Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 31: What we wish you knew about weight loss
Transcript
- Cameron Cummings: Hello and welcome to Cameron's Conversations podcast. Today I am here with Harry and we're gonna talk all about what we wish people knew about weight loss. So I'm gonna start with you Harry. We're just gonna go through a few different ideas and things that we wanted to talk about. So Harry, you get to go first. What's your first one? What's the first thing you'd like people to know about weight loss or wish they knew about weight loss? Harry: Let's start with a good one. Let me think. I reckon one of the, one of the things I wish people knew is you are going to have many moments along your journey that are going to make you feel progressively more awesome. I think what people get wrong is they have this end goal of like, I want to weigh this much weight. And if that feels quite far away, it can be so overwhelming. And they just think there's going to be like a very kind of on and off switch of like, I don't feel great now and then I'm going to feel good. And it's just not reality. You're going to have moments all the way through that way. You notice your jeans fit in a bit better. You notice how you look different in a, in a picture or in the mirror and these moments build and build and build. And I kind of use an analogy of, ⁓ like hiking a mountain, climbing a mountain, because if you just start at the bottom and you look at the peak and you think, ⁓ my God, that is so far away. That is going to be really horrible and really hard. And if you do that entire walk, just staring at the peak, you're going to have a terrible time, right? Whereas if you start walking, you start enjoying it, you start looking around, you start enjoying the views, you're going to enjoy every part of that all the way up. And it's very much like that with the journey. So that'd be my first point. I reckon that's a good one. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, I agree with that. Not only that, I really appreciate the fact that you've just mentioned Hillwalking out the gate. This is great. Because it's me and you this time, not me and Louis, that we can actually talk about Hillwalking. What an opportunity here. We're gonna just change this podcast right away. But no, I totally agree with that. And it's like, it's probably straining the analogy a bit, but like, if you're ever gone for Hillwalk, like you absolutely do look up, right? In the same way that you do with your weight loss goals, you look up every so often. Harry: You Cameron Cummings: But you wouldn't spend the whole time looking up, and a lot of the time you're looking at your feet because well, if you don't, you're gonna trip over. And that's probably somewhat reflective of what weight loss is like as well, is like, you can get so focused on where you're going that you forget that you're much farther on. So it's funny actually, because I put a post up, so I'm doing a little mini fat loss phase right now as well, and I'm on week six now, and I actually put that in my kind of like comment on the poster, in the caption, it was just like. I'm in that funny middle ground where I feel much, much better. Like my clothes are all fitting a little bit better. I've got like the semblance of a jawline back, which is quite nice as well. At the tail end of my muscle gain phase there, that had gone. I was like, no, I've not seen my jaw in too long. But the nice thing is, that I feel a lot better. Like I do, and I catch myself on video and stuff. And I'm like, I do, like I can see it in photos I'm taking and videos. Cause obviously me and Harry are on camera all day long doing things like this and Facebook lives and videos to our clients, et cetera. So it's really, really nice to see that difference, but I'm not at my end point, but I know that I'm still happier than I was in terms of the way I look in the last six weeks, right? Like six weeks ago, I was probably a little less happy. It wasn't hugely significant, because it was deliberate for me, but still I feel a bit better. And I think that's such a nice point as well, is I do wish more people were a little bit better at embracing the positive changes. It's like every time you put on a piece of clothing and you're like, ⁓ that feels a bit better. almost say that to yourself. Like, you know, when you do have these little wins, like you put on a jumper that you were wearing like a few months ago and now you're like, ⁓ it's quite loose on me. Or you put on your jeans and you're like, actually, I could probably go down about buckle or about holes. What I'm trying to say as well, like all these cool little wins, the more you embrace them, the more the process is fun and enjoyable. And I think, I think we see that with clients too, is like, there's definitely some clients that fall into that. Like they're so focused on the end point and we have to kind of nudge them as well and be like, Hey, like you're down two, three, four, five, six, however many kilos, look how far you've come. How much better do you feel