Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 32: The ideal weight loss journey
Transcript
- Cameron Cummings: Welcome to the Cameron's Conversations podcast. In today's episode, Louis and I are gonna talk about the ideal client journey. So we're gonna talk you through, I guess what in some ways we wish we would have done from the very, start and what we'd ideally like clients to kind of go through when they go through their weight loss phase and then what comes after the weight loss phase, which we think is just as important because everyone's always excited about the weight loss piece of it. but often gives little thought to the bit that comes afterwards. So I'll let you start us off, Lewis, with talk us through a little bit about the overview, the 10,000 foot view of what our ideal client journey might look like for someone. Louis Baker-Stroud: Well, the main thing is it kind of depends on obviously goals, right? That's the most important thing. And I think it's really, really, really important to get clear on what that is for you because what you don't want to do is try and achieve or try and go after multiple goals that are all pulling you in all sorts of different directions. I speak from experience as ⁓ someone who wanted to get into the gym to get bigger but also wanted to diet to get a six pack but also wanted to get fitter and stronger at the same time but also it was ridiculous, it was stupid ⁓ and yeah it's not what you want to do you need to get really clear on what your goal is and ideally just focus on one at a time so If that is fat loss, obviously in order to kind of lose fat, yes, we need to have a dieting phase. We need to have a phase where we work on your daily activity, where we work on small habits. Again, we don't need to do anything drastic overnight. You don't need to suddenly slash your calories in half. You don't need to suddenly start, you know, going to the gym every single day, even though the last time you ran was probably for the bus or something like you don't need to be extreme straight away, right? What we want you to focus on is building things up step by step by step. Lots of people underestimate how big these changes can become over time. When at the start, these changes are obviously, know, often viewed as quite small. Say just, you know, getting a walk in after your dinner, getting a walk, 20 minute walk in after your dinner, everyone's gonna be like, well, it's not gonna do anything, but. you know, over the course of a whole year, if you did that for a whole year, yes, that would make a significant impact. initially focus on some small habits to get you moving in the right direction. So we obviously encourage people to track the calories because it's just a quick and simple way of seeing your intake and becoming more aware of things, ⁓ improving, you know, your diet, i.e. getting more protein in your diet, more whole foods, more fibre. still leaving some of your calorie allowance for things like chocolate and treats and alcohol and stuff because obviously don't need to live like an absolute monk to see results. ⁓ But we do need to create a balance and obviously, you know, balance looks different for everyone and we need to kind of establish what that looks like for you as you're going through this journey. Once you get really good at these... you know, once you get really good and consistent at these habits, then of course, then we can start to add on things like exercise and obviously get you training in the gym or at home using some basic equipment to focus on sort of building some muscle and things like that. I think where everyone typically goes with fat loss is they obviously, you know, they just want to see their weight shrink and their waistline shrink and the number on the scales drop and stuff like that. When in reality, you're going to look much better and that's the Probably, you know, obviously, yes, feeling fit and healthy is very important, arguably more important than looking fit and healthy, but you are going to feel and well, you're going to feel much more confident if you look like you're improving and you you're going in the right direction. And we would say fat loss with an emphasis on obviously training and building a bit of muscle and strength, you're going to achieve that more. honed, defined look that everyone and their dog is after. ⁓ Once you get to a certain point, obviously there's different ways in which we can tackle this because it's probably simplifying it too much to say, yeah, all you need to do is just a diet phase and then slowly build your calories up and then happy days, job done. Because obviously life gets in the way, lovely life with all of its chaos. And what you might find is you might have to go through certain dieting phases where, okay, life's a bit more relaxed and you've got time to sort of, you know, get a few more sessions in the gym, get your steps up and things like that. And it's just generally a bit easier. Whereas you might also have phases in your life where work is up the wall, your dog, your dog. So was going to say your kids are being feral, more feral than normal. Your boss at work has been a dickhead, like all of these different things. And it just means that dieting becomes... 