Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 34: What's annoyed us this week...
Transcript
- Cameron Cummings: Welcome to today's podcast on Cameron's Conversations. And today I have fellow grumpy old man, Louis, with me and we are gonna do what I've been quite excited about, a grumpy old man podcast on things that have just annoyed us this week. Whether it's to do with things we see on social media, posts about nutrition and weight loss, training, exercise. We just thought we'd do a little bit of a ranty one. So I'm gonna start off who I think might be the master of ranting and. kind of getting wound up by daft stuff on social media. Louis, what an intro, what an intro. Louis Baker-Stroud: This is good timing actually because I have woken up with I've slept wrong and my back hurts ⁓ Cameron Cummings: So both old and grumpy. Perfect. Louis Baker-Stroud: Yeah, exactly, exactly. I remember the day when I was younger and I cracked my head open, I required stitches and then later that afternoon I was just running around as if nothing had happened and now I'm 32 years old and if I sleep wrong it ruins my day. It's ridiculous. hate it. Anyway, terms of things that have wound me up recently, Gawr, how long have you got? No. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, age is cruel. Louis Baker-Stroud: But I saw a post yesterday and it was female coach talking about how it's not fair ⁓ that men can lose weight faster than men. ⁓ And I agree with that statement. I agree in terms of, you know, we do probably have a bit of an easier ride of it ⁓ because our calories naturally are a bit higher and things like that. But then she went on to say that, you know, women's bodies are different and it's not just about calories and all of this sort of stuff. And like, it just really, really, really annoys me because it just adds confusion. Like there are enough confused people in the world, doesn't need another coach saying, because you're a woman, you, a calorie deficit isn't going to work for you. It is going to work for you. You just need to be, you just need to kind of, oh God. Cameron Cummings: ⁓ He's off on one now. Yeah, the thing I love about this is what you'll often see with the messaging is it's framed like it would be empowering. It's often through that lens of like women haven't been listened to and actually women are completely different in this regard. And absolutely there are differences. Of course there are. But when it comes to dieting, sadly, the only difference is is your calories have to be. Louis Baker-Stroud: Yeah, yeah. Cameron Cummings: lower a lot of the time to lose weight because you are smaller, you're not generally as tall, not maybe as much muscle mass on average. But it's meant to sound empowering, but it's kind of the opposite because it's just misleading. It makes you think that you're missing this magic thing that it's cortisol related or that it's a specific hormone or yeah, the cortisol thing's quite a common thing, isn't it? It's like you need to regulate that or you can't lose weight. And that just isn't the case. It sounds empowering, but it's bloody well not, is it? Louis Baker-Stroud: That's the thing. It's these videos are really good for engagement because you'll get lots of women being like, yeah, you, go girl, like all of this sort of stuff. And it's like, yeah, but she's wrong. Yeah. I've done a video before where I've kind of outed another coach who has said that, ⁓ the whole like 1200 calories isn't enough for you. shouldn't be dieting that low. It's she said the classic tagline of it's not enough for a toddler. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, she's still, still wrong. ⁓ Louis Baker-Stroud: and all of this sort of stuff. And I mean, A, that's just misinformation anyway, because we're not the same as toddlers. Toddlers are rapidly growing little radiators that are running around bouncing off of things, not hurting themselves, because they're indestructible. And they move a hell of a lot more than we do on average. They are growing rapidly. Like they need more energy anyway, compared to the typical lifestyle of someone who wants to... Cameron Cummings: Yeah. Louis Baker-Stroud: you know, who is a bit overweight and needs to lose a bit of weight or wants to lose a bit of weight. So that comparison is just, it sounds great. It sounds like, ⁓ my God, I shouldn't be doing that because a toddler is much smaller than me. But then there's lots of, there's like more to it than that. There's more nuance to it. But then when I make a video saying that, saying 1200 calories for some people, again, there is nuance to it. It's not, I'm not blanket. I'm not having a blanket statement. Cameron Cummings: Not every one of our one-to-one clients for context is suddenly put on 1200 calories. We're not like, 1200 calories is the perfect amount for everyone. Are you six foot eight? 1200 calories. Are you running a marathon? 