now than you would dreamed of being there six months ago? So I love that, I think that's a really good one. Harry: Yeah, I think it's important. think, yeah, I mean, we've been, you know, a part of our job is to literally highlight to people the amazing progress they're making because everyone's hard on themselves, too hard on themselves, myself included. I'm sure you're the same. so having someone just to be able to go, hold on a minute. Look at, look at what, look where you are. Look at, look at where you are right now. This is amazing. You're doing so great. And just being able to have that moment of like, ⁓ yeah, I am actually, this has changed, that's changed. This is so much better. I feel way better. My sleep's bad and my energy's better. All of these amazing things that happen. we can get a bit kind of tunnel vision on that end goal. And I just think you're missing out on so much if you do that. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, and I think the motivation it gives you, I think that's the thing that matters to us as coaches. It's like, all well and good, I was just reminding of clients, but there's gotta be a purpose behind it. It's like, yeah, they're doing great, and it's good to remind them of that. But it's also good for the long-term progress, because if I'm looking at Harry's progress, and I'm saying, ⁓ well, this has changed, this has changed, this has changed, and Harry goes away feeling like, ⁓ yeah, that's really good, I have made all these changes, and then you wake up motivated, you go to bed a little bit more motivated, you feel a bit more upbeat. I don't mean 100 % of the time, because that's not real life, but. you're much more likely to feel you've got that positive momentum. Even with little process goals, like let's say you go out and you nail all your steps, like you should feel happy about that. I think sometimes people can be like, oh, you know, like I was speaking to a client the other day, it was tipping with rain all weekend where they were, and they got their steps and they actually smashed them. And I was like, that's such a win to have dragged yourself out and gone and done that. And they're like, yeah, I didn't really think of it like that. And I'm like, well, a year ago, you definitely wouldn't have done that, right? There's no chance. So no, I love that. So yeah, I think that's a great, a great kind of starting point. My one that I would wish people knew is that I wish people knew that your weight loss will not be linear. Like I wish people were more aware that you are not going to drop Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday by like 0.1 kilos every single day, that that is not real life. And I've spoken a little bit before about this, but I dropped 20 kilos, so I went through a pretty significant weight loss journey myself. And when you look at that graph, if you zoom out, it looks like a pretty straight line overall. It's a pretty good trend line down. But when you actually zoom in, you realize it's like taking a bouncy ball and chucking it down the stairs. It heads down for sure, but it bounced all over the place. And the thing that was really funny about that is I was actually incredibly consistent for that period of time. I had two weeks off in nine months where I was on holiday, and one of those was only about five days. And the rest of it, stuck to pretty much the same calories the whole way through that because apparently I'm some sort of psycho and I managed to do that pretty well. By the odd occasion, like it was pretty steady and yet my weight was all over the shop. And I wish people knew that. So you can have a week where you have this really big drop and you're really excited. And then the next week you expect exactly the same, but when you have a slightly smaller drop, you feel really disappointed. But when you average those things out, the average is just perfect. And we see this all the time. and I wish more people were aware of that because so many people stress themselves out. They've had two days where their weight hasn't dropped and they're like, oh, I've hit a weight loss plateau. I'm not making any progress anymore. And we're just like, oh no. Like that is absolutely not the case. That happens all the bloody time. You could have four, five, six days sometimes where your weight doesn't drop. Sometimes even trends up before it drops again. So yeah, that's definitely my one. Harry: Yeah, it's a big one. It is a big one. We probably spend a lot of time every single day talking about this. It is one of the because I always say clients, I'm like, look, you're going to hear me piping on about this every single week. Please don't feel like I'm getting frustrated. I'm not. I'm going to say it to you. Cameron Cummings: everything okay. Yeah. Harry: 200 times and then it will finally kick in because it is it's one of the biggest reasons why people fail right because they they try really hard they try really hard then the scales just randomly spike up and they go it's not working And it's like, well, actually it is, it is working. You're just