictions about the standards of how I should look all the time. And that's not healthy either. But there are also times a year that naturally I want to be in my more comfortable range and I want to feel like I'm I want to feel like I'm not worried about my body image quite so much and by getting leaner for the 7 months for example that's the time of the year where for me I feel like I don't have to worry so much about my body image I feel like I'm much more comfortable so that's what works for me it might not work for everyone else a lot of people might not agree with that viewpoint but I've been doing this for a long enough time and I'm comfortable enough in my own body to know what's right for me and that's what I'm going to strive to achieve and get the right balance with throughout the 7 months That makes sense. think it's very brave of you to voice that actually you do get a little kind of caught up with comparison sometimes and a little bit harsh with your your own body composition and how you look. And I've seen how that has changed over the years and how you manage that much better for yourself now and do feel a lot more confident, which is really, really nice to see. I think you are right with that kind of spectrum and and just having, I guess, low point and a high point of where you want to be with your body composition and what you're willing to accept is really helpful and allows that little bit more flexibility sometimes with your nutrition, with your calories, because life is there to be lived to, right? And it's knowing when you can enjoy it for what it is, but also... allow yourself to uphold some standards that really work well for you because it is bigger than how you look. It's, you know, your standards day to day, the habits you practice day to day, they go beyond that. They go, you know, your mental health, your, your energy levels, your mood day to day, how well you sleep, how well you recover, all of those things play a part. It's not just the calories that you're referring to here, it's everything, right? And sometimes when you go into more sociable months and weeks of the year, it's easier for those standards and habits to perhaps go in a direction that you're not so happy or comfortable with. And it's important to set yourself some standards and habits that you're happy with, you're comfortable with. and sticking with those throughout those sociable months majority of the time. And that will allow you to stick within that spectrum of a certain body fat percentage range that you're comfortable with. One of things that I took away from that then was... You should always look to maintain the standards which you set out for yourself at the start. But what a lot of people do and what lot of people make the mistake of is letting those habits and standards drift, but then not picking the back up again until the end of summer. And one of the reasons why this happens is because they're not checking in with themselves on a week to week basis to assess. How has the last week gone? How am I feeling going into this week? Do I need to make any adjustments? It just kind of all goes by in a breeze. And if you have let things go for three, four, five, six weeks in a row, I guarantee that you're gonna notice the impact of that by the end of the summer. I guarantee that you're not gonna feel like you've maintained your habits or your standards very well. Why do you think every single online coach under the sun that is doing one-to-one coaching and sometimes even group coaching has a weekly check-in. It's not just to say I'm doing a job. It's not just to justify why people are charging them money. It's because every single week it creates a moment of reflection on how the previous week has just gone and to put some plans in place for the week ahead. I cannot even begin to tell you how important that clarity is. I cannot even begin to tell you how important that foresight is. We don't stop to think enough about what we've just done or what we're about to do. We often go into autopilot and especially in months like the summer where you're having a good time, you're having fun, routines changing. You might be staying up later in the night. You might be getting up later in the day. Your weekends might be traveling around all over the place. You've lost structure anyway. So what are you going to do? You're just going to rolling on from week to week to week, not stopping. not taking any time to really assess what's going on. I think setting the time aside in an unstructured, slightly more chaotic routine to just set some basic standards and basic targets for yourself can be the difference between letting it all go to shit and actually coming out of summer feeling like you've had a really successful couple of months, even if they're not perfect. You don't have to have a coach to do a weekly check in with yourself. You don't have to do that. You can literally just look at what you've been doing for the last week. You know, how many times have you gone for a walk? What's your food? What have your food standards been like? What's your weight doing? How do you feel? How do you actually feel? What are your energy levels like? What's your training recovery been like? What's your training performance been like? Pretend you are a coach. Just pretend you're a coach. Ask yourself, if I was a coach, what questions would I want to know about myself? guarantee you'll gain a lot of insight from doing that on a week to week basis throughout the summer. You can just stop things snowballing in a direction that's unfavorable to you and makes you feel like, oh, I've done it again. Summer's Gone to pot. Yeah, I enjoy the moment, but now I've got to get back on track. You can stay on track. Or summer, you don't need to go off track. It's all part of your plan. Summer events, should be, you should be able to enjoy those as part of your life. Let's go into some of the practical stuff then that people can apply in order to get more out of. maintaining their body composition over the summer months. So first thing that comes to mind for me, Katie, is