1200 calories. Like we're not pushing that agenda. Louis Baker-Stroud: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But like if I say 1200 calories for some people is actually appropriate and there'll be some people out there, maybe even listening, who have tried to diet on more than 1200 calories and seen bugger or results because again, 1200 calories is appropriate for you. I get, I get stick for it. I get loads of bad comments, negative comments saying that I'm promoting eating disorders and you know, I should read up on women's hormones and all of this sort of stuff and I'm like, okay, I kind of I do know my stuff. I've coached quite a few people at this point like, you know, I understand that there are certain energy requirements depending on your lifestyle, your current height, your current weight, how much muscle mass you have, how much you move on average, all this sort of stuff. And I always use the comparison of like a six foot five builder, a laborer who's, who's, you know, out at 7am, doesn't get home until 5pm, probably has about 17 tea breaks in that time, but still, still moving a fair bit. Yeah, Still moving a lot. And he's like, I don't know, 110 kilos. Obviously for him, let's call him Steve. Sorry if there's anyone called Steve listening, it's just... Cameron Cummings: We'll assume that he works a field day. We'll assume that works a field Louis Baker-Stroud: Typical building. Steve's gonna struggle on 1200 calories because 1200 calories to him is probably lunch, right? Whereas someone who's working in an office who struggles to get more than 3000 steps per day, who is less than five foot five, who gets, you know, is of a certain age where the idea of someone being born in the year 2000 repulses them. Well, basically if you're 30 over because Cameron Cummings: Steve, Steve the Builder. Louis Baker-Stroud: I don't know about you, but the idea of someone being born in the, you know, 2006 and they're 20, I'm like, what? That's mental. But if you're in that kind of subsection of people, then again, 1200 calories might be okay. It's one of these things that you can't have blanket statements. So I think to summarize, to wrap it into a nice little packaging, blanket statements piss me off. Cameron Cummings: Let's not talk about it. Let's just not talk about it. We're not going to talk about that. Louis Baker-Stroud: There you go. Cameron Cummings: Absolutely, and I think the calorie one is so popular and again it's almost like an empowering thing. like you should never be on this few calories, et cetera. And again, it's all contextual. I have clients who are under five foot in height and. are moderately active and their activity's definitely increased across coaching, but they are just smaller females and their calories do have to be lower. And I've done a podcast about this before about the fact is, it's like, we could be pretty honest about that. They probably do have a harder time with weight loss. It's not impossible by any means. Of course it's not. They still get great results, but they don't have the same flexibility and all the rest of it. And to those people, it could be seen as really positive and empowering. Like, oh, that person's saying I don't need to diet on that. but then they go and sit on 1600 calories and nothing happens or they see such marginal weight loss that they would be like, you know, at it for the next two years straight if they never had a holiday. If they have a holiday that's wiped out a year's worth of progress, like it just doesn't work. So I think that's a really, like the blanket statements thing is a really big one. And you see a lot of that where it's just like, oh, you should never do that. The lowest I've ever died to a client on was just sitting above like, if it was 1050 calories because she was just super small, super light, we were at the tail end of diet and that's what we needed to do to get done because we started off higher than that and over time it needed to drop even with increasing activity. Now I can also say that that's not common and if you feel like you need to be on those low calories On average you don't, like I don't know out of 100 people how many people would need to be that low, not that many, but it's definitely the case that sometimes you do need to diet someone on really low calories. I also have lots of female clients that diet on really quite high calories as well. I'm sure you're the same. Some clients are on 17, 18, 1900 calories or more and still dropping, so there is a lot of individual variance as well. Yeah, blanket statements piss me off too. Another, so I've got one that always hacks me off and it is coaches pushing this, you can just eat whatever you want all of the time and you can lose weight. And it's usually said by someone who's like, that we've got like a height complex here, because we're both just, we'll say just under six foot. I mean, I think one of us might actually be just under six foot. One of us might be pushing that a little bit. But I think that if we're kind of like, thinking about it, you get this influencer who's six foot five, they're doing six high rock sessions a week and they're telling you you can just eat anything you want to, which is probably what most people are doing whilst they're gaining weight at a really, really quick pace. And it is so bloody unhelpful. You will need to change your nutrition to lose weight. You're going to have Louis Baker-Stroud: 100 % but again, it's it's one of those like empowering things isn't it when you hear that you think ⁓ yes great You know, it means that I don't have to make all these huge changes