not looking at it in the right way. But it's really funny. You use that analogy of like the, ⁓ the bouncy ball going down the stairs. Cause I use like waves. I explained to people always expect your weight to move in waves. So when you get a new low and it's like kind of the bottom of the wave, the next thing to expect is for it to start climbing up again. And that's how waves move. They climb up, they build momentum and they come down. And it's not for any sciencey reason. I explained that it's just to set expectations in the right place that If you think about a wave, it has to come up. So you're ready for your weight to start climbing up because it will do that. But it will come back down if you're sticking to the targets and doing what you should be doing, it will always come back down. So yeah, definitely, definitely a very, very good one and a very common one for us, I'm sure. Cameron Cummings: 100 % and I'll give the perfect example of that like again because I've been doing a lot of fat loss phase so like the few days ago I hit a new low of like 81.9 and then it went up to 82.2 then up to 82.3 even though my calories were exactly the same activity levels have been ridiculously high in the last week at a very active week and then today I hit a new low but like a lot of people would get thrown off by that the fact you've hit this new low you're dead excited and then the next day it's up 0.3 kilos then the next day is up another 0.1 So you're now at 0.4 kilos from that low and they get stressed about it. And then of course today I saw another new low but that's what it looks like. And I often think that's also something that's helpful to think about is if you hit a new low, expect it to bounce back a little, especially if it was a fairly big drop. know, if my weight drops half a kilo tomorrow, I would fully expect the following day for it to be up a little bit from that before it then bounces down. So I really do like that, kind of like the waves of the bouncy ball down the stairs. Because I think so many people, like how many people do you, well, I mean, it's not an actual number to this, but in our context, we could say so many people that would throw themselves out of their diet because they feel like they're failing, even although they're not. Like as Harry said, where they're not looking at average weight or they're not doing daily weigh-ins, so they're doing these erratic weigh-ins or they get frustrated over it and they would chuck their diet out of the window if we weren't there to reassure them about it. And it's like, you're doing great and you're making all this progress and. week on week, month on month, your weight has dropped, but you feel because after four days your weight hasn't dropped that the diet's not working or you get in your own head about it, even though objectively you maybe do know it's working, you get in your own head, we see this all the time. And that, like Harry said, we probably spend quite a lot of our working lives talking about this and going over this, right? So yeah, I love that. So no, that's definitely another one I think that's really good. What are your other ones that you wish people knew? Harry: ⁓ I profess it's on a similar line, but I would say actually, yeah, I'm going to say this one. I'm going to say that. How do I word this? Basically getting back on track is far more important than whatever took you off track in your mind. So if you were to go out and have a Friday night out and I don't know a few drinks, a takeaway, whatever, doesn't matter. I'm far more interested as a coach. am far, far more interested in what happens Saturday morning than I am what happened Friday night. I want to see you, how you respond to it and can you kind of respond in a logical way that isn't kind of, ⁓ overridden by emotion. Cause that's typically what happens. You have a night out, you do whatever, have a takeaway, have a, have a carby meal, whatever it might be. Stand on the scales the next morning and you see that spike up and immediately filled with emotion, frustration. guilt, disappointment, all of those things. it's, that is the thing that makes people go, this doesn't work. I can't do this. I'm terrible. I'm rubbish at this. I give up. And in reality, it's just not the case. ⁓ if you can go, right, cool. Enjoy that last night. Let me get back to working towards my goals. Have a normal Saturday morning, a normal Saturday lunch, a normal evening, you know, and the rest of the days follow. I think that is one of the most important skills. around weight management. And I have clients that go on holidays, ⁓ and they've got it switched on that they go, you know, whether they are having it as a complete rest and just chilling out or whether they're going and trying to be semi kind of, ⁓ on it, they know that when they get back in the day that they get back, they've got it set in their mind, right? Okay. First thing, food shop, getting things back on place, go into the gym the next day or whatever it might be to get back into the routine of things. I think it's one of the most important skills with this. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I think people's ability to bounce back and almost be really, really quick to forget and move on is really useful. I think this whole thing of feeling really, really guilty and beating yourself up, and this is really interesting to me, is I have yet to see someone who is really successful at weight loss. who is just beating themselves up about things all the time. Like I just don't see it, it doesn't really work. Now I'm gonna throw a bit of context into that because I do think that negative emotion can drive people to start. So we've definitely seen it where someone will jump into Sorted and Sex or jump into One to One because they're like, do you know what, they go away for a wedding and their suit barely fits or they go away for holiday and they don't like the way they feel and all those rest of it. That might be their kind of like sort of tipping point, although even then it's an accumulation of things, right? But that's maybe the tipping point of like, do know what, need to get a hand with this, I need to get a handle on this. So it can start from that place, but sustaining yourself on that negative emotion or guilt or beating yourself up doesn't work. And often it's not like when we have clients that will be like, do you know what, Saturday night wasn't so great, but on Sunday I just made sure I got right back into swing about, made sure I was organized for the week ahead and did a good job of that. Now there's always a little bit of context in that you can't take that approach of like, oh it doesn't matter, like if I go over it every weekend, that's different, right? This is slightly different context. If someone's going over every single weekend, you maybe start by saying, okay, well, our focus is bouncing back on a Monday and getting into it, but then we need to still tackle the weekend, right? That, of course, still matters. But what Harry said's absolutely right. It's so spot on. think that, yeah, you absolutely do need to get into that habit of just bouncing back and not stressing about it, especially because a lot of the time people blow smaller things into bigger proportions. a couple of extra beers and then in the morning they maybe have a bigger breakfast than normal and then you have two choices then you either say okay well I've gone a little bit over no big deal or you're like well I'm over by 100 calories so I know what the logical thing to do is the logical thing to do is to go and get a big bag of chocolate buttons and then I'm a pizza at lunchtime and then I'm gonna do this this this this this this this this and just make sure that instead of like you know putting a little hole in it I'm taking a rocket launcher to it like I think sometimes that's what happens with it is people just go absolutely wild with it and it's like because they feel so guilty and they beat themselves up and they feel like they've failed. Whereas if you just feel like, you know what my calories were a bit over on Saturday, if you're really logical and calm about it, then you probably think, well I can maybe do a bit less on Sunday and eat a bit more sensibly or I'll just eat back at normal and crack on. Like those two responses are absolutely fine but this whole like, as I say, taking a rocket launcher to it and just being like, well that's that then and it's like you had an extra slice of cake and a hot chocolate like, you know. Like let's put it in perspective, the world didn't end, like you've not done something terribly wrong, there are worse things happening, like don't beat yourself up about this, like you're not failed because you had a moment of weakness. Harry: Yeah, the other one that's a real classic is like this happens all the time at weekends where people kind of have a Friday night and it tips them over obviously feel all the emotions the next morning and then because they feel like they've gone wrong and failed and messed everything up it's the mentality of I'll start again Monday. I'll start again Monday and then what happens is you just enter this ⁓ period of time of I'm going to make the most of it and then you've got like this last supper effect of like I'm going to eat all my favorite foods in an absolutely obscene amount because I'm not going to be able to do that as soon as I start again Monday and then it puts you into this horrible cycle so there's just no good in in kind of getting into that space so like yeah bouncing back big one Cameron Cummings: Yes. Yeah, I'd 100 % agree with that. And I think I really liked that, I'm gonna touch on that a little bit, this whole like, I'm gonna start again on Monday and then inhaling your body weight and food. That, for one of the reasons I think, because I think sometimes people do that and they're like, right, diet starts Monday so I'm gonna crack on, just gonna eat as much of what I want. That sounds good, right? But what happens is this, is the actual effect of that is your hunger on Monday morning is off the charts. If you've ever like, you go home to like family, you go away on a