10, 20, 30 % harder, so you might have to just put bit of a pause on it. And I call it the metaphorical hand rake, where you just put a pause on things so you don't roll all the way back down the hill. And then you might go into another diathletic phase, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, until you get to your desired outcome, whatever that may be. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's it. Everyone's going to be a bit different. We definitely will work with clients that literally it's a straight shot, isn't it? They start dieting. And they finished dieting and that's it. they just for however many months and for some people that might be literally two months. know that I've had a couple of people that have come from sorted in six into one to one. And one of those clients is already just about the back end of their, their weight loss because they only had a small amount to lose. So they got a bit off and sorted in six, they're finishing the job now. And then we're to move into maintenance and then a kind of bit of a performance and kind of like muscle gain phase. And that's their longer term goal. But I think that's right is that everybody can, will have a different kind of journey into it. And for some. people that journey is going to be much longer. Like I often talk about when I dropped 20 kilos it took me nine months to do it right and I pretty much did that as a straight shot. I had two holidays one was a week long one was about five days and other than that I tracked pretty much every day through that period of time and I was pretty much consistent that entire time bar the odd handful of days in a nine month period. That's very much like the definition of a straight shot. It's probably a straight shot as you're going to get in like normal life but for most people that's probably not gonna happen. They're gonna have small phases where they need a couple weeks here where we set maintenance, and then a couple weeks where we push a bit hard, and so on and so forth. But I think one of the big things that you'll hear Louie talking about is a lot of the habit-based stuff is the way I like to try and see it is that weight loss is just the first phase, and there's a lot more to come after that, and I think that's really useful to start to look ahead. And weight loss is great because a lot of habits and the structure that you need, because to sit in a calorie deficit, it's not as easy as you just track your calories and then you just suddenly lose loads of weight and it's dead easy, you have to change your nutrition to hit those calorie targets so you maybe start to rein in the amount of takeaways you're having. You start to cook more of your own food, you start to have more veggies and more fruit because you know it keeps you fuller and it makes it easier to stick to your calories. All of those habits are things that you want to keep in the long term. So you start to build in more and more of these habits. And when you shift the maintenance or you even shift to a phase where you are gonna focus on your performance in the gym and just getting as strong as you can and toning up, or if you want to gain a little bit of muscle, you want to become a better runner, all those habits should stay by keeping your steps up and making sure you're structured with your nutrition. You get loads of edges in. By making sure those things stay, you have a lot of chance of long-term success as well. So I often see that weight loss phase as a really good way to learn those habits in the first place because you have to, right? You can maintain weight by being a little bit more relaxed, but you're always at a bit more risk of kind of just letting things fall by the wayside if you don't make sure some of your meals are pretty filling and you're still snacking on some fruit. But if you don't do the basic things right, often as not, you'll maybe set a maintenance for a period of time and then your weight will start to drift up and drift up because actually, which is not full enough. So think that when you're looking at that pathway, you're kind of thinking, well, for most people it starts, not everyone, of course, but most people it's going to be a big chunk of weight loss and that might be a straight shot or some phases. Then we want you to kind of go into this reverse diet where we build your calories up to maintenance. But then after that, and I'm a big advocate of this, I think you have to have a goal on the other side. I think too many people think that you just lose the weight and then you ride off into the sunset and that's it. I think it's very difficult to just the only goal for you to have. have is being maintenance of weight. I think that's difficult for most people. I think most people need to say, actually, you know what, I'm going to really push the gym or I'm going to get into running a bit or I'm going to focus on these other things. And having a different goal can be really, really helpful at the end, but it's not