The Birthday Episode - Outlifting is ONE 🎂

Hello and welcome to episode

13 of The Outlifting Lounge.

I'm Derec.

And I'm Alan.

This is the show all about

pride, fitness and everything in between.

The format of today's show

is a little bit different.

It is our first birthday. Yay.

Outlifting has turned one and we are just going

to have a little bit of a chat today.

Nice and quick, nice and casual.

And then we'll get back to

our regular programming next week.

So, Alan, big birthday, eh?

One year old.

I quite like that.

I quite like being back in single digit birthdays.

It's been a long time since that's happened.

It makes me feel youthful.

Yeah, I can't believe we're a year old.

Like, it's crazy.

The years went very quick.

And I know everybody says that, you know,

when it's like, oh my God, it's Christmas

again and all the rest of it.

But this year actually has flown by.

Yeah. It's been a very quick year.

So for anybody who is tuning in and

doesn't know what Outlifting is, Outlifting is our

business that we set up a year ago.

It's our baby.

Well, don't tell Haggis that.

He'll have a freak out.

That's our dog, by the way, in case anyone

doesn't know, we don't have a pet haggis.

No, Haggis is our baby, really.

But yeah, if he found out that the business

was also our baby, he would get very jealous.

Listen, this business keeps Haggis in the life he's accustomed

to, so I think he'll be fine with it.

Yeah, Haggis is a DINKWAD dog and

he likes it that way, doesn't he?

Do you maybe want to explain what that is?

Oh God, we're having to

give all the definitions today.

DINKWAD is Double Income, No Kids, With A Dog.

Double daddy income?

Double daddy income, yeah.

So he likes it that way.

But yeah, the business is our baby.

We love doing it, we have had a great year,

we have worked with some really amazing guys and at

the minute we have got quite a lot of guys

on the books as our clients and Outlifting is going

from strength to strength so we thought we would take

some time out just to celebrate how far we've come.

Outlifting has been running for a year

now, it is an online personal training,

nutrition coaching and accountability support service

for gay, bi and trans men.

Yeah that pretty much sums up what we do and

we absolutely love it like you said earlier on

you know it's our little baby it's gone from

strength to strength and yeah it's good that we're

celebrating a year. Let's see where we'll be next

year when we're celebrating two years, it's so exciting.

We very much set up the business with a vision

and we wanted to make a difference.

We loved fitness, we loved teaching our fitness classes

when we lived in Glasgow, then we moved

to Spain and we live here now but

It really is our mission to get as many gay, bi

and trans guys fit and healthy as we possibly can.

It's something that we live for, we love doing.

And I think that has really helped the business journey

over the year because when you love what you do,

and I know it sounds really cliched, but when you

love what you do, it doesn't feel like work.

Yeah. My favourite day is Monday when I do client

check-ins because I get to hear all the

success stories from the week before and it's...

A lot of the clients that we have now

they're a few weeks in, even months into their

journey and they're all starting to get it and

they're seeing the results and that's what really spurs

us on because it's really good job satisfaction and

we're celebrating obviously Outlifting being a year old but

we're also celebrating a client, Fraser, who is actually

leaving us but we're celebrating that because to us

it means that he's got it, he's graduated essentially

he's got all the fitness knowledge he needs he's

got all the nutrition knowledge he needs and he

feels confident enough to go it alone and he

put a post up during the week about his

journey from before he met us to where he

is now and he's just a completely different guy.

We're so proud of him he's done absolutely brilliantly.

Fraser has been with us right from the start. So

some guys will come on and work with us for

three months, some will stay a little longer, some will

just kind of keep going because they have goals that

change. So some people will come with some short-term

goals they need like maybe a little kick start

for their fitness and after three months they think

no that's a good start I can continue myself.

Other people will set new goals consistently. So they achieve

what they want to achieve and they think, what's next?

And we help them with that. And it's great

to see that Fraser has got to the point

now where he is looking ahead to see what's

next and he's... I think it's quite brave for

him to take the step that he's taking because

you can get so used to something it almost becomes

like a crutch and he is making the move away

from our service. He's graduating, as you say, before we

become a crutch for him. Because he knows he can

do it himself. We have drilled it into him that

he can do it by himself now he knows what

he's doing and I feel it's almost like that proud

parent feeling. And that's not to diminish Fraser at all.

Like, Fraser's an adult, he's very accomplished, he's brilliant.

And I'm really excited to see what he does.