holiday or whatever, and you're in an environment where there's tons of food, so like you go home to family over Christmas is my example, or you go on holiday. And then you come back, what happens that first day you're back? You are starving, like you are so hungry because you've eaten a ton of extra food. At times you probably wouldn't even eat it. You've snacked all day and you've also eaten a bunch of like really like hyper palatable, super tasty food. So when you go back on Monday, it's like Monday's on hard mode from the start, isn't it? It's like on the most difficult setting possible because Harry's just had like two days of eating whatever he wants and like, you know, inhaling pizzas left right in center. And then all of sudden on Monday, it's like, ⁓ wow, it's broccoli chicken. and rice, it just doesn't work. I think putting yourself in that position, so yeah, it makes it much, much harder. And I think the more you can be like, do you know what Friday night was? Yeah, I'm just gonna bounce back. I love that. I think that's a great thing. One of the things that I definitely wish people knew is that hunger isn't the end of the world. This is like a little bit of fat loss, tough love, actually, I think. Maybe I'm just getting mean in my old age. I've turned 31, so this is what's happening, right? I'm just getting meaner. But sometimes we make out hunger is the worst thing. that has ever happened and it's so and I think I you know I could I kind of joking about it but there's probably a reason for this is that in the environment we live in it's like a very like it's an abyssiogenic environment right like there is an availability of food and calories that has just never been this level before like we have no seasonality with food or any of that you can just go into Tesco and everything you want pretty much is there so it's pretty easy to get whatever you want at any time the problem with that is a lot of the time you aren't used to any hunger at all Also, if you are 10 minutes before your lunch, people often be like, I'm absolutely starving, right? I'm like, I'm so hungry. And that's okay, we know we don't mean that, but we dramatise, right? We talk about it being more powerful as an emotion or feeling than it actually is. And I think sometimes when people are dieting, what they don't anticipate is that at some points they will be hungry and it's okay just to lean into that. You can be a bit of a casual observer of that, of like, ⁓ yeah, my tummy's rumbling a bit, I'm a little bit hungry. and sit in that and nothing happens. The world did not end. I didn't burst into flames. I didn't starve to death. If I've got lunch in an hour or so, I'm probably getting slightly peckish now, a little bit hungry, but I'm probably not gonna eat for another hour and a half. I'll live, I'll survive sitting in that hunger for 90 minutes. I'm gonna be busy doing other things. So I think that's something that I wish people were a little bit more, that they knew and were a little bit more willing to sit in at times is that sometimes we are so desensitized to hunger because we're so used to just anytime you're hungry, grab a biscuit and that's often what leads to weight gain in the first place right is like oh even if you're a tiny bit hungry you'll just have a wee nibble of this a little bit of that I think a lot of people would do well learning to sit in their hunger a bit more now by no means am I saying that we should be starving all the time but if you're hungry like half an hour to 45 minutes before your lunch that's probably a good thing like that's probably normal like to feel a little bit hungry before a meal time seems like a normal thing to do if you're like oh I must have a snack or I won't make it through the next next half hour it's like really? And I think Harry kind of commented about waves. I try and think of hunger as waves. So hunger kind of like starts as like a small wave. So let's say I'm about hungry now. Probably the next 15, 20 minutes that'll fade. So there'll be a little bit of a climb for the next five minutes then it'll kind of drop. And then maybe half an hour later there'll be another wave and it'll start to climb and then it'll drop. And if you think of it like that too, you can just ride a couple waves. Okay, eventually those waves are gonna get big enough you probably do need to eat. But yeah, that's just like, I think there's something that comes up. It's like sometimes a little bit hunger is okay like it's fine the world's not gonna end Harry: Yeah, I think a lot of things come from that as well I mean even going back to what you're saying there about kind of 45 minutes before lunch having a bit of a snack What that leads to quite often is you having a bit of a snack which takes away a bit your hunger So then when you have lunch you have a smaller lunch, which means you're less satisfied Which means two hours later you get hungry again So you snack a little bit more then you have a smaller dinner and then you're still hungry So then you snack throughout the evening and it leads into things whereas like if