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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, team. What is crack?
Speaker 1:Welcome back to the last diet podcast. Hope everyone is doing well. Guys, I'm coming at you with what will be a short podcast today. I won't let you. The World Cup match is about to begin in about fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna I'm gonna watch it. But I wanted to keep this one sharp anyway, but I want to record it now because it was top of mind. And I I feel just it's it's a really strong message that I I want to go out there as well. Right? I've had a lot of conversations, particularly this week, strangely enough, with clients that have struggled with daily body image issues.
Speaker 1:Okay? So what I wanted to just talk a little bit about today and something that hopefully I can give you perspective on is the difference between, like, bloating versus, like, weight and fat gain. Because they're two different things, but the unfortunate thing about being human, there's many, is that we get very, very caught up in feelings, emotions, and we can often put a lot of meaning to something that is only, like, temporary. So for example, I had two female clients this week. Just talk to me about how they were very, very bloated recently and how it impacted them mentally and how they had to deal with it.
Speaker 1:Now these clients I have I've worked with them for a long time, and we have dealt with this in the past, and they have all the tools they need to deal with this. But they still it still comes up for them. But what they're proud of now is the fact that they're able to deal with this without being reactive to it, without, you know, sabotaging everything that they've been working towards. This is especially prominent within women because of the menstrual cycle and just the female tendency to bloat a bit more. But males definitely go through it too.
Speaker 1:Okay? We're all human. We all eat different foods, you know, so differently with different people. So it does impact people. It does impact all people, but specifically with with females around the dementia cycle, the luteal phase of the of dementia cycle, particularly, which is where you you hold most of the water.
Speaker 1:So the reason I wanted to talk about it, right, is because I've gone through enough fights in my life, and I've coached hundreds and hundreds nearly thousands nearly a thousand, I'd say, clients at this stage where I understand what goes into a fat loss a successful fat loss phase, meaning that you're actually losing body fat underneath the hood, which is realistically all we have full control over. Look, obviously, we can gain muscle and and all that stuff. But when it comes to actually, like, losing, body fat is is is the thing we have the most control over. Right? It's hard to it's hard to impact, but we also we don't really need or want to impact how much water we retain, the bloating impact, the food volume in our stomach and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:That's that's just a daily fluctuation, a weekly fluctuation that happens. It happens throughout every month, and it it just evens itself out. Some days you feel amazing, you feel lighter, some days you feel a bit more bloated. It's just the human body, and we have to accept it. There are things, of course, you may be able to control within that.
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna get too deep into it, but just simply, like, thinking about the foods that sit better with you. What foods you tend to feel more bloated after? Do does anything else particularly affect your your bloating? So, like, stress, for example, lack of sleep, hydration, or dehydration. Is is there anything particularly that affects you?
Speaker 1:So stay aware of that because if you can kind of minimize them things, then psychologically it can have a less of an impact on you. But that's not what I want to talk about today. Right? What I want to talk about today is the psychological impact that this has and how we need to overcome that long term if you're if you are to have a successful, like, transformation and dieting phase. Okay?
Speaker 1:Because there's so many days that are gonna come up if you go on a journey where you will feel like you're not making progress. You will feel like you've gone backwards. You will feel, quote, unquote, fat. And it's on them days you have to understand exactly what I'm talking about here, that nothing has changed from yesterday. You haven't gained loads of body fat overnight.
Speaker 1:Body fat is a process. It is a slow process. It's a real compounding effect. I don't know if you've ever seen the the visual analogy that you'd often see online with the the kitchen roll. So kit they're basically they're they're show the visually, when when you take off, like, a sheet of kitchen paper, it makes no difference.
Speaker 1:You take off loads, it makes no difference. Keep going, keep going, makes no difference. But the further and further and further and further further you go into it, you start to see how the roll starts to shrink and shrink and shrink and shrink and shrink. But it's one, like, strip of paper after another that that that leads to it. But at the start, you think when when you're when you're doing it, during the work, and it's happening.
Speaker 1:The exact same thing happens in the opposite direction. It takes weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks before actual noticeable fat gain happens. But the problem with us is we have a belief that bloating equals regression or fat gain because we also we contribute the weight in the scales as well with our progress. So when we're bloated, the weight and the scale goes up, and then we associate that with going backwards and we associate with fat gain. But we have to differentiate them two things.
