Transform Your Body, Transform Your Life - with Akash Vaghela

10:56AM Oct 30, 2023

Speakers:

Angela Foster

Akash Vaghela

Keywords:

people

carbs

feel

body composition

fat

soy

meals

shape

training

life

diet

fitness

protein

good

programme

health

calories

results

week

muy thai

I

think anyone can can go on a restricted period of dieting and get into the best shape of their life. I think very few can actually keep it off because they forget to realise that the point isn't a choke point is to figure out how to stay in shape. But to stay in shape, you have to rewind it and see if who you are. You're listening to the high performance our podcast helping you optimise your health performance and longevity. My name is Angela Foster, and I'm a former corporate lawyer and high performance health coach. Each week, I bring you cutting edge bio hacks, inspiring insights and high performance habits to unlock optimal health performance and longevity. So excited that you've chosen to join me today. Now let's dive in.

Hi friends as I record this podcast interview, I am on the beach in Sri Lanka. And you may even be able to hear the beautiful sound of the waves crashing, and the tropical birds singing as you're listening to this. So I hope you're having an amazing week, you're about to hear all about how to optimise your body composition. My guest is Akash Vaghela. He is an best selling author, entrepreneur and coach and he has over 12 years experience in the health and fitness industry. He founded his company Orangetheory fitness in 2017. And it's become one of the leading worldwide online body transformation programmes for high performers. And he's now impacted over 3000 lives in 25. Plus countries, his big vision is to see a world transformed one life changing journey at a time. What I love about our conversation is he talks about how to make it sustainable. And it's all it's kind of one thing I guess to get into amazing shape, which many people have done at some point in their life. It's another thing to get into the kind of health and fitness that you can maintain as a lifestyle. And we talk about the differences between those two things. We talk about how to make food tasty while you're doing this as well, and the mindset changes. Alongside one thing, we also talk about that both the cache and I have a slightly differing views and we didn't have time to go into on this podcast is soy and whether that is or isn't a good source of protein. We have quite differing views on this. And to give you a kind of very balanced view on soy because I know it's actually something on many people's mind, I will be releasing a separate podcast interview all about that, and the farming and the bioavailability of it as a source of protein so that you can make your own decision. So stay tuned for that. But for now, let me introduce you to a Akash Vaghela.

Akash it is so fun to have you here today. I'm really, really looking forward to this because it's been a long time coming in the diary. I went on your show we met I think did we meet at a Daniel PC event I think we did originally is an online event, an online event that was going on in person. And then I had the pleasure of going on your podcast. And we've since been trying to get a date in the diary for this. It's taken a bit of time.

But well, it's been a long time coming. But thank you for having me on. Sure.

Yeah, no, it's great timing is great timing. I think many people coming back after the summer actually are thinking about body composition. So this is this is well timed. So let's talk about I mean, I was saying just offline with you earlier, like, you flash up a lot on my feed and your results that you get with clients are nothing short of transformational. Like they're they're incredible, right? And that must help to transform people's minds as much as their bodies, right? Because it's a completely different image. Do you want to first of all just introduce what you do and why you did?

Yeah. So thank you for the kind words. And it is very much a transformation that goes beyond just the physical. I have a mantra that says the physical is the vehicle because I think if you do a physical transformation, right? It serves as the vehicle to do things you never thought possible in all areas of your life. And the key word is the physical transmission done right? Because anyone gone a crazy aggressive diet, but that doesn't really bring the mindset benefits that you get when you do it in a sustainable way, which I'm sure we'll come on to. As a little introduction, my name is Carol Geller, I run a body composition body transformation programme called RNC fitness. And we specialise in helping high performers get into the best shape of their life, and most importantly, build a sustainable lifestyle solution to stay in shape for life. And we launched in 2017, we've since helped nearly three and a half 1000 People in 26 different countries, we use a very unique five phase methodology to help people go through these stages of losing the weight, most importantly, learning how to keep it off and doing the behaviour mindset and identity shifts required in order to do so.

Awesome. Yeah, and you definitely do that. And I've seen I've seen the results. It's incredible. Let's dive into that. So let's talk about weed. You know, people often say the expression I want to get in the best shape of my life. And you and I were talking earlier about the distinction between being in the best shape of your life and the best Shape for Life right, which is a more sustainable, can you explain that distinction? I think quite an important one.

