Traitors UK finale, LGBT fitness stats, and more...

Hello and welcome to episode

14 of The Outlifting Lounge.

This is the show all about

pride, fitness and everything in between.

I'm Alan.

And I'm Derec.

This week we're going to be talking

about a couple of gay news stories.

We are also going to be covering the

Traitors finale because we absolutely have to.

And we're also going to be giving some

tips to help you progress with your fitness.

So Alan, how has your week been?

Pretty crap, to be honest.

I have somehow injured my knee and

this is what happens when you're a

couple of months away from turning 45.

I was fine on Tuesday, I was fine

on Wednesday and then I woke up on

Thursday morning and I could hardly walk.

So yeah, it's been a fun week.

It's been a fun week for me because I've

had to wait on you hand and foot.

The only thing that you have been missing is

a little bell to ring to call me over.

I know, you have been really good.

You've been doing all the dog

walks and making us dinner.

So yeah, it's just one of those things and

I've been taking advice that I would give to

clients and just resting and having a think forward

to next week and thinking, okay, I'm probably going

to have to pivot some of my workouts.

Pivot! Pivot!

I don't think I'm going to be doing any

lower body for some time, so it's going

to be all upper, push, pull, push, pull.

I think it's going to have to be my

workouts for the next few weeks, which I don't

mind because I don't really enjoy doing legs anyway.

It's a good excuse.

I have been beset with tennis elbow,

so my elbow's gone, your knee's gone.

Between the two of us, we have got one

functional upper body and one functional lower body.

Yeah, so obviously we're getting on a bit.

I'm almost in my mid-40s and I saw

someone post on Instagram the other day saying,

is this what happens when you hit 30?

My back hurts, my knee hurts.

I'm thinking, sweetheart, just wait

till you hit your 40s.

It's going to be downhill from there.

I love that you think that

you're almost in your mid-40s.

You're 44 at the minute.

44, 45, 46, that's mid-40s.

I know but officially, mid-mid-40s is 45.

Mid-mid-40s? Okay, right slap bang in the middle.

Exactly.

Okay the only other thing I think from this

week out of the ordinary has been the mosquito

invasion that we have had here has been horrific.

Like I caught two last night and then there

was another one. For anybody listening in to this

or watching this we live in Gran Canaria.

I know we mention it every week,

we're just rubbing it in now.

We need to mention it every week.

Yeah, but they might be thinking, God, that

sounds, he sounds Scottish, he sounds Irish,

how the hell are they getting mosquitoes?

But yeah, we have had a bit

of a mosquito problem this week.

So last night I was lying in bed and all

I heard was zzz and this was after I'd already caught two.

And they're so small but they make so

much noise. And I swear it was like

a Tom and Jerry cartoon last night.

I had the lights on, I had a torch, I was

trying to find this guy and I couldn't find him.

Thankfully, I didn't get bit

during the night, did you?

No, well, I've been sleeping downstairs because, again, a

problem with being in your mid-40s, I need

a pee during the night at least twice.

So, getting down those stairs is a

nightmare, so I was sleeping down here.

I didn't even realise that you were

doing that, I'd already fallen asleep.

But I didn't get bitten, thankfully, so thanks for

your efforts and getting rid of the mozzies.

I got the one that I couldn't

get last night, I got this morning.

He's gone, he's out.

So, fingers crossed, it doesn't last much.

It must be breeding season or something for them because

we haven't had a mosquito in a long time.

We are in Gran Canaria.

But all of a sudden it just seems

to be like mosquito central in our house.

I know, I know.

So hopefully that's them oot the hoose.

Oot the hoose.

I'll translate.

Out of the house.

Right, we have talked about us enough.

Let's cover some of the gay news this week.

I need to grab my laptop because

I'm going to quote some figures.

Can I just say that's

really surprising you said that.

Cause you love talking about yourself.

I don't know who you're talking about.

