Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The Last Diet Podcast 🎙️
Tired of losing the same weight over and over? On The Last Diet Podcast, we go beyond quick fixes and restriction to help you finally achieve sustainable weight loss without giving up the life you love.
Hosted by Mike Finnegan, we dive into the mindset shifts, lifestyle habits, and emotional breakthroughs that make lasting change possible. From breaking free of yo-yo dieting to rewiring your relationship with food, this is where weight loss meets freedom.
Because this isn’t just another diet…
It’s the last one you’ll ever need.
Welcome to the Last Dight 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. Guys, welcome back to another episode of the Last Dight Podcast. I hope everyone is having a good week.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm gonna get stuck straight in this guys. No announcements, no nothing. Today's episode topic is going to be based around healthy eating and why healthy eating may not get you the results you actually think it will. It's funny, right? So we're doing the eight week challenge at the moment and people are doing incredible within it.
Speaker 1:So I'm seeing so many things come up at the moment. I'm also doing my diet and it's interesting how many similarities come up. And I actually tried to take some of the kind of struggles that the people I'm working with are having and create topics from podcasts off the back of it because I feel like that's what will help you the most because you're probably struggling with something similar. So if you're someone at the moment who has like gone through phases of trying to eat healthier, cut out like sugar, cut out bad foods, and you still haven't seen any noticeable results long term, then this episode is exactly what you need, right? So big, big problem is there's so many programmes, coaches and just different like information out there demonising food.
Speaker 1:So it's basically making you believe that there is a good and there's a bad food. That if you eat a certain food it's bad for you, therefore you will put on weight. If you eat a good food it's good for you therefore you will lose weight. But these two are not inclusive of each other, okay? Here's the truth: healthy does not mean fat loss, Okay, now I'm going to get into some kind of more of the nitty gritties with it, right, because there is correlation.
Speaker 1:But they are not the exact same thing, okay, because you can be eating what would be considered healthy food. So for example, avocado is considered a healthy food, extra virgin olive oil is considered a healthy food, and nuts are considered a healthy food. So there's loads of foods out there that are considered healthy. You could go into like a health shop and get like a protein smoothie and it's considered healthy, like seeds, all these things considered healthy. But that doesn't mean that them foods will help with your fat loss.
Speaker 1:Now, I say the word help, now they can help with your fat loss, but it doesn't mean you're definitely going to get fat loss if you're eating just stim things, okay? So here's the issue with it, right? If yes, if you were eating like stim types of food and nothing else, so if you did cut out like all your kind of 'treat foods' if you want to call them that lower quality foods is what I'd rather call them and if you were just eating what you would consider healthier foods, which would be, you know, the foods I just mentioned there plus like your whole grain rices, plus your lean meats. You know, all the foods that we would consider healthy, fruit, vegetables, all these things, okay? If you were cutting out all the foods and you were only having healthy foods, you would, if you were overweight, you would lose body fat.
Speaker 1:Yes, you would. You would drop a certain amount of body fat to a point, okay? If you're overweight, it would help you get back to like a regular body fat range for sure. If you were already like in decent shape, it wouldn't get you very lean because your body doesn't want to be underweight. So eating healthy foods, it wouldn't make any sense.
Speaker 1:If you think like logically about this, let's just say like again before weight was ever a problem, it's like if humans ate healthy food and then lost weight, we would literally die. It'll make no sense from an evolutionary point of view, right? So in today's society, yes, our body does not want to be overweight. We benefit from being overweight. It's actually detrimental to us.
Speaker 1:It's detrimental to our health, our lifespan, our life quality, so we don't want to be overweight. So yes, when you start eating healthy foods then your body will naturally bring you back to a healthy body weight, but that doesn't mean you can go beyond that to like a really toned kind of lean look because again, our body doesn't necessarily see that as a good thing because it's like, well, if we go beyond this, it's actually, again, it's hazardous because we're now starting to like, our body thinks we're starving, okay, because we get down to a leanness. Our body doesn't know that there's more food that we can eat if we need to, it just thinks we're starving, okay. So that's for an issue. So basically what I'm trying to say here is if you're someone who cuts out junk food and eats just healthy food, you you will lose weight and you will get to a healthy Bite Fat range if you're overweight for sure.
