Ep 24 🌈 Why aren't you gaining weight?

Although the Spanish cops are quite hot,

so maybe we should have got arrested. [laughter]

Welcome to The Outlifting Lounge, the weekly show serving queer conversation,

news, and no-nonsense fitness for gay, bi, and trans guys.

I'm Alan.

And I'm his husband, Derec.

Coming up on today's show, we'll be talking about Maspalomas

Pride, Hamish the Highland Cow, talking about some really

serious news affecting the LGBTQ scene in the UK.

And in the fitness section, we'll discuss how guys who maybe have

struggled putting on weight in the past can absolutely smash it.

Let's go.

Let's start off the show like we did last week.

It was all about the London Marathon, and I think we

should follow up to say congratulations to Stuart and Michael.

Yes, they absolutely smashed it last Sunday.

Stuart got a PB, and Michael completed his first marathon in

under the time that he wanted to complete it in.

And I spoke to them both on Monday at their check-ins, and

Michael said he will never do a marathon again in his life.

Yeah. I said that too after my first marathon.

And to be fair, Michael got a better time than I did in my first marathon.

I think he did really well.

He smashed it.

I mean, he told me that he couldn't walk for days, so

I think that's him definitely decided he's not doing another one.

And Stuart got a couple of minutes under his PB, which is brilliant.

He's part of Glasgow Frontrunners and runs quite often,

so he was really, really gunning for it.

And he smashed it.

He really did.

They put me to shame because the only running that I'm doing at the

minute is running about the terrace in the bar that I work in.

Yes.

You are putting that Terrace Tart title to good use.

Oh, that was alliteration.

I love a bit of alliteration.

Yeah.

So, I have been run off my feet.

The crowd has started to arrive here in

Maspalomas in Gran Canaria ahead of Pride.

Yes. The number of homosexuals I am seeing walking the streets

of Maspalomas and Playa del Inglés is tenfold now.

And, I mean, it is quite a gay town anyway, but, yeah, they are arriving.

Yes. They're arriving in droves and they're drinking quite a lot.

So, yeah, I've been very busy.

But the buzz is really good.

We like this time of year when everything becomes a lot more homosexual.

Yeah, it's good.

There's such a nice buzz about the

place because, obviously, Pride starts tomorrow.

It is the 25th anniversary.

And I was here, I think, for, it must have been the second or third Pride.

That's when I lived here for the first

time, many, many, many, many moons ago.

So, it's crazy to think it's been going for 25 years.

She old!

You've been going a long time, and so has the star guest performer.

Nadine Coyle.

Yes, she's performing on the Sunday night.

It's a shame that you're working, but you'll get to see her

because, obviously, Copacabana is down on the main square, so you'll at

least hear her even if you don't get to actually enjoy it properly.

Absolutely.

Do you know, my favourite thing...

I don't know if I mentioned this in the podcast before,

but if you go on to the Maspalomas Pride website,

they have got artist bios of everybody who is performing.

And in Nadine Coyle's, I think they've maybe just ripped it off

from Wikipedia, but it starts off with her date of birth.

Shade!

You need to put in the rattlesnake sound effect here.

Rooko-cooko.

Yeah, they start off with her date of birth

on it, which I thought was just so funny.

And at first I thought they'd put that on as a little jokey reference,

but no, I think it's just because they copied and pasted it from Wikipedia.

Yeah, that's quite good, actually.

And as well as Nadine Coyle, we also

have Matt Terry performing, and also Agoney.

Yes, Matt Terry is really, really good.

He has continued to have a pop career after X Factor, one of

the few, and since X Factor he has come out as well.

So he is some queer representation, as is Agoney.

Now, many people, if not all of the listeners, might not know who

Agoney is, but he is a really big pop artist in Spain.

He's from the Canary Islands, and he's queer as well, and

a lot of the music and videos he makes are very

out there and very openly queer, which is brilliant.

Yeah, he's a good artist, so again, we're not really going

to get to see him, unfortunately, because you're working loads.

