Speaker 1: Get everyone Sam here. I'm about to jump on a
Speaker 1: plane and shoot off to New York with my little girl, Eedie,
Speaker 1: which I'm very very excited about. Haven't been overseas, have
Speaker 1: not been overseas since COVID, So there you go. So
Speaker 1: we're off to New York for her to interview and
Speaker 1: tour around two colleges that she is hoping to get into,
Speaker 1: which I'm very excited about. I'm excited about it for
Speaker 1: her and I'm just excited that we get to spend
Speaker 1: a bit of one on one time together which she'll
Speaker 1: be really, really nice. And whether or not I'm having
Speaker 1: a glass of champagne on the flight on the way over,
Speaker 1: we'll probably be determined by how the conversation goes with
Speaker 1: our next guest, which is the wonderful Danny Carr. She
Speaker 1: gave up alcohol five years ago, hasn't had a sip since.
Speaker 1: We're going to find out why. We're going to find
Speaker 1: out what she's doing to help encourage others to do
Speaker 1: the same. It's a wonderful story that's up next on
Speaker 1: the Woodlife. And then make sure you hang around because
Speaker 1: finally we are going to address calorie deficit. What it
Speaker 1: means what you need to understand and does it work?
Speaker 1: That's up next on the Woodlife through to introduce our
Speaker 1: next guest who has actually taken time out of her
Speaker 1: travel schedule. She's traveling with her family around Australia and
Speaker 1: is currently in Broome, so wonderful of her to join us.
Speaker 1: It is Danny Carr, who is a sober coach and
Speaker 1: founder of How I Quit Alcohol. Danny, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining us on the wood Life.
Speaker 2: Hi Sam, thanks for having me so.
Speaker 1: Five years ago, roughly you decided to go sober. Let's
Speaker 1: start there before we sort of get into now what
Speaker 1: you do, let's talk about your own experience. Why did
Speaker 1: you decide to go sober five years ago? I've got
Speaker 1: so many questions about this, both from I'm sure what
Speaker 1: our listeners want to know and from a personal perspective.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, basically it We've just been decades of binge
Speaker 2: drinking like and not all the time, like you know,
Speaker 2: going sometimes a month or two without drinking, and then
Speaker 2: thinking Okay, I've got this, and then just getting absolutely
Speaker 2: hammered and just like what the hell happened last night?
Speaker 2: Waking up with those terrible hangovers and just not remembering
Speaker 2: what had gone down the night before, or my husband
Speaker 2: not having some massive blowout like an argument from the
Speaker 2: night before and not really remembering what that was about.
Speaker 2: But then also starting like our kids starting to notice,
Speaker 2: particularly our eldest, so she was sort of noticing drunk
Speaker 2: behavior and just thinking, this is not what I want
Speaker 2: for them. But then it was it's so not only
Speaker 2: in our culture, but also my husband's in the music industry.
Speaker 2: We've been in the music industry for a long time.
Speaker 2: It's just what's expected of you. It's just everywhere, and
Speaker 2: growing up in the country, just from a young age,
Speaker 2: it's just what we did every single weekend. But then
Speaker 2: as we were getting older, it was becoming more and
Speaker 2: more frequent. So my husband get home from tour on
Speaker 2: a Tuesday, and then we'd have a huge blowout that night,
Speaker 2: and then he goes off on tour and has a
Speaker 2: blowout that weekend. It was just becoming more and more common,
Speaker 2: and the blackouts were kind of getting longer and longer,
Speaker 2: and it was just realized, this isn't getting any better,
Speaker 2: you know, and so we decided to a friend of mine,
Speaker 2: let's take a year off the booze together. Like I
Speaker 2: was going to do it. Then asked my husband Ash,
Speaker 2: did you know do you want to do this too?
Speaker 2: And he said yes, And then we asked our friends Scott. Well,
Speaker 2: we told Scott about it, his bass player from the
Speaker 2: Living End. He's like, yep, I mean it. Said right,
Speaker 2: let's say let's do this for one year and see
Speaker 2: how I feel at the end of it.
Speaker 1: Do you still feel like a drink? Now?
Speaker 2: It's so funny because not really, like, very very rarely,
Speaker 2: but when Ash and I pulled up in broom, we're
Speaker 2: going to the seafood restaurant and we're about to and
Speaker 2: the sun and I just said to Ash, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I just had this sort of craving just for a
Speaker 2: second for white wine. Oh that's interesting, and he's yeah.