and things like that and don't get us wrong We're not saying you have to make gigantic changes overnight. In fact, if you do that, you're not going to get anywhere very quick anyway. We would recommend making small changes slowly and let these small changes obviously stack up until they become big changes over time. But if you currently have a diet that consists of takeaways like three, four, five, six times a week, can you diet by doing that? Yes. Is it extremely difficult? Yes. Can you drink? Can you drink loads? Yeah. Can you drink loads of alcohol when you're dieting? Yeah, you can. Is it going to make your life so much harder? Yes, absolutely. Like there is an element where, yes, you can still have... Cameron Cummings: Yeah, still difficult. Louis Baker-Stroud: nice things, you can still have treats, you can have, you know, your alcohol, your sweets, your chocolate, stuff like that. Like when, sorry to bring this up, but when I did my photo shoot, we won't bring up the photo. But when I did that, I went on holiday in the 12 weeks, I went on holiday, still track my calories, but still went on holiday. Did a round of pub golf that was a bit messy. Cameron Cummings: I didn't know you'd done photoshoot, Louis. You've never told me that before. Yeah, 152 times now. Louis Baker-Stroud: went out to some like dance festival thingamajig for a weekend. Multiple times I had like sort of takeaways and things like that. So don't get me wrong, it wasn't a case of 12 weeks where I just shut myself in a cold dark room and kind of like rocked myself to sleep with chicken rice and broccoli. Like that's not what I did. But then at the same time, did it make my life a little bit harder? Yes. And another thing, I was doing CrossFit six days a week. So I could get away with it a little bit more than perhaps the normal person who isn't doing CrossFit because, you know, they have sense. I didn't. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, they have some sort of common sense and taste basically is what we're saying as well. yeah, absolutely. I think this is it. And I think that probably the best way of framing this is like, you can make your life a lot harder. Because I was having conversation with a client about this earlier this week and they're just talking about like, they've dropped their alcohol intake quite a lot. Not that they're too total, but they just don't drink as much. And they basically, they said exactly what I would say to clients is they said, for me, I've just realized it makes it harder because I'm eating less food. Louis Baker-Stroud: Yeah, precisely. Cameron Cummings: I know that sounds really obvious, but if you are consuming a thousand calories over the course of a week from alcohol, that's a thousand calories less food. That's two to three meals, potentially, depending how big your meals are. So you're having two to three meals less. It makes a big difference to your hunger levels as well. And the same applies with takeaways. It's like, Louis can absolutely have a takeaway, but if he's on 2000 calories and that takeaway is 1400, the only other thing he can eat that day is like 600 calories. And then that's it. And actually his fullness is probably going to be a hell of a lot lower because of that as well. So he's going to find it harder in the same way that if someone's like, do you know what? It's really important for me to have a cup of glasses of wine a week. Cool. Do that. But there's going to be a trade off somewhere else because you can't get away with just like, I don't know, having a thousand calories worth of normal food and a thousand calories worth of custard creams, not to bring up the custard creams again, Louie. But you know, like that is going to be a bloody hard diet to stick to. because you inhale those custard creams in like three minutes and then you're starving the rest of the day. So I think it is really, really misleading and also important to remember that flexibility scales with your calorie intake. So if you have got someone who's six, five and doing CrossFit or doing high rocks type work five times a week and their maintenance calories are three and a half thousand and they're dieting on two and a half, which is still a really good deficit for them, they're gonna lose a chunk of weight pretty damn quick and look pretty good quickly. The problem is, is that if you're on 1500 calories, you don't have that flex. If they spend 500 calories on snacks and 2000 on food, they'll still probably manage. Whereas if you try and do that, you can have a thousand calories worth of food, you're gonna be starving and you're gonna be miserable and you're gonna be as grumpy and angry and hangry as we are. So you don't want that. Nobody wants that. Louis Baker-Stroud: No, and I think this is one thing that we we get especially in like the first couple of weeks of sorted in six or it may be even in the first week where people see their initial targets that we set for them and they see this number and they kind of almost panic and and kind of start being like ⁓ my god how am I ever going to manage this ⁓ this is going to be impossible but then by week three by week four especially Cameron Cummings: Yes. Louis Baker-Stroud: they realise they're not even actually hitting their calorie target