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The Last Diet Podcast 🎙️
The Last Diet Podcast is for people who want to rebuild a strong, athletic body that supports their life — not consumes it.
We talk training, nutrition, structure, and identity for people in their 30s–50s who’ve been fit before and want a clear, sustainable way to perform well again in work, family, and life.
No extremes. No gimmicks. Just standards, structure, and long-term performance.
Welcome to the last diet podcast, the last podcast you'll ever need to create the last diet you ever need. I'm your host, Mike Finnegan. Let's dive in. Yes, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the last diet podcast.
Speaker 1:Hope everyone is having a good day. So you probably have noticed this has been released on a Wednesday, guys, and I didn't do any episode last any second episode last week as well. So I have a lot going on in the background at the moment. A lot of opportunities come up and time has just been of the essence for me. For those of you that have followed me for a while, you'll know as well that I'm moving back to Ireland shortly.
Speaker 1:We have a wedding on the horizon as well. So there's a there's an awful lot going on, and I'm just preparing for that. So I've I've cut down the podcast to one a week. Now I wanted to keep these going, guys, because I'm just seeing that there's a lot of people downloading these still, and I'm hoping that you are getting something out of it. Always, please feel free to reach out to me if you are.
Speaker 1:It does help me to just stay at this and stay motivated for this because obviously I'm not getting anything out of this. I just want to try to help people as much as I can and put out as much free content as I can as well. So, yeah, just wanted to start with that, guys. It'll probably be one episode per week for the foreseeable until I move back to Ireland and settled in. And there's, like I said, there's a few things going on in the background opportunity wise that I've that has come up recently that I've that I've had to work on.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, there's just a little bit less time than I had before. So what I will do is I will keep each episode as useful as I can. And I always like to keep these episodes very seasonal as well. So I know at the moment, for example, a lot of people are in the midst of summer, lots of probably, you know, chaos, lots of hot things coming up, social events, holidays and things like that. We're going to keep it very like on point as much as possible.
Speaker 1:And with the sessions, if you have any suggestions, if you're in particular, reach out to me on Instagram. Look, I love to always hear from you because at the end of the day, I'm doing this for you so you can get the most out of them. So, guys, today's episode, right, I am I recorded an episode session for my group this morning, and I went through the five biggest beliefs that hold most people back when it comes to weight loss and fitness. And one of them specifically I wanted to talk about today because I think it's really, really relevant to a lot of people who are trying to get in shape and to lose weight. And that is the mindset of eating less is the best way to lose weight.
Speaker 1:Now, I want to preface this by saying you do need to eat less to some extent, right? You have to be in a calorie deficit. By definition, that is eating less calories. But there is a big issue when it comes to people and the mindset around less is better and, you know, eating basically nothing is the best because it ends up creating loads and loads of issues. I'm going go through some examples of this with current clients and myself because I've definitely been through this myself where I've tried to go extremely low calorie, cut out lots of different food groups, but it's always ended in a bad way.
Speaker 1:It always ends in hunger. It always ends in binge eating. It always ends in cycles of just basically falling off, trying to do it again, falling off, trying to do it again. Energy goes really low, mood swings. Just an awful time, an awful, awful, awful time.
Speaker 1:And this definitely stems from the fitness culture, the diet culture that has been there for years and years and years, which is, you know, fast weight loss is the best and it needs to be quick. And the best way to do that is by restricting yourself and cutting loads of food out. If you are someone that has this mindset, guys, and if you are someone who really struggles when it comes to trying to lose weight, you really find yourself going down rabbit holes, especially like being restrictive, hungry and just things that just never actually last, then this episode is really going to help you. It's really going to help you. So I'm going to I'm going to open your mind to a different approach, an approach that works so, so well with thousands, I'd say, this stage of clients I've coached myself because it's an approach that you can actually sustain and actually find enjoyable, which might seem weird to some people.