Speaker 1:We have to separate them. Fat gain versus weight gain are two different things. They have similarities over time on average over the course of a month, but not over the course of the day or week. So that's why it's important not to take too much heat and, like, from a one off a one off reading on the scales and not react when you're feeling bloated on the on on on a given day. So the majority of the problem actually comes, guys, when we have an association when we when we eat out or we have drinks or we, unquote, eat bad.
Speaker 1:We have, again, an association of failure. And in our heads again, it's like, I've done I've undone everything that I've been working so hard towards. So you could have, like, had six, seven weeks of really, really solid consistency, and you're feeling good. And then after a night out, you're almost, like, convincing yourself that you haven't done it all because you've overeaten and because you're feeling bloated and then the scales goes up. But here's where this is where the like, accountability really comes in and understanding about this really comes in because them clients have come to me in the past.
Speaker 1:Now they weren't too bad this time because we've gone through before. But they've come to me in the past, and they they would have sabotaged without that soundboard at that moment, that logical, like, emotionless soundboard. Because we get so caught up in the motions of it that it's very, very hard to take that step back when you're in it, and we convince ourselves we've done everything. But, again, even if you had a crazy night, crazy, a crazy, crazy night, you've had 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 calories, which most people don't get anywhere near. That would still make very, very, very little difference to your fat gain.
Speaker 1:Very little difference. It would yes. You'd be bloated. Yes. You'd put up a good bit of weight and scale, especially if you are kind of dieting and you're at a low weight anyway.
Speaker 1:You would put up a good bit of weight, but it would be weight. It wouldn't be fat. Fat. I'll give you a great example. Right?
Speaker 1:So over the last couple of weeks, I've been kind of just tidying my diet a bit, and I've gone through a bit of a deficit just over the summer when it's been busy. I've just overdone a small bit. So over the last couple weeks, just pull it back. And what happens when I pull it back is that my my weight, as you've probably seen this yourself, my weight drops down a bit initially because a lot of food volume and like glycogen, which is a store form of carbohydrates in the cells just wash out as well as, like, water weight that goes with that. So what happens when you start typing is your weight drops way down.
Speaker 1:So this morning, I woke up and I was at a new or sorry. Yesterday morning, I woke up with a a new low weight. And this morning, I woke up again. I was at a new low weight. So I know I'm definitely in a deficit, and I know it's it's starting to kind of, like, compound now over the last two weeks.
Speaker 1:But it's obviously, for me to see loads of difference, would take it would take more weeks, whatever. Right? But that's not the point of this. The point I'm trying to make here is I have a game this evening and obviously trying to lose body fat and manage, like, performance or two con contradicting goals. So what I'm doing today is I'm doing a heavy carb load, basically, where I'm eating lots of carbohydrates and calories to fuel myself for the game.
Speaker 1:So what's gonna happen is I'm going to it's a controlled overeating to some extent, but I'm going to gain probably a lot of weight throughout today. And even in the morning, even after playing the game, I'll probably be be up a good bit of weight tomorrow compared to what it was today. But I will not have put on any body fat over the last day because body fat doesn't come on in a day. Body fat comes on over weeks and months. But the weight and scales would be up and I'd probably feel a little bit more plump because of the fact that I've eaten so much food.
Speaker 1:Right? But this is great example. The only difference is I'm doing this intentionally and I know what is gonna happen. Whereas you may not be doing intentionally because you might be just socializing and you might have the knowledge around why it's happening. Again, you might have that whole association with failure and then association with you have regressed and then you start to spiral.
Speaker 1:And it's never actually the night out. It's it's the spiral after that that matters the most. So this podcast, right, and like I said, it's gonna be quick one. But the main thing I want to get across here, and I like I said, I've done this so many times myself and with clients. In order to successfully diet, you need to become less reactive to your day to day feelings.
Speaker 1:You need to become not you you're never gonna become emotionless to it, but you need to become as objective as you can about things. So what I mean by that is, like, you know what it takes to be in a calorie deficit, and you know that that's the only thing you have to get back to if you are doubting things, if you slip that you're bloated. And the most important thing, bar none, and I know it's a very cliche thing to say, but it's you have to trust the process that you're on. You have to trust that it is working. You just need to be patient and let it work.
Speaker 1:So on the days where you feel like you're having a bad body image day, on the days where you're feeling bloated, that you can actually be truly honest. I would always go through a checklist. Right? Like, it's always worth doing it anyway. But instead of just beating yourself up and, like, stand spider spiraling with your thoughts if I'm a failure, this is never gonna work.