But yeah, there's going to be a great atmosphere around the Yumbo.

Well, we're obviously very upbeat and excited for it today, which is

the day before Pride starts, so tune in next week to see

how upbeat and happy we are after a week of Pride.

Well, you'll be fine, because your dad's arriving

tonight, and he will basically take the dog.

Yes.

And you will not have any dog duties for all

over Pride, whereas I will be working every day.

But I've got care of responsibilities for you, because you're

going to be so done in from working so much.

Right, do you hear that?

Alan basically just agreed to give me a

foot rub every single day over Pride.

You need to get your hearing tested, that's how

old you are, that's not what I said.

- That's what I heard. - No!

So what are your caring responsibilities for me, if not rubbing my feet?

Keeping you fed and watered and sane.

Yeah, that's just basic human rights.

And updating you on all the new arrivals on Scruff and Grindr.

Oh, for God's sake, here we go.

Secretary Alan doing his duties.

Yes.

I'm the date maker.

Pretty sure you could squeeze in a couple of little foot rubs.

Okay, I'll give you one or two.

There we go.

Right.

Do you know what?

Anybody who wanted to go to Maspalomas Pride but isn't

going is probably pretty sickened by our conversation right now.

To be fair, they're not missing much.

Like, Maspalomas Pride is good in summer,

but the better one is Winter Pride.

So we'll talk more about that come October-November time when it's here.

Definitely.

I like both of the Prides, but Winter Pride has always been my favourite.

It's just, I don't know, there's just something about it.

I think it's not as crowded, a bit more of a

mixed crowd, and I like the events a bit more.

Plus, it's at a really good time of year, just as

things are getting really cold in other parts of the world.

We're still rocking with the sunshine.

Yeah.

So if you're listening and you're undecided which Pride

is best for you, we would recommend Winter Pride.

So obviously we have Pride here in May, which kind of kicks

off the Pride season, even though Pride Month actually starts in June,

officially.

And we have found an article about Next, who are donating quite a

lot of the money from their products to the Terence Higgins Trust.

Yeah, so they have brought out a limited edition Hamish the Highland Cow.

Try saying that fast three times!

Hamish the Highland Cow!

Three times... [laughter]

- No, I could only manage once. - Exactly.

So they have got Hamish the Highland Cow doorstop.

Very, very cute, by the way.

It's very cute with its little rainbow jumper on.

Yeah, and 100% of the profits from that are

going to go to the Terence Higgins Trust.

Which is amazing.

It is amazing, and I think, especially in today's climate, when we

have seen so much rollback and so many big corporations pull away

from LGBT organisations and issues, next are pinning their colours to the

mast and saying, no, we're going to keep supporting.

Yep, it's amazing, and also the charity donation also extends

to Next's wider Be You Pride range, with all profits from

the collection going to the Terence Higgins Trust.

Yeah, so big up Next for continuing to support us and such a worthy cause.

That is some really good news, some not so good news this

week that I think we are all talking about, but perhaps the

mainstream media has not given anywhere near as much coverage to as

it really ought to have, was the LGBTQ club in Milton Keynes,

the Pink Punters, which basically burned to the ground.

This, we've seen it on our social media feeds because of

the certain accounts that we follow, but the mainstream media haven't

been covering this for some reason, which is really, really disappointing.

We definitely need to give a big shout

out to the staff of the Pink Punters.

Because of their quick action, there were no

injuries reported either, so well done to them.

It could have been a completely different story.

It's really unfortunate that this incident in

particular has had such a devastating impact.

All of these people who now have no job, people in the

community who have lost their safe space, it really is absolutely devastating.

Yeah, absolutely.

So unfortunately, that's some troubling and some

sad news from the LGBTQ community.

However, we have another story, and Derec mentioned that he worked at

nightclubs, so Derec is from Belfast, in case anybody doesn't know.

And this is a story from a bar that you used to work in in Belfast?

Yes, so I used to work here many moons ago.