Speaker 1:I had a client recently. I've already mentioned this in the podcast, but she she couldn't get over because when she started me first, she couldn't get over that. I said that I actually quite enjoy dieting when I do it because I talked about how it gives me a sense of structure, it gives me a sense of discipline, it gives me a sense of actually eating nicer foods because I'm not just like, you know, eating whatever and feeling crap, it gives me a sense of feeling lighter because I'm less bloated because I'm eating just better quality. And obviously, gives me the the excitement of seeing results as well. So I said, like, I love I love going through dieting phases.
Speaker 1:And she just couldn't comprehend it because her whole life she spent on misery when it came to dieting. She tried everything under her son, but she always associated dating with misery. Weight watchers, slim clubs, all the things that she went through, cutting things out, extreme approaches, just and just never ever actually getting to where she wanted to get there, or at least not all the way to where she wanted to get there because she had initially lost some way at the start, but she found it really, really hard to actually continue to progress because it was just so restrictive. So when we went through the process, she actually was she was just gobsmacked by the fact that she didn't find it hard. And there was almost like this conflict within her.
Speaker 1:She was like almost saying to herself, like, this should be harder. I just shouldn't be this easy. But the results were coming in. It was almost like, how do you argue with the results? Because again, we have this mindset as humans that, you know, things in order to get something like that we value, there needs to be hardship and it needs to be really, really, really tough almost.
Speaker 1:But definitely not true when it comes to when it comes to weight loss. In fact, it's it's the opposite. Would say this should feel easy and sustainable for the most part. It's not to say you don't go through struggles, like everyone goes through struggles with everything, like you will have a bit of hunger, you will have cravings, you will have times where you want to give up, but they will be a lot less frequent than the days where you actually find this is easy, you know, I could do this all day, I could do this for my whole life, to the point where I've actually had clients and lots of clients say that oh this is just a lifestyle, I can do this forever and I actually have to stop them, I'm like well you're not going to do this forever because if you die forever, you die. Dieting is a controlled starvation.
Speaker 1:We're giving our body less energy than it actually requires. And that's why we lose body fat because body fat is our stored energy reserve. So if think you about our body fat, and I know I've explained this before, but I want to explain again for anyone that's new, our body holds out the body fat as an energy reserve for times where we will go through the lack of food. It's an evolutionary response to evolution. So basically, our body has this defense mechanism because if we go through times with no food around, it has body fat to basically rely on for months.
Speaker 1:So that's why we can actually survive without food for a long, long time, a lot longer than we can survive without water. So our body doesn't have as resourceful like a water reserve. In terms of what happens in your diet is that you take in less calories, which is energy. Calories are basically just the unit of energy our body uses, basically. If we take in less calories, then we're actually burning.
Speaker 1:So we're burning more calories per day than we're eating. Our body is like, Okay, so I don't have enough coming in to do what I want to do. So it's like I need to tap into these reserves of energy that we have. So your body can tap into your body fat or it can actually use your muscle, which I won't go into too much detail, but they can do that as well. But generally, we want it to come from body fat.
Speaker 1:So it's a controlled starvation. You're putting your body through starvation basically, but it's in a controlled manner. So if you kept going and going and going and going and going and going, you would eventually die because your body would run out of actual energy, because your reserves would run out eventually. So all of this to say, guys, right, want to diet in a controlled way and we want to make it feel as easy as possible. So we don't want our body to be fighting us back saying, I'm starving and just cravings all the time and just energy really low.
Speaker 1:We want to do it at a rate that our body doesn't feel it too much, especially until we get into the depths of it. As you get leaner and leaner and leaner and leaner, yes, your body might fight you a little bit. But I don't generally see that until people get to like really low levels of body fat. For myself, like I would have to get to like 10% body fat probably before I really start feeling this. Even now, I've done a bit of a cut.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty lean at the moment. I'm nearly as lean as I've ever been. But I don't have massive hunger. I don't have huge food focus. I don't have low energy.
Speaker 1:I don't have cravings all the time. I don't have mood swings. So I'm managing well. It's just because I know how to do that, Okay, which is what I'm going to go through today. I'm just going to take a sip of coffee.