Okay, so the first thing I wanted to

cover, now this is really super important.

So Stonewall, who are a phenomenal LGBTQ

plus charity in the UK, are running

their #MoveWithPride campaign.

Now this takes over from their really successful,

brilliant Rainbow Laces campaign, but it's mostly about

trying to get people involved in physical activity and

also making sure that we have very visible sports

people who are aligned with the LGBT community.

So they've commissioned a YouGov poll looking

at fitness within the LGBTQ plus community.

What they found is quite shocking.

They found that three times as

many people in the LGBTQ plus

community experience discrimination while exercising.

So three times as much. Wild.

They also found that 76% of

people identifying as LGBTQ plus

who were surveyed had experienced or

were currently experiencing mental ill health.

Now that 76% compares to 44%

of all respondents in total.

So it's significantly higher.

Also, 37% of LGBTQ plus respondents said

that they had experienced discrimination by

someone else's behaviour, attitudes or language

while exercising or trying to exercise.

More than a third of LGBTQ plus people felt

that their sexuality was a barrier to participation

in sport, exercise or other forms of movement.

And then finally, 45% of people from

LGBTQ plus communities are not meeting

government recommended levels of vigorous exercise.

Pretty shocking, eh?

Yeah, really shocking.

And I think it goes back to, and we've

touched on this on a previous episode, it's sometimes

maybe trauma as well from, you know, our school

days when we were forced to do certain things

in PE that we didn't want to do.

So we've already got that trauma about that

and then not feeling welcome or safe in

environments where we want to go and

exercise, which that poll has obviously demonstrated.

It's really scary, actually.

It's really sad.

Yeah, which I mean, we've spoken about this at length,

but this is the reason that we set up Outlifting,

which is for gay, bi and trans guys to

build confidence in the gym, to make them feel

like that is their space, that's theirs to own.

And it's not just us.

I mean, we're doing what we do,

but there are other people doing likewise.

I mean, at the minute we have got

Can Canaria who are running Adventure Week

in Gran Canaria and it's super successful.

So many guys are coming over for

Adventure Week every January now and they

organise hiking trips, they organise adventure sports,

things like that and it's brilliant.

It's something that the community really needs and it's

proven to be so, so, so popular with guys

who are looking for something different that isn't

a party holiday that isn't like Pride when it's going

to be super, super busy. And it's great that these

things exist however there is obviously still a gap if

these survey results are accurate, which they seem to be,

there's still a huge gap where there are a lot

of people who don't feel like they belong anywhere.

It's funny because when we first launched Outlifting we

obviously advertised it and we put it out on

Facebook and Instagram and I think maybe Instagram and

Facebook didn't quite find our audience somehow because we

were getting a lot of people commenting on

our ad saying why do you need this?

What do gay people work

out differently from straight people?

I was like well that's the whole point

of Outlifting you know. It's a safe

inclusive environment where you can be yourself.

And they were just proving that point by putting on

homophobic comments on that ad. And you know, I find

on check-ins when I'm speaking to our clients they're

so open about their lives and you know there's

just that communication between them and us that they

don't need to feel that they need to hide

themselves which is amazing whereas I think if it

was like a non-LGBTQ PT they'd maybe not feel

as comfortable opening up and talking about their lives.

That's it, nail on the head.

What we know about coaching is

that it has to be holistic.

It can't just be, what did you lift?

What did you eat?

It has to encompass everybody's lifestyle.

And it's really super important if you are working

with a coach that you can have that frankness,

that honesty, and you don't need to feel that

you have to hide parts of your lifestyle.

It is one thing being out in that somebody knows

what your sexuality is and you're out to them.

It's another thing being able to totally drop the

veil and not feel that you have to present

this masked or edited or limited version of yourself

to them, which is what sometimes we feel

that we have to do in heteronormative society.