always going to be around body composition. It might be, but it doesn't have to be. are your kind of thoughts on that, Louis Baker-Stroud: I think it's interesting because we often get people who come and work with us, whether or not it's sorting in six or one-on-one coaching. And often their only goal when they start is to just feel more comfortable and just lose the weight and fit in certain clothes that they, you know, they wish they could fit in again and just feel like they're more on top of things. But, and this is probably, probably my favourite thing about coaching is watching that shift. Cameron Cummings: We lost. Yeah. Louis Baker-Stroud: as they go through their journey and suddenly someone gets really into the gym or maybe it's into a fitness thing or cardio or running or whatever it may be and they start to really sort of find enjoyment in it and start challenging themselves and suddenly the goalposts change and what I like to imagine like if you took, I don't know, let's say Karen, that's my mum's name. If you took Karen at the start of her journey and she came in she was like, know what? just want to just want to drop some weight and feel better and get in some clothes cool happy days and then you you take Karen at the end like towards the end of her journey of fat loss and she's now maintaining and blah blah blah blah blah and you were to have those two versions of her speak to speak to each other They would be having very different conversations Karen at the start would be like is what no there's no chance I can't see myself doing any of that Not at all. I don't, there's not that, that version of me doesn't exist yet. Do you what I mean? So that's, that's one thing that I really, really, really enjoy about coaching. I've seen it so happen so, so, so many times where people do just come in with one single goal in mind and they finish coaching with so much, so many more, you know, strings to their bow, let's say in terms of their goals. And, and when I, These are the most successful clients. These are the ones that complete their journey. And then we hear from them, you know, months, maybe years later, and they're doing all sorts of stuff, all sorts of crazy stuff that is so, so, so good to see. Whereas you're right in terms of it being extremely difficult to just have the goal of, I'm just going to maintain now, because that fundamentally is quite boring. And I know obviously dieting and getting in shape and stuff like that, it's not exactly thrilling, right? We're not under some magical illusion that it's really exciting. It's not. It is a bit boring, but the thing that makes it a little bit less boring is chasing after something else. Whether or not that is, you know, training in the gym or, ⁓ Cameron Cummings: Yeah. Louis Baker-Stroud: just I don't know being like silly things like being able to carry your shopping in from the car to the kitchen in one trip like little things like that like getting strong enough to do that or you know whatever it may be but just having that goal of yeah I'm just going to maintain now it's it's really really really tricky Cameron Cummings: Yeah, I think it is and I think a lot of the time what we see a lot is people get into strength training, don't they? And they get into going to the gym a couple of times a week. And then they kind of like, ⁓ I quite enjoy that. I feel, you know, initially, often they're not very confident going in at all. And part of it is that they lose some weight, they feel better in themselves, they feel a bit more self-confident. Part of it is just exposure to being in that environment. You just train. And then over time it kind of creeps up and they're like, ⁓ yeah, actually did really well on the leg press this week, Cameron. I feel like a progress loads on it. And you can almost see the seeds being sown a little bit. You can see that first little bit like, ⁓ yeah, I'm really pleased my leg press has gone up. And I'm like, got you. Like there's that little moment, isn't there, when you're coaching, you're like, So I was like, yeah, I don't really like the gym. And then it's like, ⁓ yeah, I've made quite good progress in the last few weeks. And I'm like, here we are. And then from there, it starts to go because people are like, ⁓ actually, you know what? I'm really starting to enjoy just like feeling stronger and fitter. Because the other thing too that I think is really helpful is often when people start with weight loss, because you're coming from a place where you feel a bit shit, frankly, you just feel uncomfortable in your clothes. You've lost a bit of confidence as often happened when weights go up and like weight goes up. Like I know it's really, it's quite an online dialogue to be like, ⁓ should love your body no matter what, but like I know that me and Lou you've both been through quite big weight loss phases and like hands up I did not feel great in my heaviest, like I just didn't and I'm not gonna pretend otherwise, like I felt much better when I lost weight, hashtag controversial opinion there, it's not controversial at all, but you do right? But that bit's cool and that's