Speaker 1:Big thing with this guide, right? So what we're trying to do today is we're trying to challenge that mindset of low calorie and eating less is the best way to approach this, okay? So I have felt that in the past as well. The way I do this for clients now is actually eating more. We want to at least feel like we're eating more.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if I'm sure you have, you might have said this yourself, guys, but people sometimes have a badge of honor on like, haven't eaten all day. Especially if they're trying to lose weight, like, Well, I haven't eaten all day. And there's almost like this kind of sense of, Oh, gosh, I haven't eaten anything. And that badge of honor in itself is the opposite of what we want. We want to put a badge of honor on structured eating, eating regularly and actually eating wholesome, filling meals that keep us going, which is really important.
Speaker 1:And some people, this is a big thing you might have to overcome, right? Some people, when you start eating more and you eat healthier foods that are more filling. So when I say eat more, I don't necessarily mean eat more calories. I mean, eat more like volume of food. Right.
Speaker 1:So let's just say if you ate like a kg of vegetables, this is a lot different to eating a kg of sweets, obviously, in terms of the calories. The calories in the kg of vegetables is very, very, very, very low compared to kg of sweets. But the volume of food you get from a kg of vegetables is really, really high compared to a kg of sweets. Okay, we want to eat more high volume foods, healthier foods, and we want to make sure that we're eating enough, basically. But the problem with a lot of people here is when you do that, you actually feel full.
Speaker 1:And for most people, feeling full is almost like a feeling of eating too much. It's like, oh, I must be putting on body fat. I must put on weight now because I'm feeling full. And you associate it almost with binge eating. But feeling full is not an issue.
Speaker 1:In fact, a lot of times that is a good thing if you're eating the right amounts of the right kind of foods. So this is why when I put someone on a certain amount of calories and we start eating healthy foods, they're like, oh god, I can't eat them calories. I'm not stuffed. It's crazy. I'm feeling really full.
Speaker 1:But that same person will be dropping weight and body fat week on week on week on week on week. And there's almost this moment of like, woah, this is mad. How is this even happening? So feeling full doesn't mean that you are overeating, and feeling hungry doesn't mean that you're undereating. So this is what happens to a lot of people.
Speaker 1:And I hear this all the time guys, right? People come to me and say, I can't get results. I've tried for ages and ages and ages and I don't even eat much. I don't eat much. I don't know why I can't get results.
Speaker 1:It must be my body, must be my metabolism, it must be my genetics, it must be something, I don't eat much, so why can't I lose weight? You may not feel like you're eating much, but you are eating a lot of calories if you're not seeing results, especially if you're overweight. Simple as that. If you're overweight, if you're any bit active and overweight, you are absolutely eating more than you think, okay? But even if you aren't crazy active and you're overweight, you're still eating a lot more than you think.
Speaker 1:And here comes the issue with this, guys, is when you are eating low quality foods, or you're not having any structure in your eating, you're picking and you're just having low quality food all the time and not even remembering what you've had throughout the day, basically what you're doing is you're eating lots of calories, but you don't ever feel like you've eaten a meal, or you don't ever feel like you've eaten a lot. And what happens then is when you don't feel like you've eaten a lot, you end up justifying eating more. So I get this a lot again with people. It's like, oh, I haven't eaten all day. I'm starving.
Speaker 1:And then it's a justification to eat a load of food in the evening. But if you actually were with that person all day, they could have been out and about shopping. They could have stopped for a cappuccino, 100 and something calories. They could have got a bag of potatoes, 150, 200 calories. They could have got a bone out.
Speaker 1:They could have been picking away sweets. It could have got some The calories add up and add up and add up. Before they know what they've had basically two meals before they've even got home, but they're actually weren't meals, they were just picking. But in terms of quantity calories, it would be two meals. But then again, you come home and I'm starving and you're waiting to cook the dinner and you're picking out other stuff.
Speaker 1:You have the dinner, you don't feel satisfied, then you go to the press and then that's where things just steer up. So a big, big point I'm trying to make here is if you're not seeing results and you feel like you're not eating enough, it's probably down to the fact that you're not eating enough. So there is truth in that you're in fact you're not eating enough. But I would say is that you are eating enough calories. You're just not eating enough of the right things and you're eating too much unstructured meals, basically.