Speaker 1:Here's the issue with this though. It doesn't allow any room for flexibility or slips. So if you're someone who is eating well generally all the time but you slipped or you wanted to be flexible and fit in other foods, it's very, very, very hard then to know if you're actually going to make any progress because we're just we're guessing and hoping for the best. Because all that actually matters is from a fat loss point of view, weight loss point of view, all that matters is our energy intake versus our energy output, okay? So how many calories are we eating?
Speaker 1:How many calories are we expending on a daily basis? On a weekly average? On a monthly average? Over the course of so many months. Okay, that's all that matters in terms of weight loss.
Speaker 1:So if you're eating yes, you're eating nothing but healthy foods, chances are because you're going to be fuller and you're not going to be as, again, quote unquote addictive to healthy foods, you're not going to overeat on them. Therefore, you will manage your calories better. You will just automatically be eating less calories naturally because of the fact that them foods aren't going to be as enjoyable or binge worthy, if want say that, as other foods, right? So you just won't overeat, so you will naturally just eat less food or eat less calories overall. Therefore it'll put you in a calorie deficit, therefore you will lose weight.
Speaker 1:But again the key here is it's not the healthy foods that are making you lose weight, it's the calorie deficit that is making you lose weight. Okay, so you eat nothing but good food and you cut out all the calorie dense junk food, of course you're lose weight because you're going to be eating less calories. So that's why it happens. But the issue again in normal day to day life is how long can you keep that up? How long can you go without having any sips?
Speaker 1:Or how long can you go without having any nice foods? You're only going eat healthy all the time. It's not realistic, it's not real life. And you might say, well I'll just do it for a short amount of time. But what happens then when you go back to your quote unquote normal eating?
Speaker 1:You're just going to stack up back into bad habits and overeating again. So there's eating healthy, it's a good idea for the most part, but there's context to it and there's a lot of missing context when people just demonize foods. And that's the biggest issue really. That's why so many people have such a poor relationship with food. This is a good food.
Speaker 1:This is a bad food. And I often get this as people be saying to me, should you be eating that now? That seems like it's bad. Is this or they'll say, is this is this good to be eaten now? Again, it's not about the individual food, it's about the amount of calories you're eating and your overall quality of your diet.
Speaker 1:Now where eating healthy does help is it obviously it's good for health and energy, which is only can only ever benefit you in any aspect of your life, but it's also good for fullness. So if you're eating junk food and you're in a calorie deficit, will you be losing weight? Yes, you will be losing weight and body fat if you're eating nothing but junk food. There was actually a study done years and years ago right, it was called the Twinkie Diet. I've mentioned this a few times and so apologies if I'm repeating myself to some people, but the Twinkie Diet basically was where the researcher ate nothing but Twinkies, which are like they're American, I think they're chocolate bars or something like that.
Speaker 1:No, it's a kind of sweet treat, you know. I've never actually had one, even though I've told the story about a million times. So he ate nothing but Twinkie bars for so many months, and I think he was taking like health supplements, just like basically vitamins, just so his health didn't deteriorate, right? And he lost a substantial amount of fat and weight just doing that to prove that when you're on a calorie deficit you are going to lose weight and body fat. Now again is it sustainable?
Speaker 1:No, because your health is going to go down the drain, you're not going to be able to sustain it, and also if you're eating nothing but junk food, the chance of you being able to undereat is very hard because them foods are foods we want to keep eating. We get its addictive nature to them, so the chances of us actually hitting a calorie intake on junk food is very low. Like it's very very easy to put down three or 4,000 calories worth of pizza or sweets or chocolate on a given day, but it's not easy to do that when you're eating vegetables and fruits and lean meats. It's very very hard to hit that. I get that straight away.