obviously really good, but a lot of the time you're very driven by the way you look. Then as you start to go into the gym, what starts to happen is you start to get this sense of like your body can do other things too, it's not just about the way it looks. So you start to get a bit of a confidence boost because you're like, ⁓ yeah, I'm much stronger than I used to be. Like I'm really strong in the leg press, I'm really good at this. And I think that starts to build your confidence a lot as well because you stop tying so much self worth just the way you look. Even though you might objectively look better, you also now have this kind of performancey thing where you're fitter or stronger. And you see that in lots of things, whether it's a runner or whatever. Like you see that effect of like, ⁓ like I'm a good runner or whatever, I do this and do that. And I think that builds your confidence a lot as well. And I often think that's part of this journey as well, is for a lot of people it's kind of like, when you say falling in love with, that's maybe a bit strong, but starting to really enjoy going to the gym. And I get messages all the time from clients being like, oh, I'm really chuffed I managed this in the gym. And I think six months ago, if their partner had come home to them and be like, oh, by the way, I had pressed 100 kilos in the leg press, they would have been like, But now they're on the other side of that and they're the one actually making progress. They're like, oh, that's amazing. Like they feel really good about it too. So I think that's another cool part. of that journey as well is you start to focus sometimes on when I say performance I don't mean like as an athlete but I just mean like you start to think ⁓ I'm stronger on the leg press or I can do full press ups now or I did my first chin up or I can run after the bus and not have a heart attack and or feel like I'm having a heart attack and a miserable like those kind of things as well or so much so that you're like I'll just get the next bus like that's really really cool place to be as well I think is this kind of like shift in focus in terms of what your body can do rather than just the way it looks works. Louis Baker-Stroud: I think for most people those sort of things crop up in normal life, not necessarily in the gym. So, you know, grandparents might realise that they're being, you know, they're able to pick the grandkids up without any issues or they're able to sort of chase them around the garden and not get, you know, really tired and not have to sit down, blah, blah. These little things. And then it almost becomes a... Wow, I'm setting a really good example here. I want to continue setting that example. That has so much more meaning and depth to it than I just want to maintain my weight, doesn't it? And the same with parents as well. You know, if you're, you know, if your parents and you're, you've recently ⁓ had a weight loss transformation and journey and things like that, like again, your mindset leads to, I want to set a really good example for my kids. and I want my kids to grow up knowing that mum or dad are strong and healthy and can do all sorts of cool stuff rather than just sort of hyper fixated on a number on the scales. That's something that we want to sort push people towards. And I think it does naturally happen anyway. Cameron Cummings: Yeah. Louis Baker-Stroud: ⁓ Yes, you know, sometimes you have to sort of gentle encouragement to get into the gym and training and stuff is I mean, I've got several clients who still despise the gym. And that's fine. That's normal. You know, we don't love it every day. Like I've got to go to the gym later and I'm not looking forward to it, but I'm still going to do it because it makes me feel good afterwards. And again, I want to set myself up to have, you know, a good, happy, healthy life. for years to come. there's way more depth to it. And one thing about this, I don't know if you've probably heard of Alex Hormozi. I don't know if he robbed this idea from someone else, probably did. You know, there are no unique ideas anymore. It's just regurgitated content from somewhere. ⁓ But he mentions the idea of ⁓ health and fitness being almost like an infinite game. Cameron Cummings: Thank Louis Baker-Stroud: It's kind of what we've sort of talked about already, but lots of people play it as if it is a finite game, as if there is a clear end point to it. And I think that's where people lose. I think if you go into this whole thing with the idea that at one point in the future, you are going to complete it. Well, that's not how this works. It is an infinite game. When you achieve X, X becomes Y. Like it changes the goalpost move. Cameron Cummings: Yeah. Louis Baker-Stroud: And I think they naturally should move as we've established to keep an element of excitement into it, an element of longevity, like all of that sort of stuff, because that's what keeps you turning up rather than just being like, okay, I'm done. Because if you finish, then slowly but surely your habits are gonna unravel and you're going to end up where you were before. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, and I think this is it, is that the weight loss phase absolutely finishes. And I think this is useful as well, is understanding that some of the underlying habits that you have in weight loss will stick around forever ideally. So getting your steps up, be more proactive about planning meals, be more structured, et cetera. All of those things stay in the long term. The dieting is always a phase. And I think that it's also useful to see the habits of something underlying, but also to still see it as a phase, because I think sometimes that helps you also then get through it and kind of be like, well, I'm not doing this forever. This is temporary. I am making more trade-offs than perhaps I would like, and that's okay because it's a short-term thing. But it is really important that in the long term, those habits, things like going to the gym, you almost want to be like, I'm the type of person that just goes to the gym twice a week. Like you want it to become part of your identity as well, because that's where long-term success comes in. I I know that when you traveled, you obviously didn't train for quite a period of time, but. in normal day-to-day life, probably to you it's very normal to train X amount of times, whatever that number is. For me it's three times a week, that just is very normal for me sometimes. I train four, very, very rarely would I train less than three, sometimes it'll be like two, but that's still quite unusual for me because it's part of my identity now as well. And it's not that I'm obsessed by the gym or living it, I still train for 45, 50 minutes, maybe three, four times a week, that's kind of my norm, but I think it's part of my identity now as well. And that's where we want clients to get to as well, is it becomes normal. ⁓ at a good level where they're like, yeah, I'm just the type of person that likes to hit their step target. They're not obsessed by it. They're not going to burst into flames or tears if they miss their step target, but they're that type of person that likes to hit it. They're that type of person that tries to get a bit of protein in every day and tries to eat a bit more fruit. So it is a bit more of their identity as well. And I think that's an important shift if we're talking about long-term successes. This cannot be a thing where it's like, you know, if we talk about sorted in six, we don't as much as it, know, people often see sorted in or hope it might be like a quick fix for them. And in a way, yes, we do get them really good weight loss results and they make a chunk of progress so they get that element of it, but everything we do is built on lifestyle, structure, long-term success. So whilst they get the initial wins of weight loss, sure, we're very heavily focused on, okay, what's after this? We talk about that all the time in Sorted in Six because it's not a quick fix. You can't just diet for six weeks really well and then be like, ⁓ great, I can go back to smashing custard creams and doing one step. a day because if you do that, well, you're just going to be in this horrible cycle forever. So I also think that's like part of this journey too is you are, and it's a hard thing to do, trying to slowly change a little bit of your identity around health and fitness. You want to become someone who does go to the gym a couple of times a week who looks after their health because it's bloody important as well. Louis Baker-Stroud: Yeah, I think, you know, if I would just think back to how my habits used to be versus now, for example, I go to the gym four times a week. I try my best to do four times. Most of the time it is four. Sometimes it'll be slightly, it'll be three, but it's very rare, very rarely is it less than that. If I don't go, so for the last month of my six months trip, didn't go to the gym, I felt awful by the end of it. because I don't just go to the gym for my physical health, go to the gym for my mental health as well. In terms of eating habits and things like that, again, if I don't see a vegetable for a few days, like I feel rubbish. I physically and mentally feel rubbish. And that hasn't happened overnight because, you know, back when I was sort of mid-20s, my diet and exercise routine was pretty woeful. Like it wasn't brilliant. Cameron Cummings: Yeah. Louis Baker-Stroud: It hasn't been this drastic overnight shift because our brains can't handle that nine times out of 10. It has to be this slow development of your habits until you get to that point. And we hope that everyone does get to that point. Not to the point where if you miss a gym session, we want you, as Cameron said, we don't want you to be like... Cameron Cummings: crying. Like I am a failure. the worst. I am literally the worst person that has ever existed in history. No one has committed a worse crime than me missing this one gym session because I had the flu or like I was violently sick and I couldn't make it to the gym. I'm a failure. Like that's not a healthy approach either. Louis Baker-Stroud: Yeah. No, but we do think that having those standards, setting those standards for yourself