Yeah, so the best shape your life is I'll consider that to be your absolute leanest. So this is where you see the before and after pictures where you see someone who's gone from overweight or bit too much body fat to six pack abs, or whatever it may be. And that's say, I'd say that's the best shape your life. And in order to get the best shape of your life, you have to go all in and for a period of time have to do some things which are a bit unsustainable. But I think that's okay, because the longer term game is to find your shape for life. And I think a big differentiation between the two is your shape of your life is an unsustainable place to get to where you challenge yourself mentally and physically to do something you didn't think you could. But your Shape for Life is what I like to think of as the sweet spot where you feel, look and perform your best. Because when you're absolutely absolutely shredded, you're really lean, you're probably not going to feel that great, you're going to be a little bit hungry, you're going to be a little bit irritable, you're not gonna feel that great, and you're probably not gonna perform that, well, you won't be that strong. Energy is going to be a little bit low, but you're doing something to push yourself to the absolute extreme. Because when you do push yourself to the extreme, you really have to change the way you live your life, you change the way you socialise, you change the way you you approach your relationship with food, alcohol, etc, you have to change a lot of behaviours to get there. Now, I think the trick is when you get there is to safely come out of it. And accept, there's going to be a little bit of body weight gain. But know that as long as you're within, say, five to 10% of your shape of your life, you're going to be in what I call the sweet spot. And this is where you feel amazing energy is buzzing, you're performing really well at work, your cognitive function is really high, you still look good, but you're not as good as you were before. And this is something we were talking about before where you say, I feel like I've got a little bit of filler, a few kilos or, and I feel like that as well. I've got a few kilos to lose if I wanted to. But I know I don't, I don't want to lose that weight. Because if I did, I would be in that position of not feeling great not performing our best. But where I am now is that magical sort of magical little sweet spot. And that's why I think there's a difference between your shape of your life to Shape for Life. And if you can accept that difference, then you can really get the benefits of health and fitness. I think when you don't accept that. That's where I think you either develop eating disorders, you have to struggle with Russians food, because you're trying to hang on to a really lean position that doesn't feel good. Alternatively, if you don't realise that there is a Shape for Life, you may rebound and go way past it. And that's where you end up in the yo yo dieting circle.

And what would this different difference be like what's considered to be sustainable? Like, obviously, some of that comes down right to physical activity levels, right. So if you look at professional footballers, for example, they are very low body fat, right, they're probably one of the lowest. And but then they're also doing an incredible amount of exercise, right? Particularly with all the matches and everything throughout their their training, and they're playing. And so they kind of It's almost easier, I guess at that point to to stay lean for the average person who is working, and they're doing fitness because they want to be healthy, but they also want to really look good for a man and a woman. What kind of body fat percentage is that that you consider to be easily maintainable? looking really good. And then we can talk about what it looks like to be kind of in ultimate shape separately.

I think for men, it could be anywhere between 10 and 15%. Depending on the sacrifices you want to make or the lifestyle that you want to live, the lifestyle you want to live is probably a better way than a better way than sacrifice. And for women is probably anywhere between, I'd say 18 to 25%. And I give again ranges on that, because it really does depend on how you want to live your lifestyle. So I think the thing to ask yourself, once you've gone through the process of stripping away the body fat is you know how many how many steps you want to do a day that you can commit to how many training sessions you want to do a week, well, you know what feels realistic, because on the way down, you may have committed to doing five, six sessions a week. But that doesn't feel like something that you can do for the rest of your life if you're if you're juggling kids, a career and a social life. So maybe you can commit to three sessions a week, go for a couple of weeks a day. You want to have a few few days out a week in restaurants, you want to have a glass of wine on a Friday, and I did that might form as part of the lifestyle you want to live. But if that's the case, you may need to accept that you may not be as lean. And I think the key word is control. So long as you're in control of all these different elements of your lifestyle, then what you dictate is your Shape for Life will be very firstly will be very individual but secondly will feel very natural and effortless and it should feel effortless. That's the key. You shouldn't be overly focused on food. You shouldn't be overly focused on the scale because you should feel look and performed really, really well. So it really does depend on the lifestyle choices that you want to have and dictate. At the same time you still have to that's not an excuse to be like alright, I don't actually want to do any training. I don't want to I want to eat Every every day, all that's going to lead to is a slow reversion back to the norm, and then you're not healthy, you're not fit. And you're just making excuses for yourself.

