Latest / Beyond Fat Loss / Two Real Client Journeys: How They Lost Fat, Built Muscle and Fixed Their Relationship With Food
Transcript
- Katie & Sean Darlow: Welcome to the Beyond Fat Loss podcast, where we don't just stop at fat loss, you'll learn about all the good stuff that follows. How to build muscle, how to enjoy more foods, and how to stay lean without going to extremes. We are your host Sean and Katie, and today we've got a special episode for you. We're going to be sharing the journeys of two of our star members who have both achieved some incredible results and overcome significant personal challenges to get to where they are today. In this episode, you're going to learn some of the personalised strategies we have used to help these members continue to grow from strength to strength. You'll also see how members like these two aren't just bettering themselves, They're inspiring others and teaching us new things so we can become better coaches too. Just before we reveal who we've chosen for the podcast today, just want to let you know a little bit about how our coaching works so you can understand the context of this podcast. So together collectively, we are SKD coaching, but within SKD coaching, we both have our individual one-to-one clients and all of our Training programs, diet advice, communication is all delivered on that one-to-one basis. So we're both familiar with the members that we have chosen to talk about today, but we have each chosen one of our own individual clients. So tell me then, Sian, who is your choice today? Who are you going to talk about? I'm going to be talking about Tish, our South African superstar. Nice, strong choice, strong choice. Katie, who is your choice? I'll be talking about Charlotte, whose commitment and results have inspired her two best friends and her boyfriend to want a piece of the action too. Got two fantastic choices there. And obviously we both know of the other person. I've really enjoyed watching Charlotte's journey through our community. I've loved watching inspire others as well inside the community. I'm sure you've enjoyed watching Tish grow and progress over the last year or so as well. Absolutely, absolutely. really is a... World and part of the job is... watching individuals prove to themselves just how capable they are when they've got the right approach in front of them. Even though we haven't worked with each other's clients individually, we still get inspired by their stories and their accomplishments we're in that community group. And I think this is something which often gets overlooked, especially with one-to-one coaching programs, having that. environment where you can be around like-minded people that value the same things that you do that value making progress that value taking your training and your diet a little bit more seriously. is such a rewarding element your fitness journey. just makes you feel, it doesn't make you feel alone, does it? It makes you feel like there are others out there that enjoy this, that get benefit from it, that ⁓ hungry for it. And being around that can be really inspiring rather than feeling like your flame is being dimmed. I think even more introverted people like, believe it or not, I'm more of an introverted person in my day-to-day life. I am more of an introvert, typical introvert. You can still benefit from being part of a tribe, of a community. You might not necessarily be the one that's wanting to put yourself in the spotlight and be front and center of that, but single one of us are influenced by people around us, people in our close community, and people that we spend most of our time with. So I think the value of being part of a group where every single week there are people celebrating successes, people sharing their challenges and sharing their solutions for all those challenges. I think it's so valuable and we all benefit from having that. It goes down to your environment, isn't it? we've a little bit about in our previous podcasts, but it's choosing that environment that benefits what you want to achieve rather than potentially sabotaging it. And if you've got an area of your life that aligns with what you want to achieve, it can just make that process a little bit more enjoyable, a little bit more engaging, and ultimately make you little bit more hungry for it. You find that environment by naturally going to the gym. But if you're only in the gym two, three, four hours a week, then you're only in that environment a few hours a week. By being part of a coaching group and having a community chat, you're in that environment all the time. You've got access to that environment all the time, similarly to having a coach. you've got access to your coach pretty much all the time. So you're always around those types of people, a lot of people don't have in their day-to-day life. So with that said, let's in a little bit more. Let's go down to an individual level and let's talk about ⁓ the that we've chosen today, which was a very hard choice, might I add. I'm glad you said it. You took the words out of my mouth. think not to take any light away from. these two that we are going to talk about because their journeys really have touched our hearts, haven't they, to say? They've inspired us, made us better as coaches. There are many members that I think we'd like to rave and shout about and perhaps in future podcasts we will do that. We could have chosen any one our members because as coaches we... take something away from each individual's journey. We always learn something new from each individual's journey. We sharpen our skill sets as coaches from coaching so many different individuals. But for this first podcast, we both felt like these individuals were the best choices for us to talk about because of what they've been through recently, because of where they are at this stage of their journey now. And because there are lot of crossovers between their journeys as well, as we'll come to discuss, but there are still a lot of unique differences as well, which have required some slightly different approaches along the way. I don't want to say too much more. to give it all away too early. But is good reason for choosing these two individuals today. Let's get started. And Katie, I'm going to hand over to you because if I start talking here, you probably won't get a word in edgeways and the podcast may be seven hours long. So tell me a little bit about your chosen member, Charlotte. How long have you been working together and how did you both get started? and Charlotte then. We've been working together for nearly years now. think our two year anniversary will be in May. So it's coming up Charlotte. Are you more excited about that or our wedding anniversary? Oh yes, that would be our anniversary in May as well right? It's okay Charlotte, I know where I stand. brilliant. No, we started chatting on Instagram. It just all started from a simple conversation. Charlotte had been battling with her weight for over 16 years. And I'm sure she won't mind me sharing this because she's inspired many people along her journey. And she doesn't want people to go through the struggles she did for so long. She tried various different diets fads, like many of us like myself. in attempt to just lose body fat but achieve that physique that you feel really proud of. The year or so before joining us, she started lifting weights for the first time alongside trying to drop body fat, which was a good move. And she really wanted to improve her relationship with food. Because she had been successful in losing body fat many times before, but never quite got to that goal physique or found a sustainable approach for her long term. They were more kind of shorter, quick fixes that, yeah, lost body fat. She lost body fat with... She gave it all to, had fantastic results, but that long-term approach, that was missing. So where did you get started talking to Charlotte? We started talking when she was around week six or seven into an eight week challenge with coach. And we started chatting on Instagram. And to be honest, we hit it off immediately. We really did. And I think there was a lot of Charlotte struggles that I could relate to and share my experiences with. long did it take her to understand your accent? not quite sure we're there yet. No, not. So Charlotte was on week six or seven of this challenge, where was she at with the challenge? How was she feeling at the time? At the time she was actually feeling great about her results. She was feeling like she'd nailed the challenge. She's done exactly what was asked of her. She'd given it all. I think she had around a 3K loss, something like that. But where she was questioning things now was how does she come out of that eight week challenge? What does she do next? How does she navigate going from lower calories to higher calories? How does she make sure she doesn't regain most of body fat within the first couple of weeks of this challenge? She also knew she wasn't where she wanted to be long-term and was trying to figure out where, trying to figure out the best next move to give herself a little bit of a break after such an intensive challenge, how to do that and where to go next. What was she doing as part of the challenge and how was she feeling about continuing with those sorts of habits afterwards? it was quite an intensive eight week challenge. She was in four sessions a week, which felt like quite a lot to fit in and juggle around everything else. Two to three cardio or interval sessions. Let's be honest, they probably weren't her favorite on top of everything else as well. I bet she knew she couldn't quite commit to all of that forever because of how intense it was, the time it was taken out her week when we all have other responsibilities and commitments. Just felt like a hundred mile per hour race that she wouldn't be able to keep at without burning out. At the time you speak into her, did Charlotte think she needed moving forwards? And what did you think she needed to help her with her long-term goals? That's a really interesting question, actually. And I think this is where Charlotte had a kind of light bulb moment, but also... was a little skeptical, right, to be fair, because when we were chatting, thought she needed to do a reverse diet to come out of the A3 challenge, to be able to get herself back up to higher calories, to get herself back up to maintenance calories. So she was planning on increasing her calories bit by bit over a number of weeks to get back to her maintenance calories, which ultimately we know that you're still in a calorie deficit when you're doing a reverse diet. So you're kind of prolonging that diet. And the recovery from being in a diet state. Yeah, absolutely, Her plan was to initially follow through with the reverse diet until she got back to maintenance calories. But she said her question marks around what's going to happen to the number of the scales. I don't want to see that go up. I don't want to see fat being gained. Perhaps not fully understanding the process, but just knew that was a method out there that was available to her and had been suggested to her by other PTs and other coaches. And this is the thing. It sounds like a great method. but when you break it down and you talk about what it's actually gonna do for you, it's lengthy, it's time consuming, it's still restrictive, you're still gonna see scale weight increases when you finish reverse dieting. And did you mention that Charlotte had intentions to go back to fat loss as well? And then what? What would happen after the reverse diet? So what was Charlotte's plans after that? All she knew at that stage was that she wanted to get it back to higher calories, maintenance calories, before, and spend some time there, before she ended another fat loss phase again in the future. That sounds like a really long process, doesn't it? So like reverse diet take... normally eight to weeks, depending on what deficit you start in, depending on how high you have to get back up to maintenance calories, but it's such small increases every week that you're talking a couple of months at least, then you have a maintenance phase, which typically could last one month, two months, three months, depends on how long you want to be at maintenance for. And then you've got another fat loss phase to come. So all in, you're anywhere between four to months or more. before Charlotte arrived at the result that she actually wanted. And not that, that period that you just mentioned there, Sean, if you followed that, there was no ⁓ real muscle intensive period in that either, right? So it was still her chasing fat loss really, hoping to maintain her body fat levels in that period and then chasing fat loss again. She'll have done that before. She's lost body fat successfully. She's lost body fat successfully, but it's not left her with the physique, the body that she really wanted, the tone, the defined look. How many people have had that problem? mean, it's so common, isn't it? So many people