activity levels, because they can sometimes change a little bit throughout the summer. Some people, might get more, but for some people they might get less, right? If you've got more vents on, if you're traveling places more, going on holidays, perhaps kids are home from school, weather's not great, wherever it may be, sometimes they can get less. And sometimes you just might not even clock the fact that you are moving less day to day. You're therefore not burning as many calories as you used to. Combine that then with some more calories going in and less going out because you've got some more events on where there's food and drinks. Then you're going to be in a position where you're putting yourself at risk of potentially gaining a little bit too much body fat. Whereas if you can just check in with yourself at volume activity levels and make a conscious choice to... be aware of those and make them happen where you can, then that's a simple habit that was working for you before that you can maintain throughout the summer months. Yeah, a short summary is that if your activity levels are less than where you started in summer, then your calories might need to be lower as well. You've got to adapt accordingly to what's going on in the here and now. So, yeah, it's unfortunate if you can't get as much training done or if you can't get as much walking done or if you're just not moving about as much day to day. We all get times of humor, that's the case, but... You should also make the appropriate adjustments to the calories that you've got going in, what you're eating, what you're drinking, to make sure that you're not putting yourself into more of a surplus and risk gaining more fat. That's the awareness of it, right, isn't it? If you've got holidays on, it's... It's not the same questions as you would for the rest of the summer. know, activity levels being a key point there. So you can... Sorry, you were talking about practical day-to-day things, you've gone to activity levels and the next point then is holidays. I didn't know if we're moving on to that one or if there's any other practical day-to-day points. basically, I would say like, you you could still do a bit of calorie banking at maintenance. recommend not going too low with that. You can still hold some calories back. It's probably not the end of world if you do a couple of days in deficit, give yourself some more room as well. wasn't sure where we going. Perfect. Okay. Okay. So we'll delete that holiday bit, right? Yeah. Calorie banking, that's something that you can still use when you're in a building phase or maintenance calories. Perhaps wouldn't recommend doing that too frequently and I perhaps wouldn't recommend maybe doing it quite as extreme as you would in a fat loss phase. And by that, mean, if you had a thousand calorie deficit in a fat loss phase and then ate five, 600 in another day of the week then. That's okay, you're in a calorie deficit overall for the week, but when you're in more of a maintenance phase or a building phase, you're trying to maximize your muscle growth. So you wanna try and be in close to your maintenance calories as possible most of the time, if not every day. So you don't really want to be going too far under your maintenance calories during the building phase. So perhaps you might wanna keep that a couple hundred at max, where you lower it on a Friday, for example, and it gives you an extra... 200 to 300 on a Saturday to have a little bit more calories to play with them when you've got an event done. So you can manage it like that. Same with if you have a spontaneous event, you haven't banked any calories, you go over your maintenance by 300 to 400, then if you go over your maintenance by 200 to 300, then the following day you could pull back by 200 to 300 calories. And that will allow you to manage your body fat levels around that time too. It's probably not going to hurt you too much if you're trying to be at maintenance calories or building on surplus calories and you go into a couple of days of deficit. It's probably not going to harm your muscle growth that much. It's probably not going to slow things down too much. I think you want to be careful of making this a crutch habit because, again, muscle building is a slow process and the more time you can spend building muscle, the better for muscle growth. And so if you are building muscles throughout the summer, which we would like to think that everyone is, even if they're doing maintenance, you don't really want to slow this down too much by going into deficit for certain days. We also don't know exactly how your body composition is going to handle low days of calories and then very high days of calories. So for example, if you, let's say for argument's sake, you've got weekend away and you eat a thousand more calories above maintenance. And then the next day after that, you decide to go a really low calorie day. So you eat 4,000 calories, your maintenance calories are 3,000 calories. So then the following day after that, you go down to 2,000 calories. How do we know that you've lost equal amounts of fat on the 2,000 calorie a day that you gained on the 4,000 calorie day? We don't know that. We don't know exactly how much fat your body has stored when you've massively overshot your maintenance. We don't know exactly how much fat is pulled off when you've gone into a calorie deficit. It may work favorably for you, but it may not. It may mean that you're still gaining a little bit more fat because a lot of the weight that you dropped when you went into that calorie deficit to follow is from water weight and glycogen stores. I guess the safest approach is to keep any sort of calorie swings quite tight when you're doing a maintenance or balance building phase. That's certainly what I recommend. That's certainly what I do myself. A couple of hundred calories here and there. maybe 200, 300 at most, probably not going to have that much of a sizeable impact. If you are trying to be more controlled and direct true maintenance or above, you should have plenty more, plenty enough calories