Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 58: How to make a dieting phase pass quicker
Transcript
- Cameron Cummings: Welcome to the Cameron's Conversations podcast. And in today's episode, I want to talk all about how life still goes on. So I think people get too bloody caught up in weight loss being something that they feel they're putting their life on hold for. And that just simply isn't the case, right? So I've talked before about the fact that right now I'm in a faster weight loss phase or a slightly more aggressive diet, however you want to frame it, where I'm trying to drop about a kilo a week. So a bit more aggressive, calories are lower. step count is high, lots of activity, right? But even if I look at the last three weeks, I can say that on Sunday past there, just went up to, Inverness had a weekend away, well, I'll a weekend away, I had an event, a cycling event on Sunday, so I did a big cycle on Sunday, like a closed road event around Loch Ness, which was really nice, apart from the fact it was Baltic for the first hour, then it got much nicer, ⁓ and apart from the fact that I got no sleep in the hotel, because it was... roasting bloody hot and really really noisy, won't be staying there again but there we go. But I can think back and can say well actually I went out for a nice walk in Bernice, I obviously went for a cycle which is supposed exercise so we'll ignore that. But I can then think back and think the following, or the previous weekend I went to the cinema, I went for a beach walk, I went out and saw my friends and also went for a little bit of a wander and then a coffee with them and then the week before that I can think up I met with two different, I met up with two different sets of friends as well and again went for a walk with one of them, went for kind of coffee and a bit of a wander, but like a short wander with the other. Like life goes on. You're still able to socialise and to do other things. It just so happens not all of them can be completely food-focused. And even within that, you can still go out for dinner. It just might be that you're making more sensible choices. And we all have those friends that love a meal out, love a few glasses of wine, love a big meal, you know, all the rest of it. But often it's not. People are willing to do other things too. Like, if you don't ask, you don't find out, right? If you suggest to someone, oh, would you like to go for a walk here? And you can kind of gauge the room, right? You don't have to say, oh, let's go and climb a massive hill. Like a lot of my friends are quite happy to go and do some hill walking, for example. So that can be a really good one to do because actually it gets a ton of steps done. It's really, really good exercise as well. like a lot of my friends really enjoy it. I really enjoy it. So that works great. Your friends might not want to go up Monroe's in the Scottish Highlands and... know, get chucked down on them with loads of rain and wind and all the rest of it and be, get to the top and see no views at all. That's kind of the classic Monroe experience, but it's good fun anyway. But like that might not be your friends, right? That might not be your friend group. They might be the, you know, go out for dinner, have a few glasses of wine friends or come around for dinner and have a big meal. But you would be surprised how often people are open to, especially as we come into the summer months, like... going out, going for a walk, doing something a bit different, playing paddle, going for a cycle, like it doesn't really matter. I think it's really important just to try and like actually I was speaking to a client the other day who their friends usually go out for like a kind of like dinner or whatever and then instead they went out for a bit of a walk and a lunch and then they did like a sauna and sort of cold swim thing in the afternoon which I thought was pretty cool. And like again there are lots of ways of having fun as an adult that doesn't include a huge amount of the food focus that you maybe get from just going out for dinner or going out for a wine tasting, which those things, again, it's not to say you can never do them in a weight loss phase, but I know for me right now in a more aggressive weight loss phase, I would be a bit limited, right? That would be a bit tricky. So often it's not you can go out and do something a little bit different, and actually volunteering that idea can be really helpful. And what that ties into is this idea of like, Life does move on. I can look over the last three weeks where I've been aggressively dieting, dropped a chunk of weight, looking much leaner, feeling much better for it. Great, all those things are really positive. But what's also really positive is my life has still carried on as normal. I spent a bit of time with my parents. I still went to football game. I forgot about that, that's another thing. So I've been to football game. I've gone out with friends and done things, right? Like I can say that I've gone and done lots of different stuff. Life did not stop. And therefore I'm not gonna feel hard done by. In fact, if anything, if someone's to ask me how I'm finding my diet so far, I'd probably say quick, because actually, my plan is to do eight weeks of fairly fast weight loss, and it's flown by. These last three weeks have absolutely flown by. I've only got five weeks to go now. That's not that long at all. Now, everyone's in a different spot, right? I'm not saying that you will have five weeks to go, or you'll just have eight weeks of dieting, and maybe they have 16 or 20 weeks, but that's all the more reason to lean into these things that I'm talking about and almost be... more positive and more upbeat about the fact that life goes on. You can still go and make memories and have fun and see friends and do things whilst dieting. And I sometimes think that, you know, when you get into that mentality of like, I'm so limited, I can't