I think we're going back almost two decades.

- But, you know... - She's not the only one that's old.

She old!

This headline really tickled me.

I think that there are aspects to this story that obviously are a

bit more serious, and we're not laughing at all of it, but I

think the reporting definitely, there are aspects of it that are very comical.

So the headline is, Man Jailed After Breaking Into Belfast LGBTQ

Plus Venue and Spending Hours Trying On Drag Queen Outfits.

Love it.

Absolutely love it.

Yeah, so this guy basically was intoxicated.

He entered the bar through an unlocked door, found his way to the

drag storeroom, dressing room, whatever way you want to call it, and spent

several hours in there dressing up in the clothes of the drag queens.

Now, I think the funniest thing about the article is it actually

describes what he was wearing, and all the time I was reading

it, I was like, that disnae go, why are you wearing that?

I'm just going to read out some quotes from this.

A public prosecution service lawyer told the court that the defendant initially wore

a white fluffy coat, pink boots, and a long wig, before changing into

a beige catsuit, and later a blue bodysuit with a blonde wig.

He was eventually discovered back in the dressing room by one of the

drag performers, wearing a black catsuit, pink fluffy top, and red wig.

She needs some gay pals.

Because we would never let you go out dressed like that.

Oh my goodness.

First of all, I mean, the drag performer that found him must have got

some shock, so I don't want to downplay what they went through that afternoon.

No, absolutely not.

I mean, like, someone coming into your safe space again, you know,

trying on your own clothes and things like that, it's pretty bad.

I mean, the guy has caused over £1,000 worth of damage, and

also it said that, you know, the clothes ended up smelling badly.

So it's pretty shocking for the people involved in it.

However, I think something that's even more shocking is this

guy was jailed for seven months, which is unbelievable.

I think that's a pretty harsh sentence for what he's actually done.

Yeah, it seems like it's a very disproportionate sentence for what it was,

but perhaps the reporting on this issue isn't giving all of the details.

Maybe there's stuff that we don't know.

But yeah, definitely seems very funny for somebody to break in and

just spend hours and hours and hours trying on drag queen outfits.

This actually reminds me of the time when I worked in Ricky's drag bar in

the Yumbo, back in the early 2000s when I was in my early 20s.

This is back when Ricky's was only probably a few months old in terms of

it being open, and Ricky the drag queen used to actually still work there.

So at the end of the night, we would all sit around

the bar, have a few drinks, and everybody had left apart from

one of the owners of the bar who we called Big Gail.

And then there was another girl who worked there called

Gail, we used to call her Little G, Little Gail.

And the three of us got so drunk that we decided to

go into the dressing room and start trying on the wigs.

Ricky was away on holiday, and obviously the wigs sat on these foam heads.

So we took them off the foam heads, we were sitting around the bar.

I think I had a Lily Savage wig on, some of them

was Tina Turner, and then I think someone was like Shirley Bassey.

And we sat there for hours with these wigs on, just having drinks.

So obviously by the end of it, we were very drunk.

So we tried to put the wigs back on the foam heads again,

thinking that we were put in the same place as they were before.

And unfortunately they weren't.

And when Ricky came back from holiday, he lost his fucking shit.

Because he obviously knew people had been trying on his

wigs, and he was blaming the other drag queens.

And the three of us just stayed quiet, which was quite funny.

There you go.

It all comes out eventually.

Two points that I would like to make from your anecdote.

Yes.

Number one, it's very funny to hear

a Scottish person pronounce Shirley Bassey.

Shirley Bassey?

Why?

Second point, can't believe that you didn't take any photographs on your

little, like, what would have been back then, disposable Kodak cameras that

you had to bring to the chemist to get developed.

Errr errr errr. That was me winding it on.

Is that what that noise was?

No, I think we had actual digital cameras.

No, we did have digital cameras back then.

I remember having a Sony...

One megapixel.

Something or other.

Yeah, definitely didn't have phones with cameras on them anyway.

Thank God!