to be able to enjoy some things with a certain degree of moderation. And I say that because I can't sit here and say that I agree with just having a free for all. I don't think that it ever really helps people. mentally or physically to just go completely off the rails. I think that there always needs to be some semblance of sensibility with nutrition, with alcohol, whatever it is. I do think that there needs to be some degree of control and moderation. I stand by that and that's my personal belief. I don't think that you should just eat completely liberally because I don't think anybody can be afforded that without having some sort of repercussions. It would be wrong for me to sit here as a coach and pretend that there aren't going to be any consequences to just completely liberal free eating. It just doesn't exist in the real world without consequences. Sometimes it can be more mentally challenging to deal with that than actually just practicing some moderation and enjoying the flexibility for what it is. There's not many clients I've worked with that truly felt great after that. Going over a couple of hundred calories of your maintenance calories and... you know, maybe even up to 500 sometimes. That's done sporadically. Like you said, the reality of you gaining fat is very, very slim. But actually overshooting a lot and go for free for all, that's one is impacting your ability to manage and practice moderation and potentially embedding habits that aren't serving you and not allowing you to overcome them and build better habits. And secondly, mentally after you've done that, it often comes with feelings of frustration, guilt, feeling like failure, which doesn't set you up mentally, which doesn't set you up in a positive mental state for the days to follow. I agree with that, Katie. I just had a thought that's come to me and I think it's really okay. How I would frame this is asking yourself a question. Do I want to make progress or do I just want to return to baseline? Because they're two very different mentalities and they're two very different strategies. If you go absolutely off the rails on the weekend, you're an adult, you can make decisions for yourself. Nobody's choosing, nobody's forcing you to eat or drink that much. It's entirely up to you. If you choose to go completely off the rails and you have a really pleasurable experience and you enjoy it. then the vast majority of the next week, maybe two weeks, is going to be getting back to baseline. That's not going to be progressive. If you contain yourself a little bit more, you act with a little bit more moderation, you might go slightly above maintenance, 200, 300 calories. It's not going to be that significant in the grand scheme of things. you're able to make progress that week because for the following week, you're not cutting your calories right back. You're not having to restrict yourself. You're not having to add loads of cardio in as a strategy to try and make up for the massive overshoot that you had. You're not resetting back to baseline. You're making progress. There's a big difference with that. Most people that do have these binge-like episodes where they consume excessive amounts of calories in a short space of time, they're either having to... basically go into a huge deficit beforehand to then cancel out all the calories that they're to over consume or they're going to spend most of the next week or so making up for it. If you repeat that habit every couple of weekends, then you're constantly plateauing. You're not making progress because all you're ever doing is clawing it back to baseline. It's in your tail all the time then, aren't you? And that eventually gets to a point where you're not feeling positive about those choices. It's a frustrating state to be in. A very good point to raise that. Let's talk about holidays. So how should you manage holidays? And for the sake of everyone listening, let's try and keep this brief because this could probably be an entire podcast in itself. I absolutely think I think it can. Keep it brief again. Set your expectations. What do you want from this particular holiday? Because you make that choice and decision for this particular holiday doesn't mean that you have to make that choice and decision for every other holiday that you go on. There may be a particular time where one holiday is, you know what, this is in middle of a really important fat loss block for me. I don't want it to go backwards. I don't want to gain body fat back. Cause I really, really want to push on with my fat loss goals and I come back. So this particular holiday, I'm gonna actually practice a little bit more, I wanna say restriction, but I'm gonna practice and perhaps track my nutrition a little bit more than I would like to on holidays because I want to the road running as soon as I come back. But that doesn't mean the next time you go on holiday, you have to take that same approach. The next time you go on holiday, you might have absolutely surpassed your fat loss goals that you were really happy with. And on this holiday, you want to take a bit more of a relaxing approach. You're not going to track your nutrition, but you're just going to hold yourself up to some standards that work well for you, like having a protein fiber rich meal for your breakfast, your lunch, and then maybe keeping them a bit on a lower calorie side so that you can then just go out in the evening and have all your fancy on the menu and enjoy it for what it is, for example. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's asking the same questions as you would about the summer as a whole when you go on holiday. imagine just shrinking your entire summer down to just one week or two weeks that you go on holiday. How much fat are you comfortable with gaining on this holiday? The more relaxed you are, the greater risk you've got of gaining some fat. The tighter you are, the more logistically challenging it may be, but at the same time, you might feel like you can maintain slightly leaner body composition for that. How will your activity levels differ on holiday compared to what they do at home? If you're going to be sat by the pool relaxing pretty much all the time and you're not going to do many steps per day, you might not go to the gym on holiday. then just bear in mind that you're burning much less calories than what you would normally do. So you might need to make some adjustments to your nutrition accordingly with that. Are you going to have some days at a higher in calories and some days at a lower in calories? Have you got a particular event or an experience you're going to be doing on the holiday? All of these things play a part. It's exactly the same as how you plan for the summer, in my opinion. You just shrink it down to one week. I absolutely love holidays. I really do. I feel like it's one of the times a year where I can really relax. I can really unwind. But I still want to keep up some of my standards with my nutrition and my training. because I love having a healthy diet because I feel so good after having a healthy diet every single day. I will enjoy some more treats and things when I'm on holiday and I will enjoy things outside of my normal day-to-day diet a little bit more. It's one of the very few occasions a year where I actually drink alcohol because I don't drink alcohol for most of the year other than when I go on holiday. But I also enjoy the other parts of what people class to be a fitness lifestyle. And that comes naturally to me to do when I'm on holiday. It's natural for me to want to go to a gym when I'm on holiday. And I will train two, three, four times a week when I'm on holiday. And I will go for walks and do my steps. Sometimes I do more steps on holiday per day than what I do when I'm at home. And I do a lot of steps when I'm at home. That's just me, but I also know that... There are times, there have been times, and there will be occasions where I relax a little bit more and the consequence of that is... But if I have one too many drinks I'm going to have a sore head the next day. The consequence of that is I might feel like by the end of holiday, I want to come back and start eating healthier food again. I want to come home and get back to a little bit more structure and a little bit more routine. I want to get my sleeping pattern back on track. I don't necessarily want to have a glass of wine every day or have a beer every day or... or have a sweet treat every day, I would probably prefer to have some. some more consistency to my day-to-day routine. Delivery. For me, I think the holiday would feel like more of a stress. and it would be less enjoyable if I let all my routine completely go to pieces. There are some holidays I relax a little bit more compared to others. There are some holidays where I'm a little bit more strategic about how I use my calories and about how I manage my activity levels. But ultimately, I don't like losing all my structure and routine altogether because that doesn't make me feel very good. That doesn't make me enjoy my holiday more. It makes me enjoy it less and I feel resentful of that lack of routine and structure by the end of the week. And I don't want to have those feelings about a time which is... precious time with with Katie or my family or whoever I'm on holiday with. I was back down to the point of knowing what makes you feel good and sticking with some... habits and structures that allow you to feel good when you're doing something that you really enjoy. And there may be some holidays where you will gain a couple of pounds, right? There may be. Is it the end of the world if that happens? It's not, right? Probably by this stage you'll know to lose a couple of pounds. But no, there's extremes to it. You can go on holiday and go completely the opposite to what you normally do, gain more than a couple of pounds and then feel really crappy about yourself. But if you do gain a couple of pounds because you've maybe had a little bit more food here and there, you know, you've maybe enjoyed a... an ice cream or two, more than you usually would, the meal was a bit more indulgent than you normally have because the calories can rack up when you are eating out a little bit more frequently. And naturally so, they will, they will. So if you know on that particular holiday, do you know I am going to enjoy a little bit more of that and not worry so much about my calorie intake, you just got to accept that you might put a couple of pounds on. And if that's okay for you and you're happy to accept that. then that is okay, there's no one to tell you that's right or wrong. You can correct course. I don't even wanna say correct course, but you can just lose that weight, that body fat when you come home at some point if you want to. What I hope that you'll take away from this as listeners is that we're not gonna tell you what to do. We're not parents, we're not teachers, we're not your boss at work. We're not going to tell you what to do. We're going to put everything on the table for you and we're going to present you with the options that you have. We want you to be comfortable making the decision for yourself. We'll help you to know. what the consequences of certain decisions are and how to avoid certain consequences. But there's no hard right or wrong because everyone is so different. We also want you to know that there's absolutely zero value in us coming down really hard on somebody that goes completely off the rails and enjoys their holiday. It's more a case of, well, you know, what did you expect? We can prepare you for what to expect and we can prepare you for what the potential risks or what the potential consequence could be, similarly to how we can prepare you to what the potential benefits of not doing that would be. But then you've got to make your choice and you've got to go through with the actions. And whatever you choose, we can help you out with it afterwards as well. But we're not here to go, ⁓ well, look how stupid you've been doing this or that. You've got to decide for yourself whether that was a good decision or not. Where we will step in is if you've made a decision to be a little more indulgent and