Speaker 1:Structure, I'm going to say the word a lot in this episode, right? Because structure is so, so key. Structure basically allows you to know what you're eating because you're eating similar things most of the time. It also gives your body cues to know when food's coming, so it makes you hungry at time, but you know you're gonna be eating, so that's fine. And it just allows you to quantify the food that you're taking in throughout the day so much easier.
Speaker 1:Whereas if you're picking and you're just getting things winging it, how are you gonna actually quantify how much are you needing? Because it's just so ad hoc. So a big, big thing I start to do with my clients straight away from the office is we get an idea of their eating structure. So we try to get solid meals in. Again, there's no right or wrong once we have the structure that works for them.
Speaker 1:So I have to work around maybe kids sometimes, I to work around their schedule, shift work. But the big thing is that they find a structure that works for them. Okay, so some people like to eat early, some people like to eat a little bit later in the morning, some people like to finish eating after dinner. Some people like to eat after dinner. So there's no right or wrong once we get the structure right.
Speaker 1:And once we get the structure right and we also get the food quality right. I never go to someone and like drastically change their food. For a lot of people that come to me, the food isn't isn't terrible. It's just a bit unstructured and it's in need of adding some things in. But on the whole, like they're not actually too bad.
Speaker 1:And it's a lot a lot of it just comes down to actually getting a bit of awareness around this and actually getting structure. So what I do with people straight away is we improve the food quality a little bit. So we're adding in some things that are missing. Again, straight away they're like, oh, geez, I can't eat more, can I? But I'm basically trying to push more food on them instead of taking away things.
Speaker 1:It's like what most people do. It's like restrictive mindset. So I can't have this, I can't have that. First thing I'll do is, okay, we need to have more of this, more of this, more of this. So instead of taking stuff away, we're adding stuff.
Speaker 1:And then that adding stuff helps them to feel fuller. They don't have the cravings or the want to reach for terrible foods, lower quality foods, uncommon terrible, which then helps them to control the quantity of what they're eating. So they feel like they're eating more, but they're just eating more structurally, and they're obviously eating more quality food. So they feel fuller and it just feels easier. That was the number one thing I had to do, guys, when learning I about this whole stuff first.
Speaker 1:I had to figure out what worked for me. I mentioned this a few times in the podcast. It used to be killer for me in the evening after dinner, basically before bed. I would always love having something I still do. And cereal was always my go to.
Speaker 1:Like, can remember distinctively when I was younger, sitting down, watching, resting and having like two or three bowls of Coke pops. But as I started to figure out more stuff about this, I realized that, okay, a big bowl of Coke pops with milk. It's not that it's like terrible, terrible, terrible, but it's not great because I just want to keep if anyone that eats has eaten cereal like that, you know, you just want to keep eating more and more and more. It's never ending. But like three bowls of Coke pops with normal fat milk easily be 400 calories each, 1,200 calories.
Speaker 1:It's like that's a day's eat nearly for most people, for most women. Yeah, you can see how that works. So I needed to figure out how I could structure my day in a way that it would allow me to still enjoy my food, still have something maybe later at night, but not fall into the trap of totally overconsuming. So I know now if I have a bowl of Coke pops at night, I struggle. I struggle because I'm still hungry and I still want more.
Speaker 1:Whereas what I actually changed it, though, was I would have a bowl of porridge at night and I would also have like some chocolate or popcorn or something as well. So that would kind of give me the the nice kind of treat type food. But I also get the fullness of the of the porridge. So I still get my cereal. It's for not everyone, by way.
Speaker 1:This is what I used to like to do. So I still get my cereal at night. So I enjoy eating that. Then I'd also get some sweet treat on the side as well. And it would just help me to feel satisfied.
Speaker 1:But the structure also allowed me to take my calorie intake, which is the only thing that matters in terms of weight loss is how you're hitting your calorie intake. So the only question becomes then, how do you hit your calorie intake consistently? So if you're not seeing any progress, simple answer, you're not hitting your calorie intake. You're eating too much calories. It might feel like it, but you are.
