Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 42: The difference between getting into good shape and great shape...
Transcript
- Cameron Cummings: Welcome to the Cameron's Conversations podcast. So in today's episode, I want to talk about the difference between getting into good shape and getting into great shape and what that actually looks like in real life because in a lot of ways, it's often simpler than people think. And there's kind of two things that I think really matter in that kind of gap, if you like. And the first one is, it's actually really, really simple, is time. A lot of the time when you see And I think a lot of people see this with client results I post. When you see someone get into really, really good shape, especially if it's driven by a weight loss phase, if that was the kind of main goal and they've been focusing on dropping a good bit of weight and they've maybe started in a position where they weren't feeling super comfortable at all. And they've gotten to a position where they are looking bloody brilliant. Often it's not the only difference between them going from not comfortable at all to. comfortable but closer and clothes kind of fitting better, feeling better in that sense, but certainly not super, super lean yet by any means, not seeing tons of definition. Then getting to that stage where a good bit of definition comes through and then going to that stage where there's tons of definition coming through, you know, a lot, lot kind of leaner, that kind of typical shape that we would expect when we look online and we kind of see people and we think, oh wow, they are in great shape. The only difference is time. And I saw this myself when I did a big weight loss journey and I dropped 20 kilos and got into of like photo shoot shape. And that first five kilos I lost made a massive difference. Like there's no beating around the bush. The first five kilos I lost, I felt better in all my clothing and I thought that of like jawline came back a little bit. I just kind of looked a good bit leaner even in photos. It was a big difference. It was definitely noticeable. But. with my top off, I didn't look lean by any means. I still had a ways to go. And I dropped another five kilos and I started to get into that stage where a good bit of definition was starting to show through. I've obviously trained for a long time and even when my nutrition at that phase many years ago wasn't brilliant, I'd still been training for a while. So it didn't take me a terribly long time for it to feel like there was a bit of definition in areas like my shoulders and my upper back starting to pop through the areas that naturally I'm leaner in anyway. And then I dropped another five kilos and that's probably where it really started to bite, where I started to look like there's a lot of definition, right? You could see the kind of, all the kind of muscle mass that I'd built from years and years of training come through a lot more clearly. And then the last five kilos, there was this tremendous change where I suddenly looked really, really lean, I had abs all of a sudden and all the rest of it. Now, the only difference, I guess, through that journey was time, right? is often and not as not, is continuing to lose more weight. And one of the things that I think is really interesting about this is for a lot of people, they underestimate how much they have to lose in the first place. And this is really normal. It's by no means a criticism. I did this too. I think that people often will say to me like, I feel like I've got five kilos to lose. We'll lose five kilos and they will feel tangibly better, but then we'll often go on to lose 10, 15, sometimes even more. And I think they're quite surprised by how much they have to lose. Now, that's not to say that to get into that position where you feel comfortable, you need to be that lean, right? You don't need to go all the way to that end point. The great thing is, is you feel better week by week. But something that kind of like the reason for this podcast is a conversation I was having where someone kind of looked at a client result and they're like, crikey, like that guy's in great shape. It was just a client that showed a progress photo of. and they were talking about it and they're like, ⁓ what would I need to do to get there? And they're already on their journey with weight loss. And I honestly just said to them, I was like, we just need to keep going. And it's like, you get to that point too, but to get that level of definition to look like that, yes, training is a factor and I'm gonna come to that in a second, but often is not, people do have more weight to lose than they think, right? That's often the key factor. When someone says to me, it's like, ⁓ I can't see any sort of definition in my midsection yet. Do you think I need to do more ab work? The answer often is no, not really. I mean, look, doing some ab work sensible and pragmatic for sure, but doing more of it just to see your abs more actually is never really particularly helpful. A lot of the time what's gonna make the difference is just losing more weight. And that's something I very much find. So the way my kind of genetics are as well, and I post obviously my progress photos and this kind of weight loss phase, so this will become more evident as the next few weeks go on. It's like I am very much someone who my arms, my face, my shoulders, my neck, my upper back will all look quite lean. Even my legs will look relatively lean and I will still hold quite a lot of weight around my midsection hips and it will take me to the point that I am very, very, very lean before I see my abs. It's just the way my genetics are. One of my really good mates who's also a PT as well, we've