are. I think you asked me a question earlier on in the podcast, what I think she should have done. when we were having this conversation. And I think this was the light bulb moment for Charlotte was that I explained to her that a reverse diet isn't necessary, that it's just going to prolong things for her, going to keep her in a diet state for longer than necessary. And that eventually when she got back to maintenance calories, the things that she was fearing are going to happen anyway, because it's a natural part of the process. When we come out of a diet state, that we will see a positive weight regain. because we replenish in our body and our body doesn't get replenished until we get back to at least maintenance calories, right? And that reverse diet just prolongs that. So we had a conversation about that, we chatted about that. She asked as many questions that she needed to do to understand a little bit more. then she asked me, do think she should And this is where I explained to her actually, you don't want to delay getting back to maintenance calories. That is something that you want to do as soon as possible really. As you mentioned, Charlotte has done a lot of diet phases, fad diets, probably a lot of the yo-yo-like activities that we see with a lot of members that have tried to pursue lower body fat over the years. The one thing it sounds like Charlotte wasn't ticking off at this stage was having a period of maintenance where body weight was controlled ⁓ only very, very, very small amounts, like very minor fluctuations and being to eat more calories for a longer period of time without feeling like she had to go back to another fat loss phase. And if she hadn't had that experience... that fear was always going to be there. doesn't matter how many diets, doesn't matter how many fat loss phases she would do. She would always feel like things are going to go wrong when she comes off the diet. Yeah, absolutely that. The things are going to go wrong when she comes off the diet. That was a big fear of hers. I remember her saying, I'm honestly shitting myself for gaining what I lost back. And those are some of her words at the start, right? And I get it. That is a massive fear when you... when you do want to lose body fat and you have lost body fat successfully in the past. And to me it was that Charlotte's, it's not that Charlotte couldn't lose body fat successfully, she's proven she can do that time and time again with various different methods. But that long-term solution and that long-term approach is what Charlotte was lacking. And that's no fault of her own, right? She's never been shown or made aware that this is a possible route for her. But you went through a similar journey yourself in terms of having lots of different diets and a bit more of a yo-yo cycle, like you were stuck in that fat loss loop for a really long period of time. And then you broke out of it and then you learned how to start feeling yourself properly for longer durations and have maintained better body competition than ever longer periods. ⁓ ⁓ had a track record of doing this yourself, which I'm sure would have been inspirational to Charlotte at the time. So where did it go from there? Obviously Charlotte would have signed up at some point. Where did you take things from there? She did sign up. We had a lovely, I want to say it was probably close to maybe an hour and a half or two hour call initially. We had a lot to chat about. We just connected and hit off. By the end that call she probably would have been able to understand you a bit better as well which is always a win. Well, she either couldn't understand me better or it went on so long because she couldn't bloody understand the word I was saying. still around so I'd like to think she can understand whilst she'll be here. Anyway, yeah, after ⁓ Charlotte the plunge, signed up with ⁓ SKD, up with me as a one-to-one coach and decided the plan of action next and ⁓ as as still wanted to ⁓ reduce her body ⁓ reduce her body fat overall, right? Because she wanted to feel trimmer, she wanted to feel more toned, she wanted to feel really confident in her body. For me as a coach, this is where I actually advised her to take some time away from dieting, being at fat loss, and to go back to maintenance calories straight away. That didn't come without fears, and rightly so, right? Rightly so. but we navigated them together. It was, we're gonna put you back up some eating calories. I know you're worried about the scale weight, but this is what can expect from the scale weight. This is what you can expect to feel in your body. This gonna be the plan for the next couple of weeks before we then ⁓ discuss another fat loss phase. It's incredibly brave of Charlotte to sign up with you as a coach and to hand the reins over to you about something she was so fearful of and then to be kind of, I guess, nudged in the direction of that fear initially. That must have taken a lot of trust and a lot of courage and it shows the relationship that you were able to build up from Charlotte at such an early stage for her to... hand that trust to you at that stage of journey. At such a pivotal stage of the journey, 16 years of not being able to manage this period after fat loss herself, it does really show the bond that you must have built with her in those early stages for her to hand that responsibility over to you. I can imagine that felt like a big responsibility to you, Katie. Oh, it did. It did. I love it and I really enjoy showing individuals. There's another way for them. Charlotte gave me the opportunity to do that, so I'll always be grateful that she allowed me to do that with her and that she trusted in me to support her with this journey. But like you said, Sean, Charlotte was brave. It took a lot of courage to the rings over to someone else. for a journey that means so much to you as an individual. She literally was stepping into the unknown. Her main goal was fat loss, to feel smaller, feel toned, to feel trimmer. Yet I was telling her to eat more food. I was telling her to do probably the opposite of what she initially thought. And that's not an easy thing to do, to hand the reins over and then put trust in that process. that decision. Why did you choose to put Charlotte and maintenance straight away rather than say, let's go for fat loss. You've got more to lose. Let's keep going with that. This is a great question and... I chose maintenance for Charlotte for that particular period because for me it was the right thing to do for that client, for her relationship with food, for her confidence in the fact that she can maintain great habits outside of just trying to lose body fat, that she has the ability to eat more food without, like she said, everything she's lost, gaining back. And she'd been dieting all right, on and off for a very, very long period, but probably most of her life being in a continuous diet. It wasn't the right call to push Charlotte to keep striving for fat loss at that moment in time. That is something that I felt would be better for her to pick up at later date once she was able to eat more food without fearing the scales going back up as a bad thing. and actually see how strong she can be in the gym. There's a few components there. It sounds like it was preparing her physically, psychologically, and emotionally for next stage of her fat loss journey. And is the thing with fat loss, for anybody done fat loss phases back to back. So we're talking like a few months, take a break, a few months, take a break, a few months. It really does grind you down. Physically you fatigued, your energy's low, you start to feel like you're getting weaker in your training, in your day-to-day life. Psychologically, you feel like you're always a little bit restricted, you feel like you've always gotta be a bit more sharper with your decision-making, a bit more on top of your food control, but yet at the same time, you don't feel like you've got the mental energy and the capacity for that. Yeah, it's not something which you really want to be experiencing for long durations. I think it's a mistake which so many coaches make with clients that come in and say they have a fat loss goal, but they don't take the time to understand the background and the history of the individual and understand what they need because sometimes a client, a member will actually start with you and they don't need to go straight into an intensive diet. Sometimes they just need to find their feet. Get comfortable, build some habits, build some momentum. Like have some enjoyment in the early stages of that coaching process. Like you said, Charlotte felt like, you you felt like her getting stronger in the gym and enjoying those gym sessions again. They were for the purpose of fat loss before, they were for the purpose of cutting back, taking away, having those gym sessions to then add something to her, to feel like she was gaining something rather than losing something from those gym sessions. changes the psychology of those gym sessions, changes enjoyment and the investment in those gym sessions. So sometimes it's really nuanced and we can't say the same for every individual, but sometimes coaches will rush into that and they will push a client down a pathway that they think is going to be great for their results on their page and that testimonial, but it's not actually the best thing for that person. I agree fully, I agree fully. I think no shall have so well already at that point. I knew an that if you give her a task and a challenge, she will just give her all. And so you keep giving it all until it reaches a point where it's just too much then. And I think... She needed a cycle breaker. She needed something different that she'd not had experience to before that was going to give her a different experience, a different return, a different focus, right? From constantly cutting, restricting. and give him more of a focus of, gosh, I can have more flexibility. I can have better energy. I can have a better relationship with food. I can have more food. I can perform more. I can perform better in these training sessions. When I'm out horse riding, I feel amazing on top of that horse. It's all of the things where it's exposing to an experience haven't had exposure to before and showing them how that could work for them. And that first month at maintenance for Charlotte after the end of the sixth to eight week challenge, I think that opened her eyes. That really gave her that light bulb moment that, my God, I do not have to chase the fat loss cycle or be in the fat loss loop all of the time. There is another way. So we know what maintenance did for Charlotte why you chose to do that. What did you do with Charlotte's training? Because obviously she was doing four sessions a week. She was doing lots of extra cardio. Did you make any adjustments to that? ⁓ yeah, absolutely. Charlotte had expressed how even though she felt great for doing that, during that period, she felt that it was unrealistic for her to maintain that moving forward. So, dropped down to three training sessions a week, because we could still get everything we needed to do done in those sessions. Cardio, dropped down to... one or two a week depending what other things she had on during that week as well. So just reduced the time she was spending training, doing cardio, that wasn't necessary. How did that feel for Charlotte? It was a relief at that stage because she'd been going at it for eight weeks solid at a rate that just was going to eventually lead to burnout. So it was a relief for her to know that she could spend less time doing something but still get the same, if not better results. So by this stage, month or so in, you've been chatting for a few months beforehand as well. You would have got to know Charlotte pretty well. What impressed you the most about her in these early stages of her journey? It was how brave she was to try something different. and how she... took on those changes with an open mind. She didn't half a house or anything. She... Whatever advice and plan we've put in place together for her. She executed it to the letter. She communicated with me, let me know what wasn't working, what was working for her, the struggles that she faced. And that level of open communication and her willingness to try different approaches is what's allowed her to find an approach that works for her longer term. And that impressed me because it's not always easy to change. ⁓ nerve-wracking. None of us really like our way of thinking or our routine being disrupted because it's the unknown, it's unfamiliar, we don't feel safe, it's pushing us outside of our comfort zone. But she didn't let that hold her back, she embraced it fully. I think there's a couple of elements there which just demonstrate how much of a great team you and Charlotte are. mean things like communication, things like compromise, like you being able to reduce Charlotte's sessions that was more manageable around her lifestyle. meant that she probably felt