Speaker 1:There's no way of arguing this. It's objectively, it's scientific proof that if you aren't losing body fat and weight, then you are not in a calorie deficit. And for most people, for females to be in a calorie deficit, for majority of females, depending on what you weigh and your activity levels, you need to be under probably 2,000 calories on average per week. For guys, you need to be under probably like 2,600, 2,700 calories to be in a deficit. If you aren't seeing any results or not under that number consistently enough, you might be under some days, but not enough to see progress.
Speaker 1:And again, guys, I work with so many clients. It's like there's no arguing at this point. But coming back to the original topic, I implore you, right, if your stomach at the moment is really struggling to see any results and you keep going back and forward between trying to diet and undereat to grossly overeating, then just try this method for a while and give it time. You're probably in the place, because I've had a lot of people reach out to me in last couple of weeks, where they're just not happy because it's summertime, because they feel uncomfortable on holidays, because they are training on clothes that haven't fitted in ages and it just makes them feel terrible. They're avoiding social situations.
Speaker 1:They're feeling uncomfortable in the heat that's been there recently and they're sick of it and they're like, I'm done with this. I really need to change. I don't wanna go through another summer like this. And unfortunately, when you're in that mindset, you always feel desperate. And when you feel desperate, you do stupid things.
Speaker 1:Things you logically know aren't going to work, but you're hoping this time it'll be different. But I guarantee you it won't. So if you do the same approach you've always been doing, which is basically restriction and undereating, you're going to actually go through the same cycle again and again and again and again and again for the rest of your life. Nothing is gonna change. A lot of the work I do with clients, I do a couple of clients at the moment, they've gone through so many cycles of that that they when I give them structure, they actually feel guilty eating.
Speaker 1:And it's so sad to see it, but they feel guilty eating. So it's like trying to get it to eat more is really, really tough. And we've been working on it a lot because they see it as a bad thing. And that it's a hard place to be because you have to retrain your mind to see it as this isn't a bad thing. Stop going back to the thing that's got you nowhere and actually lean into this new approach that if you do it, will actually get you results, but not only get you results, but actually feel easy, feel like almost like you shouldn't be getting results.
Speaker 1:The last quote I'll leave you with, and I've said this a few times, it was a girl a few years ago, I trained. But she couldn't get over when she started. Like, was eating she's always, like, religious to have a twirl at night. But she had this guilt at the start. She's like, I don't want I feel guilty.
Speaker 1:I feel like I shouldn't be eating as much. I feel like I shouldn't be getting the results. I feel like I should be working harder. There was this guilt of, like, she wasn't doing enough. And I was like, week on week, she was seeing results.
Speaker 1:I was like, I was like, you have to just let it go. You have to let it go and just just like the proof is in the pudding. Like, you're literally seeing results week on week. You're having your Twitter. You're enjoying it.
Speaker 1:You're not feeling hungry every single day, all the time thinking about food, and you're getting the best results of your life. So it's like, put more as you want from it. It's it's it works. And you just have to train your mind in terms of thinking that restriction and less is better. Right, guys, I'm going to close this one down.
Speaker 1:Hopefully, it's been a good episode and helped you. I know this episode I could have done listening to it ten years ago because it was something that I struggle with as well. And I'd gone through so many, so many bad days where it just felt like torture. And I was just trying to get to the end of it and it never actually worked. So yeah, if younger me got to listen to this, I know I'd be very, very, very happy.
Speaker 1:I I got there a lot quicker. Hopefully this, if you listen to it, can help you as well to just break out that cycle that's kept you stuck for many, many years. Guys, have a fantastic week and we'll chat you all soon. Thanks for tuning in to the latest episode of The Last Diet podcast. If you want to inquire about how you can join The Last Diet lifestyle and find out more about our coaching, then the show notes below has a link to coaching inquiries.
Speaker 1:Just fill that out, and we'll be in contact as soon as possible. See you in the next one.