But yeah, it's like almost

like a proud parent moment.

Yeah, it's like we're letting him loose

into the big bad world, isn't it?

You know, although he's leaving us he isn't really because

he still has access to all his workout history

and our app. He is still part of our

workshop that we did a couple of weeks ago.

So he's still working on resolutions that he

has for 2026 and yeah, I'm super

excited to see where he goes next.

Some people who are tuning in might know who

Fraser is because they might have seen the post

on Instagram but I think for anybody who doesn't,

what we'll do, so for anybody who's watching the

video version of this on YouTube we'll put some

photographs up just to show how incredible Fraser's progress

really is because I think you need to look

at the before, during and after photos to really

appreciate how amazing his journey and transition has been.

So I'll put some of those up.

Anybody that's listening in on an audio format I'll put

a link to the Instagram post in our show notes

as well so that they can click through and look

at this because it really is an incredible transformation he's

been through. And the photos only tell half of

the story as well because I think for me

knowing Fraser as I have for so long now, the

biggest transformation for him has been

his mindset and his confidence.

I mean, he just seems absolutely unstoppable now.

Yeah, his mindset has been the biggest change and

even the other day he put a post up

on Instagram, he'd bought a new jacket and I

messaged him saying, what size is your jacket?

He's like, it's a medium, you know.

He is the lightest he's ever been

since he was 13 years old.

Which is just absolutely crazy. But the fact that he now

sees himself as a different person, because for a while like

a lot of people that go through that kind of

transformation, they see themselves as the person they were, you

know, before they started or a couple of years ago

whatever it might have been and he held on to

that for a little while and I'm sure he won't

mind me saying that but now he sees himself as

the person he is today and that is just unbelievable.

That mental shift and that mental change is such

an incremental process but it's so important and I

think that's what worries me a little bit about

the current surge in people taking GLPs like Monjaro

and Ozempic. Because it's amazing that people are getting

results from these drugs and they are able to

get incredible weight loss and it's helping them.

What does concern me a little bit as well is

that perhaps the mindset and mental shift hasn't happened

in tandem with that like we've witnessed with Fraser

and so many other people. So yeah, watching that

shift in Fraser to really come into himself and

appreciate who he is now and to

grow into that person is just incredible.

Yeah so Fraser is obviously just one of the guys

that we work with so we're super excited to see

how he progresses over the next few months but

also everyone else that's in the team as well.

We've got a lot of incredible guys going

through incredible journeys so yeah the next few

months are going to be super exciting.

Actually just before we move on from talking about

the business I'm going to fit in a cheeky

little plug because it is our first birthday

we are doing a special offer for you so

if you think that you might benefit from our

services perhaps if you had some really amazing new

year's resolutions to get super fit or to achieve

some specific fitness, nutrition goals whatever they are

and perhaps you are not realising them just

yet and you're feeling a little bit frustrated.

You can come and work with us.

So we have got a special offer for our birthday.

We are bringing back our Black Friday

offer for a very limited time.

So between now and the end of January 2026,

we are giving 30% off our regular coaching prize.

It's a really good deal.

And you can lock it in now by booking in

for a no-obligation, free video consultation chat with us.

To do that, you can click the link

in the show notes to book a discovery

call at any time that suits you.

You can meet with us, have a chat

and see if our service suits you.

Like we say, it's absolutely no obligation.

We're not going to give you the hard sell, but

we will have a chat with you about your

goals and explain to you how we can help.

If you want to take part in that,

if you want that special offer, lock it

in now and book your discovery call.

So Alan, 13 episodes down for the podcast as well.

That's pretty big as well because

the podcast isn't something that we

envisaged doing right from the start.

I know, episode 13.

Unlucky for some.

Well, do you know what?

Bit of trivia there because I found out

this week, obviously we live in Spain now,

and I found out this week that Friday the 13th

is not an unlucky date here. No it's Tuesday the

13th which sounds really weird because we're just used to

saying Friday the 13th, it just rolls off the tongue

doesn't it? Yeah so Tuesday, which we had this week,

it was Tuesday the 13th which was how we

found out. So yeah, there's a little bit of

interesting trivia for anybody listening in. Interesting, inverted commas.

I found it interesting, so... Okay, fair enough. That's okay.

I'll tell you who has

definitely been unlucky this week.

The faithfuls in Traitors?

Oh, you're telling me are you?

Yeah, so we probably should preface this with, spoiler! Spoiler!

