Speaker 1: I got a team. I hope you're bloody to ripfiic. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're like me, you have an interesting background with food.
Speaker 1: You if you're like me, then you've had an on
Speaker 1: and again off again peaks and troughs, tumultuous, sometimes glorious,
Speaker 1: sometimes toxic, sometimes ridiculous relationship with food. And so I've
Speaker 1: spoken many times on this show about the fact that
Speaker 1: food's always been my biggest challenge, and I can happily
Speaker 1: say that for the last I guess twenty twenty five years,
Speaker 1: it's and I have had a much healthier relationship. I
Speaker 1: kind of feel like, and this might sound melodramatic, but
Speaker 1: for me, food was for a very long time my
Speaker 1: emotional support system. It was something that I medicated with
Speaker 1: in not a good way. It was something that I
Speaker 1: distracted myself with, that I numbed out with. Food was
Speaker 1: something that for me was a source of joy and
Speaker 1: dopamine and instant gratification and all of that stuff. Of course,
Speaker 1: we all need food, of course, and that's one of
Speaker 1: the challenges when you are kind of somewhere in the
Speaker 1: ballpark of a food addiction or a food obsession, which
Speaker 1: I definitely was. People think or you would automatically think,
Speaker 1: I guess that getting off booze or getting off drugs
Speaker 1: would be much harder. And while I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: getting off booze and certainly some drugs is incredibly hard,
Speaker 1: but the difference between booze and drugs is we don't
Speaker 1: have to have booze or drugs those kinds of drugs
Speaker 1: anyway in our life to survive, whereas we can't give
Speaker 1: up eating. We need to eat. And so it's really
Speaker 1: about it's not about giving up food. It's about changing
Speaker 1: the nature of the relationship with food. It's about changing
Speaker 1: for me, it was about changing how I thought and
Speaker 1: socialized and chose and behaved and operated around food, the
Speaker 1: way that I the way that I organized my days
Speaker 1: around food, the way that I obsessed about food and
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. And that was maybe maybe I've
Speaker 1: never thought of this till right now, but maybe maybe
Speaker 1: part of that was because I didn't drink and I
Speaker 1: didn't you know, I didn't use drugs. I've never had
Speaker 1: recreational drugs, and so I didn't do any of those
Speaker 1: state altering, mind altering, emotional system altering things that you
Speaker 1: could basically push the button on that, and I could
Speaker 1: take a drug or take a drink, and within a
Speaker 1: short period of time, I'd be in something of an
Speaker 1: altered state and the anxiety would go and the feelings
Speaker 1: of euphoria would come, and then I'd be in that
Speaker 1: state for as long as that drug, be that alcohol
Speaker 1: or another drug, as long as that drug kind of
Speaker 1: stayed in my system. And I guess for me, you know,
Speaker 1: food was like that a little bit, and you know,
Speaker 1: growing up, it was my drug of choice. And I
Speaker 1: think also for me, there was a lot of this
Speaker 1: is just me thinking out loud. I have not planned this, definitely,
Speaker 1: not this part anyway. But for me, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of because I ate my way to be the
Speaker 1: fat es kit at my school, and I ate my
Speaker 1: way into the you know, the title of Jumbo or
Speaker 1: the name of Jumbo. I think for me, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of guilt, and there was a lot of embarrassment,
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of shame around my eating
Speaker 1: and how much I ate and the way I ate,
Speaker 1: And of course there was a lot of embarrassment and
Speaker 1: shame around how I looked and my weight. And so
Speaker 1: you know, for a lot of you this won't be
Speaker 1: or for some of you this won't be relevant at all,
Speaker 1: so see tomorrow should you feel compelled to come back tomorrow.
Speaker 1: But for some of you, what I'm saying will resonate.
Speaker 1: And So, while I always found it relatively easy to exercise,
Speaker 1: and I found it relatively easy to do a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of the not so comfortable things that
Speaker 1: success demanded, it took until I was in my mid thirties,
Speaker 1: so twenty five years ago. But still, you know, the
Speaker 1: majority of the first half of my life, definitely, the
Speaker 1: majority of my first first half of my life was
Speaker 1: food was me and food were problematic. And I think
Speaker 1: because for a very long time, I was because of
Speaker 1: the guilt, because of the shame, because of all of
Speaker 1: that stuff. I was publicly doing one thing and privately
Speaker 1: doing another. And I and I think, you know, like
Speaker 1: it's probably really only the last five years where I've
Speaker 1: opened up to the level that I'm currently you know,
Speaker 1: I would think, I think pretty transparent around all of it.