Speaker 2: Then like it passed pretty quickly, but it was interesting
Speaker 2: that that just just showed up, just this little flicker
Speaker 2: that came that came into my mind for a moment.
Speaker 2: But not very often. Okay, so not very often at all. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I guess the thing that I notice is the huge
Speaker 1: variance in people's attitude towards alcohol. Some people, if I
Speaker 1: said to them, you've got to have a year off alcohol, Yeah,
Speaker 1: no worries to me, that's fine. Other people like they
Speaker 1: fall over and say, you are kidding. Some people, if
Speaker 1: I said to them, you're going to have three alcohol
Speaker 1: free days a week would be like, I can't. I
Speaker 1: had seven months off when Sneez was pregnant with our
Speaker 1: third little girl, little Charlie, and I found the first
Speaker 1: month hard, and it definitely got easier afterwards. You know,
Speaker 1: we've got dry July about to start. Let's start there.
Speaker 1: Do you think doing it for one month is a
Speaker 1: good starting point or do you think people should make
Speaker 1: a bigger commitment.
Speaker 2: Well, personally and just from experience and working with people now,
Speaker 2: I find that the one month is good. I think
Speaker 2: any time off it is great. After the one month,
Speaker 2: I think that's when you kind of dopamine levels kind
Speaker 2: of level out, and you kind of get into a
Speaker 2: bit more of a I don't know, your body starts
Speaker 2: to get back into its own rhythm. You know, you
Speaker 2: start to sleep better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you think that can take a month, Danny, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Reckon it takes about a month twenty one days two
Speaker 2: a month.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's really interesting because and I just said
Speaker 1: after a month that got easier. But for me, I
Speaker 1: never put that down to a physiological reason. I think
Speaker 1: I just and I don't know, maybe I'm just getting
Speaker 1: better at managing it and catching up with people in
Speaker 1: non alcoholic settings. I don't know. That's really interesting that
Speaker 1: there's actually a physiological reason that it does get easier
Speaker 1: after that sort of twenty one to thirty days. I
Speaker 1: think that's important that people know that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a great book called Dopamine Nation by doctor
Speaker 2: Anna Leemke, and that's a great book to look into
Speaker 2: because she explains how the dopamine levels out after the
Speaker 2: twenty one days, usually twenty one days to a month.
Speaker 2: Then after that it's really good to start looking at
Speaker 2: the behaviors that drive our drinking. So perhaps after that time,
Speaker 2: if you really want to get into the needy gritties
Speaker 2: of it, maybe give it another month after that to
Speaker 2: go Okay, now I'm starting to feel a bit more
Speaker 2: normal now. What So if I give it another month
Speaker 2: after that, I start to notice what do I need it? Like,
Speaker 2: what's making me need the alcohol, and looking at what
Speaker 2: drives us to drink in the first place. So for me,
Speaker 2: I realized after some time, I'm so uncomfortable, I'm socially
Speaker 2: really awkward, and I'm really uncomfortable in a group setting.
Speaker 2: And I noticed that was what was triggering me to
Speaker 2: drink and was probably what was causing me to have
Speaker 2: big blackouts because it was guzzling because I felt so uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: And once I realized that I was able to kind
Speaker 2: of work with that a bit, and now now I'm
Speaker 2: pretty good socially. I must say I don't love it.
Speaker 2: I don't love being in a big group, but I
Speaker 2: can see why that drove my drinking. So one thing
Speaker 2: I find that when we take out the alcohol, we
Speaker 2: start to understand our own behaviors a whole lot better
Speaker 2: and we start to see what's, yeah, what's causing this,
Speaker 2: because sometimes we're leaning on alcohol without even realizing why
Speaker 2: what we want from it. One question I always asked
Speaker 2: when I work with people is why, like, what does
Speaker 2: it do for you? What's right about it? And so
Speaker 2: I just find you can do the month off and
Speaker 2: that's all good, but if you want to kind of
Speaker 2: understand it a bit more, give it another four weeks
Speaker 2: after that or another few weeks after that. Let's see
Speaker 2: how you feel and to see what comes up for
Speaker 2: you and see what you can learn about yourself. The
Speaker 2: twelve months that we took off from alcohol was probably
Speaker 2: one of the greatest year in terms of learning about
Speaker 2: ourselves and our own behaviors, both Ash and myself and
Speaker 2: the others in the group that's stuck stuck with it.