Yeah, we are going to talk about what happened in

the Traitors UK this week which was episodes seven, eight

and nine? I think so. So if you have not

watched those yet and need to catch up and don't

want anything spoiled maybe skip ahead. I think what i

want to mention is Stephen's face game. He has

expressions for everything and especially in the cabin when

they were all being scared that was hilarious.

Let's actually go back.

Let's do a quick recap.

So the week started at the confessionals.

So we had, Matty thinks that he

is going to be made a traitor.

He's hanging on to that for dear life.

It's like tonight I'm going to be a traitor.

It's like tonight Matthew, I am going to be.

Oh, I know.

He thinks he's got his plan all worked out.

He's like a little kid waiting for Christmas.

I know.

I don't think it's coming.

and then Harriet with her barrister game. That was...

like it was great telly but you know that way

I was watching it, like, with my hands over my

face like I want to watch this but I don't.

I don't think I've ever felt such a range of

emotions than watching the first half of that episode because

Harriet when she confronted Rachel in the confessional, it was

pure TV Gold. It's amazing.

And then at breakfast the next morning, like,

I don't know what happened, but she

went into that, like, serious barrister mode.

Really rude to Roxy.

Yeah. That was too much.

Like, we get it.

We get what you're trying to do.

She was trying to set the cat amongst the pigeons.

Yeah no she was making sure, because you told me

earlier that apparently she has a book coming out next

month. Yeah. So that's what she was doing, getting her

air time so she can promote her book. Yeah, no

hate to her. I mean, like great if she's

doing that and it made for great telly, but

yeah, at the start of that episode I was like Harriet

to win and then by the round table I was like

get her out. I was almost going and buying my own

chalkboard and writing her name down in the house.

And then she was banished, but the reason she was is

because she was pointing to Rachel to say she is

a traitor and then the next day everyone just completely

forgot about that for some reason. I have a theory

I think Rachel is part of Men in Black.

I think she went around

and just wiped everybody's memory.

Like what?

It's like everybody has a hard reset every night

and they just totally forget all of the evidence.

Apart from Jessie.

I was going to say Jessie's the

one that's actually coming with real evidence

and getting it right with who the traitors are.

So that does lead us.

Episode 8 was the episode that Jessie really flipped

back to Stephen and started going hard for him.

And then unfortunately she was

murdered because of it.

Murdered!

But not before that cabin challenge.

That was brilliant.

We loved the cabin challenge.

Last year was brilliant because it was the dolls, the

creepy dolls, and we got the "sperber yer yer".

The cabin challenges are actually iconic because

everybody knows they're going to be mental.

I think I would say that that

cabin challenge was my favourite by far.

Like I said, Stephen's faces in those

were just brilliant and they were genuinely

s***ing themselves.

They were genuinely scared.

That was a good one.

So that's episode seven and eight.

And then Friday's episode, episode

nine, was another crazy one.

That Jack in the Box challenge was amazing.

I think my favourite bit from the Jack in the

Box challenge was when they got out of the,

all of them got out of their boxes for

the first time and Stephen was rubbing his eyes.

As if to say, oh, the light's

hurting my eyes because I definitely haven't got out

of the box to go and do traitorous things.

Give that man a BAFTA.

So good.

And I think, I think it's easy watching it as

viewers and say, how did they not catch that?

But I suppose like you have to be there really.

Aye, exactly.

Yeah, we're seeing it from everybody's

point of view, aren't we?

If you're actually in it, then you

probably don't notice things like that.

It was so funny like watching them creep out

of the boxes though and try to be really

really quiet and then go over and whisper to

each other as loud as anybody can whisper.

Rachel was so loud that they

are totally going to hear her.

But I love the sound effects that they

were putting on as if the boxes were

like creaking as they were getting back in.

That was good.

Yeah, very very good telly.

I have to say, high camp, like

the producers know exactly what they're doing.

It's just like they could probably

make it a bit camper.

I mean, I think the American season they

do that very well with because they've got

a lot of celebrities on there who are

quite camp anyway and they've got Alan Cumming.

And his fabulous costumes. Yes.

Spoiler, we've been watching the American series so

we'll talk about that in a few

weeks once it's released on UK telly.

Yeah. So the UK version could probably be a little bit,

they could dial up the camp a little bit more,

but as it stands it's probably one of the campest

shows on telly and I am here for that.

Yeah, this season's definitely high camp.

Especially Stephen's outfits.

