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Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.
Hello, everyone. Good morning again from Cape Town, South Africa, which is a beautiful place in the summertime here, so it's very, hot. Hopefully, you're all having a smooth start of the new year. Hopefully, you listened to yesterday's podcast, is a good base to start from. And I want to touch on something similar today so the concept of trying until you get something is important so an example of this is say you know you have your first driving lesson in a car the first lesson you nearly crashed and you're like it's really hard you're like how am I gonna learn to drive and then if you were to ask yourself in that moment would you become so would it be so easy for you to drive this like automated you'd be like probably not I can't do it so you gotta do these things and when you first do it you're like I can't do it but you keep going until it clicks, until you get it.
Speaker 1:Same as riding the bike, kids will try and try and try until they're able to ride a bike. It happens in a flash, things start clicking quite quickly but it does take time for the clicks to happen if that makes sense. An example as well as a baby, you wouldn't say to a baby look mate, listen just don't even try anymore, you've been trying to walk for months and you don't get it, just crawl for the rest of your life, you know that's obviously not the mindset we have for babies because it was stupid, like imagine that's what we did, yeah you've tried enough, it's not for you, obviously not. So there's the ability in all of us to if we keep trying we will get it and we will get moments, we will get these flash insights that make things click and it's the same with the health and fitness. When you get a flash click that weight loss is just about your calorie intake and protein intake and steps and those are the three main factors, these are the diet plans, are the big claims, they don't make sense anymore to you, they don't entice you anymore.
Speaker 1:And this is one big benefit you get from understanding this stuff. It's like, oh, wow. I can you know, one of the tasks is to eat your favorite snack and make sure you come within your calorie target and you still lose weight at the end of the week. You're like, wow. That's actually true.
Speaker 1:And that's a big changing moment for people, you know. And you've got to do this until you do get it because this is gonna save you so much time and hassle in the future. A lot of people are stressing out, oh my, there's a new diet plan out, Atkins two point o, Whatever it is. Oh my god. This and that.
Speaker 1:People come up with the scientisms and it makes it sound right. And like, oh, that's the missing thing. Maybe I didn't mix my apple cider vinegar with my ginger, with my Zoe plan, with this and that. Oh my god. All that makes up, that's it.
Speaker 1:That's the missing piece. No. That's that's that's the distraction that makes you think is that. The the core of it is calories, protein steps. That's the core to focus on, and you will keep going on this until you get that.
Speaker 1:And you go, well, I'm not losing weight, Scott, at the end of the day. It's been four weeks I haven't lost any weight. I've been in a calorie deficit. And when you get it, you go, I haven't lost any weight in four weeks on average, and if you take weekly averages. Does that mean that mean I have been in a calorie deficit?
Speaker 1:No. It hasn't. Because if you were in the calorie deficit, by default, you're gonna be losing fat. And that and fat loss and weight loss are different. And I wanna go over these things again because it's so important.
Speaker 1:You can lose fat and without losing weight. 60 to 70% of your body's water. Right? So say, you know, I lose two pounds of fat in two weeks, but for some reason I'm stressed or I've got a mental cycle, I don't. But if I did, my water retention is higher and I got two pounds more water retention than usual.
Speaker 1:I've lost two pounds of fat, but I've gained two pounds of water. My weight is the same. And you might go, oh my god. I'm not losing weight. What's going on?
Speaker 1:No. You have lost weight, but you've lost fat. And really, loss is what we're after. And we really should we probably should be more clear on weight loss or fat loss, but you know, we have to play with what the most people think about. It's like, well, they're after weight loss and that's what they mean by fat loss.
Speaker 1:So if after four or five weeks and there's no drop at all, you might start thinking well this doesn't work for me, this calorie deficit doesn't work for me and then you haven't done it until you get it because that's not true. Because if you're in a deficit, you're actually in a calorie deficit, you will definitely be losing fat. You're not the abnormality to scientific law. That's just a fact about us. Yes, things play a factor.
Speaker 1:Yes, PCOS. Yes, being on certain medication can lower your metabolic rate, making it harder to achieve a calorie deficit, making it harder to lose fat. Yes, some medicines can cause even more water retention, making it harder to see your fat loss. You might need more time. You know, thyroid medication, if you've got underactive thyroid for example, your metabolic rate might be 150 calories less than someone that's normal and then you take the pills and it normalizes it.
Speaker 1:So yes, variance in how difficult it is to get into deficit for many of you. For example, men find it easier on average to get into a deficit than women. Why is this? The first thing is men are taller and heavier than women and carry more weight. So the more weight you carry, the more energy you're gonna burn moving your body.
Speaker 1:Right? Very simple. So weight plays a big factor on how many calories you burn a day from just living and moving because the more you weigh, the more calories, the more energy you need to move. Okay? So men typically have a higher maintenance, the higher calorie spend expenditure per day.