Speaker 1: And it's funny how when you talk me, despite the
Speaker 1: guilt and the shame and the embarrassment, and despite the
Speaker 1: fact that I was I was a well known, high
Speaker 1: profile fitness professional who owned multiple gyms, who was training
Speaker 1: lots of people, working with the lead athletes, writing for newspapers,
Speaker 1: and doing and at the same time not doing the
Speaker 1: thing or the things that I would tell other people
Speaker 1: to do. In other words, I was living out of alignment.
Speaker 1: I was talking to people about health and wellness and
Speaker 1: decision making and optimal food and optimal excise and sleep.
Speaker 1: And in the middle of all of that, I was
Speaker 1: doing things which were completely inconsistent with the message that
Speaker 1: I was putting into the world. And so it haints
Speaker 1: me to say, but in that sense, I was a fraud.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be a fraud. It was my intention,
Speaker 1: but I was, I guess, publicly pretending to, you know,
Speaker 1: be a certain way, but when no one was looking,
Speaker 1: I wasn't that. And while I can gladly own that now,
Speaker 1: or I can comfortably I guess own that now, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that there are a few people listening to
Speaker 1: this right now that maybe have been or are in
Speaker 1: a similar boat, if not all the time, then then periodically.
Speaker 1: And I just think that, you know, there can be
Speaker 1: you know, because food is such a multi dimensional kind
Speaker 1: of a thing. You know, of course, there's the biological,
Speaker 1: the physiological, and there's the psychological, the relationship we have
Speaker 1: with food, and there's all the emotional stuff around food.
Speaker 1: You know, there's all the habits that we have, the
Speaker 1: you know, the behavior that the sociological, the way that
Speaker 1: we eat when we're around other people, what we do
Speaker 1: in public, what we do in private, and you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't even come down to really knowledge, like we
Speaker 1: knowledge is an issue. But you know, like for example,
Speaker 1: the average person who the average person who's overweight or
Speaker 1: over fats, that is, they're carrying more fat or more
Speaker 1: body weight than they want to. And one of their
Speaker 1: you know, if you talk to them, they really don't
Speaker 1: want to look or feel or weigh or function the
Speaker 1: way that they currently do. But on the same day
Speaker 1: that they might own up to that or tell you that,
Speaker 1: it could also be the same day that they go
Speaker 1: and put stuff in their body which is at complete
Speaker 1: odds with their goal or their health value. And I've
Speaker 1: been that person too. And so this once again, as
Speaker 1: I always say, this is not about self loathing. This
Speaker 1: is about self awareness, This is about self reflection. This
Speaker 1: is about owning up and stepping up, you know, to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that I know that I don't have a great
Speaker 1: relationship with food. That is a that is a tough
Speaker 1: thing to put your hand up for. I know that
Speaker 1: I make decisions around food in relation to food, and
Speaker 1: I do things with food that are inconsistent with how
Speaker 1: I say I want to be. I eat too much sugar,
Speaker 1: or I eat too much processed food, or I eat
Speaker 1: really high quality food, but I just eat fifty percent
Speaker 1: more calories than I need on a given day. I
Speaker 1: don't listen to my body. I don't honor my body. Remember,
Speaker 1: your body is a biofeedback system. It's always telling you
Speaker 1: something and talking to you and informing you because your
Speaker 1: body is fucking brilliant. But you and me, the owner
Speaker 1: operators of said bodies. Sometimes you and I are fucking
Speaker 1: idiots because we do stuff to our body, not for
Speaker 1: our body, to our body, which is actually unintelligent and
Speaker 1: at times toxic and destructive, because because it gives us
Speaker 1: momentary joy, putting that piece of whatever it is in
Speaker 1: the body that makes us feel momentarily good, because it
Speaker 1: pushes the dopamine button. We love dopamine because it's feel good.
Speaker 1: And I've been feeling shit and I'm a bit sad
Speaker 1: or i'm a bit anxious, or I'm a bit flat,
Speaker 1: or i'm a bit worried, and I know that I
Speaker 1: can just press that button and I'm going to get
Speaker 1: this response. So I'll press the button and I'll start tomorrow,
Speaker 1: because I'm always starting tomorrow. And the amount of people
Speaker 1: that I've spoken to over the years who want to
Speaker 1: change their body, who want to change their diet, who
Speaker 1: recognize and realize that what they're doing is not currently working.
