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This podcast is for people who want to feel fit, strong, and energised again – but haven’t found a way to make fitness hold when life is busy.
You’ve tried plans that work on paper but fall apart under pressure.
You’ve had periods of momentum, followed by long stretches of drift.
Not because you don’t care.
But because most approaches weren’t built for real life.
On this podcast, we talk about how to build strength, energy, and confidence in your body inside a full life – not an ideal one.
Training that adapts when work ramps up.
Nutrition that stays simple when attention is limited.
Habits that survive travel, stress, family, and changing weeks.
These are honest conversations about systems, mindset, and identity – and how fitness stops slipping to the bottom of the list and starts reinforcing the rest of your life.
I've taken a bit of time off these videos. I think it's been, like, three weeks since I did the last one, and I was in such a such a good rhythm before. And I I feel like there's a lot to be learned about consistency from my experience of doing these videos because I started off with pretty easy rhythm, one a week, really easy to maintain and straightforward. And then I've one week, I did two. The next week, I did three.
Jake:And then I felt like I had this three three a week rhythm in me. And then the second that that broke, then it all kind of fell apart. And then I get to this point now where it's three or four weeks where I've done none of these videos whatsoever when if I'd stuck to one, it would have been pretty straightforward to maintain. So, yeah, I think in terms of when we're thinking about consistency versus the result or the output, actually aiming for something that you can actually commit to even on those worst weeks is should be above and above above above and all. I can't remember what that phrase is.
Jake:It should be above everything else. And I always say to people, whatever that perfect plan is, that ninety minutes a week in the gym, perfect meals, that only works if you can actually do it. And even just the five minutes a day of exercise beats that perfect plan if you actually get it done. So I think I'm gonna learn from my own lesson here and actually go, okay. Cool.
Jake:Let's strip it back to one. Let's actually maintain it. Let's aim for consistency first rather than volume and intensity, and hopefully, we can get back in the flow of things now. So today, I'm just driving to check out a new gym that's opened up in St. Ives.
Jake:A lot of you will have heard of St. Ives. It's a very famous seaside town in Cornwall near where I live. It's about a twenty minute drive away. We spend a lot of the summer there.
Jake:Oh my god. There's some crazy, crazy waves. I don't know if you can see this out the window. Absolutely insane sea. The whole road is seawater.
Jake:There's there you go. I'm literally driving through feet of water. There is seaweed over on the other side of the road on the houses. Wow. I wish you could see this ocean right now.
Jake:Amazing. Anyway, so driving to this gym. It's about twenty minutes away in St. Ives. And, yeah, just gonna check it out.
Jake:It's opened up. It's looking amazing. We don't have the best gyms in Cornwall, to be honest, because we have such beautiful outdoors. I think that side of life is hasn't been that optimized. So we don't have any sort of very few, very nice boutique gyms.
Jake:So I'm really excited to go check this one out. It's called Fortis, and it's on one of the industrial states in St. Ives if you ever wanna check it out. And yeah. What oh my god.
Jake:Oh my god. That was crazy. Wow. Okay. So that was a wave, by the way, over the car.
Jake:So today, I just wanna talk about life with three kids and how to actually hold the line because it's really challenging. Right? Anyone that's got kids will feel suddenly you lose so much time, and that's from going zero to one. And then when you go to one to two, you feel, wow. When I had one, I had so much time.
Jake:And then you go two to three, and you think, god, when I had two, I had so much time. And the truth is that you only know the situation relative to what you knew before. Like, the context is based on your own experiences. So whether you have one where you have zero, whether you have one, two, three, it's always gonna feel pretty busy and time is gonna feel tight. And with running a business and juggling three kids, especially when one is a newborn, it feels like there really is no moment for yourself.
Jake:And I understand that taking care of yourself, fitness, even eating well can feel like a challenge. So I wanted to run through some of the strategies that I use in order to hold that line, stay in shape, keep making great choices for myself even when things are crazy and hectic and I'm getting minimal sleep. So the first one is having a a baseline or just I guess you could describe it as a floor or, like, core habits that just keep you in a decent place. So for me, those things are eat whole foods most of the time. So no diets, no calorie counting, no nothing strict or regimented, but just the idea of like, do not eat processed foods very often.