Speaker 1:Whenever someone joins my programme, it's kind of like I give them a calorie target and they're like, oh, I can't eat that much food Mike! But they can. It's just because they're eating more, they feel like there's a kind of a mental block where they feel like they're eating more quality food, there's a mental block because they feel like they're eating more, even though they're not. And this is the thing when you're eating healthier foods, you feel like you're eating more but you're actually eating less calories, it's just more volume of food and it fills you more but you're actually not. So that's the thing about it, food volume does actually matter.
Speaker 1:Now you might think, okay, this all sounds logical to some point, right? But why does it, you know, how does it relate to you? But the issue here is, right, if you are eating healthy and that's your process and you're trying it, you're cutting out foods but you're not seeing any results, it's just going to make you so frustrated. You're going to not get any progress, you're going to feel like your body's broken, there's going to be all this self doubt and you'll just end up sabotaging again. Or even if you do start eating quote unquote healthy and you start seeing some progress, you won't be able to stick at it because what happens when someone comes into work with cake and you have some?
Speaker 1:Does that then mean you failed? Does that then mean, well that wasn't healthy therefore, you know, that's not good, I'm probably gonna put on weight again. Or what happens when you have a night out or a holiday? It just doesn't make any sense to actually use this approach as the kind of be all and end all. Again, there's elements of it that work really well.
Speaker 1:Again, the concept of the approach is brilliant, but it's just what it makes people think. It's like it makes people be very all or nothing. I had a client finish up my dispute, we had a close-up call, I always do that with my clients, And she has done absolutely incredible. From a physical point of view, said she's 40 now with kids and she said she's the best shape for life. That's a quote from her.
Speaker 1:She's the best shape for life and she never thought she could get that far, right? But But we were talking about how she said she laughs now when she thinks how odd or nothing she used to be before she joined. And she thinks like she basically said, it feels so silly now to think about But she actually puts a lot of it down to like weight watchers because of the way they actually used to demonise food and whenever there was a weight hike or whatever. So it's that built in kind of feeling of if I get bad, I'm bad, I'm guilty. I should feel guilty.
Speaker 1:There should be shame attached to it. And if the scales goes up, then I'm doing really bad. And if I eat bad and scales goes up, then that's a double whammy. But we worked on a relationship so much that she was able to actually find that sweet spot between enjoying her life but getting in the best shape of her life. So it's important again, guys, it's not about not eating healthy.
Speaker 1:Of course, eating healthier is going to help you, but it's like you have to understand that that's not the principle of fat loss. Principle The of fat loss is calories in versus calories out. So just to prove this to you, right, so I've had three clients that started working with me recently, right? Yvonne, Mara, and Siobhan. And they all have lost a substantial amount of weight over the last couple of months.
Speaker 1:I think most of them are coming up on whatever between a half stone and a stone. But the key part of this whole thing is that they've done it while going on holidays, having nights out, having quote unquote slips, and they've still progressed. So if they, because their old mindset was very much all or nothing as well. So if they came into this in a case of, right, on Mike's plan now, I need to eat healthy and cut out all the bad food, that would have then meant, okay, well, I can't go on holidays. I can't have a night out.
Speaker 1:I can't have any of the night skills I want to have. And it would be very, again, black and white. But they didn't do that because I've taught them how to eat better, but at the same time allow for flexibility knowing that all that matters is our overall calorie intake. So even on holidays they can still enjoy their holidays but be conscious of their intake. So how can we, okay, maybe not snack as much or how can we, you know, eat a little bit better at times, but most importantly, we can actually come back and reset quickly.
Speaker 1:So it wasn't about losing weight on the holiday, it was about being conscious of calorie intake. But again, if they were dealing with the mindset, well, this is a bad food, therefore I'm going to do, it's going to put loads of weight on me, it misses the point of like, it won't put loads of weight on you. You just got to not binge on it. You've got to stop eating, you know, when you're full and just quantify the food a bit better. And it's worked perfectly and all of them are flying it again and they're going to see incredible results between now and Christmas, and we can do the same over Christmas and so on.
Speaker 1:We started our eight week challenge just over three weeks ago, right, and with 20 people doing the challenge at the moment. Between them 20 people there's over 60lbs of weight loss, okay? Now the key thing with these people that we did at the start is that we did not give them a food plan to follow, right? It wasn't a case of you have to follow this to lose weight, right? We helped them to track calories, we helped them to understand how to fit in foods they liked so that they didn't feel restrictive.