It's funny as well because have you ever seen people

post on their stories, they're in the gym and

they're like, oh I'm lifting really heavy or I'm doing

this I'm being really butch but no one in the

gym knows that I'm listening to Kylie or Gaga or

whatever it might be and it's just that juxtaposition of

you know, being who you are and listening to

the music that you want to listen to

in the gym, but then putting on a

front, if you like, while you're in there.

And I get it, you know.

Gyms can be super, super intimidating.

Muscle Mary's working out, over at the

dumbbells you don't want to go over.

But those figures have actually surprised me at how

high and, you know, what those actual numbers are.

So yeah, like we'll move on from this just now,

because this is something that we have spoken about.

It's in a sense, these statistics are really

bad, but in a sense, they're good as

well because they do back up what we

have been saying about what we do.

And for us, they do validate the work that we

have been doing and the content that we have been

putting out on this show for many, many weeks now.

And it's given me a little bit of wind in my

sails to keep going with that and to make sure

that we keep pushing and we reach as many people

as possible to try to help them get into fitness.

Yeah, absolutely.

So shall we move on to the next

news story that I wanted to cover?

Yes.

This is brilliant.

So people might have seen this because it

went semi-viral on TikTok during the week,

but it's the lesbian dating app that

put up billboard advertisements in the UK.

Brilliant.

I'm going to play a clip of it just

now over the video version of this, but

I'll also put a link in the show

notes if anybody's listening on the audio version.

But basically it is a picture of a bowling

ball with the fingers going into the holes and

the caption is, everything reminds me of her.

Amazing.

Put it in the Louvre.

And as if it isn't funny enough, the

video that went viral of the woman

that recorded the video, she's just brilliant.

Oh, brilliant, so, so, so funny.

Let's watch it now.

Cause why is there..?

Is that f***ing legal? In broad daylight?

Think of the children! Gay?!

F***ing hell. F***ing hell! Let's have some decorum.

Absolutely brilliant.

In broad daylight.

Think of the children.

Oh my god.

And of course all the right wing homophobes, all the

rest of it are up in arms about it.

But do you know what it actually reminds me of?

Do you remember years ago there was the

"Hello Boys", the Wonderbra advert

that caused so much controversy?

While we're on the subject of causing controversy, the

other thing that we saw during the week was

He-Man, the new He-Man Masters of the Universe film.

So the trailer dropped for that.

And there is a tiny little segment in it

where it shows you the guy that plays He-Man

sitting at a desk at an office job.

It's got his name and

underneath it's got his pronouns.

It says he/him.

The ultra right conservatives are predictably

going absolutely off their nuts.

Why did they have to give He-Man pronouns?

He's called He-Man!

Otherwise he would just be man.

It struck me then, it's like, that's

why they put that in the trailer.

It was to cause all of these right wing grifters

to go nuts to get free publicity for the film.

Genius.

Brilliant.

Although, can I just say, he's

got too many clothes in it.

If we remember from our childhood, we

are children of the eighties, the cartoon,

he literally had a loin cloth on.

So I think the actor is legitimately

young enough to be your son.

So, OK, I feel weird now.

I think at some point he'd

probably have the loin cloth on.

I think later in the trailer he did, so.

I'm only joking.

I am in my daddy era, but I'm not in any other era.

Moving on.

Talking about eras, the end of

an era with the Traitors finale.

Yeah.

That was some episode on Friday.

Brilliant.

Like... Spoilers coming up, but it is Sunday.

So if you haven't watched it yet, then... Yeah.

So spoiler, spoiler, spoilers.

We're going to be discussing Traitors UK and

we're not holding back because Friday's finale was...

Amazing.

I actually checked my heart rate at one point

because I was on the edge of my seat.

It was brilliant.

The whole episode.

And obviously we had the conclusion to

the cliffhanger to Thursday's episode with Rachel

and James with the chest of chance.

That was a brilliant conclusion.

I genuinely didn't know how it was going to go.