Jake:Once in a while, cool, but not very often. That alone will have such a profound impact on how you feel and your results. I would say that's possibly one of the strongest things you can do. And the thing about the food element of this is that no matter how busy you are, no matter how tired, you are still gonna eat at some point, I imagine. So you can control what you choose in those moments.
Jake:And, yes, you might argue, oh, I'm too tired to cook, etcetera, etcetera. But there's gotta be a a line of accountability here where we go, okay. If you actually wanna feel good and you wanna maintain your health and fitness or improve it, you gotta take some action somewhere. Right? So let's assume that the action is that I am gonna take a bit of time to cook.
Jake:And you don't have to make crazy recipes or take a long time to cook in order to actually get results. I think that's a misconception. So I think almost that's a myth in itself anyway. So the first one, eat real food most of the time. The second one is trying to optimize the sleep as much as you can within the confines that you have.
Jake:I'm in a situation now where with three kids, Morgan, my wife, she takes the brunt of looking after the newborn in the night. We typically switch over around 4AM, and then I'll just be up from them. But I will go to bed around eight or 08:30. So I'm still getting really decent sleep provided that the other two kids don't wake me up. And we decided on that setup because someone obviously needs to get the kids up from school for school, sorry, clean the house, get the everyone ready to go, take them to school, pick them up from school and obviously work as well.
Jake:So we found now we're on three, that's the best setup for us in order to actually get the results that we wanna get and, you know, actually achieve sorry. I'm just reversing. I can't concentrate if I'm reversing. Right. Yeah.
Jake:We found that was the best setup to make sure that everything gets done and the the cogs still turn in life. I think I was talking about results then. I was talking absolute balls. I was just having to concentrate on the reverse classic Cornish driving maneuver. So get yeah.
Jake:Optimizing the sleep where you can. And the thing is, obviously, when you have young kids, especially a newborn, like, is hard. Like, it's really tough, and it's one of the most challenging parts of having a new baby. But I guess what I mean about optimizing it within the parameters that you can control is that if I know I'm getting up at 4AM every single day, then I could choose to go to bed at twelve. Right?
Jake:I could stay up on my phone doing work, watching Netflix. But the optimization there is going, okay. Cool. Let's go to bed at 08:00 or half eight so I still get a full night's sleep. And, yes, would it be nice to sometimes stay up a little bit later and not have dinner a little bit later, all those things?
Jake:Yes. Certainly would, but that sleep trumps all, and that's how you can basically optimize within the parameters you have. Don't sabotage the opportunity to get sleep if you know it's going to be broken at some point in the night. So, yes, it's harder for everyone's situation is different. There's going to be nuances that make things harder or easier for certain people, but really just trying to optimize within the confines that you have.
Jake:The next one is taking in fact, let's go for having a plan. Having a plan a first. So your plan a is what does the good week what does the perfect week look like first? Like, really understanding what that looks like, making it achievable, something that you can consistently hit. There's no point having a perfect plan, as I said before, that you can't actually hit and you can't actually achieve.
Jake:Making it something that's consit you can be consistent with, that's aligned with the goals that you wanna achieve, whether that might be a body composition thing, maybe it's just holding the line on your health, Maybe it's strength, flexibility, but is aligned with that in in some way or another and is actually consistently, like, moving you forward. If you were to hit that perfect plan, like, you are moving forward. Now the second part of that, the b, the three b, is actually built, like, baking flexibility or adaptability into that plan. Because when you have a business or a busy career and you have kids, three kids, or however many, you can't rely on that plan going perfectly every single day and every single week. So you need to have some adaptability built in.
Jake:And I think one of the most common struggles I see or maybe challenges or reasons for not being consistent and reasons for not actually being able to get results with the guys that I talked to is actually this rigidity in the plan. We could describe this all as all or nothing thinking or black or white thinking. But, basically, the idea that if the plan doesn't go to plan, then what's the point? Or you failed or I'll do nothing at all. So let's say your plan is Monday, sixty minutes in the gym, x y zed meals.