Speaker 2: I think it's I think give it a bit longer,
Speaker 2: I'd say a yeah, Like I always, I think a
Speaker 2: year is just amazing. One hundred days or a year,
Speaker 2: you know, like, get give it a bit more time, okay,
Speaker 2: and then you get some real benefits out of it.
Speaker 1: And so what are the main benefits? I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I have a pretty good handle. But for our
Speaker 1: listeners that are perhaps focusing on what they like about alcohol,
Speaker 1: do you want to paint them a bit of a
Speaker 1: wonderful positive picture to what they've got to look forward
Speaker 1: to if they have one hundred days off or a
Speaker 1: year off.
Speaker 2: Look for us, I could go on for hours. Probably
Speaker 2: the first and foremost thing is the way I found
Speaker 2: about myself because I was waking up all the time,
Speaker 2: like hating myself and having this dialect with myself all
Speaker 2: the time though you've done it again or that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. So not waking up burating myself, you know,
Speaker 2: most weekend and then that would also it would last
Speaker 2: for like a few days afterwards as well. So that
Speaker 2: kind of negative conversation I was having with myself stopped.
Speaker 2: So the relationship with myself changed.
Speaker 1: And let's not underestimate the power of that. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's huge. That's not a little thing. That is massive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Sam, that's like life changing. It's like if you
Speaker 2: start to like yourself hating yourself, it changes everything. You
Speaker 2: treat yourself so much better. You not just what you're eating,
Speaker 2: but the conversations, the quality of your relationships, everything changes.
Speaker 2: That was one of the greatest gifts our relationship. Oh
Speaker 2: my god. We went from borderline we're about to break
Speaker 2: up here, I'm on real estate dot com, you know,
Speaker 2: after every big binge, yeah, looking for Arendall, to this
Speaker 2: relationship completely changed by our relationship. It's just so oh god,
Speaker 2: I can't even begin, you know, and then I get.
Speaker 2: And then also just on a product activity level, like
Speaker 2: our productivity went through the roof. Everything improved, I can't
Speaker 2: even And then just most importantly, there was probably the
Speaker 2: mental health stuff just improved. I was having a lot
Speaker 2: of anxiety. The anxiety stopped completely, and that was just
Speaker 2: cutting out the alcohol alone, all the other stuff I did afterwards,
Speaker 2: So just endless energy levels just amazing and sleep, Like,
Speaker 2: the sleep improves so much and it's not a day
Speaker 2: I regret not drinking. And I was a pretty big
Speaker 2: party girl. Yeah, that was definitely my identity.
Speaker 1: When you do drink, there's all of that. It triggers
Speaker 1: all of these other negative behaviors that we don't necessarily
Speaker 1: think of as drinking induced, but when we trace it back,
Speaker 1: that's where they sort of start, whether it's poor influence
Speaker 1: on your children, or bad relationships or taking drugs or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know. And then when you don't all this time
Speaker 1: to exercise and I'm all of a sudden, I'm caring
Speaker 1: more about what I eat and I'm writing a book
Speaker 1: or you know, my career has taken off or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just amazing how it either shuts down
Speaker 1: these opportunities or opens them up. And I just think
Speaker 1: you shouldn't underestimate the power of that. What happened, if anything,
Speaker 1: with the relationship with your kids when you stopped, And
Speaker 1: also just while I remember it, how powerful was it
Speaker 1: that you and your husband did it together rather than
Speaker 1: trying to do it on your own.
Speaker 2: Yeah, such good questions, both of them. Well, firstly, the
Speaker 2: relationship with the kids. The biggest night that I had
Speaker 2: before I quit, and I this night was I think
Speaker 2: it might have happened in September, and I didn't quit
Speaker 2: until the January, so it happened a bit before. But
Speaker 2: I had this huge binge and it was mean to
Speaker 2: be looking after my friend's kids and I ended up
Speaker 2: the parents of those kids end up having to come
Speaker 2: and look after me. I got so drunk and so embarrassing,
Speaker 2: and my daughter had to hold back my hair while
Speaker 2: I was vomiting, and it was awful, and I just,
Speaker 2: you know, and I told her, you know, I must
Speaker 2: have had something bad to eat. And I woke up
Speaker 2: later that night just so full of shame and just
Speaker 2: thinking this is so bad, like for my daughter to see.