trained for a similar amount of time, probably have not vastly different kind of body compositions, relatively speaking. has abs pretty much all the time, in fact, can sit at my kind of start weight of a weight loss phase and has abs, right? I might not be particularly lean otherwise, but there's a genetic component to that too. So obviously, and I see this with clients as well, I have some clients that, you know, they come to me and they want to lose 10 kilos and still have a little bit of definition just because of genetics. I definitely don't have those genes, But the point is this, is that a lot of the time when you are trying to get to that kind of shape, you just need to keep doing what you're doing. You don't need to make vast changes. You just need to keep plugging on for another four, six, eight, 12 weeks, whatever it is, because actually a lot of the time we do have more weight to lose. So I do think that's probably one of the first pieces that comes into this is that if you are kind of at that point where you're like, do you know what? All my clothes fit much better. When I put on a top, I kind of like the way it fits, which is great. and my jeans are much looser and I've maybe gone down a size or even two at this point. So you feel comfortable, right? To put on your clothes, you feel comfortable, but you're not necessarily seeing as much definition as you would like. It's not that the training isn't working, and I will touch on that in a second. It is very much the case that you've probably just got more to lose yet. Now, there is another part to this, of course, and that is about the training side of it, is that for a lot of people getting into great shape, it helps having... more muscle mass by quite a margin because it means you don't have to be ridiculously lean. The first photo shoot I ever did, I got really, really quite light for me. I my body weight was down to about 67, I think. The lowest weight was in the 66s. I only had one weight in the 66s. Now for me, as a 5'11 guy, that is pretty, pretty low, right? I was very, very lean. I was kind of permacold, as I called it. I'm like permanently chilly. all the time, I mean it was November but I really was cold, I would be in bed and I'd have pajamas on and three blankets on the bed and I'd still be kind of cold, it was that level. Because it was a shoot, to be clear, is not, this is that stage where I maybe went four, six, eight weeks longer than I would have necessarily for being in holiday shape for example, I was a good few kilos lighter than that. But the point is this, that I think that having more muscle mass definitely helps, it really does. I think for most people, that's something that you want to play the long game with, where what we really want to do in an ideal world is to do a weight loss phase, lose all the weight you need to lose, and then you want to kind prioritise that muscle gain phase, because you absolutely can gain muscle in a weight loss phase. Now, I'm going to caveat that, because it is the case that the more advanced you are, the less true that is. So for someone who's been training hard for 10 years, they are not going to gain. ⁓ muscle mass in a deficit, right? It's very unlikely. But for someone who's only maybe trained in a structured fashion for a year, two years, they absolutely can. As we get farther and farther into it, it's different. Also the thing that is often said around this research is really, really simple, is that it's not just about how long you've been training, it's about how good your training's been for that time. So when I kind of obviously get a client in who's been going to the... sort of gym, let's say, twice a week for a few years, but they've been kind of like, scattering around a little bit. Like, they've got stronger for sure, they've gotten fitter, they maybe look a little different, but it's not that significant. You probably still have room to sort of see an increase in muscle mass whilst dieting for sure. If you've been training properly hard with a clear structure, a clear frame for progression and getting stronger each week and you're pushing every single week, you probably are getting closer to that point where you might not be able to gain. muscle in a kind of weight loss phase. So the point is, is once you have done your weight loss phase in an ideal world, we want to spend some time getting as strong as possible and building a little bit more muscle because what that will allow you to do is to be in better shape year round for one, but it will also mean that you can kind of get into that great shape that sometimes people want to be in because I absolutely have. and I have a good few clients who I would say this is probably applicable, where we've died them down to a point where they've been super, super lean. Now, they've been very happy with the progress that they've made. They feel fantastic compared to their start point, but they've maybe said to me, do you know, I feel really, really like I've lost loads of weight. I look far better, much happier, but I would have quite liked to have a little bit more shape, or I'd like to have a little bit more muscle mass, or I'd like to have a bit more definition. And in essence, we've got kind of like an under muscle problem. Like we probably don't have enough muscle mass to kind of sit at the loop that they want to achieve. And that's obviously just part of the journey. So we then say, great, let's then focus on a muscle gain phase, which means you get to eat more calories, you get to push your training, you have more energy because it's exactly like a maintenance phase. And you can, by the way, gain muscle in a maintenance phase. If you can gain it in a deficit, you definitely can at maintenance. Then if