It was probably a Nokia 8210 I had back then.

Could you imagine if we grew up through the smartphone era?

My God, there'd be so much incriminating evidence against me.

I know, I know.

But I'll never forget that night.

It's so funny.

And anytime I see Little G, because she comes over

here on holiday sometimes, we always talk about it.

It was a fun night.

Luckily we didn't go to jail.

Yes.

For the crime of trying on a drag queen's wigs.

Well, the way Ricky reacted, you'd think it was terrible.

Although the Spanish cops are quite hot,

so maybe we should have got arrested. [laughter]

So that's enough of the news.

Shall we move on to the fitness section?

Yes, please.

Don't give me that look.

That's the exact same look I gave you when you're talking about Drag Race.

Yeah, no, sorry.

- I'm just picturing my husband in a wig. - Shirley Bassey.

But we're moving on to the fitness section.

Okay, let's move on.

Just before we move on to the fitness section, I want

to remind listeners that Alan and I run Outlifting, which is

a service specifically for gay, bi and trans guys who want

to change their lives through fitness and nutrition.

So if you are struggling with fitness or nutrition, stay tuned for details

on how you can book in for a discovery call after this section.

Okay, quite often when we talk about nutrition for fitness

on this show, we often refer to people wanting to

maybe lose some body fat and reduce their weight.

However, quite often we do get guys who come to us to

say they've always struggled to put weight on, and a goal for

them is to increase their muscle mass and gain more weight.

And we found a post on Reddit that is so appropriate

for this, and the title of it is, I thought I

was eating enough, tracking for 30 days proved me wrong.

Yeah, we love this post.

A lot of the times when we have guys start with us and

then we get them tracking their food, they actually realise that they haven't

been eating what they thought they've been eating, either overeating or undereating.

It's a bit of an education piece in terms of actually seeing what

it is that you're eating over a week, over a day, for example.

Yeah, I get it.

Calorie tracking is really difficult, and it's something

that I struggle to stay consistent with.

It is really beneficial though, because you do realise

quite quickly, it's like your assessments have been wrong,

and this gives you a lot more precision.

Now, I am going to caveat this with a word of warning.

When we talk about calorie tracking, we're talking about apps like MyFitnessPal

and Cronometer, which are never going to be 100% accurate, but will

give you probably the closest accuracy that you can hope for.

Nowadays, there is this whole flood of apps, on the app store, and we

have spoken about this before, and they are AI apps, and they promise to

make calorie tracking really simple, so basically what you do is you take a

photograph of whatever you're eating, you put it in the app, and it comes

back and says, oh, there are this many calories and this much protein.

Those apps are absolute crap.

They are nowhere near accurate.

Essentially, what they are is just a wrapper for ChatGPT

and ChatGPT is not accurate with this stuff.

It doesn't know what is in that food.

We've used the analogy before.

It's like if you were to upload up a plate of mashed potato and

say how many calories are in this, it will come back and quite confidently

say to you there are X amount of calories, but it doesn't know.

You could have put an entire block of butter

in that, which would have massively increased the calories.

So the AI calorie trackers these days are not accurate.

If you want accuracy, you need to go with something like

MyFitnessPal, Cronometer, or something like that where you manually input.

Yes, I second that definitely.

MyFitnessPal, old school, as laborious as it is, it's actually

a really, really good app for tracking your food.

I just want to say as well, we had a client over the

past couple of weeks and their weight was, they're on a weight loss

journey, and their weight was stalling for a couple of weeks.

So we went back to basics and got them to

track for two weeks and then they lost a kilo.

So again, it's just going back to basics with this sort of thing, isn't it?

Yeah. And it's the same with putting on weight.

So there are so many guys who feel like they have put in

so much work to try to build muscle and get a bit bigger

and they don't feel that they've got anywhere and they kind of give

up and they try again and they go through this cycle.

And finally, when we work with guys like this, it starts to

click because I think they just need, there's an element of education

there, there's an element of validation, there's an element of support.