enjoy that on the holiday, when you come home and beat yourself up over it, that's where we will step in and just kindly remind you that you chose to do that then in that timeframe at that particular holiday because you wanted to have those memories. So there's absolutely no point beating yourself up about it now. It's about what you're gonna do moving forward to... to change how you're feeling right now. Because beating yourself up over a decision you've made in the past is not worth it, it's really not. And that's where we will step in and support you with that. Because we can be our own worst critic sometimes and regret things after we've done them. But there's no point beating yourself up for something you've chosen and valued at that moment in that particular holiday. If it does play in your mind a lot after and you feel really, get it about it, resentful over it. then that's a lesson for you to learn for how you want to manage your next holiday. We don't set the standards for you. We help you meet the standards which you set for yourself. And as coaches... And this actually forms the main part of our role as coaches throughout the summer. It's about helping individuals to achieve. Can you stop fidgeting around, just really distracting please? is about helping individuals to maintain the standards which they set themselves and holding them accountable to those standards. Because where your actions and behaviours do not align with the results you want and do not align with the standards that you want. because when there's a really big gap between your actions and behaviors and the standards that you set for yourself. problems occur. You want the gap between those two things to be as small as possible. That's where you feel like you're acting in line with the identity that you want to have. That's where you feel more confident in yourself. That's where you feel more capable. That's where your self-belief is its highest. Can you do the CTA from here or do want me to do it? You summarise that extremely well, Extremely well. That gap between your actions and what standards you set yourself. is often overlooked quite a lot and it's an area that can really... unsteady the ship, shall we say, and cause a lot of problems, like you said. And this is where coaching really does come in handy. And it's really helpful throughout those periods and those patches of your life, because it's hard sometimes to recognize those gaps yourself. It's hard to know what direction you should take next to close that gap between. the actions that you're doing and the identity that you really want. Whether that's being too critical of yourself or whether that's not pulling yourself up enough. Coaching can step in and really help you with that. Be more specific please. What do they want to achieve in the summer? What are we going to help them to do in the summer? for seven months with all the events that you have going on. can really spiral, I can snowball in a negative way, you can gain body fat at an accelerated rate, if you don't understand how to use the tools effectively for your situation. Our coaching can really help you feel empowered. It can help you feel in control of your summer. have some flexibility whilst achieving your goals, whether that is you want to push on with that loss or whether you want to enter into a balance building phase. If you'd like to chat about your options with one of us, head over to the description and fill out the inquiry form and one of us will be in touch to have a chat. So to summarize everything we've discussed in the podcast. Decide what you're doing early on, whether it's fat loss, maintaining your body composition or trying to build a bit of muscle. Set a date for when you're going to make this switch to go into this state. and stick to it. don't want to be winging it. is the worst place you can be is winging it. So be clear about your own expectations and standards that can really help you just realign if things start going in a direction that you're not too happy with. Go into your events with a clear plan in mind, even if the plan is to not track or just enjoy it. That's still a plan. That still gives you some framework. and some scaffolding to go and experience this event with. You can always put measures in place to reduce the impact of an overshoot or reduce the impact of a day that's gonna be higher in calories, but if you don't bring any awareness to it, it's not gonna get managed effectively. and temptations will always be there. You can't avoid them totally, that's really unrealistic. But with practice, you can get better at handling them and doing what's right for you in a situation. I think a final point that I'd like to mention is that it's okay to beat the odd one out a little bit over the summer months. It's okay to be a little bit different. If you're the only one that you know, getting up early to go to the gym, getting your steps in, saying no to certain foods, not drinking when you go to certain drinking events. then that's absolutely fine. You don't have to answer to anyone else but yourself and maybe a coach who's holding you accountable of course. It's okay to do your own thing. It's okay to have different goals to other people. It's also okay to relax a little bit, but don't be all or nothing. Spot on, absolutely spot on. Doing what others do and adopting an all-enough-in mindset, that is a place you do not want to be in. And if you can tackle those two things, it makes your health and fitness journey a much calmer, more successful place. Do we need another CTA now? No. That's all for today's episode. Next week, we'll be back with a hot topic for you all. We're going to expose what most coaches won't tell you about chasing a physique goal. We'll always tell you honestly what it takes to achieve the Fascikos that you have in mind. Because there's absolutely nothing worse than having unrealist expectations. They can make you feel like a failure even when you're not. Tune in next week to be empowered about what it really takes to achieve a body that shows you lift. See you all next week.