like she wanted to give those sessions her all then. You were meeting her halfway, you were meeting her in the middle, and then she was communicating with you well, telling you what's going well, what's not quite going so well, what could be tweaked, what could be improved. You were showing willingness to change that. That's such a example of cooperation and how a really strong team can cooperate together. Absolutely. forever ongoing in relationship, right? ⁓ example, one element is the training phase is now that we update, you know, every six to eight weeks, I'll have a list of likes, had enough of, and things solid like change. I take those on board and create a new phase on the back of that. So she's excited by that new training phase, but I wouldn't be able to do that if she wasn't open and didn't communicate to me. No, 100%. It goes both ways. I think being a coach myself, the difference when you have that open level of communication and you're finding those compromises and you're working as a team, it's just night and day difference. can write anybody a training plan, we can write anybody a diet plan and hand it to them. But the individuals that are really engaged in telling you what's going well, what's not quite going so well, sharing. their day-to-day experiences, questioning kind of the changes or not necessarily questioning you as a coach, but at times that might be necessary, but just questioning the reasons why things are being done a certain way ⁓ just you informed. They get so much better results and outcomes because you can just tailor things so much better to that individual. can... you really understand what they're experiencing and you can give your best possible advice down to very, very small details on how to help them. small tweaks make a huge difference to the journey, And they're learning things specifically for themselves. It's not generic stuff that they're learning from you then. It's not the same stuff that we can put in an Instagram wheel or put on a YouTube video. It's specific details to their... individual problems and struggles. yeah, communication is so important and you just got to kind of give your hats off to members like Charlotte that are willing to do that because it is difficult. It is something that people will feel uncomfortable with sometimes when they start having a coach because they might not be used to sharing that level of communication. But ⁓ wow, a difference it makes when they do. absolutely Sian, spot on. It's such a key part to a successful journey. It's not just having the knowledge, it's how you can apply that with a client. And that relationship that you have has got to be a trusted one, an open one. And I do think a coach has a big responsibility to guide that process from the start. Let's zoom out a little bit now then. So we've, we understand the picture of where you started the great relationship that you built up with your days with Charlotte, what you did with her nutrition and her training to start. the course of the next year or so, what did you do for the rest of that year with Charlotte? As like a snapshot of how the rest of the year panned out, because you mentioned she had goals to go back to fat loss. And then what did you notice changing with her over the course of that first year? So after her first maintenance break then, that month that she spent in maintenance, we mapped out the next period. It was to go back into loss phase for little while and then for Charlotte to enter a longer term balance building phase. So she felt great that she had clarity over what the next plan of action was, that it wasn't just going to be an endless fat loss loop, that there was other options for her. the biggest changes I guess I seen in Charlotte, and she probably agree with these because I've had ⁓ chats with her and feedback from her about ⁓ she's found these parts of the journeys, but her confidence. her confidence in her capabilities terms of how she can apply herself for a longer period and not just short six week or eight week stints that she can actually commit herself for a longer process as she can show up to herself day in day out over the course of a year, of course for two years now, right? That she is that person, she's no longer the person that can only stick to things short term. She has confidence in her ability levels there. The other things I've noticed her gain confidence in is the scales, right? Because when she first joined, it was, don't want to see them shoot back up. I don't know what to expect from that. I don't know what's good or bad about the scales. It was always the case of needing to see them go down rather than understanding the benefits of potentially seeing them go up a little, right? So her mindset and relationship with this girl has changed massively. Her relationship with food improved a lot as well. Her confidence with being able to eat more calories and know that if she eats at maintenance calories or around that, that she can manage her body fat levels. She's had exposure to that. And that changed Charlotte's mindset completely. That's just in part of the journey though, right? That's just key parts of her health and fitness journey. What about Charlotte's gym performance and her physical results? Did you notice anything change with those in the first year? for sure. I don't think she could quite believe the numbers that she was lifting, how strong she was getting, how physically fit she felt the gym and outside of the gym. She horse-riding, right? And she just felt so strong on top of the horse. I think even won some shows that ⁓ she took in ⁓ during that year. That was pretty to see her achieve those things as well. She was able to ⁓ lift. Just under 100 kilos for a Romanian deadlift. She started to have, I think she banked her first pull up in the first year. I'm to think of some of other achievements that stood out. But her lifting numbers went up across board. It's the strongest she's ever been. She I've never ever lifted this much weight. for joining SKD. And that was just in the first year. Like you said, that was just in the first year, so she achieves all that and you've noticed all that change in her within the first year. Did you see this confidence creeping into other areas of her life as well as you continue to coach her? I did, Charlotte's confidence rippled into so many other areas of her life. And the biggest one that shouts out to me is the fact that she started her own new business. She went and learned a new course, laser hair removal, and she started her own self-employed business and has had great success in it. She felt confident enough in her being able to apply it all, follow through with her actions, stick to something long-term. And she kept following her dream. And her dream was that she wanted to have more control over her day-to-day life. And that wasn't just with her health and fitness, that was with her career as well. I think a lot of the skills which she would have developed, like emotional skills, patience, small incremental progression week to week, I think all of that stuff can be applied to business. I think it's one of the reasons why we are drawn to run in our own business because so many of the things that we've learned in our fitness journey, so many of the principles that we apply to our fitness journey are very, very similar to run a business. Showing up each day for yourself, good days or bad days, there will always be something that you can learn, something you can take away from it, something that you can progress with. And the self-belief, the self-belief to know that if you stick at something long enough and you're consistent with it, it doesn't have to be perfect, but stacking up small wins over time lead to really great outcomes in the end. I'm not sure Charlotte would have had the confidence to do something as bold as start in her own business had she not worked on herself before doing that. She'd never had work on herself and she has full credit for that, but that's opened other doors for her and exposed her to new opportunities. remember a picture I think she put in the group chat where she was walking around the track at one of her boyfriend's race events in the of the summer, peak summer, ⁓ was hot and she had her sports bra on and she took a selfie and send it into the group. I think she was saying that she never had the confidence to do that before. even in the summer when everyone else is wearing clothing. Charlotte didn't have the confidence to do that. And I think that was, like I can still remember that moment now because it's those little things ⁓ form part of somebody's journey that ⁓ you buy into their experience even more and even more proud of them for what they've achieved. Yeah, she was... smile said it all in that picture, think, didn't it? The smile said it all. Yeah. Absolutely. Year one went into year two and you're still going. any point throughout the plan of working together, transitioning from year one to year two, did you have to change anything? We did change something actually. We changed how she approached fat loss phases. She no longer done a modular deficit approach. She was exposed to the aggressive dieting approach, the one that we've talked a lot about on the podcasts when we learned about last year. And Charlotte's again, her... courage, her openness to change, her willingness to try different things that potentially could really work for her. She put her hand up to give the aggressive diet a go when we first started learning about it. she always says, I just want to get in and get out of fat loss. And this is why we switched from a more moderate approach for Charlotte to an aggressive dieting approach. the shorter stints that she could do what she does best, give it all, and then transition out of them. And her doing that has really helped her journey and her engagement with going into another fat loss phase because she knows that they're not going to be lasting forever. The shortest stints that work well for her to get great results. And what does this do for Charlotte's journey as a whole? Because now Charlotte's doing a multi-phase journey, so it's not just all about fat loss. You mentioned how she really started to see more value in her training, her strength going up, so how do these aggressive diet phases play a part with that? Fail our tour. spend more time outside of deficit calories, more time at maintenance calories, more time fueling muscle building. Because Charlotte's goal, I don't like saying end goal, right? Because we're all in this for really with health and fitness, but the goal that she wants for her physique in the end requires building muscle so that she can look more toned, look more defined and being able ⁓ to to since the fat loss. allows you to then transition back out to building muscle and spending more time there. Yeah, like it has done for many of our members, it's just cut the fat loss time down significantly so that the majority of the time can be spent doing the far more enjoyable parts of fitness. Absolutely. What was Charlotte's experience like with doing the aggressive diet? She found it easier to stick to than a moderate deficit. There were, let's say, clearer rules, right? And those clearer rules mean less decision-making day to day. She was less hungry in the first couple of weeks, which, like me, didn't believe when you first went into it. How can you be less hungry when you're eating less calories? But she experienced that too. And the reward from seeing the fat loss happen quicker than in a moderate deficit is the elements she particularly enjoyed about an aggressive diet. Probably fair to say that Charlotte spent most of her life in a diet state, so. It must have felt like such a huge relief to know that diet states now are much, much shorter. And she wasn't against doing intensive methods as she proved when she did her eight week challenge before signing up. The difference with the aggressive diet, how we set it up is that it's intensive for an even shorter period of time than that. And then this breaks ⁓ and well looked after in the transition out of that diet state as well. Which Charlotte's this stage. had already had a really good experience with. She'd had an experience with that maintenance phase when she started. She'd had experience of a six month balance build phase. She couldn't have been any better set up to approach this phase. And this is the and the real benefit of a multi-phase journey. Everything connects together so well to give you confidence in every stage of the process. Again, Charlotte's openness and willingness to try things that are different, despite her previous history with more aggressive approaches leading to her feeling her best, let's face it. that must have been a bit of a red flag for her, starting an aggressive approach again, but testament to the relationship and the bond which you both have and level trust you have between you for you to ⁓ be able ⁓ approach that together. So then Katie, what do you enjoy the most