There's a lot in there, but it is normal for

you to feel like, oh, this, it's just me.

I can't put on weight or I can't build muscle or

it's, you know, maybe you start to blame your genetics.

Yes, they are a big factor because people can be quite ectomorphic or

they can be endomorphic or whatever, where it's more easy for them to

put on weight or it's less easy for them to put on weight.

However, it is possible and it's just going to

take some attention, some focus, and especially calorie tracking.

Now, you mentioned that it is laborious.

I will agree with you.

It is.

However, it gets easier over time.

So in your app of choice, it will bring

up your regularly eaten foods a lot quicker.

So you can, especially in something like MyFitnessPal, if you have the

same breakfast, you can just copy it from the previous day.

You don't need to input again.

So over time, as you use these apps, they

become quicker and quicker and quicker to use.

So we've told you about the benefits of the app.

So why don't we speak about the benefits of

actually tracking, which is the subject of this post.

So this poster has said, before, every time I

start a real cut, I do the same thing.

But about 30 days, I go back to tracking everything at maintenance.

So for this person, it's around 2,700, 2,800 calories.

I'm not trying to lose weight yet, just

trying to reset and get accurate again.

Here's what I've noticed every time I do this.

So number one, I'm usually under eating when I don't track.

When I'm just eating healthy, inverted

commas, I assume I'm eating enough.

Once I actually track it, I'm usually not even close.

I end up having to add food back in just to hit maintenance.

And I think this is a really, really important point because quite

often when we're speaking to clients, we say we want to make

sure that you're eating enough as well as not overeating, you know,

and that's where tracking comes into it because you're going to get

an accurate reading of what you're actually having.

Yeah.

Especially if your goal is to put on weight and to build muscle,

like it's not going to happen if you are in a calorie deficit.

So if you are expending more calories than you are eating in any

given day, you're just not going to build the muscle that you want.

So whatever your goals are, I mean, a lot of guys nowadays want the

dump truck ass or they want a big chest, big arms, whatever it is.

If you are not absolutely nailing the nutrition side of it,

then all that effort that you're putting in in the gym

is, a lot of it's going to be wasted.

I mean, a lot of this stuff, a lot of

your strength goals are actually built outside of the gym.

Yeah, absolutely.

Calories equals energy, which equals performance, which equals results.

Think of it like that.

So the next point that this person makes is that

the first two to three weeks are always the hardest.

And yeah, I think we agree with them here.

They forget to log things.

I don't feel like being exact.

I fall out of the habit.

It takes a couple of weeks before it becomes almost automatic again.

And yeah, that's what we find definitely with clients.

It's just the consistency that's going to help you get to

that point where it's just part of your everyday routine.

Yeah, definitely.

I think it's like anything.

It will take a few weeks to get into it.

And like I said, the apps get quicker to use over time

as they log and they've got in your favourites, you know, what

foods, what kind of foods you eat, what the brands are.

And it just does get quicker to log it.

It actually leads into the next point, which

is, once I'm consistent everything feels easier.

Training feels better.

I'm more active.

I feel more in control.

I think for me, that point is really salient because what we find

as well is that there are a lot of guys who throw themselves

at the gym and they've got these goals that they want to achieve,

but because they're not eating enough, they are not able to perform as

well in the gym as they perhaps think they are performing.

Maybe they're not able to squeeze in quite as many reps as they need.

Maybe they're not really making the progress that they need because

they aren't fuelling their body enough, which is also super important.

Yeah. Like I mentioned earlier, it all comes down to your nutrition, especially

if your goal is to put on weight or to build.

muscle.

And, you know, feeling more in control is what they've mentioned

there and having structure again, which I think is really important

because once tracking becomes that routine and habit, it's just one

less thing that you need to think about.

So you can actually put that effort into other aspects.

Yeah.

And then their last point as well, like they say, I'm not

perfect with it, which, you know, you don't have to be.

Their point is that trying to be perfect

just makes it harder to stay consistent long-term.

