Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 90: What's next?
Transcript
- Cameron Cummings: Welcome to the Cameron's Conversations Podcast. So, in today's episode, I want to talk a little bit about what my goals are. Now, so my goal was to obviously drop a good bit of weight across the start of the year, and that's been really successful so far. So I've dropped ⁓ just about 10 kilos, and I'm gonna go on and diet for a further six to eight weeks. But I wanted to talk a little bit about what my specific goals are, where I'm looking to get to, and what I'll be doing now that the end of the diet is on the horizon, because this is often where people go. A bit wrong, they are incredibly dialed in, laser focused when it comes to the weight loss side of things, and then as soon as it comes to the bit that comes after weight loss, the focus just sort of falls away. And one of the things that I'm really really deliberate with with clients and really really deliberate with myself, because I have made those mistakes of dieting, doing really well, getting really lean, and then just kind of losing focus for a few months, kind of just wandering a little bit. maybe seeing a little bit of weight regain and just kind of not not necessarily having a clear direction. And actually that that's part of the issue is it's much harder sometimes to quote unquote maintain weight than it is to maintain weight and have a goal. So that goal might be I want to maintain my weight and I want to build some muscle or I want to build I sorry I want to maintain my weight and I want to go for a run. Like that like and get better at running and and that side of it is like build my running. Not is probably not just go for run. It's probably build up you running to some extent. Go for run is probably a little bit of an unambitious goal. But what we kind of want to think about is the what comes next part of all of this, because that is absolutely critical, right? We want to think about what are our next steps after the diet. So for me, what that's going to look like is I'm going to be moving into a bit of a strength phase. So I'm going to be focusing on these next six to eight weeks on again fairly aggressive dieting. Like I'm looking To drop another good chunk of weight. My goal has been kind of from the start of this process to get to about 72 kilos, which is just kind of a little bit above where I would set for kind of photo shoot shape, which is perfect. Because I'm not really looking to do a photo shoot right now. I'm quite happy to just feel really, really good and be quite lean and be quite comfortable with my top off and all the usual ⁓ vanity metrics that that kind of like apply. And I also want to be quite light in terms of body weight, which it is quite light for me, because that's Useful for the sport and playing basketball as well. It makes a lot of sense from a sort of impact on my joints perspective and from being like nice and quick, etc., to not be carrying too much extra weight as well. So that's a consideration is I've kind of sat between sort of 70 and 80 kilos when I've played basketball and I've found that I do perform a little bit better at the bottom end of that. I think if I was to drop much below 72, what I'd probably be competing against is a little bit more fatigue. So sometimes it's not worth the juice isn't worth the squeeze. But I think for me, probably sitting around that level is good. So my goal is to get to there, get 72 kilos, be looking pretty lean and feeling pretty good, and I'm going to look to maintain my weight. So for the first eight weeks afterwards, I'm not going to go into a muscle gain phase where I would be deliberately slowly gaining ⁓ weight as I've previously done. I'm actually going to be shifting gears a little bit and for the eight weeks after, which I guess is really going to be from at the very latest mid-August onwards, I'm going to be looking to focus on Building as much strength in the gym as possible. So I will be focusing on lower rep ranges, I will be focusing on pushing weights up a little bit heavier, and I'll be really pursuing a kind of foundation of some strength work. And then the eight weeks following that, I'm gonna go into a little bit of a power block, which for most people this isn't gonna be super relevant, but it's sometimes nice to hear a little bit of context around training and things. But in essence, what I will be doing is kind of doing some lower rep range work initially and just getting really strong, and then I'll be doing some more kind of explosive lifting as well. So I'll be focusing on a little bit more of the kind of power output side of things. So making myself more explosive, faster, more powerful in essence. And you need a good foundation of strength to kind of do that work. And that's exactly what I'll be building. And then I'll build up into this phase. And then after that, off the back of kind of like eight weeks of focusing on strength work and just getting my my numbers up to kind of where I'd like them to be. So things like I'm going to build my trap bar deadlift up to nice heavy weight. I've got a few goals around chin-ups. A kind certain weight I'd like to be able to do on my chin-ups again. I'm kind of eyeing up being able to do a 50 kilo chin-up again, so that's something that's kind of on the agenda. That's my party piece that I've done that once, ⁓ literally once, that's all I've done it, but it was ⁓ it felt like quite achievement at the time. So that's gonna be another kind of little goal for me. And then following on from that, I'm probably gonna go into an eight week block, sorry, a 16 week block off the back of those two eight week blocks of focusing more on muscle gain. And at that point, after spending about 16 weeks at me. Maintenance, I will start to phase into a very small calorie surplus of about 250 calories a day. So my weight my muscle