about working with Charlotte? You just named one of those things right there. The bond, the bond that we have. cherish it. I value it. I'm for working with Charlotte every day. She allows to be honest ⁓ upfront with when that's needed. ⁓ And I think is ⁓ really important as of a coaching relationship. and a cotton journey because... quite often. We've got to make people aware of the areas that aren't quite working for them perhaps habits that are more destructive to them than beneficial. And she's allowed me and given me the green light to be able to support her and help with those ⁓ And like we've mentioned throughout this podcast already, who willing us to try and who willing us to correct any mistakes, because there will be mistakes. We're human, we all make them. But who willing us to correct those and overcome those is something that I really admire because that's not easy to do. It's really not easy to do. And what else I love about Charlotte is how supportive she is. Supportive to us, her friends, the community, our business overall. And support is a key pillar in SKD coaching and Charlotte really aligns with that. She brings out the best in other people. Even though she can be really hard on herself at times, she brings out the best in other people. And she has inspired of her best friends. to embark on the journey and the results they've had have been phenomenal as well. And now they get to go to the gym together. That's one of their hobbies that they sometimes love doing together and sometimes have a little more together that they've got to go there and do the porn curl for example. inspired that and she's supporting her friends who also chase the goals that they want to achieve. That says a lot about her character and the type of person she is that she's inspiring others around her and bringing them up to not, you know, making them feel like they're less worthy of her time or of her friendship because she's going through this transformational period in her life and she's progressing. You know, she's moving up with her business. goals are working at the moment. But she's encouraging of her friends and of them rather than... leaving them behind or distancing herself from them, which I think is just, it says a lot. It says an awful lot about her. Like I know that when... I sign up a new member and they get that link to join the SKD group that some of those members are going to be quite nervous about joining because there's a bunch of new people they've never met before. And I know that people like Charlotte in there will make that member feel right at home as soon as they start. And that for me is just such a lovely feeling to have somebody like that in the community where you know they're going to be there for somebody as soon as they join. Because that can be a big step. So yeah, that's for me. Again, I don't coach Charlotte one-to-one. That's just what I know of her in the community. So I'm really proud to have her in there and can see that support element. It was really nice to hear you speak like that actually. I'm kind of teary. I'm getting a emotional. a little emotional. I have. I didn't think I would. Oh, I'm such a silly sausage sometimes, but I have. And I am really proud of Charlotte. I... just want her to recognize that sometimes more herself because she can be very hard on herself. Like most of us time to time, right? She can be and she's achieved some phenomenal things over the last couple of years. It's, yeah, full credit to her for not giving up on her goals, her dreams and what she wants for her life. What are you proudest of Charlotte for working on? in this journey so far. Self-reflection is probably the biggest thing I'm really proud of Charlotte focusing on. Because that's not easy to do. It's not easy to put yourself in the spotlight in your own mind. And it can sting sometimes when you come to some realizations that perhaps certain habits, certain side choices aren't serving you, aren't working for you, especially if you know you are in control of those. It can sting a little. But she's fully embraced this journey and allowed herself to question these elements, these areas, these learned behaviors, these learned patterns. know, it's been a long old journey that she's been trying to do this. There's a lot to unpack and it's work in progress, right? It doesn't happen or change overnight, but she hasn't let the little hurdles, the little setbacks along the way stop her. she's always gone, right, what can I do about that now then? What can I do next? How am I going to solve that? Because she is a damn good problem solver. And to her credit, she needs to capitalize on that. She can solve this, and she is solving this. And her attitude to never give up and not being defeatist is something that I am really proud of her for. I think it's... I agree, it's a really inspiring quality actually. probably benefits you being around that. Yes, the coach. Yes, it's job to be the one that's inspirational, but we absolutely mean this when we say that we do get inspired greatly by our clients. We sometimes forget it's like to go through these things ourself in the way that our clients are experiencing them because it might be a few years since our last yoga diet. our habits have probably been embedded for longer periods of time. we are human as coaches. We may not necessarily have exactly the same barriers. We may be a little bit further along our own fitness journeys, but we still have barriers in our life to overcome. We have barriers in our personal relationships. We have barriers in our day-to-day running of the home. We have barriers in our business. we understand what it's like to feel. disappointed in yourself, frustrated at the lack of progress, feel like you're going round in circles at times not being quite sure what the right action is. And we also understand what it takes to be able to self-reflect and assess where could I have been slightly better in this situation without beating yourself up, without getting yourself down, without burying your head in the sand and waiting for the problem to go away because these problems don't go away. They can actually fester and they can get worse. And even if you try and avoid them, eventually they're going to smack you in the face. Learning how to manage your emotions and manage your responses to the things that you want to change but are having a hard time changing is a life skill. not a fitness skill, it's a life skill. And those that can master that are the people that you want to be around in your life. They're the people that you want to spend time with. because they're incredibly inspiring individuals. and you will adopt similar traits, similar mindsets, similar approaches to those individuals if you can be around them and spend time with them. And that's what we're around every day with our members, with people like Charlotte. A really personal question about Charlotte, Katie, is there anything that you have learned from her that has made you a better coach since you started working together? This is a great question. For me, Charlotte has allowed me to refine the balance between kindness and delivering feedback with care, but at the same time, knowing when you need to be a bit firmer and a bit more to the point to allow that client to get the best out of a situation. I'm full credit to Charlotte, she's given me the green light to do that with her at times. And because of the way she's responded to that feedback, it's made me more confident at this skill. It's allowed me to have more confidence in myself to do this with others when it's needed, because it is needed at times. It really is. And for anyone that knows me and for anyone who doesn't know me that's listening to this podcast, I am a people pleaser. heart I really am and that's something that I've had to work on over the years. But my first thought is always will I upset that person? I don't want to upset that person. But to be a good coach sometimes you have to be comfortable with telling somebody what they need to hear rather than what they may want to hear. In earlier years of my life, ⁓ was the person who would say what someone would want to hear because I would worry about upsetting that person too much. Whereas now ⁓ know there is a balance between you can still be kind, you can still be caring, because actually sometimes the most caring thing to do for that person is to tell them what they need to hear. A hundred percent agree. That's what I've learned from Charlotte when it comes to being a better coach. She's given me the opportunity to do that I'm forever grateful for that. Amazing. Charlotte up to now? Right now as we speak, Charlotte is currently in an aggressive diet phase. We're going for a shorter sprint this time, two weeks, during a diet break, another two weeks, and then she's going back into a longer term balanced build, which I know she's very much looking forward to. I would probably argue that's her favorite time overall to be in, state to be in right now. Obviously the aggressive diets serve a purpose because they reveal a little bit more of what you've been building. where she likes to spend her time day to day is that balance building ⁓ And that's what she'll be heading into then in the next month or so. Do you have any comments from Charlotte about her time working with us and her time working with you? I know it's going to make you blush while we read these out if there's anything about you, but do you have any comments that you'd like to share with the listeners about Charlotte's experience of working with us? There is, and I will probably have to reign in a little because there is a lot I could probably share with you Charlotte that does make me really, really proud. So I'll just share a couple. She has said, I am literally in the best shape physically and mentally than I have ever been. I'm more resilient. You've shown me I can do hard things. It's not just about the losing fat thing. Everything has changed for me. I've really found myself and I genuinely think that's down to your coaching. I don't know if there's a stronger sentence I could sum up Charlotte's journey, how she feels, she benefits from our coaching, but that particular feedback from her, that does make me blush, but it also ⁓ me feel proud of what we've achieved so far working together. And we asked Charlotte, what advice would you give somebody thinking of joining but sitting on the fence? the point, I wish Charlotte said, get off the damn fence. This would be the best thing you ever do for yourself. Charlotte said it, off the fence. She's spoken. She has spoken. me, she's worth listening to. She really is. Katie, before we move on to the wonderful Tish, is there anything you'd like to say to Charlotte if she listens to the ⁓ When she listens to this podcast, just want her to know how proud I am of her for everything she's achieved on this journey. She has made me a better person, a better court. She has. believed in me just as much as I have believed in her. I know I've said this a few times already, but I will forever be grateful for that. Well said, Katie. think we might have to wrap it up now or there may be a few tears coming down my face. And me. Get the tissues at the ready. Yeah, for sure. If you've sat listening to Charlotte's journey and you find yourself in a similar situation to where she started, perhaps you've done the diet plans and the training plans, but you're really looking for that long-term solution that finally sticks, then we can help you. Our SKD method is designed to remove all confusion and guesswork when it comes to getting leaner, stronger and building more muscle. It's a fully personalized one-to-one coaching experience, which will fill you with confidence that you're doing the right actions for you to get the best results you can. Our structure and support is tailored to your goals, your abilities, and your lifestyle. If you want to know more about how our coaching works, pause the pod here, head to the description, and check out the link for our coaching page. If you have any questions at all, pop us a message on one of our Instagram pages. Absolutely. We'd be more than happy to have a chat So then Sean, it's time to hand the mic over to you and talk about the wonderful Tish. How did you get to know each other? So we've been working together for just over a year now. So like you're coming up to your second year anniversary of Charlotte, we've just passed our first year anniversary, and Tish. Congratulations, Paul. We actually started talking on Instagram. the time Tish was actually having other coaching. So I was very conscious of not stepping on anyone else's toes. I wouldn't like that if another coach was doing that to one of my clients. So I'm respectful of when they're working with somebody else. You want to... Avoid sticking your nose in where it's not wanted. Put it that way. That makes sense. Different coaches serve different purposes at different times of your training journey. It's normal to have multiple