I would totally agree with this.

Tracking calories is never perfection.

It's always, there's always like a guesstimation in this, I think.

And if you try to be perfect with it, you'll drive yourself absolutely mad.

Don't be a slave to your calorie tracker, but use it as a tool.

And it's just another tool in your arsenal.

- Oh! [laughter]

It's just another tool in your arsenal to help you achieve your goals.

It's about working smarter, really.

It's about supporting what you're doing in the gym.

And you can get all of these really amazing benefits and

amazing progress just by watching what you're eating and making sure

that your calorie intake, your macronutrient intake, so that's your protein,

your fats, and your carbs are all kind of bang on.

Yeah.

And you know, you say bang on, but actually,

you know, 5% under or over is actually okay.

I know we're talking about tracking and it being where it

needs to be, but we're never perfect all of the time.

And think of it as a weekly target rather than a daily target.

I think that takes the pressure off as well.

Like a good example is the other day, I was absolutely hank marvin.

I don't know why I was so hungry.

And I ate about 500 calories over what my daily target was.

Now, I kept tracking it because I wanted to see what it ended up being.

And I think that's where sometimes the issue comes in.

If you have an all or nothing approach, and then one day you

go over or under your calories, whatever it may be, and you hit

the fuck it button, and then you stop tracking for a couple of

days, that's you then having to restart again and get that momentum going.

So even if you are going to be not hitting

your target that day, under or over, still track.

And it just means that you're creating that habit, you're still doing it, and it

just makes it easier for you to go back to it the next day.

Yeah.

If you are somebody who has perpetually been maybe underweight, wants to build muscle,

wants to put weight on, you can take it on a weekly basis.

So have a weekly weigh-in, and then review your calories each week.

If you're stalling, if you're not making progress, or

even if you're losing weight, tweak your calorie intake.

So maybe increase it a little.

A few hundred calories a day can make a difference sometimes.

So increase your daily calorie intake.

Keep weighing yourself on a weekly basis, and keep tracking your

progress, because the charts don't lie, your numbers don't lie.

So keep an eye on those, and just tweak it week

by week, and increase your calories bit by bit, until you start to

see that maybe your weight is increasing, maybe your muscle mass

is increasing, and you'll know when you hit the sweet spot.

It might take you a little while, but you know what?

That's what it's all about.

This is not a sprint.

This is a marathon.

Just like it was last Sunday?

Just like it was last Sunday.

Okay, I think we've spoken enough about this.

If anybody has any other questions about it though, obviously you can get

in touch with us, because we are happy to talk about it.

Sometimes guys feel a little bit nervous about eating more calories,

so it can be a little bit difficult to manage it.

So if you have any questions about that and you need

any extra help, you can get in touch with us.

And where can you get in touch, Derec?

Yeah, as always, feel free to reach out to us.

You can email us.

The address is podcast@outlift.ing

You can also drop us a DM on Instagram.

Our handle there is @outlift.ing

and you can find us on TikTok at the same handle also.

Okay, just before we wrap up the show, I did mention that I would let

you know how you can book in for a free discovery call with us.

So if you are struggling with nutrition or any other

aspect of your fitness whatsoever, we're here to help.

This is why we set up Outlifting.

It is a dedicated service for gay, bi and trans guys.

So this is a safe space and we understand

the unique challenges that people in our community have.

You can join an ever-growing list of guys just like you who

have ambitious targets but perhaps maybe are struggling to meet them.

So whatever your fitness nutrition targets are, we

are here to help with dedicated support.

You can book in for a free, absolutely no pressure,

no obligation, discovery video call with one of us.

To do that, click the link in the show notes.

That will bring you through to a calendar where you can

select the date and time that is best for you.

And you know what?

We look forward to meeting you, having a chat about your goals, and

then you can figure out if we are the right fit for you.

So click the link, book in, and we look forward to chatting.

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That's us for another week.

Until then, over and Outlifting.

Until then, over and Outlifting.