Speaker 1:So it's easier to eat still decent amount of food, but actually be in a deficit. The people who find it very difficult are women really who are like five foot tall, who are already quite lean, and it is quite hard to create a deficit that's sizable to lose one pound of fat a week. So if you're five foot for example, and you want to create a calorie deficit of 500 calories that sometimes might be like 1,000 calories a day and obviously that's not great and we don't recommend that. So it's like oh what's going to happen here? Well unfortunately your deficit will be smaller each day, it'll still be a deficit and it'll just take longer.
Speaker 1:You know, so these things you you you have to look at how it applies to you, you know, and these myths and stuff need to be seen and understood for you them not to impact you again because if you don't fully understand it, these myths will always creep up and creep back into your head and you go, oh, maybe it is that January, lose 20 pounds in thirty days, maybe I should try it, maybe it will work, maybe it will work. You won't have a thought anymore because you know it's not about that. You're like, maybe it will work. No. All they're doing is putting people on essentially no carb diets with high activity and sweat and burning.
Speaker 1:They probably tell them to go sawn all this stuff to get rid of the water retention and they lose a lot of weight in thirty days, but it's not fat loss. Right? So I could say to you now, listen, go on 20 grams of carbs a day for fourteen days, drink average amount of water, do a lot of cardio, go in the sauna every night for twenty minutes, and after two weeks you'd be like, wow, I've dropped like four pounds or whatever. And I could say, and I could fool you and be like, my god, see, I know what I'm talking about. You've lost fat.
Speaker 1:And you go, my god. It's amazing. Lost so much fat. No. You haven't.
Speaker 1:You've just lost water. Right? That's why low carb diets tend to lose more weight at the start because more water is dropped. Right? Not more fat and fat's what we care about, not water.
Speaker 1:And really we don't want to be losing that much water weight because what happens is the muscles when you eat carbohydrates the muscles essentially, I'm going to very simplify this, as simple as it makes sense. When you eat carbs your muscles will pull in carbs into the muscles and every gram of carb will pull in water with it and it can pull in four times the amount of that weight in water. So one gram of carb can pull in four grams of water with it into the muscle and this is good for the muscle. The muscle is hydrated, it's got the energy, it's got the water, it's got everything nice pulling in. It's brilliant, it's very very good for performance.
Speaker 1:But if I store 500 grams of carbs in my muscle and it can pull in four grams of water, that's two kilograms of water now stored in my muscles through the connection with the carbs. Does that make sense? So when you do activity and you burn and you use the muscle carbohydrates of muscle glycogen up and you don't eat carbs to replace it and you do this quickly over time, you start seeing a big drop in water weight. That's all it is. Once you see these things you're like, Yeah, whatever, I'm no longer fooled by these things.
Speaker 1:Fat loss, just to remind you, if that is your goal and you don't want to overwhelm yourself, just focus on your calorie intake. The app will give you your calorie intake, includes the calorie deficit, you don't have to do anything. Just follow the calorie intake, hit your protein target, try and hit your steps target because it's very important for your steps guys and I'll explain why steps are more important than working out. If you work out three times a week for an hour, that's about 2% of your waking hours working out, right? It's not much.
Speaker 1:The other 98% of your waking hours is far more important than the 2% you've done working out. Now you might say, but working out is important for heart health and if I want to build muscle, I say absolutely, absolutely. But if your goal is just weight loss right now and more specifically fat loss you will say okay, well yeah working out that 2% is important, of course it is and you get a lot of returns for that 2% in terms of muscle and strength but the other 90% is very important and if that 90% is oh my god I'm a desk worker which means from the 98% like 70% of that sitting down and this is a realisation I had not actually long ago by the way because I was like I saw an osteopath above my lower back, and I was like, yes. So I I could do these exercises. Right?
Speaker 1:And they could help me. He's like, yeah. I was like, but they're not gonna outweigh my 12 a day working on a desk. And he was like, no. I was like, why is that such an obvious solution to me now?
Speaker 1:Do know I mean? I had like a break, so I was like, obviously, doing these exercises even if I did four of them times a day is not really gonna solve the problem because the problem is, I'm only if I can ask for twelve hours a day working. So the solution to me is obvious. I stand more. I stand at the desk.
Speaker 1:Well, I didn't have the standing desk at the time. I just put a thing on my table. But since I've been standing up more again and my lower back's much better, much better, much, much, much better. The solution wasn't really in these, like, fancy techniques four times a day. It was that twelve hours sitting on my ass.
Speaker 1:No. So how does this apply to you with your walk in? So you could say, well, I'm desk working and I work eight hours a day desk and then I get like 3,000 steps a day in. I'm like, right. So there's eight hours a day that you're sitting down, which for us to have the biggest impact on your calories burned throughout the day.
Speaker 1:We want to convert some of those hours to standing. So it's like how do we do this? Well for lunch hour for example you make sure you never take a sitting on your ass just eating food. You get up, you have your food, you walk around, you move, you might do stretches, you might go and do something whatever. Then you have like, can I take any meetings while standing up?
Speaker 1:You know, we think of these like basics. Can I take any meetings standing up? Yeah? Alright, do it then. Okay?
Speaker 1:Brilliant. It's another hour. Go okay. Well, can I walk to work or walk home from work? Or can I add another ten minutes to your ten minutes?