And for Rachel to be saved by

the skin of her teeth was phenomenal.

So good.

I was convinced that was her time up.

She was gone at that point.

And I thought, do you know, I think Stephen

stands a chance of winning the whole thing

by himself, but it's going to be tight.

They played a blinder. They did.

There were so many moments when I thought that

Stephen was going to throw Rachel under the bus.

And I think that's why my heart rate was peaking.

Do you know, I think there were so

many moments when Stephen thought Stephen was going

to throw Rachel under the bus as well.

You could see it in his eyes.

He was so thinking about doing it.

And then obviously at the end, it just shows

how much of a lovely, lovely guy Stephen

is by not going back on his word.

They are a brilliant duo.

I want to see them do everything.

I want them to be the new Ant and Dec.

They need to be everywhere

doing everything, presenting everything.

They're brilliant.

I don't know why I thought you

were going to say Richard and Judy.

God, that's a bit of an insult. I know.

Also shows your age. I know.

No, Ant and Dec for sure.

Yeah, definitely.

I want to see them everywhere.

They were brilliant together.

There were so many little twists

and turns in that episode.

When Rachel was at the bar and

she said, if I was a faithful.

Oh my God.

I was like, you're done.

You're done. You are pan bread. You're gone.

You're out at the next banishment.

And still she's like Teflon. Nobody even picked up on

it. Because they were also still thinking about what happened

to James at the round table so nobody even picked

up on it she was so lucky. One thing I

will say, as a traitor one thing that she did

that was really smart was she eliminated the older players,

So she essentially, by about the

halfway point, she became the oldest.

I think, once Harriet was gone certainly.

So she became this senior figure and all the rest

of them were maybe 10, 15 years younger than her.

And you even heard Faraaz at the

final, at the finale, called her Grandma.

And I think she worked that quite well

because it gave her almost a sense

of authority among the remaining faithfuls and

that's what really sealed it for her.

Do you know what I love what she said

on Uncloaked is they were talking about her FBI training

and she's like, no it was literally like a

free ebook of like 40 pages that I downloaded.

A one day course and an ebook.

Brilliant.

Of course she just planted that seed

that she'd had FBI training as like...

Well, you did essentially, but everybody thought

it was bigger than what it was.

I thought that was brilliant.

So yeah, the Celtic cousins won.

They got rid of the Welsh and

it was the Irish and the Scottish.

Just like me and you.

That won't be on camera.

We're going to be off camera, but okay.

And there's what Stephen said.

Let's take this Celtic connection to the end.

Yeah, exactly what we're doing together.

Who knows when that end will be.

There's now a void for Traitors but

Traitors Ireland has just started and obviously

we're watching Traitors US at the minute

which hasn't quite hit the UK yet.

No, so anybody in the UK who hasn't

seen Traitors Ireland, I think they've dropped

the first two episodes on BBC iPlayer

and then they're going to release them.

Watch The Traitors Ireland, it is

a phenomenal series, it's so good.

Yeah, so you've got that and then you'll have

Traitors US coming, which is a bit

different because it's celebrities that do it and

it's not like UK celebrities where they give

the money to charity, they actually win the

money themselves, so it is cutthroat, it is

something else.

Most, if not all of the celebrities that are

on the US version are reality TV celebrities.

So they are like Survivor, Big

Brother, Real Housewives, things like that.

So it is quite cutthroat.

They all go at each other.

They all have arguments.

Very, very good.

What I will say, so we'll talk

about the American Traitors in more detail.

I think it was episode five

of Traitors US this season.

There is a bit of homophobia in

it that made us so uncomfortable.

Yeah. So we'll not, we'll not discuss it because it hasn't

aired in the UK yet, but buckle up for that.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's bad.

Yeah.

But in the meantime,

Traitors Ireland, absolutely fantastic.