Yeah, very good point. Let's talk about the training. First of all, what do people less? What do people need to do when they want to be lean? So I think a lot of this obviously, being the high performance health podcast, a lot of people are into health optimization, and high performance. So we're looking I find most of the individuals I work with are what we would call body composition. So they don't have tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of weight to lose, which is a very different approach, right? Often it will be about I need to or I feel I would like to lose some body fat. And I'd also like to gain some lean mass at the same time. What would that look like in terms of their weekly training volume and split between, you mentioned their step count between cardio, aerobic activity and strength training.

As a for these people, you can't go wrong with three to four resistance training sessions a week, one to three cardio sessions a week, and then a general step can have anywhere between eight and eight and 12,000 steps a day. Now give ranges there because it'll depend on how much you can commit to, if you're talking bare minimums, let's say three strength trainings, maybe wants to Kardos an 8000 steps today, it doesn't sound like too much. And the reason why I like

1000 steps on top of the aerobic training, or inclusive of

Yes, some people like differentiate on this, like, you know, should it count? Should it not count? Yeah, I think in the grand scheme, I think if you're if you're really trying to be 1%, down on the 1%, and be aggressive on the way down of weight loss, then you may want to not count it in aerobic overall lifestyle management and just general long term long term, I don't think it's gonna matter too much. So I wouldn't worry about it. I personally don't really differentiate. But if I was being very specific with someone, I would, I would make that differentiation. I think cardio is important for for more reasons than just than just calorie burning, though, I think it's really good for your health, your heart health, overall cardiovascular system and operation. So I think keeping cardiovascular work in year round, is something really good and something I've made a mistake in the past of neglecting it, and using it only when I was trying to lose weight as opposed to keeping any around. And I found a lot benefits, especially in the last two years of having some form in one to three times a week.

And what do you what do you do? Do you tend to focus more on sort of zoned to work? Or do you do high intensity interval training? Or do you mix it up?

I personally do quite a lot of different things, because my focus has shifted in the last year from bodyboarding to Muy Thai training and running. So around November last year, I started, I started Muy Thai, which is a martial art and I got addicted to it right away. And as a result of that I started running because apparently, if you do Muy Thai you have to run. So I started running, fell in love with that as well. So now I do a mix of different sound trainings, I'll do some steady zone to stuff for running faster runs, like 5k really hard. And then my tie is very like explosive and almost like a high intensity. I think varying up is really good. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, you probably want to avoid too much intensity work just for the average person. But by like, I like the mix of it.

Let's talk about nutrition. Right? Because there's that old expression, isn't it the absolute made in the kitchen? Not in the gym? What do you advise your clients in terms of dialling in their nutrition when they're looking to get these body composition benefits?

I think I think nutrition is the biggest reason why people don't achieve their body composition roles. I think a lot of a lot of people we work with and it's maybe similar to you is training doesn't seem to be too much of an issue. I think most people enjoy some form of training activities. It's really the nutrition and the social events, the restaurants, the late night snacking, the stress snacking, emotional eating, especially those last two are the biggest problems that people have to battle in order to get their body composition results. And let's keep it very simple, though. Do you want macro amounts and things like that, or if you want to go so if you're if your goal is weight loss, I think the city calories up at around 10 to 12 calories per pound. So like your body weight in pounds, multiply by 10 to 12. And they'll give you a calorie amount. And then you can set your protein around 0.8 to one gramme per pound. You don't need as much as you may think you do, but 0.1 gramme per pound. And those are the main two things you want to hit. And then you can set a fire around. Point 4.4 grammes per pound, and then the remainder you can just fill with carbohydrates. I think most people do best just focusing on their total calories and their protein and then if they want to be really specific, they can dial in their fats and carbs. If that's the level of detail they want to approach but really I think you need to get a hold of emotional eating and stress eating I think those are the two biggest reasons people fall off their diet.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, so you're saying that this is this is for weight loss, right? This is not for maintenance. So if you're looking at 10 to 12 calories per pound of body weight, that would be quite, if I was to look at my own body weight, that would be significantly reducing what I currently

for sure, yeah, so that would be quite aggressive weight loss,

I was gonna say, that's quite an aggressive target for me, because I think that would be having looked at it going below my basal metabolic rate.