we allow for a small surplus, that becomes even more amplified. We have more capacity to gain more muscle mass over time. So in an ideal world, you put on a few kilos of muscle and that then means when you diet back down, you get much leaner, much quicker. So you often have to do a really long dieting phase, a muscle gain phase, and then like a small mini diet if you like as well, which is kind of in essence what I'm doing. Although I've pushed quite a long muscle gain phase, so mine's a little bit longer in terms of weight loss phase now. But I noticed this myself, like, The last time I was kind of into the mid-80s, I just didn't like the way I looked particularly. I just felt like the look I had was really, really, really soft and it wasn't the way I kind of wanted to look in general, obviously. things are relative and the thing I always try and stress with this is we all have our own standards and expectations and obviously as a coach, right, the part of it that is biased because like my job to an extent, people expect me to look a certain way and I have a certain expectation of myself. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't put tons of pressure or lose sleep over that but my point is is that actually for me, what I've found now is kind of like sitting at a similar weight at the tail end of that muscle gain phase I've just done, like in my clothing, I still looked. absolutely fine. Like I could definitely see in photos because I could see that my jawline had all but disappeared and I definitely didn't necessarily like the way I looked as much. But in clothing and stuff I looked fine, like I just looked fairly normal. I wasn't finding a lot of my clothing particularly tight or anything like that. That's because I have more muscle. And now that I've dropped six kilos, I already see that I look much leaner because I have more muscle mass than I used to. So this is kind of the thought process you want to use is that if you are trying to get into not just good shape where you feel comfortable, but like really, really good shape where you're kind of like being that bit ambitious of I actually want to feel phenomenal, not just comfortable, but phenomenal. A lot of the time, all you need to do is just keep going. You need to keep dieting, losing more weight until we kind of either get to a point, and this is, as I said, like the example where we're just lean enough and actually we just need to add some muscle, or we're gonna get to a point where we're like, yeah, actually we're really happy with this look, and then we kind of move to maintenance. but I think it's really, really important to understand that a lot of the time it is just going farther. And I see this a lot with, I think it can vary with everyone, but I do see in a lot of male clients it's quite common to think that they have less to lose than they do. And I don't know if that's maybe a bias of their height and things like that as well. I think that's a factor, but often it's not. I'll get a male client who'll say to me, ⁓ I'm worried about getting too small and skinny, right? That's more common. I'm not saying that I've not had female clients say the same, to be clear. But I think this is good context is that they'll often say to me like, I feel like I've only got five kilos, 10 kilos to lose. I don't want to get too skinny. And it's like, actually, you could probably lose quite a lot more than that. And all that happens is you look a little bit more muscular because more definition comes through. This is the kind of Hollywood effect is that when you see actors in films, you often think, ⁓ they've got loads of muscle mass. And I think you would be quite surprised at often how lean a lot of them are. And if they were to see them in a t-shirt, they don't necessarily look particularly big and muscular. They actually look really quite lean. And I have a few friends who've worked with kind of like, know, sort of on that kind of like world, if you like, of people that are kind of like actors, et cetera, et cetera. And often it's not in these scenes, they look absolutely jacked. They look like they've got loads of muscle mass. And of course they are training and they are in really good shape, but they're also probably a lot leaner than you think they are. I can think of a distinct example with one of my friends who I won't name, but one of my friends who's coach and he was standing beside an actor. And again, obviously it's my friend, so I know. and their kind of size, et cetera. And this actually looks really quite small beside them, but on screen they don't. And that's simply because they've got loads of definition, they're really, really lean, but actually in terms of size, they are probably a lot lighter than you might expect. So this is an interesting one as well to kind of think about. But anyway, that was a little bit of a kind of slightly winding kind of thought talk through some thoughts around getting in great shape and often is not the journey from, you know. being uncomfortable to comfortable, comfortable to, yeah, I'm feeling pretty good, I'm feeling good in my clothing, to feeling like, holy shit, like I'm in unbelievable shape, it's often just time. It's just pushing that weight loss that bit further. Now, I do want to caveat that there is a limit for some people where actually we just need to build some more muscle. And if you're really new to training, you've done no resistance training for years and not been active, you're more likely to fall in that category where actually. building a few kilos of muscles probably gonna make a tremendous difference to the way that you look as well. So something to think about. But yeah, so if you enjoyed today's podcast, please feel free to leave a wee review.