Speaker 1: But no matter when I talk to them today, this day,
Speaker 1: the day that we're talking is never the day. It's
Speaker 1: always going to be soon, often tomorrow, often Monday, of course,
Speaker 1: Monday being the global stuff starting day. The day where
Speaker 1: all lives transform, of course is Monday, not Tuesday. It's
Speaker 1: a day too late, and Sunday's ridiculous, and Friday, we
Speaker 1: don't even fucking start with Friday. It's got to be Monday,
Speaker 1: or as I've said to many of you before, it's
Speaker 1: got to be January one, which is the international of course,
Speaker 1: that is the standout transform you're thinking, habits, behaviors and
Speaker 1: outcomes day. January one, the day where all lives change forever.
Speaker 1: And of course I'm being facetious but all this is
Speaker 1: just self delusion. This is you and me telling our
Speaker 1: selves stories. This is rationalizing, justifying, because the thing that
Speaker 1: we need to do quite often with our body for
Speaker 1: our health, with our habits, be that whatever exercise or
Speaker 1: booze or food in this case food, the thing that
Speaker 1: we need to do, which is own up and step
Speaker 1: up and reduce all that pleasure giving sugar and salt
Speaker 1: and excess calories. The thing that we need to do
Speaker 1: is not fun, quick, easy, or painless. So there's this
Speaker 1: period of time between where we are now with our
Speaker 1: eating habits and our current operating system. There's a period
Speaker 1: of time and a period of pain and discomfort and
Speaker 1: inconvenience that we need to go through where we're not
Speaker 1: pushing the dopamine button and we're just letting our body
Speaker 1: and our mind to an extent adapt and adjust to
Speaker 1: this new operating system. And so the question to ask
Speaker 1: in the middle of all of this is does my
Speaker 1: current operating system with food? In other words, the way
Speaker 1: that I typically inverted commas do food, the type of
Speaker 1: food that I eat, the amount of food that I eat,
Speaker 1: the way that I socialize with food, the way that
Speaker 1: I make decisions around food, the way that the things
Speaker 1: that I buy to put in my pantry, the things
Speaker 1: that I buy to put in my fridge. I was
Speaker 1: talking to someone recently who was telling me about how
Speaker 1: they can't give up chocolate, and they just they you know,
Speaker 1: they try to restrain and refrain, and they want to
Speaker 1: give up chocolate or at least reduce chocolate. And when
Speaker 1: I suggested that maybe a good starting point was not
Speaker 1: to buy it, not to put it in the fridge,
Speaker 1: not to put it in the cupboard, not to have
Speaker 1: it in the house, and then the next time at
Speaker 1: ten thirty at night, when you reach for the chocolate,
Speaker 1: there's no fucking chocolate. It's hard to eat something that
Speaker 1: you don't have, right, And so you can't seriously say
Speaker 1: I'm going to give up chocolate or I'm serious about
Speaker 1: giving up chocolate or reducing chocolate. By the way, now
Speaker 1: I'm at the supermarket buying all the chocolate market and
Speaker 1: this is I know this sounds kind of almost unnecessarily
Speaker 1: simple and stupid to talk about, but if there's one
Speaker 1: thing I've seen smart people behave stupidly around, it's food.
Speaker 1: People that I know that are highly intelligent, very educated,
Speaker 1: very informed people doing stupid shit with food and doing
Speaker 1: stupid shit to their body by constantly abusing food and
Speaker 1: ending up over the medium to long term in a
Speaker 1: body that they don't enjoy being in. And I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about I'm not fat shaming. I'm just talking about health.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about wellness, I'm talking about energy levels, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about heart disease, I'm talking about diabetes. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about all of the myriad of consequences or potential consequences
Speaker 1: that can come from eating a shit diet consistently for
Speaker 1: a long time. And we know that if we don't know,
Speaker 1: we're about to know. We know that people often make
Speaker 1: significant health decisions like life really like actual life changing
Speaker 1: decisions when something breaks, as in they have a heart attack,
Speaker 1: or they get diagnosed with diabetes, or they have some
Speaker 1: kind of medical clinical drama, or or they get scared
Speaker 1: or they get scared so something bad happens or they're
Speaker 1: scared that something bad is going to happen. And so
Speaker 1: we call that reactive health management, not proactive. So if
Speaker 1: you are currently in a body that is not optimal,
Speaker 1: and again there's no judgment in this, there's no self loathing.