So that'd be quite aggressive weight loss. But it'd be something for someone who's probably coming from a more beginner background, because you're quite advanced. And you've, you've built up your metabolism, you've, you've been training for a long time, you probably maintain on a decent amount of calories. Your first starting point would probably be alright, whatever. So you average 2000 calories to maintain your body weight. Maybe you start at 1600 as an example, that would be the way I'd approach it for someone like yourself, who knows what their, their baseline is, who hasn't maintenance already. But if you're coming from an unhealthy background, that's a really good way to start.

Yeah, for sure. And if you've got a lot of families, right? Yeah.

So if you've got less fat to lose, you could probably start maybe 13 to 14 times, times body weight, but pounds.

You mentioned there, I mean, those are always the two places I started in terms of like, overall energy and protein. And then you said, if you really want to start dialling it in, then you can look at the facts versus the carbs. Let's explore that. Because obviously, it's actually quite difficult. I think people fear carbs, because they think I'm gonna get that vote because this is the whole thing, right? Because of the low carb and keto and all this, when in reality, it's very difficult to turn a carb into fat into body fat. Whereas fats themselves are actually quite easy to store. But again, you've got to be in some form of surplus. How do you apportion the macros in terms of fat versus carbs? And do you cycle carbs in and around training to sport energy levels? How do you approach that to make sure that we're still maintaining good adrenal function, thyroid function?

Yes, I think you want to have a baseline minimal of fats, you don't go too low on fats, that's the one to be to be careful of just because of what you just said, like baseline adrenal function, Hormonal Health. So I like to keep that as a bare minimum of 20% of your total calories, if you can, maybe up to 30%. But you don't want to go to be careful going any lower. And if you do, you want it to be only for periods of two weeks. And so you may want to use periods of aggressive, very aggressive weight loss, you can go, right, I'm just gonna pull the fats even lower, but I wouldn't do any for any longer, but just because of that hormonal risk. And in terms of carbs, you've got nothing to fear because as you mentioned, unless you're in a surplus, body fat storage is gonna be very difficult. Remember, there's no there's no fat, one of my team always says there's no fattening foods only fattening amounts. So it's just you got to be really careful of like how much you actually eat. So when it comes to carbohydrates, I love carbs. I think it's great for for overall performance, great for cognitive function. And I try and keep as many carbs as you can as you do diet, because it will help with training intensity, and as a result, improve your body composition. If you are someone who likes carb cycling, I think that's something you can try. I personally don't because it requires more thinking. And I'd rather not have to worry about how many carbs I have one day and recovery seminar the other day, I keep the I try and keep it as simple as possible because I found having done all these things over the years, how little difference it actually makes when they're bigger rocks and bigger fish to fry, which for our audience is probably around stress management. It's probably around getting better sleep. If I can get those two things right. I'm gonna feel much better than if I had 150 grammes of carbs one day 125 The next day 100 grammes a third day, those little minutiae things, the stress it creates and the amount of time you have to think about planning it and preparing those meals differently, or studying as

you listen to this podcast, you're probably like me, you want to have high energy every day to achieve everything you want to while also protecting your health span and longevity. And for the last six months, I've been taking a supplement called NAD region by biostat labs. Not only does it contain a powerful combination of niacin, amide, NAD three and resveratrol, which supports NAD also known as the molecule of you, it has spermidine in it and spermidine helps inhibit many of the hallmarks of ageing. It also supports better cognition, improved memory, heart health and circadian rhythm. And I'll tell you what I've noticed since taking NAD region is consistently high energy, which is a huge bonus, given that I'm always juggling the demands of running both my businesses alongside my kids and all of their activities and my daily workouts. And I've also noticed a lot of new hair growth which is common with spermidine. The beauty benefits are of course always welcome. So after experiencing all these benefits, I wanted you to experience similar ones and so I've arranged a very special offer with our sponsors biostat labs when you buy two bottles of NAD region biostat labs are giving listeners of this show a free bottle of GED aid, their glucose supplement that contains the very best ingredients for all around metabolic health. I take NAD region in the morning in a fasted state before my workout to amplify the autophagy boosting effects. And then gda just before my most carb heavy meal of the day to blunt the glucose spike. To get your free bottle of Gd aid and all the energy and health promoting benefits of NAD region, head over to biostat labs.com forward slash Angela. And when you purchase two bottles of NAD region biostat labs will send you a free bottle of je de aid. That's biostat labs.com Ford slash Angela to get your exclusive offer. I'm inviting you to join our newly opened high performance, our Facebook group, where we're all about unlocking our utmost potential. If you are a fellow bio hacker, a coach or a woman with an entrepreneurial spirit, looking for peak performance, and our community of ambitious women is just for you. But it's not just about connecting with like minded women, it's about empowering each other. We have weekly live training Q and A's and a bunch of other exclusive content that I don't get the chance to share anywhere else. You buy a hacksaw, I'm exploring plus extra nuggets of wisdom from my podcast guests, and so much more. It's free to join, simply click the top link in the show notes or go to Angela foster.me, forward slash h P h. That's Angela foster.me, forward slash h P h, or click the top link in the show notes. And once inside, send me a message so we can connect personally, I can't wait. You mentioned that obviously about going like low fat for a period if people are looking to aggressively lose weight and the dangers the sort of risks associated with it. What about people who commonly actually just keep their fat as higher, so they might be on like, you know, 25 30% protein, but then they're kind of going up to say 40% 45% fat and the rest carbs? Do you find a difference in the body composition results you get if they are keeping more within that 20 to 30% fat and more carbs, versus higher fat with lower carbs.