where, you know, as you said, it's your identity, these are the habits that ⁓ you want people to, you know, say your name and think, ⁓ he goes to the gym however many times a week, he eats healthy, she does this, she does that. Like, that's what we want you to kind of think towards ⁓ rather than having sort of a terrible relationship with the gym and stuff. Cameron Cummings: Absolutely, and I think that is that's kind of the secret to the long term bit of this is see it in phases that you are gonna have a weight loss phase You are going to have a phase where you learn to maintain weight and then during that phase You're probably gonna want to set new targets and we haven't really touched on it too much But one of those for a lot of clients that we have that continue to kind of work through the weight loss phase get to maintenance and push on is clients that just want to keep getting into better and better shape because for a lot of clients they get a bit of an eye-opening moment where they come into one-to-one and they start to get into like shape the comfortable with, then the best shape they've ever been in, and then they start to push beyond that and they feel really bloody good and they realise they don't need to be extreme to do it because something I often sort of comment on to clients is... Often the difference between being in kind of like sort of the shape that you don't feel comfortable in, getting to kind of shape that you feel okay in, you feel fine, and then good shape and then great shape is just time, isn't it? Right? Is you maybe just like, kind of think I need to get five kilos off so I fit into this bloody work shirt. So you get five kilos off and now you can get into the work shirt and there's no buttons going to fly off and hit someone in the eye anymore, which is always nice, right? You're no longer walking sort of health and safety hazards. Then you lose another five kilos and you think, okay, I feel really comfortable. I'm starting to get a bit of confidence back and so on and so forth. So I often think that you want to phase through that, but then at some point losing weight can only take you so far, right? Like you can only lose so much weight. You're at a healthy weight. You feel really good, but you maybe think, do you know what? I'd still like to have a bit more shape or I'd like to put on a little bit of muscle. And for a lot of clients, that's where they go next is like, do you know what? I would like to keep pushing the gym side of it. So I'm even stronger, even fitter, and I look better. Cause you can continue to gain muscle and see more definitely. for such a long period of time. Fat loss is very much like a finite goal. That's when you're talking about finite and infinite kind of goals. Fat loss is definitely on the finite side of it. There is a limit to how much you can lose and then you're there, you're done. After that, there's that next stage where you can kick on and you can gain a bit of muscle and you can get into better and better shape by focusing on the gym piece of it. So a lot of clients do that as well. And I think that's a nice way of viewing this is like, there's gotta be that next thing in that journey as well. But yeah, that's a bit about our idea client journey. You look like you want to say something. Louis Baker-Stroud: Yeah, just one thing to add. No one has ever woken up and thought, I'm too strong now. I'm too fit. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, damn it. My biceps are too big and I'm too strong. That happens to only, only Louie and I wake up feeling like that. Only Louie and I, no one else in humanity has happened to. But no, like you never, you never wake up feeling like, you know what? I've completed that gym thing. I'm just too strong now. Yeah. Louis Baker-Stroud: Yeah. Yeah, no one has ever done that. Whereas some people have said, I've lost too much weight. Like me during that photo shoot, I got to the end of it, I was like, what's happened? I've lost... Yeah. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, I might. I knew when I was permacold, I was just permanently cold. when I, when I did the photo shoots while the last little bit, mean, I made an interesting choice, which was to do it in winter and I live in Scotland. So I would like literally go to bed and I would be like, I'm cold in bed. Like that was, that was how Lena was at that point as well. So yeah, after that, I was like, do you know what this whole gaining muscle thing getting stronger since a lot more fun than being even leaner than this, right? But yeah. So if you are interested in one-to-one coaching and you're wanting to get started on your weight loss journey, if you've been struggling for. Louis Baker-Stroud: I Cameron Cummings: months, not years, then in the show notes, there's a link to one-to-one coaching where can book a call. And there's also a link to my WhatsApp as well. So if you have any questions about coaching sorted in six or any suggestions for future episodes, please just drop me a message. And thank you for listening and thank you for being on the way. Louis Baker-Stroud: Cheers guys.