Speaker 1:The main thing is we didn't change things too far away from what they were already doing, so we didn't drastically change their diet just because they were quote unquote on a fat loss phase. Because again, it's easy to say, oh, well, I'm starting to plan now, so therefore I need to eat healthy and cut out all the bad food. So you know, if you do that, you're setting yourself up for failure. So what we want to do is we want to basically find the solution that, yes, you're eating better quality, but at the same time it's realistic to life as well. Okay, issue with eating healthy is that it usually means people feel restricted, that it's like totally changes their diet and it's like a shock to their body.
Speaker 1:Do you know like when you go cold turkey or something like, I've never smoked, but I know smokers often say this, it's like it's not the actual like cigarette, it's the habit of going for a cigarette that's the hardest to break. It's just you're used to doing it. It's the same when it comes to food, right? It's like if you're used to eating in a certain way and then you're like, okay, I'm starting to diet tomorrow and I'm going to eat really healthy, all this food. It's like, it's such a shock to the system because you're used to eating in a certain way.
Speaker 1:You're used to eating certain foods and it's like now you're just going to change everything overnight. How overwhelming is that for you and how sustainable is it? Whereas what we did with the people at the Elite Challenge and all my clients did this, but it's like, we don't need to drastically change your diet. We just need to quantify the food you're having and improve the food quality over time. So eat a little bit more of certain foods for sure to help the hunger.
Speaker 1:We will do that naturally as we go through it as you get hungrier. So it's not a case of cutting everything out and changing what you're eating, it's actually just quantifying what you're eating already and making little swaps here and there, changing the portion sizes here and there, and just having a similar diet but it's now quantified. One of my clients Katie, she's down over a stone and a half, and the big thing for her was she used have a takeaway every single weekend. And I sat there like, because she had this thing in her head, it's like, because she used to go to Weight Watchers, it's like I can't have that now anymore. But we didn't do that.
Speaker 1:We were like no, can you even have the takeaway every weekend?' And she said it blew her mind, her exact quote, blew her mind that she was getting results and she was having a takeaway at the weekend. Now we don't want to take the piss and say oh well I can do whatever I want', right, because that just sets you up for failure as well. We can't go to extremes, but fitting in a takeaway every weekend or fitting in nice foods, Acadia eats food she likes and she fits in kind of treat foods throughout the week as well. By doing that it just means that she hasn't been too far away from what she was eating before, so it's not been a drastic change, But she has learned how to quantify the food she's eating, so she can stop when she's full and she can stop when she's hit her targets and it's sustainable while getting results. So it's a win win win and she's like again, mind blown because she's seen results without drastic change.
Speaker 1:But if she went in with the mindset of, I need to eat healthy, I need to cut out all the bad foods, how long would that last? And like how much guilt and shame would she have had when she had her first takeaway? Which is going to happen because life, it's not easy. This whole process is not easy because we have to live life through it, and it obviously takes long enough to get the results. So it's one thing being in a good headspace on a given day.
Speaker 1:Like, I'm going to eat everything perfectly today and I'm going eat healthy and I'll cut all the bad foods' but are you going to feel like that for two months, three months, four months, five months, as long as it takes to lose the weight you want to lose? No you're not. So you have to find a different approach. Okay, so just to summarize guys, I'm going to close out, I don't want this one too long, but I really wanted to highlight this because I'm seeing this often with people demonising foods. It's not about healthy or unhealthy foods, right?
Speaker 1:It's about balance and portion awareness. Eating healthier is important, but it's not the only thing that matters. So I'm all for improving the food quality you're having, but you do want to find a balance as well of fitting in foods that, you know, aren't associated as health foods, but they're still nice. You like them when you're dieting, it just helps you sustain it. So I have chocolate every day without fail.
Speaker 1:I used to have popcorn every day. I was just saying they don't have, like, the Manhattan popcorn or equivalent over here in Canada. So I don't have that anymore, but I used to have that every day. Then I'd fit in it. Other things I want as well, you know, like jars of certain sauces.