I think it's a very individual thing that how people function on lower calories. So I know some people that will go lower calories, but they prefer higher fats. And some people that prefer high carbs, I'm more of a higher carb guy I prefer putting fats as low as I can, whilst maintaining hormone function, keep my carbs higher, and then just putting the carbs down as they go along. And then when I've met, when I've rinsed that out, then I'll look at if I need to pull fat small, but I know others who will keep their carbs pretty low. Not not keto, but just keep them pretty low and prefer to have higher fats and use that as their calorie reduction method. So it really depends on how you feel I found for the for the for the most people that we work with more balanced approach seems to work best. I don't know if it's from meal preparation strategy, because, you know, having meals or just protein and fat only satiation wise may not be that great, you know, you don't see too much volume on your food on your plate. So, for me, I think staying away from the extremes is probably the best thing to do would be better to be boring. But sounds a bit boring. But I think

I think the thing is it's always a balance, isn't it between satiety and obviously understanding that fats can make you feel satiated, but they tend to be more delicious when they are coupled with a carb, which is where you're then most risk of overeating, right? Bread on its own. I'm not advocating bread, but if you think about really nice pieces of sourdough, it's lovely. But it really doesn't match what it tastes like when until you smash avocado on top of that some kind of butter right? Then then it changes the dynamic. Whereas if you have the fat again on its own, it's not quite so satiating or exciting, right, we've kind of wired in a way to combine fats and carbs for kind of that those elevated feelings of enjoyment.

I think the best thing people can do for society is follow a predominantly plant based diet. Because when you take the plant based approach, you're naturally going to have very high volume, nutrient dense, low nutrient. So high volume, nutrient dense foods on your plate, and you're just gonna look massive like I turned vegan on January the first 2020 to look back since and I did a did a photoshoot last year I got into the best shape up all my previous bodybuilding conditions on a vegan diet. And not to say that the vegan diet was any different. But one thing I did know is that was different to all previous diets was a my satiety was always better because I was just so focused on eating so many plants that my my plate was never small. It was always a lot even when I was right at the end, where I was only on like, say 12 1300 calories, which is very low, but I was going for an extreme level that most people don't need to go to And I remember my plate being full. And I was thinking, this is quite nice, you know, even though typically on a normal diet, whereas use the just chicken, rice and vegetables, I'd be down to like little bits of baby food that at this point, I was still still having a big plate. So I think I'm following a primary plant based diet. And then whether you add meat or fish on top is up to whatever your preferences are, is a really good way to track that. So tell

me because this is a question I get asked a lot by listeners and social media followers and things tell me what enough protein looks like on your diet. Can we can we have a run through or as a vegan? What like, what would a day look like for you breakfast, lunch and dinner?

Yeah, so my breakfast is protein notes. So I have oats with protein powder, some peanut butter, banana, and dark chocolate. That's my first meal of the day. Second meal is scrambled tofu with sourdough and avocado. Vegetables. Yeah, that's my, that's my lunch. And then my dinner is 10 Pay lentils or beans, and lots of veggies, and then some sort of carb source eg rice or some homemade nylon, or whatever it may be. And that's pretty much it. And I ended up getting around maybe 141 50 grammes of protein from that. And I'm bodyweight is maybe 175 pounds. So I get around point. Eight grammes per pound.

Okay, and do you eat pretty much the same things every day to make it easy? Or?

Yeah, I'm pretty boring with my meals. I

like because some people like diversity. And I think this is where it gets a bit more complicated.