Speaker 2: I can't laugh this off anymore. And now that she's
Speaker 2: involved and she's sort of seeing this, I know. So
Speaker 2: I grew up in an addicted parent, and I can
Speaker 2: really clearly remember not having that trust, not feeling safe
Speaker 2: enough sometimes when you know if mum was really under
Speaker 2: the influence of the drugs or the booze or the both.
Speaker 2: And I just thought then I don't ever want my
Speaker 2: kids to feel like that, to feel not safe around me,
Speaker 2: And it's you know, I want them to be able
Speaker 2: to depend on me. So that was one of the
Speaker 2: biggest drivers obviously. But I remember her saying to me
Speaker 2: at the end of the year, you're not going to
Speaker 2: start drinking? Can I year?
Speaker 1: And I was like, wow, that's powerful. Wow.
Speaker 2: I just knew that she felt safer from me not
Speaker 2: drinking and for actional drinking.
Speaker 1: So that came from her. That was not that wasn't
Speaker 1: an answer to her question or that just she initiated that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she initiated that.
Speaker 1: And how old was she when she did that, Danny?
Speaker 2: She was probably nine.
Speaker 1: Wow. Wow's that's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it did for us too, were like, oh god,
Speaker 2: and I think Sam as well. And this also goes
Speaker 2: into your next question because our relationship had improved so
Speaker 2: much because you think the kids are in better sleep
Speaker 2: when you're having this big argument, you know they're probably not.
Speaker 2: They're probably hearing it, or they're sensing the aftermath of it,
Speaker 2: perhaps even the next day, the change and energy. So
Speaker 2: not having that as well for a year because our
Speaker 2: relationships started to improve so much and it's not like
Speaker 2: we're fighting all the time. We had a pretty good relationship.
Speaker 2: And also just going back to that, it's not like
Speaker 2: we were drinking every day either. So the kids are
Speaker 2: getting you one way one minute and then they're seeing
Speaker 2: you the next way.
Speaker 1: Yeah another minute, No consistency.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so yeah, where's the consistency there? So then
Speaker 2: I think doing the quitting together and not everyone gets
Speaker 2: this either, So I'm so grateful. I've got to say that,
Speaker 2: because I know there's so many people that they're trying
Speaker 2: to do it and their partner doesn't want to do it,
Speaker 2: and there's this kind of incongruency there within the relationship.
Speaker 2: But to do it together was amazing, and because we
Speaker 2: went on this kind of soul journey a bit together,
Speaker 2: Like we started reading Wayne Dyer books and getting into
Speaker 2: I don't know, just positive affirmation stuff, which Ash would
Speaker 2: have thought so we were before, and a gratitude journal together. Well,
Speaker 2: I could write our gratitudes and talk about what we're
Speaker 2: grateful for, and yoga and all this stuff that we
Speaker 2: started to do together, and he was getting to whim
Speaker 2: off and I don't know, we just had different things
Speaker 2: to talk about now and it was all positive, and
Speaker 2: so that effect on your relationship, it's got to have
Speaker 2: a good effect, you know, And so it always was.
Speaker 2: I always thought too, I wanted, you know, we're thinking
Speaker 2: about breaking, which is so sad because we've got such
Speaker 2: a relationship. Alcohol is the only thing that caused us
Speaker 2: to fight. And then I thought, I'll see how I
Speaker 2: feel at the end of this, at the end of
Speaker 2: this year, I'll decide if we're going to stay in
Speaker 2: this relationship or not. And thank god, you know, at
Speaker 2: the end, it was like cool. I was like, this
Speaker 2: is my best friend, I love this person. But it
Speaker 2: strengthened our relationships so much. And yeah, I think doing
Speaker 2: it together really really helps. But also I know that
Speaker 2: that's not a possibility for everyone.