because they're not hungry, because they're eating the right foods, because their 14, 1500 calories isn't a thousand calories of liquids, of alcohol, of takeaways, and 500 calories of actual whole foods that are high in fibre and protein. It's almost reversed. So it's more like 80 % of their calories are coming from the things that should be making up your normal diet anyway, but for the majority... of people out there, that's unfortunately not the case, until we work with them obviously. But, you know, high in protein, high in fibre, all that good stuff that's obviously gonna keep you full. And then the other 20%, we have this rule all the time, the other 20 % can come from whatever you want. Like that's where this balance comes in. And I know when people hear balance, they think, well, balance should be 50-50 though. Doesn't work like that when it comes to dieting, because that's where we go into the problems of, as Cameron just mentioned. But again, it goes back to these coaches with their blanket statements saying you can eat whatever you want and still lose weight. Technically true, right? But it's not giving enough nuance to the whole situation in terms of how difficult you're going to make it for yourself. So, yeah. Cameron Cummings: 100%, yeah. And I think that there's something as well that also kind of like, another thing that annoys me, turns out a lot of stuff, is this thing about balance as well, is like, balance is very, like Louis said, it's a percentage of your food being a little bit more flexible, more relaxed, right? But it's not all of it. And I think sometimes what people think is they go into the day and it's a bit like, oh, breakfast. Well, because I'm trying to be balanced, what I'll do is I'll just have like a big bowl of cereal because I fancy it. But it's okay because I'll have a piece of fruit later. And it's like that. that's not really going to swing because by the time you get to lunch, you're like, well, I could have that meal that's like chock full of protein and veggies, but actually because I just fancy something else, I'm to have something different. What you kind of realise a lot as a coach is sometimes our sense of balance and what, you know, when people talk about moderation, it's very vague. And I think what happens is people end up in this kind of interesting place where they think moderation is something that's not. So they think moderation is having the big bowl of cereal, but it's okay because they have a piece of fruit later. And then at lunch they have, you know, whatever they have, but then they have a big bag of crisps. And then at dinner, they think, well, it's only one dessert and everyone else is having it. So, you know, I'm trying to be moderate. And so I'm going to have that as well because my dinner was healthy. That isn't really moderation because you're actually making trade-offs at almost every single meal and sometimes between your meals as well. I think that moderation, that balance bit can get really, really skewed. Like having dessert three, four times a week. and having a takeaway and having a few drinks and having loads of snacks and saying yes to the cakes at work. I know that all those individual decisions sound quite moderate and small in themselves, but when you're making 30 or 40 trade-offs a week, that's not that moderate at all, actually. You're just kind of kidding yourself on a little bit with it. And I think that happens a lot where people talk about all in moderation, but what the hell does that actually look like? And for a lot of people, you can't get away with that. You can't have... like things at every single meal. can't make a trade off at every single like snack, snack time, sounds like a kid, but you know, like you can't get away with that. And I think that's quite important too. That always kind of like, no, it doesn't frustrate me cause I understand that that's where people come from. We coach them through that. But I think a lot of coaches push that. That it's like, ⁓ well, it's just about moderation. Well, what the hell does that mean? Like a lot of the time as coaches, we are coaching our clients to know what moderation is. to create their own level of moderation based on their calories because Louis doing crossfit five times a week at that time, his moderation probably was a bit more flexible. Whereas like Sue who's on 1200 calories, 1300 calories, her moderation has to look completely different. Like she cannot get away with that. So yeah, that's definitely one. I think you had one about exercise, I know running, was it running? I know how much you love running. You had one, that also annoyed you. Louis Baker-Stroud: Running? Yeah, running is a classic one. just kind of the reason why that annoys me is because it's basically what I used to do. I used to put so much emphasis into what I was doing exercise wise, not just with running, with overall gym work. And I was expecting to get a six pack off the back of it. And look, you know, massive, but also leaner. And I was just getting confused with what my goals were. Wasn't paying attention to food at all. And obviously you're not going to get anywhere if you just focus on your exercise, because when you actually think about it, when you break it down, there are a hundred and here we go maths, uh, or 168. 