Diversity is great. And if my wife is cooking different meals, I'm like, Yeah, great, good. Yeah, go for it. But if it was up to my myself, then I just eat pretty much the same thing bigger mainly because I don't want to waste time thinking about it. I don't want to waste time preparing it. My priority is on my business and my fitness and my family. It's not what food I eat. So I don't really have exquisite taste. But my food tastes amazing. So each of my meals tastes amazing. I think that's the key thing is getting to the point where you can eat the same thing each day, your meals need to be amazing. So each of my meals tastes incredible. Like I love each one of them. And I've just spent time refining what they are. So once you do go through the trial and error process of what your meals are, which make you feel good, they say you, you don't have any digestive issues, you don't get any brain fog, all those things, then it's great to have it the same thing. So each day, and then I get variety with different meals if I'm going out, etc. But I think variety is overrated, especially for your breakfast and your lunch. And that's usually the times where you're focused on work, you're with the kids or whatever it may be. The last thing what to do is think, Gosh, I made that yesterday Now should I meet somebody else? Today, think about the ingredients time cooking. And I think for me that that trade offs are worth it. But for others I know I know other people that eat different things each day, seven days a week and that works great for them.

Most people if they're honest, are rotating though, at least on a to weekly basis. Their meal plan said it's not that you eat a different meal every day for a month at every meal. If you say to me,

well, it's I think there's some interesting research on this as like, before you go on a before you take this approach. Most people are already eating around the same 10 to 15 foods a week. But when you say to them, I eat the same food each day, then it's slightly high and I want variety. So you're not actually having much variety anyway. You're probably already having cornflakes for breakfast every day. You have in pasture and sandwich whatever for lunch, and then you having the same risotto each night low, whatever it may be. But when you're told to do it, it's a different thing.

Yeah, it's very true. Tell me how you make oats with dark chocolate peanut butter and protein powder. Tasty because to be honest, when I've used a protein powder, which I'm guessing is a plant based quite grainy protein powder. How does that mix into taste nice.

So I use soy, soy and P version. If I rotate between two and I just mix up the I put in the put votes in the pot. I put the protein powder in the pot, add the water add a bit of soy milk, soy milk and then I just mix it up and try again I've I found a protein powder that I like that tastes good. So once you've done that, then it's just the case of mixing it up. And then afterwards I sprinkle the dark chocolate on top. I sprinkle the peanut butter on top. It's incredible teessiders Every morning makes me feel good keeps you satiated till about one o'clock. And I'm good to go. Again the trick

I'm not I'm not a big part of I guess my thing would be I'm not a fan of soy but you can do this with I think soy is just so heavily monocrop farmed. It's kind of I feel like it should be fermented I think the way it should be eaten. Yeah, I kind of I think pee Protein Isolate is good. And

soy is actually one of the best. I used to think. So it was, you know, soy is bad. So it's bad for your hormones, all these things. And there's no research really to prove it. And or soy is actually an amazing food. And I've had so many doctors about the power of soy to transform so many aspects of your health. So I want to turn this into a soy preaching. Yeah,

I think they're gonna be sighs on the site, but

I think I can send some stuff afterwards. I think we work you'll find it I

have I have a happy to have that I have. I've looked into it quite a lot myself. And I think that I think also from a farming perspective, soy, but that goes beyond the topic of this conversation anyways. But yeah, it sounds delicious. When you put the dark chocolate and everything on top, you were talking about? The reason that you work with clients for a year is really because you want to make sure that they get their results, and then they maintain the results. And I think this is the biggest thing, right? I think this is really important point, because so many people do they get there, right? There's how many people have been on a diet or been on a fitness regime. They've had great results, but they don't hold on to those results. What do you think is the biggest block from someone who's got success actually holding on to that success,