you can just sit if that hunger a little bit Cameron Cummings: See you guys. Harry: You know, like Cameron was saying, you don't want to get like hunger pains or anything like that. But if there's moments where you think, okay, I'm hungry, good, I've got lunch in an hour, like sit with it a little bit. Everyone's hunger levels are different. Well, we don't even know because I don't know what hunger feels like for you. You don't know what hunger feels like for me. And that's the that's the complicated part of it. But What you can do is recalibrate it. am certain of that. and sitting with it a little bit helps, you know, I've had plenty of clients in the past where they would kind of say to me, I'm starving hungry. And I'd say, okay, hold on, when was your last meal? And they'll go two hours ago. And I was like, right, you're not starving hungry and language is super important. ⁓ and it's like, put it in a scale of one to 10. That's what I really love is 10 is absolutely, I need food immediately. I'm going to pass out. And one is I'm full. and just try and put it on a scale and be honest with yourself. Don't go, I'm nine because you want to eat. It's like, be honest with yourself and just go, okay, hold on a minute. Where am I? Am I a four? Am I a five? Because normally that's probably where you're going to be between four and six. And at that point you can go, okay, let me sit for a little bit. Let me give it half an hour and see if it builds. See if it goes to a seven, see if it goes to an eight. At that point, yeah, have something to eat. But it's just worth trying to kind of recalibrate those hunger signals and just sit with it a little bit. Have a glass of water. and just chill for a bit and go, right, where am I? Because it is a massive, massive benefit if you can kind of gauge hunger a little bit. ⁓ I've kind of trained myself very well with that as well. I can kind of sit of hunger really well. Sometimes I go too far the other way because like last night where I was working late and things, I ended up eating dinner really late and then my stomach didn't, I was like, my stomach was almost hurting by the time I had dinner and I was like, ⁓ I left it too late. So you can go the other way. especially if you're busy, but most of time I really recommend just being ready to feel a bit hungry and use it as a bit of, if you're trying to lose weight, you know, again, going kind of tough love a little bit. Feeling a bit hungry is a good sign. It's a good sign that you're in a calorie deficit. So kind of go, okay, I'm hungry. Okay, cool. I've got a meal in a bit or, you know, evaluate it a little bit. If you're really hungry and you had your breakfast an hour ago, look back at what it was. Did it not work for you? Did it not provide enough, you know, was there not enough calories there? Was there not enough volume there or was there not enough fiber, protein, these kinds of things. Look at it and go, I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast and I was super hungry an hour later. Okay, cool. That's probably not the best option for you. Maybe switch out, add something in. Yeah. Cameron Cummings: I 100 % agree with that and I think it's just a useful thing because I think sometimes, and the language, Harry's actually touched on a point I was gonna make, is the language you use is important. Every time you're hungry, you're starving. It kind of makes the emotion feel stronger. And I think you can talk yourself into it a little bit as well. The other thing too is there's a bit of a gap between like. If you are starving, if you're really, really hungry and someone was like, ⁓ here's some vegetables in front of you. If you're like, I wouldn't even want those. You're probably not that hungry. What you probably are is conditioned to having lots of tasty snacks a lot of the time, which we've all been through. I was exactly the same. There was a point in time where it'd be like, just, know, someone put veggies in front of me. just went, whatever. And I'm like, well, you're not that hungry then, are you? I'm not saying veggies you don't like, to be clear, but let's say something that is reasonably healthy, something you like. blah blah but if you don't want that and you're like, no, I just want a chocolate bar, like that isn't proper hunger in the normal sense. It's more like hedonic hunger of like, I want to eat something that's tasty. And it's like, guess what? Like I want to eat chocolate most of time. Like, of course I want that. Like if someone puts a bar of chocolate in front of me, I'm going to be tempted by it. But I think that can be useful. But yeah, I think that's a good few we've covered. So we will jump off there. Cause we do have another podcast to record on a slightly different subject. So if you do want to find out a little bit more about our one-to-one coaching, then you can jump to the link. in the show notes if you do have any suggestions or questions and they want to ask about the future podcast episodes you can pop me a little message on Instagram too but otherwise speak to you next time. Harry: Cheers.