Speaker 1: There's just honesty. There's just self awareness. You can't go
Speaker 1: and get a new body. The one you've got is
Speaker 1: the only one. You can't replace it. You can only
Speaker 1: do better things with it. And everything that you've done
Speaker 1: or not done to your body or for your body
Speaker 1: up until this moment in time, as you listen to this,
Speaker 1: none of that can be changed. But what we can
Speaker 1: do is we can start to behave differently now so
Speaker 1: that some obviously we can't change past behaviors, but in
Speaker 1: the present we might be able to change some of
Speaker 1: the consequences or outcomes of those past behaviors by embracing
Speaker 1: new thinking and new behaviors That will require a level
Speaker 1: of awareness and consciousness and courage and decision making and
Speaker 1: self control and discipline that maybe you haven't embraced to
Speaker 1: this point in time. Sometimes the things that we need
Speaker 1: to do are not the things that we want to do.
Speaker 1: For me, it's always been about It's always been about
Speaker 1: for myself and the people that I work with. Let
Speaker 1: me say, it's mostly been about learning how to love
Speaker 1: our body with food, and by that I mean treat
Speaker 1: our body, treat my body, treat your body in a
Speaker 1: loving way. In relation to how we feed it and
Speaker 1: nourish it. I am eating food that will make my
Speaker 1: body work better. So conscious eating might look something like,
Speaker 1: I will not eat food I don't need. I will
Speaker 1: not reward myself or motivate myself with food. Conscious eating
Speaker 1: might look like I will not use food to escape
Speaker 1: reality or to numb out. Conscious eating might look like
Speaker 1: I will not allow situations or circumstances or other people
Speaker 1: to influence or dictate the way I eat. I will
Speaker 1: not rationalize or justify unhealthy the eating. I will not
Speaker 1: lie to myself or others. I did that for a
Speaker 1: long time about my eating behaviors. I will walk my talk,
Speaker 1: and this next one for me was a big one.
Speaker 1: I will not eat in secret. I used to do
Speaker 1: so much secret eating because I didn't want people to
Speaker 1: know what was actually going on, because you know, I
Speaker 1: had a brand, I had an ego, I had a reputation,
Speaker 1: and I was craigging the gym owner. And while while
Speaker 1: people were looking, I was doing one thing. I was
Speaker 1: ticking the box. I was meeting their expectations. And then
Speaker 1: when people were looking the other way, I was doing
Speaker 1: bullshit to my body. And I'm not proud of this.
Speaker 1: I don't like actually sharing it with you, but it's true,
Speaker 1: and so I can beat myself up, which I'm not.
Speaker 1: I can just say I did some really dumb shit
Speaker 1: for a really long time to my body. I made
Speaker 1: poor choices, I embraced bad behaviors, I created bad outcomes,
Speaker 1: and it's nobody's fault except me. I'm not beating myself up.
Speaker 1: I'm just owning it. I continuing on this conscious eating conversation,
Speaker 1: I will not look for approval or a round of
Speaker 1: applause or accolades for eating well. One of the things
Speaker 1: that I find hilarious is grown ups, adult humans posting
Speaker 1: a picture of a healthy meal that they're eating so
Speaker 1: that people will tell them how great they are. And
Speaker 1: if you don't think that that's what most people are doing,
Speaker 1: you don't really know what's going on. Because we all
Speaker 1: know what a fucking healthy meal looks like. We don't
Speaker 1: need a picture of your lunch or your breakfast. And
Speaker 1: it's the problem with this is when we constantly need
Speaker 1: approval or accolades or a cheer squad or a pat
Speaker 1: on the back for just doing something which is the
Speaker 1: right thing. Now, we just create a new addiction. Look
Speaker 1: at me, syndrome. Look at me. Look how good I am.
Speaker 1: Look how well I'm eeting. Look how lean I'm getting.
Speaker 1: Look at what I'm doing, Look at my behavior. Look
Speaker 1: how disciplined I am. It's bullshit. You don't need it.