coaches once you feel the need to have any coach at all. So I was encouraging and I was supportive. I love to work ethic. I could see that. She was serious about her training and she was always keen to progress. And from talking to her, that was the case. She was progressing for a while. She was doing... a number of sessions a week consistently. But eventually she reached her plateau. and this reached the end of... The period with this coach. and felt like she needed an upgrade on what she was currently doing. She needed a different level of detail because for her, the work ethic was there, the effort was there, but she wasn't getting the return she wanted out of it. helped you recognize that British. I actually saw lot of similarities between us. from speaking to her and gauging what she was doing, I recognized a few problems which I had experienced myself earlier on in my training journey. Under-fueling was one of them. So potentially knowing ⁓ an acceptable amount of body fat to gain was in order for me to build muscle and to get stronger. Being worried about trying to stay... too lean and not gain fat, but then under eating and ⁓ back the building that I wanted to achieve. There was also an element of perhaps sticking to methods that I was comfortable with and that I knew, particularly in the gym, certain lifts, certain techniques, rather than adopting some new methods and upgrading to new exercises and new styles of programming, which might have been better suited to my level experience. I think it's something that a lot of slightly more Advanced lifters, let's say, will experience at some point in their training career. You have all these different exercise options to choose from. How would you pick and choose the right ones for you at that moment in time? It's almost like you have too much knowledge and too much experience to narrow it down effectively. Tish wasn't new to the gym. I'll just say that. She wasn't inexperienced with the gym. She was already in pretty good shape when we started. She was already pretty strong. I was always impressed by her lifts that I saw her doing. But for her, the thing which got to her the most was the plateau. I think it hurt Tish's pride because Tish took pride in the developmental aspect of training. It wasn't so much about the end result. having. having a better physique, having better body composition, that was all exciting and enjoyable for her. But the thing which was hurting the most was the lack of progress. Yeah, it sounds like Tish had already some good foundations in place. It sounded like she had a decent amount of knowledge already. But what was frustrating her more than anything was the fact that her results were matching the efforts that she was putting in, perhaps. So what did want, Sean? What does she want to achieve? I got the impression very early on that Tish was looking for something continually progressive. It needed to feel like... The actions that she was doing were able to consistently lead to self-improvement and results. She said she was very clear from the very beginning of the conversations that she was looking for a long-term coach and that she was realistic about her goals. So I knew this wasn't going to be a quick fix for her. I knew that she was looking at a long-term multi-phase journey. And in a way that intimidated me a little bit at first because it's not something that you get very often straight off the bat with clients when they come into your space. They don't always announce the intentions of making this a long-term project. But one of the things which really excited me about Tish is I committed myself to doing a long-term project on myself around about a year or so before I started speaking to her. And for very similar reasons, I felt like I wasn't getting the progress that I wanted. I wanted to show the knowledge that I had by achieving a really impressive physical result. and I knew that it was going to take a longer period of time. And when Tish said to me that she was looking for a long-term coach, I was like, my God, our mindsets are so closely aligned with where we want to go with things. Sounds like a pretty good match to me. It sounds like a pretty good match. What you think Tish wanted from a long-term coach? So, you know, it's quite clear that she wanted that. I guess next level up. She wanted to just feel like she was continually progressing, knew what was coming next, knew what was required of her, from required of her to achieve the goals that she really wanted to achieve. What does she actually want from the coaching itself? I think from her previous experiences, Tish realised that she wanted more detail to the coaching itself. So more technical coaching, more hands-on coaching and more regular communication. And they often fall hand in hand. She wanted improved structure. so that the work that she was putting in was more effective at getting the results she wanted and getting the progress that she wanted. But also she wanted more education because for her understanding what to do. She wanted more education because the clarity to individuals like Tish is really important. You that your effort's accounted for something, isn't it? To me, doesn't sound like Tisha's shy of the hard work. She actually really enjoys her training and she gets a lot back from her training. She wanted to know that the effort that she is putting in is going to come to something. Like I touched upon before, when you've had previous experience, when you've been somebody that's taken pride in managing their diet, managing their training for a number of years, you accumulate a lot of knowledge and sometimes it's hard to narrow down to the bits that you need in your context and that's most suited to you in that situation right there and then. And I think that's the education tissue needed. There wasn't a lack of knowledge per se. Whilst there have been some things that I've that have been new. in the early stages, it wasn't necessarily about teaching her loads of new things. It was about refining what she was currently doing and her to be more selective with how she used her knowledge. Would you say it's fair to say that perhaps removing some of the noise that isn't relevant to that particular part of her journey, sometimes it's not necessary that it's wrong ⁓ or wouldn't it at a different time, but there were perhaps areas that she didn't need to put her efforts into and she could fine tune things. And I guess that's where you stepped in. Absolutely. On the one hand, Tisha's an individual with an incredible work ethic, and it's one of the things that has led to her being so successful with her results, and one of the reasons why I love working with her so much. But that also needs to be managed, because if you've got a great work ethic, you'll be prepared to push yourself and try things. But sometimes you can end up doing too many different things at once, or focusing on too many different details at once. And then it makes it really hard to be direct with your work. and to get the best possible outcome you can do out of the efforts that you're putting in. I think the saying is, he who chases two rabbits catches neither. sometimes that can be harder for individuals that are used to working really hard because they just think, I'll just work harder and I'll get there. But it doesn't always work out that way. The clarity that you were giving her and the reassurance that she is and continues to progress with the actions that she's putting in was probably an that really valued and still values. So what did you choose to do with Tish and was the plan for Tish? I'll read to you what Tish said. when she first started because this will help you to understand how I was looking at it from a coach. So the comments that Tish left me were, before I started, I felt completely defeated, which was hard to admit after training for so many years. I was struggling to build muscle and properly fuel my workouts. My diet was a cycle of aggressive deficit during the week, followed by bingeing on weekends, which led to a plateau and a huge loss of motivation. My energy levels were low and I know I desperately needed accountability to break the cycle. Well done to Tish for recognising that. And that comment was left a little while after we'd already been working together. But straight away, as soon as we started working together, Tish was very open about what she was doing and what she was experiencing. And one of the first things we needed to tackle was this under-fueling element. So essentially Tish was looking to try and minimize any fat gain by eating less in the week and then eating more on the weekends. That's something which ⁓ members of our community have done over the years where they eat more on the weekend. because it's family time, it's social life. But for Tish, she was eating too little in the week, which was then leading her to struggle with her lifting, with her muscle building. And because she wasn't a beginner anymore, she wasn't going to be able to continue to under eat and still see progress in her weights and her lifting. And that was important to right? ⁓ loves her training and she gets a lot back from it. So she... really value seeing those numbers increase? The quickest possible way to Tish back feeling motivated again and to build momentum was to stop her from feeling like she wasn't able to progress with her training. So my priority was getting her in a state where she could see progress with her training. ⁓ knew that by feeling correctly, that should improve pretty quickly. within the first couple of weeks, we should see a big difference with that. You made that choice for Tish, which I think is a really, really solid move to give those wins in the journey and show her that she is capable of seeing the numbers go up to get stronger, to see new muscle mass. Were there any kind of elements that made her little fearful or did you find... and comfortable about eating more calories. Tisha was definitely nervous about gaining fat. something that I can relate to a hell of a lot. And it was really important for us to tackle this because the cycle of eating less through five days of the week to then eat more on two days of the weekend was never going to be enough to her ⁓ muscle and get stronger. I knew that this needed to be handled more carefully. I knew how important it was for Tish to see that progress in her lifting and in her shape and in her body. And that the optimal state for that was to be eating more calories. It was such a big thing for her to overcome, to get past that fear of what's gonna change with my body? Am I gonna gain too much fat? Are the scales gonna skyrocket? That I knew that this needed to be done slowly and progressively. I couldn't just whack her calories up by like 500 calories per day and say, yeah, stick at this for six months and you're gonna be fine. So I didn't want to do a reverse diet or anything like that. I didn't want to make something so and hard to manage. But I believe I left the calorie target range just a tiny bit broader for Tish in those first few weeks, in those first few months, because I wanted her to get used to eating more, but not feeling so hyper-focused on the numbers element. makes total sense to give her the confidence that she can have some more food, but take the pressure off. perhaps seeing things increase at a rate that she wasn't comfortable with initially. Absolutely. What about her training? What happened with this training in these early stages? Tessho already had a great foundation. She was confident in the gym. She was willing to give things a try. And she was already pretty strong. So once I'd considered the fueling element, I decided that I wanted to incrementally improve her... training to make it more specific to the body goals that she wanted to have. So. I knew that Tish was going to give anything a try that I threw at her. What I didn't want to do was overwhelm her because we were already thinking about this diet change, which she was brave enough She was brave enough to try tackle that. And I wanted her get her love and enjoyment back at the gym and to feel like she was getting a lot out of those sessions when she was feeling appropriately for those sessions. So I didn't change everything that she was doing from her previous coach in the training program. We built around the things that she would like to have worked on. She always had a goal of wanting to be able to do more pull-ups. So we put some exercise in there, which we're going to help her to progress with those. And it was very much a case of, how can I add a little bit more to her in terms of the communication and the detail to what she'd had previously? I wanted her to know that she was doing an awesome job in those training sessions. I wanted to approach them positively feel like... They were adding to her life rather than feeling like this thing that she had to do because it was something that she'd always done even though it wasn't really giving much back to her. You wanted it to go from feeling defeated to feeling like, wow, this is something I'm really enjoying, I'm loving, and I can see where this is going. Absolutely. And as soon as we started... changing that kind of perspective with fueling and The sessions being something to look forward to and enjoy. I felt all Tisha's enthusiasm and passion for the training. I felt what it meant to her to go to the gym and do those sessions and how they were something that she really looked forward to each week. So it made me... even more excited to try and help her to achieve the progress that she wanted. Because I feel the same about my training, I get so much reward from making those small little improvements that most people probably wouldn't mean much, but to me they mean a great deal. Would you say that was helpful? there was something that Tish would do early on that. I found really motivating as her coach. And what she would do is she would leave me lots of little notes on her program about the PBs that she'd hit, where she'd progressed, even just like little words like just leaving yay or wow when she went up in a weight or she added more reps. And she still does that now. put like a little emoji or something in the box. And I really like that because every time I see that and I'm updating that program, I can almost that excitement and thrill of that going up. ⁓ Absolutely. ⁓ those comments. They make feel like you're going through that work with a client, don't they? When they're engaged, leaving those comments, letting you know the things that they're proud of, what they've achieved. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a nice little bit of confirmation as well that they're enjoying the sessions, they're enjoying the program and it's working well. So that was really helpful early on with Tish is just having those little bits of micro feedback. I spoke it when you were talking about Charlotte's journey, Katie, about how you work as a team and the communication and the cooperation between your works. And ⁓ this was much the same thing with me and Tish. That was those little bits of detail which she wanted from me as a coach. She was also meeting me in the middle with that as well. So I could really refine what I was getting her to do. Yeah, you were able to really fine tune the attention to detail because you were having that feedback and that open communication with that client. Tish told you what she wanted, which is amazing, which is a great thing. So you were able to work with that. Not only were you able to work with that, but it sounds like there's a lot of similarities between you and Tish. So you understand the drivers behind the things that motivate Tish, that Tish enjoys, because they're the same things that motivate and inspire you too, which allows you to work well. as a team, So tell me a little bit about what Tish was able to achieve over the past year of working together. For the first few months we actually saw Bodhi recomp with her. So she was losing fat and building muscle at the same time. And my theory for why this worked for her was because before she joined her Bodhi was in such a dysregulated state between... the low calories in the week, the higher calories on the weekend. She just hadn't had a consistent period of fueling. And when we got her to a stage where she was consistently fueling, even if she might have been at times in a slight deficit, she was still fueling much more consistently than what she was previously. So we were seeing body fat loss and muscle gains. Her lifts in the gym were consistently going up in those first few months and she was in a really and enjoyable state. She was really happy with her progress and really happy with the results again. that was showing in her training and then it was showing in her body too. But all good things must come to an end. And we both communicated regularly and knew that eventually we might not get lucky enough to see fat loss and muscle building at the same time. And we were gonna have to move towards a more multi-phase journey where there were gonna need to be some periods of fat loss and there were gonna need to be some periods of with... a little bit more calories over time. How did you manage the next steps of that? Because Tish liked to see the progress so much and because we had regular communication. We were able to look at each block of say six to eight weeks, have a catch up call and kind of review what we feel was going well and what needed improvement. So it sounds like she's done a really good job at solving the end of fueling problem. what knock-on effect that have on her training. Tisha's seen lifting improvements in areas. The numbers themselves have improved considerably. She's ⁓ doubled her leg press weights. She's doing one and a half times the weights that she started doing with shoulder press. There have been pretty much weight increases or rep increases across the board for virtually every exercise she's ever been exposed to. The second area of improvement which I have found to be really impressive with her is quality of the work. her attitude towards improving the quality of what she does. is really impressive and it really sets an example for somebody that's looking to improve their lifting quality, not just have big number on their program. She's always willing to reflect on her technique and ask herself, has my technique broken down a bit in order to get those last few reps? Have I lost my technique a little bit with this last increasing weight? And she doesn't let her ego get in the way needing to drop the weight a little bit to improve the technique. because she knows that's going to target her muscles better and in time that's going to make her improve her shape more and get stronger in those movements by having better technique. Quite impressive stuff there. Quite impressive stuff, Tish. What about... Kish's relationship with food. She mentioned one of the things that she noticed she was doing before joining was restricting in the week and then kind of binge on the weekends. So what about ⁓ ⁓ with food? How did that change? One of the comments I had from her was after she went away last year. And approaching this period Tish was really nervous about not calorie tracking because she'd calorie tracked meticulously for years to achieve the results that she'd got. And she was nervous about having that much freedom. And she was almost worried that she would go back to the kind of... weekend, I want to say weekend binge mentality that she had previously but extended across the whole week also of being on holiday. She hadn't experienced that level of freedom before and she'd never had anybody else give her permission to do that. And one of the things that she said to me was, I've experienced true food freedom for the first time in my life. That's huge. So I said to her that week where she went away, I said to her, look, I don't want you to calorie track. And she was worried about how am gonna calorie track when I'm out? How am I gonna manage this? It's gonna be hard with, I'm gonna be eating out most meals every day. It's gonna be hard to know what's in them. My accuracy is gonna be really off with the calorie tracking. I said to her, look, I don't want you to worry about it. I don't want you to calorie track. I want you to get comfortable with not tracking for a week and know that this is not going to be the setback that you think it is. Tisha's meals week to week were normally really high quality, really nutritious. She knew how to eat. and there was room for her to be able to have a little bit more of the things that she enjoyed on holiday, while still making some good choices around those meals. and having that confidence that. You can take time off from Calibri Track In, which just a tool. ⁓ just an accuracy and a precision tool. It can be really ⁓ and freeing for people who feel like are gonna lose control whenever they don't have strict guidelines or strict numbers to follow for nutrition. I agree. think it's definitely a time and a place in a person's journey where that is best suited. And it sounds like with Tish you timed that perfectly and big well done to Tish for trusting in you and following through with that decision. Because that takes a lot of courage when you're an individual that fears that and has had those strict guidelines for so long. It's not easy to step away from. a tool that works so well for you. It's one of the things that I'm really proud of Tish for doing actually is Taking more time to learn about how her body to foods that she's eaten. I remember an occasion where, like everyone does, over Christmas, she ate a bit too much. And she described to me about how it made her feel, how ⁓ made her feel really uncomfortable the next day. It upset stomach. ⁓ It like she was really bloated. She felt really lethargic and tired and... It might have been for a few days in a row, but the point was she was paying attention to how this stuff made her feel and recognized that moving away from more of her normal diet didn't serve her well. I wasn't telling her what to eat. I wasn't giving her the whole, don't eat this because X, Y, Z, don't eat that because it's bad for you, don't eat that because it's gonna make you feel like crap. I wasn't giving her any of that. Tish had come to this conclusion herself because she was paying attention to how her body responded to eating those foods. And then it was out of choice on the next few occasions where she had the choice whether to overeat or not, overconsume or not, that she chose not to. Not because of food rules or not because she'd been told not to by somebody else, but because she'd had that experience, she was able to reflect upon it. and understand that it wasn't the best decision for her to make and that having a bit more balance and moderation works much better for her. Yes sir. empowering realization, isn't it? When you put yourself through that experience and finally realize that, my gosh, I'm making this choice because it is actually right for me, not because it's the right thing to do or I should do this. It's much easier to feel empowered by those decisions, make informed decisions next time when you really feel that. ⁓ Truly to your core. I know that might sound cheesy, but I think there's so many rules in health and fitness that don't serve a lot of people and can actually put up rigid guidelines that don't allow people to actually feel. allow themselves to feel what's actually happening and how they respond to certain foods, for example. And Tish has put that effort in. So well done to you, Tish. And is reaping the benefits from it now. So big well done to you both for allowing that to happen. One for Tish allowing herself to be exposed to that. And then two for you, Sean, being that support and reassurance to let her know that it's okay to do what she was doing and to give her the guidelines to work with, the more flexible, the more free guidelines, right, that she wasn't used to before. So yeah, no, it's really nice to hear that and well done to you both. When you know somebody is capable of following guidelines really well of maintaining structure and routine for really long, then you can almost afford to give them a bit more flexibility. Like in my opinion, Tish has earned the right to be more flexible because she had shown what she was capable of when she maintained structure, when she maintained routine, how quickly she could return back to those structures and routine. So. I could give her permission to choose and be a bit more flexible and test periods without those structures, because I knew that if worst comes to worst and it really went to shit, would be more than capable of getting this back on site. And I reminded her of that, of every time she had experiences or events that were slightly outside of the ordinary, because ⁓ was more than capable. of getting this back on site. But that's because of the time that she'd spent over the years building those habits, those structures and routine. That's credit to her. Absolutely. Her foundations are solid, right? Because you can slot back to those if need be, as and when. So yeah, I agree. That is credit to Tish for sure. So what do you think has been Tish's biggest mindset flip joining SKD? So obviously all the stuff with the food and the under-fuelling was massive for her. And that for a long time ⁓ her biggest mindset shift. But I think I've seen a different mindset shift in Tish since then. Because the longer I've worked with her, the more that I've seen her confidence grow with that food side of things. I think that the biggest mindset shift I've seen in Tish more recently is the body acceptance. Because that's what this all started with. The under-fueling was through fear of gaining fat and feeling like her body wasn't a reflection of how hard she was working for this. ⁓ That's what ⁓ made her fear. eating more in the first place. But after two phases for a long period of time, I've eaten much more food now and committing to those. She has got