changing their identity around around themselves, and changing rewiring their behaviour and mindset, I think anyone can can go on a restricted period of dieting and get into the best shape of their life, I think very few can actually keep it off, because they forget to realise that the point isn't getting shape point is they're figuring out how to stay in shape. But to stay in shape, you have to rewire the identity of who you were. So most people go into a diet. Typically, someone who eat out very regularly eats junk very regularly, emotionally eat stress eats has Five pints with regard to the pub, that's just become part of who they were, as a result of gaining all that weight. When you when you lose the weight. You're in this weird sort of crisis where your brain still thinks like a night, let's say you're 90 kilos, you're going on 60, your brain still thinks of you, as a 19 year old person be your body 60 kilos. So when you go out to the pub after this period of restriction, and you're with your friends, the natural, the obvious thing to do is to have the 10 pints that you're used to doing, the new thing to do is to have one and call it a night. But you have to do that enough times to rewire the identity to now be in this new body. And I think what people end up doing is just they they go on this diet, they hit their goal. And then they just go back to their old way of living. And that old way of living so easy for them to live. And then you just have a slower version back to the norm. But I think the difficult thing is when you finish a diet, and now you don't have that prize of a photoshoot or a deadline, or my programme finishes, or whatever it is that prizes disappeared, suddenly, you're in this place where you don't have any goals. But you've got to figure out how to stay in shape. See, you know, you may be late night at the sofa on the sofa, when you have had this goal is like now that everything's off the table, you don't have a goal. It's like, I'll have a cookie, I'll have another cookie. And then you just you go back to the old way of living. I think that's the really difficult thing that people have. And the reason why we promote a longer term programme is to give the accountability to drive that drive that identity change and drill it home. And it's very difficult, but it's something that I've just seen too many horror stories to be okay with people leaving, or us not supporting beyond, beyond what we call the checkpoint. And we've we've we've changed the terminology within our programme from like the deadline or the moment you on the ship your life to your checkpoint, because there's a checkpoint in the journey. And it's really, it's the end of the beginning, so to speak. It's like the beginning, it's over the easy bits done. Now it's like, right, I need to figure out how do I stay in good shape, whilst living my life balancing kids having work and not feeling like I'm on a diet, that's really difficult. And a lot of it is just an identity change, I can bet for you. You don't think about training, you don't think about actually a good meal today? Or should I eat a bad meal you it's just so hardwired in you, that you you plan these transitions in you, you naturally get drawn to meals with a protein on a plate. It's just these things that you just do without even thinking about it. But for someone who's quite new, it's so foreign, this whole concept because you spent decades of bad habits spent decades of doing things wrong. So when you find the live life in full colour of a healthier lifestyle, it's the the key thing is how to keep that that keep that full colour and avoid going back into black and white. But it's just so easy to do that without the right countability

Yeah, totally agree and without the right reprogramming, right because you go back to that old hardwired identity. I think the thing is as well when you repeat a behaviour enough times you crave what you repeatedly do so if you are in a Ah of working out, you will crave workouts. But if you miss even, it's so easy to fall out of it right? If you miss workouts for five days, four or five days a week, actually, you can already begin to feel that little bit lazier. And then you don't you start to crave, it starts to feel effortful, right to go and work out. Whereas for me, I found that just by saying that I move my body every day, right, it's just a commitment in one form or another. And that's not always an intense workout, because that would be crazy, right? You need recovery. And that's when you grow and all of those things. But it means that don't a bit like the food, you were saying, You don't have to have loads of different meals that you're thinking about. I don't have to think about will I will I engage in some form of exercise today, because it's simple. But I also think, for me, the mindset results and the the actual order it creates in my brain, and the motivation and the high kind of levels of things like dopamine, the payoff is so great in terms of that time invested, when I worked out in the morning, that I missed that productivity and performance if I don't.

And for high performers, isn't it I think it's it's one of the most underrated hacks for high performance. And just general productivity, because I think it's a big paradox when you're, when you're busy with work and just life of like, I've got to make time to train, I'm gonna make time to do all this meal prepping. But it's, it's interesting how much time it creates in your day, because you just do things quicker, you do things more efficiently, and some of your best thinking will come during your training sessions. And I think one of my favourite things to do is to spend at least eight minutes unplugged. So whether that's a walk, or my training or my running, I try and do most of it unplugged. So then I get that time to sort the mess out in my head and get that level of clarity that needs to be on my best for my family and for the business.

Yeah, totally agree. That's where the Notes app on my phone becomes crazy. Yeah, but then you actually, uh, sometimes I can, sometimes actually, I will have so many kind of breakthrough ideas during a workout, that I have to be careful that I'm now not impacting the power of that workout, if you see what I mean. Because, yeah, you can like just it can turn into a master brainstorming session.