Speaker 1:People are like, oh they can't be healthy, what's inside them? Their process is like, they're fine. I'm eating most of my diet, 80% of my diet is coming from wholesome sources. It's fine, it's not going make any difference, it just makes it easier to eat the foods I want to eat. So that's so, so important.
Speaker 1:Okay, to summarize guys, if you want to take something away from this session, right, the most important thing you need to do is learn about calories. So track your calories. It doesn't have to be for everything. People think, well, if I track calories, I'm going get obsessed. Well, that's on you, right, because you can do it in like a way that's not obsessive.
Speaker 1:You can literally track for a period of time, learn about quantities of foods that you're already eating. Suddenly you don't have to change what you're eating, you're just basically quantifying what you're eating and you can start to be smart about your portion sizes. So track your calories and see how much you're eating. You don't even have to change how much you're eating, just check, right, have a look and bring your awareness, because that alone is going be huge. If you have to track your calories, it's like doing a budget.
Speaker 1:Nobody likes a budget, of course, but it will help you. If you track the money you're spending, the chances of you making like, you know, reactive decisions around your money will be less because you're going to second guess do I actually need this or not. And then you're going to see things that I've been spending crazy money on this, I don't even want this. Same as food. You'll start to realise, oh my god I didn't realise that was that many calories, I don't even like this, I just have it because it's convenient.
Speaker 1:Or you might think, oh there's way more calories than I thought, and I can easily have less of that if I wanted to. So it just gives you awareness and it just helps you to quantify what you're doing. Second thing, adjust quality for sure over time. But don't think of it as getting rid of stuff, think about it as adding in stuff. So instead of you thinking I need to cut out all the bad food, how about thinking about adding in healthier foods?
Speaker 1:So having extra fruit throughout the day, adding a side of vegetables to your dinners. And this will become more important as you start to lose weight because your hunger is going to rise. At the start because you're not hungry, you're kind of just like you've overeaten for let's just say you've overeaten for a few months and you're coming off a period of overeating and you're like, I'm starting a new diet. You're not going to be hungry, you're just going to be bleh. And any foods that you do want in a given day will just be cravings.
Speaker 1:It won't be true hunger because your body hasn't even registered that you're eating less yet. So you won't want these healthy foods at the start. That's why I'm saying just quantify the foods you already haven't for the first few weeks. As you start to get hungrier, that's when you can start increasing the vegetables, increasing the fruit, increasing the lean meats, the yogurts, like things like that that are going to help with fullness and overall health. So adjust quality over time by adding in stuff, okay?
Speaker 1:Next thing, fit in nice treat foods. So I always think to, I say to my clients, even when you're dieting, fit in 20% of your calories through nice foods, like tree foods if you want. So if someone was on a 2,000 calorie diet, you're talking about like 300 calories there, 400 calories even, that you could fit in through tree foods, and the rest of it's coming from multiple sources. That's a great deal, so that you have a bit of what you want, but it's not so much that's driving up your calories. Then the last thing, and the most important thing, well it's one of the most important, is don't drastically change what you're eating when you start a new diet.
Speaker 1:Like I said, quantifying it and tracking it alone is going be enough for you for a while to actually see what you need to do. So let's just say you start tracking your calories and you just eat the same foods, then you can start to portion size a bit better and you'll start just making better decisions. You'll stop picking more, you'll stop picking foods that maybe aren't foods you even care too much about, and you can start to quantify the food a little bit. And as I said, as time goes on, as you start to get a bit hungrier, you can start to improve the food quality as well. Right guys, I'm going shut this one down.
Speaker 1:As always, if anyone's any questions on this or, you know, wants to reach out to me, I'm on Instagram, Mike Finnegan the last night on Instagram. So reach out to me there. I'm more than happy to to help you with any of this stuff. But the like I said, the most important thing at the moment is not to demonize foods, track, bring awareness and go from there. Thanks for tuning in to the latest episode of The Last Diet podcast.
Speaker 1: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.