Speaker 1:Then before you know it, your eight to nine hours sitting is now like three to four hours of those is standing and some of it's walking. That's gonna have a drastic impact way more than the two or three workouts a week you plan on doing. Because two of those two or three workouts a week got no dent in that 98% of your time sitting down. And when you get home from work or whenever and we spend three, four hours on the couch, whatever it is, the average UK person spends five hours a night watching TV, five hours a day watching TV, so it's quite a lot, you know. It's like, can we convert even one of those hours a day to some movement or something, you know.
Speaker 1:These are the things we focus on. The answers are always in the obvious looking at the problem. The problem gives the solution, and once you're willing to open your eyes to the obvious solution, it's like, wow. Does that make sense to you? It makes sense to me when he was, like, lower back stuff.
Speaker 1:Like, mate, I can do these things but that seat is the problem. Yeah. The elephant in the room is that seat. I don't want to admit it because I like sitting and working. But if I really want to get to the bottom of this back problem and get it better, I don't have to have to accept that.
Speaker 1:And that's what a lot of you need to probably accept as well. It's like my step count is too low. I'm gonna have to accept. I need to get on to my routine. I can't just wish for it to get better.
Speaker 1:I need to actually plan it in. Know, my calorie, I'm not losing weight. It's like, okay. If you'd been tracking and you've been decently tracking for three or four weeks, what's the obvious solution? The obvious solution isn't the abnormality to the human race and science.
Speaker 1:It is that you probably aren't in a deficit. So where do we look at? We look at weekends. We look at how do we tighten that up. We look at what's going on there.
Speaker 1:Has there been instances where I'm secretly eating? My snacks, nibbles, bites taken in? Am I cooking food for my kids and having nibbles here and there? You know, is my step count too low? Is it make am I making it hard of myself to get into a deficit?
Speaker 1:So how do I do that? So you think of these things and before you go into a rage about, well, the calorie deficit's not working and blah blah blah, so it's not working, go back to diet plan. You can problem solve these things yourself rationally and objectively, but you have to get it first. You have to get that it is about the deficit, is about the protein and steps for fat loss. And once you get that, it's easy to to self diagnose these things.
Speaker 1:And then you become more rational and cool headed and stuff. Like, if my weight's not going down, like not in over ten years minimum have I thought, wow, there's something wrong with my body, my metabolism's crashed, this and that. I go, yeah, I've definitely not been in deficit. I've been at maintenance or above I know when and I can tell. You know, there's never been a thing where I've gone, is it something external to that?
Speaker 1:Because it's not. You know? I've lost a decent amount of weight recently, you know, especially over Christmas because I'm trying to get into a weight class for my jujitsu tournament, which is in when I come back in, like, not this weekend, the one after. But I've not realized I was like, there is absolutely no way. Like, I have to lose another kilo, that I'm gonna lose a kilo in four in two weeks.
Speaker 1:It's possible to, you know, one pound a week is about one kilo in two weeks. But is it am I gonna be in a deficit over a wedding in South Africa even if my activity's higher? Probably not. Am I gonna be able to shift the water retention from a long haul flight on Wednesday? Maybe not.
Speaker 1:You know, it might take three or four days. You know, some of the members I speak to over long haul flights, water retention builds up four, five pounds. It might take three, four days for that to come down. You know, and then before then it's too late. And I can't compete if it if the the weight isn't made.
Speaker 1:So I was like, I'll just go up a weight class. But I don't think it would make you know, is there anything beyond my calorie intake or my energy expenditure? It's like, It's simple. I've worked out, so my calorie intake cannot be lower, really. It could be, but but I wanna enjoy myself in a wedding and not think about those things too much.
Speaker 1:And my even with my energy up, is it enough? No. But that's how I made the decision. And you start making these decisions. You start being like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:Just ate more too I ate too much energy. Don't blame. I'm gonna make myself out to be, like, what's the word, like bad for doing that. I've just consumed too many too much energy. I'm not not moving enough to burn enough energy.
Speaker 1:That's it. And we see where we end up on the scales. We see like, oh, this is one too high, one too low, and then job done. Okay. So back to basics.
Speaker 1:One day at a time living. We live one day at a time. We live until tonight. We do things good for our health. We go for our walk.
Speaker 1:We feed ourselves good. We feed ourselves with good energy, good nutrients. We drink water. We go for our walks. We make sure our backs are better, our mindsets better.
Speaker 1:You know, we take breaks. We live. We try and be present. Things in the future will come and disturb your mind, but it's up to you to look around and go, you know, it's not events that disturb me. It's my opinion about these events.
Speaker 1:Stoicism one zero one. So you can start saying, well, you know, I can only act today. So any problem I have in the future, my action my actions today will either take me closer to it or further away from it. And those are small actions. So no small actions are the big actions, so please take that seriously.
Speaker 1:They are the things that change your life. So do the small things and your life will change. Calories, protein, steps, other stuff, mindfulness stuff, we'll cover them maybe in another podcast, but the small things are the life changes. So good luck with it all. Have a good day, and I'll speak to you soon.