What you've described, by the way before was what I call the death by 1000 cuts, it's where you go from, you know, you miss one theme session, then you miss two, then all of a sudden you miss the week, and then it just becomes this frog, that you're it just gets bigger and bigger, bigger, bigger interests we get so overwhelming is that I don't want to sign a solid anymore. Or like you go from one dark chocolate square to two to three or one cookie to that, you know, it just happens so slowly. creeps. Yeah. And then next thing you know, our machines are feeling a bit higher. Oh, that is that? Does that mean the picture? I thought I looked? What I look like that, that look like something else. And until that trigger moment happens, you don't realise. And I think that's where that's the most dangerous one. I think it's not the drastic immediate rebounds. It's the one that happens over 12 months without realising that you've gained you gain the weight back or you gain more weight

100%. And alcohol is a very easy one with that. I just have one glass, but then it kind of turns into a glass and a half or two and then it is that creep, right? Because you're you're resetting your level. So as you said, right, it might be one chocolate often or now is two. And then and then you're there and you kind of like, yeah, it's hot. It's hard because it isn't noticeable, because you didn't suddenly go one day from eating one tree after dinner to five, that didn't happen. And it's recognising all things like that, right? Well, high performance,

I think really struggle with this, especially with like evening stuff. Because a lot of high performers need that outlet. And if I'm not training there, that outlet ends up becoming like that glass of wine, or whatever the stress relief is for them.

I think a lot of that I've noticed comes down to not having enough micro recoveries within the day, because your brain will just crave and it will move you into a state because a lot of people as well, the high performers will not give themselves permission to do nothing. And so they need to create something that then enables them to have permission to do it. Right. So all of a sudden, I don't drink anymore. But when I did drink alcohol, it was an amazing way of giving me permission to wind down because once I'd had that glass of wine, I didn't want to work anymore, right? I didn't and I and I am kind of it's something I've always struggled with, from my days as a corporate lawyer like it's, it's it easy addiction for me to become a workaholic. And so I have to step away and be disciplined around that because I know that without recovery, I don't perform as well. And so something like a glass of wine or something that's carb heavy, moves your brain into a state where now you feel you know, it's like people refer to a carb coma, right? You feel like it's okay now to do it. But then afterwards, you can be quite regretful around what you did. So it's really difficult and I think a lot of that is down to managing your nervous system across the day and the evening so that you value that time. as well, and you have that Psychological detachment from work, it's really important without turning to something that's going to facilitate it. Yeah,

very difficult.

You feel kind of the same way do

Yes. ongoing struggle, because then you battle with guilt. And it's like, oh, I shouldn't I should be doing should we do this? Should we do that, and it's very difficult. And that's why I try and force myself into these unplugged states of, you know, when you're running and you're unplugged, you can't really do anything, honey will take notes. So just forces me to just take time off. And I think that's if you can find those things like somehow we could be swimming for some, for me also Muy Thai says is that when I do when I'm in the ring for an hour, can't think of anything else. I'm just in the void. And that time is very, very precious for anyone can find that their thing, I think is the best thing you can have. You can find, keep yourself stable for longer, and be in this game for longer.

Yeah, and I think it gives you the opportunity, right to do really deep work when you're doing it as opposed to being in a kind of permanently distracted state. Yeah. Yeah, very true. Awesome. Where can people find out more about your programme? And everything that you do?

Awesome. Yeah. So the website is r&d Fitness dot code at UK. We have a cool free scorecard on the programme called, you go to r&d Finance, UK forward slash transform. Whereas we have 40 questions, see if you're ready for a transformation. And if we're ready to go through something like that. I have a book called transform your body transform your life, which is available on Amazon and all bookstores. And I'm on Instagram, and socials at bike cash for Gala. So just my name across my socials.

Awesome. We'll link to it all in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on. And sharing. It's amazing and everyone listening go check out our cat has some incredible photos just to show us a real testament to the results that you get with your clients. And thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. If you enjoy this podcast, visit female bio hacker.com and be part of a special community of women looking to optimise their mind, body and spirit. If you're tired of sifting through countless websites and books to find the answers to your questions about nutrition, fitness hormones, mindset, spirituality, and biohacking the search is over. I've done the research for you. And every week we go live with in depth master classes, q&a calls and monthly challenges to help you transform your life. And when you join the collective you'll have access to a wealth of information, including deep dive master classes and biohacking toolkits on our members favourites like metabolic flexibility, gut health, stress and resiliency and stepping into your most empowered self. Get Access and be coached by me and my team and level up your health, career and life all for less than $1 a day. Go to female bio hacker.com or click the link below to get started. And I'll see you on the inside