wait this to be over, because then I can do this, this, this, this, this again. It suggests to me that probably too much of what you're doing is tied to food or tied to food in a way that you feel like you can't moderate it. So for example, if I have friends around for dinner, don't really see why it wouldn't be possible for me to make a fairly sensible meal, right? Like it's probably quite practical if I'm the one cooking to make a meal that's going to be manageable in terms of my calories. And yeah, I'm probably gonna have dessert and some alcohol for them as well. But I might choose to just have like a non-alcoholic drink. I might choose just to skip dessert or to have a smaller dessert. Because again, if I'm the one serving it, I can make smaller portions. Like nothing really has to stop. You just have to be a little bit adaptable. So I think that's something that can really help. And the reason it matters so much is that if you do feel constantly like, I can't wait for this diet to be done, I can't wait for this diet to be done, I can't wait to get to the end of this so I can just enjoy myself again, the problem is, is you're probably not setting yourself up for long-term success because again, too much of what you want to do is driven just around food or potentially having like, you know, going out for a meal and having like a three-course meal. It's like, well, can you not go out and enjoy a meal that's a two-course meal or to go out and just have like a main and a couple glasses of wine? Like is that not enjoyable? So that's part of it. But then the other part too is you're gonna make it feel really bloody dragged out, aren't you? Because it's just gonna feel like an absolute chore because you feel like, ⁓ it's not worth seeing my friends until this weight loss phase is done. It's not worth doing that until this weight loss phase is done. I'll just not bother, like my friends have got this on, but I'm just not gonna go because of this. And it's like, I've gotten to plenty of parties and social events and because I've often driven, depending on the area I've lived in, a lot of the time, My friends haven't been that close by, I I've grown up in the Scottish Northeast coast. So like a lot of the time, like I would have to drive and not drink and I've still had a great time and have lots of good memories from these things. And it doesn't make the difference you think it does, right? There are different dynamics and sometimes you might have a friend where you love just having a glass of wine together and that's great, there's nothing wrong with that. Likely or not, you can fit that in. Probably can't fit in all your social events being like that or all your socializing. but you shouldn't feel like life is on hold. I don't think that needs to be the case. You probably just need to be a little bit creative and you might have to change some of the routines you have so that A, it's sustainable because we want to lose weight but we also want to maintain it. But B, so you can just enjoy yourself and feel like you've still lived and done things. Like I wouldn't want someone to be six months into, or six weeks, it doesn't really matter, into a weight loss phase and say, right, well, I've not socialized at all. I've not bothered seeing any of my friends because I'm focusing on weight loss. And it's like, well, you probably don't need to do that. It's like most people are quite happy to go for a walk on a sunny day on a weekend and go for a little bit of a wander, even if it's nothing too ambitious, and have a coffee afterwards. And maybe you decide just not to have the piece of cake, right? You don't have to have a coffee and a cake, you can, but you might not. Or maybe you share it with your friend. These things are not as big a deal as you can often make it out and you can make yourself feel more hard done than you need to be. So that was just little bit of a, kind of a bit of a meander through some thoughts on that one because actually it's something that comes up quite a lot where people will, kind of feel like at the start they're like, well, I've got four months where I'm not gonna be able to socialise and do these things. And I just think it's utter nonsense. I just don't think it's true. And I think of it, if you feel that way, it means you're probably just tied too heavily to the food and drink side of things and kind of forgetting that the whole point of socialising is seeing your friends, right? And of course, food can be part of that, but there's lots of ways that you can offer to cook. You can maybe pick the restaurant, you can go to a sushi place, you can make better choices to make it easier for yourself. even just going from a dinner to a lunch instead, lunches are often easier to juggle. These things all add up and they make life much, much easier. So well worth having a bit of a think about if you find yourself in that spot. And if you are struggling a bit at the moment, you're not really sure what you should be doing or you are sure what you're doing but you're just not bloody well doing it, then you might want to jump into the show notes and there's gonna be a link to one-to-one coaching there where you can. drop a little inquiry in as well. So you can fill in the form and I will drop you a message and we'll get a call booked and we'll get something planned in to have a little bit of a chat about your weight loss goals, get you on track and if you're a great fit, then we'll crack into one-to-one coaching. And if I feel like there's somewhere else I should nudge you to where you can get better help or just even a general bit of direction I can give you that's gonna help you on your way, then I'll give you that. So either way, you come away from that call knowing a little bit more about what you should be doing and potentially what you shouldn't be focusing on over the next while. So if that would be helpful, jump into the show notes. Otherwise, have a great day and speak soon.