168 hours in a week. It usually is 168 hours in a week, right? Cameron Cummings: ⁓ no, ⁓ no, it's all gonna go wrong now. This is my job, isn't it? Louis Baker-Stroud: If you train maximum four hours in that week, you've still got 164, there you go, now don't it? You've still got 164 hours left, right? Obviously some of those hours are taken up by sleep and things like work and stuff like that. But when you're awake, you're obviously having to make decisions in terms of food and activity levels and stuff like this. So when you think about it that way, then of course it makes more sense to be like, oh, do you know what, actually, yes, that other 164 hours. of week where I'm eating, where I'm maybe not moving as much day to day, things like that. Maybe I should put more effort into that than the, you know, half killing myself on the treadmill, sort of 45 minutes every Tuesday and, you know, doing some stupid shoulder only workout for 60 minutes on a Thursday. And that sort of thing, because again, it's exactly what I used to do. So please learn from our mistakes, guys. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, absolutely. I think this is it. Like it's such a cliche to be like you can't count out exercise, a bad diet, but it's true, right? Like you sometimes see that. And I've seen really extreme examples of that where I've seen people in gyms when he used to be an in-person trainer knock out like 15 classes, 16 classes a week and they'd be like, ⁓ yeah, I'm doing a triple class day to day. And I'm like, I know that you think that's a good thing, but it's probably not like. that doesn't make sense. You should only be training that much if you are, if it is your job, like if you're an athlete, like if it's that important to you or you are, know, I guess if you're someone who's doing like an Ironman or triathlon, like you kinda need to train a crazy amount because you're doing all these different disciplines. But if you're an average person who's like, okay, I want to look better, I want to have a bit more muscle and I wanna be fitter, you don't need to be training that much. And that's just someone who trains quite a lot. Like I play basketball like three times a week, maybe go to on average four times a week. and I usually do like some sort of running like once a week as well. turn your ears off on that one, Lee. But mind you, I've actually seen you do a bit running lately too, to be fair. Louis Baker-Stroud: I'm a completely, completely fair weather runner. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, there you go. Well, that's perfect that you're moving to Spain for that one. You might become a consistent runner there as well. But yeah, I think this is the thing, isn't it? It's like, can, and I saw that and it's like a perfect example of like, that person when they talk to them, were like, you could tell that their goals were around body composition. And I'm like, but you're doing, you're doing all this work. You're spending so long in a gym, but you're not looking after your nutrition. And like, that's the one bit that would make you far better progress. So. Louis Baker-Stroud: Maybe, maybe. Cameron Cummings: I always think that is something that can be frustrating, I think, for someone is you can put so much effort into your training and all the rest of it, but you might not look like it because you're not looking after your nutrition at all. And it's not to say that your training has to be about the way that you look and all the rest of it doesn't have to be at all, but it's really worth considering if you've got a body composition goal, if you're like, like most of us want to look a bit better, look like you've got definition or you know, if you're Louis, want to like. gain a good amount of size or if you're someone who just wants to like look toned, whatever it is, it's kind of irrelevant. You still need to look after your nutrition and you cannot get away with without doing that bit as well. So yeah, and then I think the last one that we wanted to touch on was just kind of the, I think it was about this whole thing about like running where it's never enough. I think it's kind of like one of the things, there's a bit of a trend of this where like it's almost not like you can't run anything that's under 5k. And if you do a 5K, then the first thing someone asks is like, when are you doing a half marathon? When are you doing a marathon? And it's almost like you need to, like, you just have to be doing an ultra marathon in the Arctic for it to be respectable at this point. Like if it's, what's the point in anything else, right? It's such a, I ⁓ think people get very carried away on social media. It's almost like one-up-smanship a little bit. Not to say, if you have a goal of a half marathon, a marathon, that's cool, that's amazing. But sometimes the online dialogue is like, ⁓ yeah, they're a good 5K runner, but would they be able to run a good half marathon? And I'm like, Why is that relevant? Like who cares? That's like saying to someone who's like into cycling, like, they're good at cycling, but they're good at running. Like, why is that relevant? If you enjoy a thing, you can just enjoy a thing as well. And I feel like running has become the perfect example of