Speaker 1: There will be so many people listening to this. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that know that this is them, or at least
Speaker 1: part of what they're saying is what they're living, and
Speaker 1: they haven't had the courage to talk about it, or
Speaker 1: perhaps even the courage to admit it, you know, even
Speaker 1: to themselves. I guess my my challenge to our listeners
Speaker 1: is I think sometimes we you know, we always say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: but that person actually has a drinking problem. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't like we always like to play down our
Speaker 1: own circumstance and deflect to others or look at extreme
Speaker 1: kind of consequences that might not be relevant to us.
Speaker 1: What I don't want is our listeners to be going, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, that's applaud Danny, and it's incredible what they did.
Speaker 1: But I have much better control than that when I drink,
Speaker 1: you know whatever, And I just don't want our listeners
Speaker 1: to go, Yeah, those particular things that we your lowest
Speaker 1: points aren't relevant to me, and therefore I don't need
Speaker 1: to seriously consider this. I mean, what's your advice to
Speaker 1: people you know are sitting there telling themselves this is
Speaker 1: not actually as big a problem for me as it
Speaker 1: was for Danny, and therefore I'll just continue on my way, Like,
Speaker 1: how do you convince those people or how do those
Speaker 1: people perhaps identify the other areas in their life in
Speaker 1: which it is negatively impacting them. That's a hard question
Speaker 1: to answer, But you don't want to have to get
Speaker 1: to rock bottom before you do something about it. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's probably part of you that thinks I wish I'd
Speaker 1: done this earlier.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and Ash and I've had this conversation so many times,
Speaker 2: so you'd be like, oh God, I wish I'd have
Speaker 2: done this sooner, because I didn't realize how good it
Speaker 2: was going to be or how productive I was going
Speaker 2: to be because of it. In saying that, you know
Speaker 2: that night that that was a pretty rock bottom moment
Speaker 2: for me. For some people, that's not even anywhere near
Speaker 2: their rock bottom. Sure of other people, that's like, well,
Speaker 2: that's the worst thing that could possibly happen. But that
Speaker 2: was a one off. There was plenty of nights I
Speaker 2: would just drink too much and maybe ring someone and
Speaker 2: not quite remember the conversation, or overshare a bit too much,
Speaker 2: or you know, it's pokemon nose in where it wasn't wanted.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just getting to be too involved. You know,
Speaker 2: those kind of things where you wake up and you
Speaker 2: feel it a little bit cringey the next day. And
Speaker 2: I was always just waking up feeling a bit cringy
Speaker 2: and not liking that. I just didn't feel good about
Speaker 2: myself after I drunk. So I think it's the only
Speaker 2: I couldn't give advice other than gauge how you feel
Speaker 2: about yourself afterwards. So if you're waking up and you're
Speaker 2: feeling a bit like, oh, that's not good or I
Speaker 2: didn't like I don't like how I feel about myself today.
Speaker 2: After that, then that's a good indicator that something's up.
Speaker 2: Now if you keep waking up and feeling like that
Speaker 2: on a regular basis, where you feel like just not
Speaker 2: at your full potential, or you're feeling ashamed of yourself,
Speaker 2: or you're feeling embarrassed, you know, that's yourself telling you something.
Speaker 1: That should be enough. Yeah, yeah, identify those feelings and
Speaker 1: don't and don't ignore them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Sam, I'd also say too, if it's not
Speaker 2: a problem, it's not a problem. So for some people
Speaker 2: they can enjoy the b or two rewind or two,
Speaker 2: and if it's not affecting them at all, and if
Speaker 2: they can be honest enough to say no, it's actually
Speaker 2: not affecting me, and there's plenty of people like that,
Speaker 2: then it's not a problem. It's for those people that
Speaker 2: wake up feeling like, nah, this isn't me or I
Speaker 2: don't this is not sitting well with me, I'm not
Speaker 2: enjoying this, or I don't feel good about myself. They're
Speaker 2: the people I'd say, yeah, like, have a look at
Speaker 2: it okay.
Speaker 1: So with your business, Danny, How I Quit Alcohol? Is
Speaker 1: there a certain type of person that comes to see you,
Speaker 1: or it's really anyone.