Speaker 1: You maybe wanted, but that's your ego, that's your self doubt,
Speaker 1: that's your insecurity. Trust me when I tell you that. Firstly,
Speaker 1: if people do support you, will give you or compliment
Speaker 1: you cool. You know that's incidental. Great, but don't go
Speaker 1: searching for that. Don't go seeking validation and approval all
Speaker 1: the time, because if you can't function without that, then
Speaker 1: you're always going to revert to that operating system that
Speaker 1: doesn't work. What you do when no one's looking tells
Speaker 1: me who you are. It tells me about whether or
Speaker 1: not you're actually really on the path, really changing. Here's
Speaker 1: another one, conscious eating. I will not continue the stop
Speaker 1: start cycle, on again, off again, good, bad, of healthy
Speaker 1: and unhealthy eating. I will stop getting on and off
Speaker 1: the weight loss roller coaster. I will not binge and
Speaker 1: then eat well. I will not binge and then eat
Speaker 1: well and then eat fucking nothing and then binge again.
Speaker 1: The reason that my first book was all about this
Speaker 1: this stuff I'm talking about is because I realized that
Speaker 1: for me to change my body and keep changed, and
Speaker 1: for me to help other people to change their body fitter, stronger, leaner, lighter, healthier,
Speaker 1: less pain, love blood pressure, better performance, run faster, jump, hire, lift, heavier, whatever,
Speaker 1: whatever the physiological transform transformation was, I knew that that
Speaker 1: was first and foremost about helping people psychologically and emotionally
Speaker 1: get to where they needed to get to create the
Speaker 1: physical change. And it's almost like the physical outcome is
Speaker 1: really just the byproduct of what's happening in emotionally and psychologically.
Speaker 1: And so too with food, getting our food right, getting
Speaker 1: our diet right, getting our nutritional protocol rights, and then
Speaker 1: getting our physiology right. Off the back of that is
Speaker 1: so much about emotions and minds, so much about psychology
Speaker 1: and emotion impacting physiology. When I ate junk, I didn't
Speaker 1: accidentally eat junk, I chose it. Well, that's a mind thing.
Speaker 1: My body's not making decisions. My body's just suffering the
Speaker 1: consequences or dealing with the consequences of my decisions, be
Speaker 1: they good or bad. And when I made when I
Speaker 1: thought better, when I got my mind in the place
Speaker 1: it needed to and my emotions in the place that
Speaker 1: I needed them to be, and then I started to
Speaker 1: self regulate and make better decisions. Then my physiology changed
Speaker 1: for the better. But that was just the byproduct of
Speaker 1: the mind stuff, of the emotion stuff, of the decision
Speaker 1: making stuff. I will not allow my mind or my
Speaker 1: emotions to sabotage my physical potential. I will not use
Speaker 1: food as an escape clause, as an escaping reality door.
Speaker 1: I will not use food as an emotional crutch. I
Speaker 1: will love and be grateful for my body, but I
Speaker 1: will not obsess about it. I will nourish my body
Speaker 1: with high quality nutrition. I will not stuff it with food.
Speaker 1: I will be mindful that my body is where I live,
Speaker 1: not who I am. I will listen to what my
Speaker 1: body is telling me, and I will eat accordingly. And
Speaker 1: I will value my body and it's wisdom more than
Speaker 1: I value my stuff, because I can get more stuff,
Speaker 1: but I can't get a new body. So here's the
Speaker 1: body audit for you. Number one, does it work optimally
Speaker 1: or close to optimally? Two is it healthy or close
Speaker 1: to optimal health? And three if it doesn't really work
Speaker 1: and it's not healthy, then maybe it's time for you
Speaker 1: to step out of the emotion as best you can,
Speaker 1: and to turn up the logic and strategy and the
Speaker 1: accountability and the process, and consider your body, even if
Speaker 1: it's for the next month or two, to get some momentum.
Speaker 1: And your food and your relationship with food, and your protocol,
Speaker 1: your operating system with food moving forward. Consider that as
Speaker 1: a project. Consider that as a key priority for you
Speaker 1: moving forward, because if you have a toxic and or
Speaker 1: unhealthy relationship with food, dude, and you don't address that,
Speaker 1: you don't fix that, you cannot be a person who
Speaker 1: experiences optimal health. And I know you want your version
Speaker 1: of optimal health. See you next time.