far more comfortable in allowing herself to gain a little bit of fat, to look a little bit softer in the short term because she's building more muscle, she's getting stronger and she knows that she can get the fat off in a really short space of time and she's going to look and feel much better off. after fueling well longer periods. So it's accepting that change in her body that make you feel a little bit uncomfortable in the short term, but knowing that it's going to contribute massively to what you get out of it in the long run. Kind of got to go through that uncomfortable periods to... get to the end point that you want to get to, isn't it? know, not easy to do that. And to me, it's like, it's not an end point. And think this is something that... you learn through more experiences. never really an end point. There might be an end point to a particular phase of your journey. There might be an end point to a particular period of your training journey, but there's never an end point to wanting to look your best or wanting to feel your best or wanting to progress and perform better. an endless endeavor. I agree with you fully. Once I accepted that, I think... The clients that accept that, the journey is a much more enjoyable process because you get the rewards in the here and now, as well as accepting that some rewards you've got to wait a little bit longer for. And part of that, especially from what I've seen from Tess, has been her. ability to accept discomfort in the short term in order to get more comfortable with herself in the long run. And that's something that I really, really struggled with in my early years of training and probably my early years of coaching too. And to watch her go through that and change her mindset on that in what is a relatively short space of time in my opinion is very admirable. It's really, really admirable. I just take my hat off to her for being willing to make that mental shift. It is inspiring and I've watched Tish grow throughout this journey too and it's been really amazing to see the shift she's had mentally to embrace the periods where you feel a little bit more fluffy, shall we say, so that she can keep progressing to the outcome that she really wants. Yeah, it's been really, really amazing to see her through this journey. little bit more Sean about your relationship with Pish, how would you describe that? I honestly feel like Tish gives me far more credit than I deserve. I feel like... am ⁓ extremely grateful for the appreciation she me, but I feel like Tish doesn't realize how much credit is owed to her for this journey. I've just loved every second of coaching her and watching her grow and change as part of this journey. I feel her passion for... wanting to be better is something that fuels me too and as somebody that. really gives my best when I'm feeling very passionate about something. That passion that she has is infectious to me, but... I'm almost more motivated by the fact that she's so humble about it as well, by the fact that she gives me a lot of credit for the result. and doesn't take enough credit for herself. It's almost like my challenge then to make her realize how how much he deserves to take more credit. And it's almost like, I want you to get the best possible results that you can so that you can't ignore the fact that this is something to be incredibly proud of that you have achieved. I totally understand what you're saying there, because I do think... It's quite common a client to underestimate how much of the results are down to their hard work. Because without the hard work, it wouldn't be possible. But I've got to say, credit both of you, it's teamwork. And to ⁓ relationship you have is that you worked together really well as a team. I don't want that to be here. ignored or not highlighted because I also know you as a character, Shaun Dallow, and can be quite hard on yourself sometimes too and have high standards in a good way to perform your best all the time. But I think both you and Tish together is what's allowing you to get such fantastic results because... You both want to achieve great things and you're both very passionate about... The journey touches on. and you're doing that together. And that's really inspiring to see. And in my opinion is how a coaching relationship, a coach-client relationship should be. My mentality has always been you win as a team, you lose as a team. You share responsibility. So I do agree with you, Katie. And I think the more that you... leaning to working as a team. the greater chance there is. of you achieving success, not just in fitness, but in life as a whole, in my opinion, but definitely in a fitness journey because you end up having a deeper level of understanding. on a shared experience that. is really hard to emulate if you're just going through the journey on your own. Having that second pair of eyes, having that extra bit of reassurance, having that bit of extra validation, just being able to bounce ideas off one another and run things by one another. I don't think the value of that can be overstated enough. This is something that has worked so well for myself and Tish when working together. not just the frequency of the communication, it's the quality of the communication, it's the questioning. I love how she will send me messages and things that she's uncertain about and run it by me. There have been some examples where Tish has asked me for my opinion on something or a decision on something. and I have given her my opinion and I've given her the options, I've told her, want you to choose. And she'll go like, what would you choose? like, well, it doesn't matter what I would choose, but this is what I would choose. And then she'll copy what I choose. the is that Tish is always open to hear what options are available to her. and hear different viewpoints and the amount of times I have messaged her something and she's gone. ⁓ yeah, I didn't look at it that way. That's a really good point. Like it just shows how open she is to having that communication and to changing her perspective. like you've got a great relationship. Something she said to me has always stuck with me and I think this will influence coaching journey for the rest of my life. ⁓ I've worked with so many coaches that eventually just lose interest and I feel like I'm just on the list. Hearing that as a coach that works one to one with people has made me so unbelievably self-aware of coaching and how I never want anybody to feel like that, that I'm working with. Couldn't agree more. And Tisha to say those words, it's just made me more invested than ever in Tisha's results. be honest with you, I want results and I want to work with someone who cares about my results just as much as I do. It's very powerful and... It's something that we're really passionate about in our business, isn't it, Shaun? So to hear those words from Tish, it's just like a big tick to, yeah, this is what we want our clients to feel like. So I'd like to know a little bit more about Tissue's journey. And I'd like to understand, is there a particular time, event or challenge that Tish has overcome? has impressed you. think the start of this year has really stood out to me. And it's kind of revealed to me how far Tess has come on this journey and what she has. terms of her mindset and her perspective since we started working together. So bit of background context, earlier this year Tish had absolutely loads going on. was working a regular job, she was doing freelance work on top, she was also doing a course in the background, she had an upcoming house move. This was all not long after traveling back to South Africa for few weeks, just before Christmas, so very frantic time of year anyway. Life was just really full on, like getting up ridiculously early in the morning, going to the gym, doing her gym, getting to work, doing an hour of course, doing an hour of work before work or coursework before work, then doing a work shift, then coursework afterwards. mean, Katie, your last few months have been somewhat similar to that. you're fortunate enough to be able to work your own hours, being self-employed. It's been so hard for you to manage and seen that firsthand and ⁓ seen how it takes in terms of perseverance and resilience living with somebody that's going through so much stuff like that. So I really like had... so much empathy for Tish going through this. And on top of all this then, she gets ill. she gets ill in the middle. And this just triggered a load of different anxieties that were all building up. this would have broken most people. this would have derailed most people's journey. And I have worked with people that have, again, no discredit to them, but less stuff going on that have dropped off their training, dropped off their diet, found things impossible to manage. and test just. in some way, shape or form, to stay as calm as possible in all that storm going on. And it wasn't a short time period. We're talking like numerous weeks back to back of this stuff. she was able to be adaptable. and look for what she can do to change things, to ease that burden on herself, to ease that workload. So she switched her training sessions around, for example, so she didn't have to do the early mornings because it was making her get so stressed about waking up at ridiculous o'clock in the dark, in the freezing cold, the frantic rushing around in the morning. It was just sending a central nervous system into overdrive. So she changed it. She moves her training session to a different part of the day. I get anxious if my training session is half an hour later than it should be, never mind. You know, changing my whole routine around. Little things with the diet, she was looking for ways that she could. Make a... make a diet easier to manage, make a diet suit her, her gut health at the time, she removed caffeine because that was making her feel it was ⁓ more of the anxiety symptoms. In her sessions she accepted that this wasn't going to be a period of the best progress she's had so far and that she was going to have to pull back a little bit on some of those sessions, do a few less sets per exercise, not all the way to failure. And for somebody as Tisha's level of work ethic, this was quite difficult to be patient and hold herself back with that. But she adapted to all this. and come through it and now she's back to feeling her best again and progressing again and she would never have been able to get to the state where she's now progressing and doing really well had she not have gone through that period. of difficulty and done such a good job managing it. Yeah, big well done to Tish there. What I'm curious to know, Sean, Tish made some great changes and choices and was really adaptable during that period. How did you support that? Honestly Aside from what I mentioned about the program changes and supporting those, like reducing the intensity of what was going on. This was more of a period of me just being there, being present. A lot of the decisions that we were making weren't being made from week to week. It wasn't like one week you check in, here's your week, off we go. A lot of the decisions we were making were made day to day. So again, it's that level of communication, that open communication. Even in the most challenging times, Tish was letting me in. explain to me what she had going on so I can understand what she needs in, can adapt things. some of the burden and let her know, I guess kind of the minimum things she needed to do to keep things ticking over, right? Which isn't easy to do solo when you've already got a million other responsibilities to think about. Absolutely, and just reassuring her that these are the bare minimum actions that you need to do right now, and these will lead to you not just maintaining, but making a little bit of progress. and that this period won't last forever, it's not going to be like this forever, but if you can learn to get through this right now, then it's going to feel a hell of a lot easier when you come out the other side. You're going to gain so much confidence from this, you're going to a lot more self-belief from this. you're in it for the long haul training staying fit will go through some sort of period in their lives where shit really properly hits the fan it might only last a couple of weeks it might last months it might last a year or so but everyone will go through a stage where things are really on top of you and they're really difficult and it is quite literally sink or swim. If If you start thrashing about and trying to swim against the tide and fighting with all your might, you're going to burn yourself out and you're probably going to drown. So sometimes you just got to learn to tread a bit of water. in those calmer moments, you start swimming back to safety. It's that push and pull, isn't it? It's knowing when to push on more and when to pull back a little because life is very challenging. And it sounds like you and Tish managed that period together really well because she didn't