Speaker 1:Why me? Why is everyone else find it easier? I'll never get to where I wanna get to. They're not productive thoughts. Right?
Speaker 1:If you want to have a productive thought, then make a checklist that you can make it now what you're logically thinking so that you can look at it when you're emotionally thinking. And in that checklist, I would step by step go through the things that you you need to be taken off in order to know what you're progressing. And if you can look at them and say, I'm doing that, then it's just trust the process. If you look at it and say, I I haven't probably been doing that very well, then that's a different conversation. And you then you have to just admit yourself, right, maybe I am progressing as much as I want to.
Speaker 1:Maybe I do need to double down on this. And then that's just a case of, okay, well, this is how I do it. Here's the solution. And And then you go ahead and do that. Okay.
Speaker 1:Now you might be asking, okay. Well, what's on the checklist? Right? Very, very simple. Are you hitting your calories accurately?
Speaker 1:Like, truly accurate. Not not just, oh, yeah. I think I'm think I I know. I mean, so, you know, are you actually truly hitting your calorie intake as close as possible? Like, are you tracking things properly?
Speaker 1:Not just, like, taking out a teaspoon or something with a teaspoon, but then actually not tracking on the scales. Digital scales, tracking accurately. Most of the time, you're cooking food yourself and anything that you're not cooking yourself, you're probably overestimating. That's the number one because that's the thing that's gonna have the biggest impact. Outside of that then okay.
Speaker 1:That's that's number one. You're hitting your targets. Right? Outside of that, are you relatively active? So are you at least over 8,000 steps on average?
Speaker 1:But between eight and twelve thousand is a sweet spot, I think, and practical. Are you there on average over the course of week, two weeks, three weeks? If yes, tick box. Outside of that, are you doing some form of exercise even just twice a week? This isn't gonna be as big a deal in terms of your probably your weight loss and your fat loss, but it is really good for your overall look, your body composition, and just your your general health as well, strength.
Speaker 1:So doing some form of weight training, else maybe even like cardiovascular exercise. Again, that doesn't have to be too much. The first two are the most important things things I always I always look at because they're the things that are gonna make the biggest difference. So that's your checklist. Are you doing them things consistently and well?
Speaker 1:And if the answer is yes, I am. I've been doing these things, then patience and just trust in what you're doing. If the answer is no, then you have to look a little bit deeper and think, well, why haven't I been doing these things? For example, it's like, oh, I haven't really been hit my calories. I've been picking a lot of food.
Speaker 1:I've been, you know, having a lot of, like, extra food at work or picking up these. It's like, you have to you have to figure out why. Is it that your diet is too restrictive and you're starving yourself and you cannot stick at it? Is it that you haven't got a good structure to eating, you're winging it, and then it's just causing you to pick every day? Is it that you're putting yourself in situations where it's very hard to say no to things all the time?
Speaker 1:You're always going out for dinner. You're always going out with friends. You're always in a situation in the pub where people are drinking and you're trying to resist it. So that's that's a different question then. Okay?
Speaker 1:Then that then you have to delve into why you're not doing these things. But for this specific podcast, I just wanted to just lock into the objective stuff the most. And that is basically, are you hitting your calorie target? That's the number one thing. That's gonna have the biggest impact outside of anything.
Speaker 1:Are you hitting your calorie target accurately? Like I said, number two, are you active? At least 8,000 steps or above. And then number three, which is as less important to fat loss, but still overall important, are you getting some form of exercise in at least two, three times a week? Whether that be weight training or classes or some cardiovascular fitness.
Speaker 1:Okay? You do them things, guys. You do that consistently. You stop being reactive to a a feeling, a feeling of bloatedness, a feeling of oh, I feel fat today. It's a fat day.
Speaker 1:If you stop doing that, you will get to where you wanna get there. Because I know I've gone through it myself many times, But most importantly, I've coached very, very emotional clients. A lot of them who have gone on this cycle, have been on this cycle for their whole life, and I've coached them around it. So they've had to break through a lot of belief and barriers that they thought they couldn't do this. So I know what it takes, and it's a lot simpler than you might think.
Speaker 1:Right, guys. I'm gonna shut that down there. Hope you enjoyed today's quick podcast. And as always, feel free to follow-up with any questions you might have. Whether or not, have a great week and chat soon.
Speaker 1: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. Just fill that out, and we'll be in contact as soon as possible. See you in the next one.