Jake:And for whatever reason, the day is really busy and you don't get that sixty minute workout in. Instead of going, oh, what could I do? What's the alternative? Having that plan B, that plan C, that plan D is I'm going to do nothing at all. Like, what's the point if I can't actually take action on the plan that I intended to?
Jake:So that flexibility, I really believe, is a superpower for busy people. And what that means is there's two components to it. There's the practical application of that flexibility, like, okay, I don't have thirty minutes, but I do have fifteen. What does a workout look like if you have to adapt it to fifteen minutes? How do you practically adapt what you intended to do to a shorter time frame and still yield some of the benefits even though it's in a shorter time frame?
Jake:That's the practical side. And the practical side is actually the easy bit because it's just instilling some knowledge and applying it. The difficult part is actually the mindset side, having that flexible mindset and actually understanding and feeling confident that this is actually a step forward rather than you feeling like you're failing or feeling guilty or feeling like it's subpar or you're not moving fast enough or the volume's not high enough or wishing that you wanted to do more. Because all of those things, there might be some truth to it, but none of them are moving you forward. And the longer you dwell in that mindset, that glass half empty mindset, the harder it's gonna be to actually continually take action, celebrate your wins, build momentum, and actually get those results because you're setting yourself up for psychological failure, which will eventually lead to giving up altogether and having to start again at some point.
Jake:So really trying to embrace that idea of, okay, right, we don't have the forty five minutes, but I do have fifteen minutes. Like, that's beautiful. Let's make the most of it. So really having that glass half full mentality. And the same goes for food as well.
Jake:Let's say plan A was to take in lunch to work that you cooked at home. It's really nutritious, really aligned with what you want to achieve. And the morning's crazy. You don't have time to prepare that and you have to get something when you're out at work. And what a lot of people will do is go, oh, it's not how what I intended to do.
Jake:So, like, F it. Like, let's go off plan. Let's make the worst possible choice. When actually, within the parameters that you have control of, maybe that's location, choice when you're at a certain location, you could actually make a better or worse choice within those parameters. So you could actually still make a choice that's, like, very aligned with your goals.
Jake:And that is really, yes, that's the practical action. But more than anything, that is the mindset thing to actually go, yes, this is okay. Like, we're still moving forward. And just embracing that idea of seeing the positive in the situation and the optimal choice you can make and keeping retaining the ownership, that is the key to long term success. So I think those four components, we've got eat focus on eating whole foods, no complex diets, no crazy rules that are hard to fall off, just simply focusing on whole foods, trying to optimize your sleep where you can.
Jake:I know it's difficult, but not self sabotaging by making it even worse on the elements that you can control, basically. And then three is having a plan that you can be consistent with, that is progressive, that moves you forward, and then most importantly, actually having the flexibility and the adaptability baked into both the practical plan and your mindset so that you can continue to execute even on those crazy, crazy, crazy busy days where you feel like you're getting pulled in every direction. And some days, that might be ten minutes on the kitchen for whilst you're making dinner and the kids are running around. That might be what it looks like, but that's gonna be better than doing nothing at all every single day. And those three elements are really they are the core to how I hold the line with a busy family life, with a business, and manage to keep going.
Jake:And what I'm describing here, these are the worst these are the hard days. Right? Like, these are the busy days. This is how you hold the line, and there's still gonna be days where you can do what I'm doing today. I'm driving to a gym to check it out.
Jake:Probably do a little bit of a longer workout. That's it happens. Right? And I've actually just baked this into my workday. Right?
Jake:I'm working around it. So I've sacrificed some work in order to do it, and, obviously, I have the privilege of doing that. If you do own your own business, you have a bit more autonomy over your time. But what I'm saying is having that baseline that holds the line during those busy times, that's infinitely more important than what those really good days look like, where the intensity is high and you can do what you want and you have lots of time because those days are few and far between when you have a busy family life and a career or a business to run. So I hope that helps you guys.
Jake:If you have any questions, drop me a line in the comments, and I'll see you on the next one.