feel like she had to give up all the things that she loved during those periods because life was too chaotic. She didn't have to overthink the elements that she wasn't sure what she should do or shouldn't do. She didn't have to question any of that because you helped her reduce her load and told her exactly what she should focus on during that period to allow her to feel like she's still being successful, still making progress, and in control of the things that matter for that set period of her life. And then she executed that really, really well. And those periods are critical, right? Because those are the periods where burnout could happen, where... it's throw the towel in totally or your priorities for your health and fitness get dropped. But that didn't happen. You and Tish swum against that tide and handled it really, really, really well. And again, I think I'm a similar character to Tish. So for me, when things are on top of me and things are stressful, my brain instantly goes to... What if I let this slip? What if I go backwards? I can't allow myself to go backwards. I've always got to be at least maintaining or going forwards. even maintaining for me is not a thing. that's my mentality, that's my mindset, right? And it's something that I've had to learn to. Let's say temper a little bit at certain times in my life, but I always feel my best when I'm making progress and tissue's no different to that. And her biggest concern was what if I'm gonna lose muscle? What if I'm gonna lose strength? What if I'm not gonna make progress with this? And if you're listening and you like that too, you're always thinking about how can keep moving forward, then there are ways that you can make that happen. There are ways that you can still make progress even when things are really on top of you. This was very much ⁓ a case of how do we what can still work in this moment when things are really, really, really, really challenging? What's the bare minimum that can be done? And it's ⁓ being comfortable with that being enough. It's enough for that moment in time. You can always add more at later date. I think it's a really important point. but not always easy to manage, especially on your own, right? Because you can get lost in the whirlwind of our own minds when chaos happens. If I didn't have you, Katie, I would not manage this as well. Like, speak about my mentality and always want to progress and always want to move forwards. If I didn't have you to reassure me that I'm moving in the right direction, I'm doing this is okay for now, then I would push harder than I should be doing and burn myself out. Or I'd feel like it's impossible and I'd want to quit. Yeah, I got the benefit of living with a coach every single day. the second best thing to that ⁓ having one that you can literally just pick up the phone, call, text, communicate with whenever you need to. Because it goes far beyond just a training plan and a diet plan, doesn't it? Everything that happens in our lives will have a knock on effect to our training, to our diet and vice versa. So think it's that holistic approach and it's really important to have that holistic approach. There's a question you asked me about Charlotte and it got me thinking. think I'd like to ask you a similar question actually. And that is, what have you learned about coaching from working with Tish? So I mentioned about how important it is to make every client feel special. particularly because I know a lot of coaches don't do that and it's completely unforgivable. So to me it's about. You obviously are interested and heavily invested in each client's journey, but it's about showing that. It's about showing that appreciation for that individual. It's about making sure you're celebrating their results and their accomplishments and making them feel really important. So Tisha has taught me the importance of that. which is probably a skill which I'll have for the rest of my coaching career. But something that I think has been quite helpful for me individually is... being more mindful of my communication skills. And this come to light when Tish was going through those months of real difficulty at the start of this year, where... I think there was a kind of thread of messages where I was trying to explain to Tish about how to... do less sets in the gym, but when she was feeling good to train with more intensity. training a little bit closer to failure if she felt a bit more recovered and more able to do that on particular days but not doing more sets. And I wasn't as clear as I could have been in those messages. I probably give her a bit too much information with everything that was going on in this period of time and I overwhelmed her. And because we've got such good communication, were able to break this down and understand where the miscommunication had come from. it on me. It was my responsibility. Like I just went a hundred miles per hour probably with my explanation, as I often do sometimes because I get so passionate and I'm so keen to try and solve the problem. But I had to communicate a little bit more clearly and kind of... break things down a bit more step by step for her at that period in time. And it was really good that she was able to remind me of that because we're not perfect, right? As coaches, we're not perfect. We still learn from our clients day to day. We still have new experiences that we pay attention to and take forward with us for the rest of our coaching careers. So. We also want to be challenged. We also want to receive feedback. We also want to know how we can improve. Feedback is a gift, isn't it? That's how I see feedback. It is a gift. It allows you to improve. It allows you to something that you've got in place, whether that's with yourself, your relationship with someone else, whatever it may be. And clients that ⁓ feel enough to give that feedback is always really helpful. The final thing that I'd like to say that I have really benefited from from coaching Tish is the invaluable experience of taking somebody from What I would call chronic under-eating to permissive eating and feeling like they've got more freedom from their food. This is great for me individually because... I'm probably on the side of the spectrum where, let's just say, I am very, very detail driven and logistically driven. I'm very data led. But through Tisha's journey, I have had a much greater understanding of the emotional complexities that come with nutrition. And it is only because of her trust in me and her openness. to communicating with me that I have really been able to understand this on a much higher level to what I was able to before. And now I'm far more confident in helping people with that. Because this isn't something which I have experienced. myself from an emotional level. I was under-eating to try and stay too lean, but it was a lack of understanding and a lack of knowledge that led to me doing that Because as soon as I got the logistical right, I got my calories right. That solved the physique problem, say. That solved the body composition problem. The difference was I didn't have a fear of overeating. I didn't have a fear of eating more. I just kept doing it wrong. So I kept eating too much when I was trying to build muscle and getting fat and that's what was upsetting me. I didn't want to gain the fat. I had the experience of eating too much and getting fatter, which was probably one step further than what Tish's experience was, which was Tish didn't want to eat more because she didn't want to get fat. My experience was I did eat more and I did get fat. So I didn't want that to happen. The solution for me was a logistical one. It was just not eating quite as many calories to get fat. eating more getting fat if I didn't eat more and get fat. Whereas Tish's fear didn't necessarily come from the experience of eating more and gaining too much fat. She was just really worried about doing it in the first place. I had a similar problem, but I learned a different solution to that problem from working with her. And again, that experience is invaluable because when you don't experience something directly yourself, it can be hard to coach it with others. it's one of the amazing things about being a coach is how much you learn. through other people's experience and how well you can then share that with others, even if you don't have that direct experience of it yourself. And when you have a great relationship with a client, you are kind of living that experience with them through their feedback. That's what allows you to broaden your skill set in terms of how you can apply different tools and different methods to help different types of different stages, right? Because everyone's experiences are very unique. That being said then, what's next for Tish? So we are just finishing up a four month building phase before Tish transitions back to an aggressive diet. Tisha spent most of her time building muscle and getting stronger. Now it's time for her to cut back a little bit of body fat and to reveal that muscle that she's been building. So we're timing this for her holiday in the summer. After the summer, we're going to be taking her back to her building phase again and making the next set of improvements to her physique. The most recent building phase has gone really well. Especially if we compare back to her first building phase, we've really seen the improvements and because of her mindset shift as well with being a little bit more comfortable in not looking her leanest, she's been able to get more out of the training, more out of the muscle building process because she's been fueling on higher calories more consistently. And I'm really excited for... what's gonna happen with her fat loss phase and what that's gonna reveal in her physique and then. the following building phase that because all this experience. is improving her that little bit more each time. So that comment about. Coaching, coaches losing interest as time goes on. I'm actually getting more excited because I know that each phase of Tissue's journey has taken it a little bit further and I can't wait to see it. It is exciting. I can it in your face now, the twinkle in your eye and the grin on your face. So yeah, I can fully relate to that. I ⁓ do get excited by my clients' journeys too. Have you got any final messages you'd like to say, Datesh, before we wrap up this podcast? I'm gonna keep it short and sweet. I'm immensely proud of what you've achieved so far, Tish. I feel absolutely honored that you trusted in me to help you with your results and help you to. ⁓ to learn, grow, to shift your mindset on things. I have gained just as much from it as you have and I am as excited as ever to continue to see where this takes us. Well said. Well said. So as you can tell, we've had amazing experiences coaching both Charlotte and Tish and amazing experiences working with us too. And yes, the physical results matter a great deal. They confirm that things are working. They give you more confidence in yourself. But sculpting your body isn't just about the end result. It's the person you become along the way. How you're able to push yourself a little bit further each time. Stepping outside of your comfort zone. Being consistent and proving what you were capable of. You could argue that those experiences are greater than any set of arms, abs or perky glutes. If you'd like to know what to do with your diet and training and be supported on a one-to-one basis to create timeless structures and routines that fit around your lifestyle, then you may want to take a look at our coaching. We provide a fully personalized coaching experience designed to get you leaner, stronger, and in the best shape of your life without losing your life in the process. What we teach sustainable and flexible. The improvements last. You won't shit yourself at the prospect of losing all your progress at the end of coaching, nor will you feel afraid to eat again like a normal person. To find out more, head to the description and use the link to our coaching page. And I'd just like to leave you with a comment that Tish made about her journey so far. I'm so happy that I decided to start this journey. I'm learning so much. My body feels strong and it's exciting to know that there is still so much to explore. This journey has fed so positively into all aspects of my life and given me new goals and a reason to be better. I wish I had found you sooner and I cannot thank you enough. My tears will be starting again now. I know and I'm running out of tissues over here. That is all for this episode though. Next time, we'll be unpacking the mindset which holds many people back from achieving their dream physique goals. We've both experienced it, our members have experienced it, and you've probably experienced it too. Join us as we discuss why having ascetic goals is nothing to be ashamed of and why wanting to be in better shape doesn't immediately make you vain or self-centered. Thanks for listening in on this one, guys. See you next time.