Oh, his jumpsuit on Friday's

episode, loved it, absolutely brilliant.

It was something else altogether, it was brilliant.

His fashion has been 10 out of 10.

I love that jumper that he was wearing

actually in the last episode, the red... And pink stripes.

Yeah, very, very nice.

Something else from that episode at the round

table, like how did Stephen manage to get

not one single vote after Jessie had been

killed, Jessie had been gunning for him and

he got like practically zero heat whatsoever.

Because Rachel came in with her

Men in Black memory wiper.

Like how, especially because Jessie was murdered they thought, oh

well that's going to be too, no they were

worried that was going to be too obvious and

pin it on Stephen but everybody's just completely forgotten about

it. Yeah and Rachel as well at the round

table she was like Obi-Wan Kenobi. She was like,

Stephen is not the traitor you're looking for.

Look at Ellie over there and then that

just switched it and Ellie was gone.

And Jade did very well handling herself at

the round table on Friday's episode as well.

She's been under a lot of heat since episode one.

No she has, she's had a rough ride on the show.

But it was nice to hear all their stories

at the dinner party that they ended up having.

That's always really really nice because it's

funny for the traitors and the other faithfuls to

listen to people's stories as to why they're there

and then obviously they need to either murder them

or banish them. And again, Jade, like her story

is so sad and for such a young woman

she really holds herself with such poise, dignity, so much

maturity. And I hope as well, because like the traitors

fandom in the UK is becoming quite feral. I think

I've noticed that this year more than other years

where they are attacking and it's usually women that

they attack online. And I think Roxy and Jade

are getting it really badly at the minute. Okay.

And I hope that people can ease off a

little bit after seeing that more human real side

of them because everybody's got a story, everybody's

coming from something, you don't know what people

have been through until they tell you. And

I think now maybe that Jade has explained

who she is and why she is the way she

is then maybe people might back off a little bit.

Yeah and it's interesting that Stephen and Matthew's background

are very similar. You know, rural upbringing, very religious upbringing,

both gay. So it was nice to hear their stories

as well. And I think Stephen as well said that

he was trying to pray the gay away for so

long and Matthew has come out and said that he

had been the victim of attempted gay conversion therapy.

And it's it is quite schocking. It's important for

these things to be shown on television because

it's 2026 and I think there is this

concept, not perhaps amongst the LGBT community, but

there is this idea that the gays have got

their rights. What more do they want? And it's

like, no this stuff is still happening. Yeah. There's

still this torture of young gay people going on,

especially in rural areas and in very religious families.

there is this torture under the guise of conversion

going on, or praying for them. And, yeah, so it's

important for that to be public on such a big

show I think. Yeah definitely. Yeah, it was really good

to see that but then there was the twist with

the dagger. What did they call it again? The

ceremonial dagger. Ceremonial dagger. Yeah. Because I think people

wouldn't have understood what a sgian-dubh is. Yeah.

It's a very Scottish word.

Yeah.

Maybe Claudia didn't want to ruin it

by pronouncing it wrongly and then

getting hate from everybody in Scotland.

Well, the episode when they were on the

loch, I was like, it's loch, not lock.

It's loch.

That does drive me wild.

I know you were spitting all

over me during that episode.

I had to move away to the other side of the room.

So we are loving it.

Next week is the last week that's it done. I know.

It's went in quick actually this season.

Going very, very quick.

It'll be very interesting to see who wins.

Yeah.

Let's stop talking about Traitors.

Why don't we leave it there actually?

We've just shot the breeze a little bit.

We've chatted.

Let's wrap it up and we'll get back

to our normal programming next week, eh?

Sounds good.

As ever, thank you very much for

tuning in to The Outlifting Lounge.

Remember that special offer that's available.

You can book in for a

no-obligation video consultation with one of us.

Chat through what your goals are, what you

want to achieve and we'll let you

know what we can do for you.

If the service is the right fit for you,

you can lock in that offer of 30% off

a regular coaching price if you book your discovery

call between now and the end of the month.

That's January 2026.

Thank you so much for tuning in.

Don't forget we have new episodes every

Sunday and you can find us on

YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music.

And remember if you want to get

in touch with us about anything at

all, you can email podcast@outlift.ing

You can reach us on the socials as well.

We are on Instagram and TikTok and the

user handle is the same on both.

It is @outlift.ing

much for tuning in. But for now, over and Outlifting.

much for tuning in. But for now, over and Outlifting.