Speaker 2: There's really all sorts of people. I've worked with people
Speaker 2: that you don't believe this, that have had like they
Speaker 2: just have a couple of light beers on the weekend,
Speaker 2: but they can't stop. And I've had people that drink
Speaker 2: every day and they're serious heavy drinkers as well. I'd
Speaker 2: sort of see all sorts and everything in between. I
Speaker 2: guess for anyone just wanting to change, to change some
Speaker 2: behaviors that aren't suiting them anymore if they can't kind
Speaker 2: of quite break that. The other thing is too you
Speaker 2: don't even like it's great to see a coach and
Speaker 2: to get involved with someone, say like meet it with
Speaker 2: some guidance. But there's so much great free material out
Speaker 2: there as well. Like I've got my podcast How I
Speaker 2: Quit Alcohol. People contact me every day and say I
Speaker 2: quit just listening to that. Sometimes that's enough for people.
Speaker 2: There's so much information out there now that I think
Speaker 2: people you know you can you can also do it
Speaker 2: on your own, you know, if you can't afford the
Speaker 2: support or you know, if that's not accessible to you.
Speaker 2: You know, there's lots of ways in which you can
Speaker 2: get help.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really nice, honest message for people
Speaker 1: to hear of. I've loved chatting with you, Danny. I
Speaker 1: love your honesty, I love your story. I love what
Speaker 1: you're doing to help encourage others to do the same.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that you and asked it together
Speaker 1: is just phenomenal and really appreciate it. Danny talk again.
Speaker 2: Awesome, Thanks so much, and thanks for having me Sam.
Speaker 2: It's always great to have these conversations.
Speaker 1: Oh Danny, what a refreshingly raw, honest chat. And I
Speaker 1: just I just hope that our listeners like I am
Speaker 1: feeling now are going you know, I appreciate the vulnerability,
Speaker 1: I appreciate the honesty, and I need to show myself
Speaker 1: that same honesty. You know, I need to look at
Speaker 1: myself in the mirror and I need to actually be
Speaker 1: as honest with myself, which is hard. As Danny was
Speaker 1: with us just then, that was fantastic. Next up, we're
Speaker 1: going to tackle a question that if it hadn't come
Speaker 1: in from one of our WOODLFE listeners, I was going
Speaker 1: to talk about it anyway, because it is something I've
Speaker 1: been wanting to talk about for a little while and
Speaker 1: it needs to be addressed. All right, So this question
Speaker 1: is about calorie deficit, which I'll explain to you exactly
Speaker 1: what that means in a second. And it has come
Speaker 1: through from Ali. Hey, Sam, how true is it that
Speaker 1: you need to be in a calorie defishit to lose weight?
Speaker 2: I know weight loss depends on genetics and muscle mass,
Speaker 2: but just generally speaking.
Speaker 1: So Alie, this is such a great question because it's everywhere.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of influencers out there that are drilling
Speaker 1: home the point that with all of the noise out
Speaker 1: there around losing weight, none of it if you're not
Speaker 1: in a calorie deficit. Now, for those that don't know
Speaker 1: what a calorie deficit is, is you are burning more calories
Speaker 1: than you are putting in your mouth than you are
Speaker 1: consuming on a daily basis or a weekly basis. So
Speaker 1: if you are in a deficit, you lose weight, if
Speaker 1: you are in a surplus, you gain weight, and if
Speaker 1: you are neutral, you stay the same. Now it is
Speaker 1: scientifically a fact. So to answer your question, is it
Speaker 1: true that you need to be in a calorie deficit
Speaker 1: to lose weight without all these other factors around, you know,
Speaker 1: genetics and muscle mass. Yes, it is categorically true. So
Speaker 1: it's absolutely true, and anyone out there that is trying
Speaker 1: to lose weight, you need to be in a calorie deficit.
Speaker 1: Maybe not every single day, but across the course of
Speaker 1: a week, you need to have burnt off more calories
Speaker 1: than you consume. But there's a few really important bits
Speaker 1: to add that give it complete context, which I often
Speaker 1: think are not explained because someone's just trying to sell
Speaker 1: you some calorie deficit thing, or they're sort of left
Speaker 1: out deliberately and people get really confused. There's two that
Speaker 1: are absolutely paramount that you understand before you dive into
Speaker 1: calorie deficit world. The first is we burn most of
Speaker 1: our calories when we're not exercising, which I know sounds weird,
Speaker 1: but your exercise session will help, but it's not how
Speaker 1: you burn the most calories. So I'm a big guy,
Speaker 1: I'm one hundred kilos and I've got a fair bit
Speaker 1: of muscle, no tickets on myself, but I train in
Speaker 1: the gym a lot and have done for twenty years,
Speaker 1: and therefore I typically burn a lot of calories because
Speaker 1: I'm a big guy getting myself around. So for me,
Speaker 1: my neutral point might be two and a half thousand
Speaker 1: calories a day, whereas if I'm a sixty kilo person
Speaker 1: who doesn't have that much muscle'll be twelve hundred calories.