gain will be obviously present there, but also a little bit of general weight gain, and that's going to be my kind of game plan for the back end of the year. So in essence, that should take me, if my mass is right, to pretty much the back end of the year. I mean, I I will probably have still a few weeks kind of after that, but that's my rough plan. I find that works quite well for me because I would rather be going into the kind of winter period on a kind of focus on muscle gain because. That's typically a slightly higher calorie time of year, so it's quite a nice time for me to have maybe that extra 200 calories, 250 calories from focusing on being in a small surplus as well. And I tend to find at that kind of rate it's a very slow, very, very slow rate of weight gain, but I find that my training feels really well fuelled and I feel I can get stronger really quite quickly too. So that's a little bit of my game plan. And the main thing to kind of take from that isn't really what I'm doing, because you might be thinking, well, I couldn't care less about a power block. Like who planned, you know, for eight weeks. That doesn't have any relevance to me. And that's absolutely fair. Like it probably doesn't for most people. For most people I coach, it's not that relevant. But for my goals, it is. But the key thing is that I have a goal afterwards, and I'm being specific with my structure. I know that I'm gonna have six weeks where I'm going to basically do a few weeks, probably four to six weeks of building my calories back up, and maybe even a little bit longer, but four to six weeks of building my calories back up to where they need to be, then I'm gonna sit at main. Maintenance for the better part of four months. That's going to be the strategy. Then after that, I will move into a little bit of a muscle gain phase. Because sometimes, actually, you don't need to go straight into a surplus after a period of dieting to gain a significant amount of muscle because your calories are up so much anyway from where they are, because often your dieting calories are going to be a lot lower. I know mine, even though they're going to sit about 2,200 right now, likely as not when I move to maintenance, they're going to initially I'm going to go up to at least about 2800. And I would imagine that after about eight to ten weeks of being a bit higher I'll be all the way up to 3,000 calories, which is obviously a lot of food. So feeling my training is not going to be an issue. But I just wanted to talk a little bit about that idea that there's got to be clear direction. And my my kind of focuses are going to be likely different from yours, but the same principle applies is you need to have a what's next kind of goal. So you know I say this a lot to clients. I have some clients that will finish a weight loss phase and be like, do you know what I'd really like to focus on my running and I'll say great let's do that and we'll really prioritize feeling for that and feeling good for it. Because if your only goal, if your singular goal is maintenance of weight, that's cool and it's incredibly important, but it's not the most sexy or exciting of goals. So it's good to have another kind of like side quest, something else you're pursuing. It could be that you go to the gym twice a week and you also want to progress in that, or you train at home twice a week and you want to push that and get as strong as possible. That could be your goal, but that's still really helpful to have is another focal point, and I'd highly recommend that because I do think a lot of people get caught out by being. super focused, motivated by the scales, clear things they're pushing for for months and months and months and months, and then suddenly that's kind of ripped away when you get into a weight loss phase and it's like, cool, so my only goal is to just stay the same now. That's it. Like it's just not as motivating. So I think that can be a really nice way of thinking about it is the what's next kind of goal effect. So what is my next goal? Is it that I become a better runner? Is it that I even just get into running? Is it that I start to do a sport of some sort whether it's squash or bamboo Or whatever the hell it is you like to do, find something for your what's next goal because that will keep you motivated in the long term. And it allows you to kind of start to think about fueling yourself for your training rather than thinking about being in a deficit and eating less all the time. It allows you to make a really positive change to think, right, okay, I need to feel well and eat well still, but I'm doing it because I want to feel fit and energetic and strong rather than just like again feel like you have to die all the time, which you ultimately don't. So If that was helpful on all things long term success and a little bit of a personal example about what comes next after this weight loss phase for me, then just jump into the show notes and you will see a link to my WhatsApp there and you will be able to make any suggestions or pop me a message with any suggestions for future topics for the podcast. I'm happy to cover off all sorts of things. I've got lots and lots lined up and a few guests lined up as well to go in depth and a few different things. But if you are struggling with your own weight loss journey right now and you do feel like you need a bit of a hand, then there is also the opportunity to pop me a message for one-to-one coaching as well. So Currently I have a small waiting list, so it means that I can have a little bit of a chat with you, chat through kind of where where we want to go with things, if it is suitable for you, and to chat around your goals and give you a little bit of guidance. And if you're happy to, you can jump on the waiting list and we can get started with one-to-one coaching when that opens up as well. Otherwise, have a great week.