where it's almost like it has to be ridiculously fast or it's almost quite competitive, like online, even although it's a lot of something people do for like fun and to enjoy it and to feel a bit fitter, it's become quite like competitive, but not in a good way competitive, kind of like a bit of a negative way. Louis Baker-Stroud: Yeah, it's kind of like, have you heard of tall poppy syndrome? Cameron Cummings: Yes. Yeah. Louis Baker-Stroud: where everyone tries to cut down the tallest poppy. If you look like you're doing better, then obviously people will start attacking you and say, wow, it's only a 5K. was like, yeah, but two months ago I couldn't climb the stairs. So how's that? Do you know what I mean? And ⁓ in the world of social media, it does just seem like everything has to be extreme now. With not just exercise, exercise is obviously one of them. start running, well obviously you have to do a marathon at some point otherwise what's the point of doing it? If you start running, well when are you going to do a high rocks? Because obviously what's the point? If you're going to the gym a couple of times a week, well are you going to step on stage at some point in your underwear looking like a tangerine? Well what's the point of doing that? ⁓ And the same with dieting, you know, if you can't suddenly try and have a high protein diet, you have to go full carnival. ⁓ You you ⁓ can't just have things in moderation. You have to get rid of all of it. Or, you know, it's just such nonsense. I understand why it's more prevalent nowadays because obviously on social media everyone is competing for attention and things like that and everyone has to, you know, say these outlandish things to obviously gain engagement and things but at the same time it's kind of bleeding into normal life where, you know, average people like you and I are then thinking, ⁓ we need to do more than this because otherwise, you know, it's not enough. And that's simply not the case. Like it's enough if you enjoy doing it and it's getting you towards your goals, whatever your goals are. ⁓ and I think that's, yeah, it's frustrating to see. And it's just like. Cameron Cummings: It's almost like you. you can't really celebrate what you do because it's like, well, but it should be more. And I think this is basically us saying it's like, it's okay to just run a 5k or even less than a 5k. It's okay to just like go for a run around a park. that's fine too. I was speaking to a client about this who was like, I don't know if I have like time to run around 5k. They're quite new to running. I'm like, you know that there's no rule that says you can only run the number five. Like you could just go into a four or three and a half or, you know, like the distance of like your house round the park and back. Like that's cool too. If you go out and run 15-20 minutes, it's still going to do you a lot good. So yeah, I think that's like a really common thing as well. And I think it's really interesting when I did, so I did a 25 kilometer trail run and when I did that, everyone was like, when are you going to do a marathon? And I'm like, I can't think of anything worse. Like I really enjoyed my trail run. It was really, really good. And I, it was around Balmoro as well. So that was like quite a cool career to run around as well. But I was just like, that was enough for me. I really enjoyed it and I'd probably do it again at some point, but I have no interest in doing more. And I have clients that love marathon running, that's great. I have clients that do ultras and all sorts because that's what they're passionate about. But I think it's really important to just like... play your own game and enjoy what you enjoy as well. Like I didn't want to do a marathon because I knew that the cost of doing that in terms of time when you're running a business, et cetera, I was like, I just don't have the time to do that and have a social life and see my girlfriend. Like that would be more important to me because I want to go to gym four times a week, which you're probably not doing on top of marathon training and running a business. If you want to have any friends and a girlfriend, probably not gonna work, right? I'm gonna have to make a trade off that I'm not willing to make. And I just enjoy doing shorter stuff. So it was really interesting, but It was almost like, ⁓ you're not interested in doing that. I'm like, no, not really. I couldn't care less. I just did it as a challenge and that was it. But yeah. So that was our old man ramblings and grumping about stuff that has annoyed us and we'll no doubt be back on later next month to do even more because there's always something annoying us. But if you do want to hear about one-to-one coaching and find out a little bit more, then the link is in the show notes. I swear we're not as grumpy when we're coaching. Honestly, we are actually nice people and get really, really good results with our clients. And if you do want to find out a little bit more about sorting six or one-to-one coaching or have any student suggestions for future episodes, In the show notes, there's a link to my WhatsApp and you can just pop me a message too. Thank you for listening and speak to you soon. Thanks for coming on, Louis. Louis Baker-Stroud: Cheers guys!