Speaker 1: So that's sort of your starting point. So you need
Speaker 1: to have a rough idea of how many calories at
Speaker 1: rest someone of your age, size and gender will burn
Speaker 1: because that's your starting position. Then you know that if
Speaker 1: you eat that exact same amount of calories, because you
Speaker 1: can get things like calorie counters, then you go, okay,
Speaker 1: if I consume that exact amount that I'm burning off
Speaker 1: at rest, that's how I break even. And then my
Speaker 1: exercise session puts me into the deficit. So then my
Speaker 1: walk or my jog, or my hit training session or
Speaker 1: my boxing session where I burn four hundred calories in
Speaker 1: an hour puts me in a deficit, and that's how
Speaker 1: you sort of do the math. But most of the
Speaker 1: calories that we burn is just either in our day
Speaker 1: to day activities, depending on the person that we are with,
Speaker 1: the metabolism that we have based on muscle mass and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. So it's really important that
Speaker 1: you understand, you can jump online and you can at
Speaker 1: put your details in. I am this active, I have
Speaker 1: this much muscle, I am this heavy, and I am
Speaker 1: male or female or other, and I way I go.
Speaker 1: But you quickly then learn the more muscle mass you have,
Speaker 1: the more calories at rest you burn. And that's why
Speaker 1: weight training is so damn good for you. That's a
Speaker 1: little side note. The second gripe that I have, because
Speaker 1: I often think it's misconstrued, is when we're looking to
Speaker 1: be in a calorie deficit, we tend to throw out
Speaker 1: the window our concern for the nutritional value of the food.
Speaker 1: Like I'm just going to live on diet coke and
Speaker 1: sugar free lollies and I'm going to only consume twelve
Speaker 1: hundred calories a day, but that's all I eat, all
Speaker 1: dim I'm being extremist to prove my point, But people
Speaker 1: lose their mind. I know there's a lot of confusing
Speaker 1: marketing stuff out there, low cow, low sugar, low this,
Speaker 1: high that, but you still need to put as much
Speaker 1: value on how nutritionally good that food is for you,
Speaker 1: and the calories don't get caught up when there's people
Speaker 1: out there going you're better off having a diet coke
Speaker 1: than a handful of almonds. Oh look how many calories
Speaker 1: are in almonds? And look how there's no color. You know,
Speaker 1: it's total garbage. You're just filling yourself with you know,
Speaker 1: sugar free this and chemicals and there's no benefit. You know,
Speaker 1: there's no calories in water. Drink water, don't you know.
Speaker 1: Don't don't get caught up in these no calorie things
Speaker 1: that don't actually give you any nutritional value, and don't
Speaker 1: demonize foods that are really good for you because of
Speaker 1: how slightly hiring calories. That's really important. You need to
Speaker 1: work out how many calories you need to consume to
Speaker 1: either be in a surplus neutral or a deficit, and
Speaker 1: then you need to find those calories from real food.
Speaker 1: I can't stress that enough. If you tick that, then
Speaker 1: you can't lose. If you add the weight training, then
Speaker 1: you're going to bloody win. And that is all I've
Speaker 1: got to say on calorie deficite. If you are a
Speaker 1: legend like Alie and you have a question that brilliant,
Speaker 1: please shoot us a question. There's a link in the
Speaker 1: show notes. We'd love to hear from you, and just
Speaker 1: on a little finishing note. If you are thinking about
Speaker 1: maybe you need to drink a bit less alcohol, do
Speaker 1: drive yourly. I'm doing it, I'm on board with you.
Speaker 1: We'd love to see you doing it as well. And
Speaker 1: I have to listen to Danny. We might just do
Speaker 1: two months, but let's start with drive July. It's a
Speaker 1: wonderful initiative for a wonderful cause, and it's a great
Speaker 1: place to start for any of us that are perhaps
Speaker 1: thinking there maybe consumeing too much alcohol until next week.
Speaker 1: I'll see them bye.