And I have to say, as somebody who is

Irish and grew up watching Irish TV, RTÉ, I

mean, I feel so proud of the production

quality of RTÉ productions nowadays compared to what

they used to be when I was younger.

I mean, it puts Ireland on such a global standing.

It's brilliant.

Yeah, it feels like the BBC version

and the US version, doesn't it?

Yeah. Brilliant, really high quality production.

So, so good.

But can we just say Jade, from

the UK one, we loved her.

For such a young woman, she holds

herself so well, articulates herself so well.

So when the traitors were revealed to her in

Friday's episode, she was really shocked because obviously Stephen

had voted for her at the round table.

But the way she handled that was beautiful.

Everything in her stride, she's been through some

real trauma in her life and to go

through all that at a young age and

to come out the other side and to

be this really poised, well put together, really

thoughtful, polite, considerate person is just really phenomenal.

She deserves only good things in her life now.

I was a little bit heartbroken when she was voted

out because she's just fab but then once it was

like the four of them left Stephen, Rachel, Jack and

Faraaz I was kind of like well we definitely want

Rachel and Stephen to win. Jack and Faraz I felt

were just like kind of fillers towards the end, you

know. They didn't really do that much in the castle.

Lovely guys but didn't really deserve to win because I

feel like they just coasted along under the radar.

And it could be argued that that was a strategy

to play the game and to get to the final.

But, when you saw the amount of work that

Rachel and Stephen had to put in, they deserved it.

Yeah, I know.

I think we shed a tear last night, didn't we?

Yeah. I don't know if

it was the half bottle of wine or

just because we were emotional about it.

I think as well, if Faraaz and Jack

had have one, I wouldn't have been totally

disappointed because Faraaz spoke so much about wanting

to go to Mecca for the Hajj pilgrimage.

And I just thought if he had won,

how many of those like gammon faced Reform

supporting, homophobic, Islamophobic a*******s in the UK

would have been absolutely fizzing about it.

So I wouldn't have been disappointed if either

won, but I'm so, so, so, so

happy that Rachel and Stephen took it.

They are just such a phenomenal combo.

Brilliant ending to a brilliant series.

Yeah.

Can't wait for the next one to come on.

OK, we have covered gay news,

we have covered traitors news.

Shall we move on to the fitness section? Let's do it.

I've got my trusty laptop on my knee because we are going

into Reddit this week for the fitness section.

It is a Reddit thread on r/beginnerfitness

that I found, which I thought was really, really good.

So the title of this from the

poster is what's one thing you stopped

doing that actually helped your progress?

Love that title.

That's so good.

Yeah. And especially at this time of year

when so many people are getting into

fitness or getting back into fitness.

So they said, I realized doing less,

but sticking to it helped me more

than trying to do everything right.

Curious what others experienced.

Now we've spoken about perfectionism and why it

doesn't exist and why it's a trap

before, but yeah, they figured that out.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And that's the thing.

Like if you can do less, but get better

or more results, then that's a win-win combination.

You just need to figure out what it

is that you need to do less of

that's going to get you to where you want to be.

It's going to be different for everyone.

So like, and I think there's quite a

few different answers in this as well.

Yeah. Each of them are like valid in their own right.

Oh totally, this is a goldmine of good advice so we

thought we would just like touch on some of these in

the podcast so we're not taking credit but a lot

of these are things that we have previously said on

the podcast. So here's one that I really love. So

focusing too much on the end goal of what I

wanted to achieve and not enough on the small steps

I needed to take along the way to get there.

Brilliant, yeah.

And that's what we advocate for all the time.

All those habits that you're building, all those

wins that you have, celebrate all those small

wins, no matter how small they are.

Because the end goal is the end goal and you

will get there, but you need to build those

building blocks to get you to that end point.

And the thing is, if you're focused on this

end goal that's really far away, on the

days when you are having a bad day

or your motivation's low or whatever it is,

something that seemed 10 miles away, suddenly

seems 100 miles away and it's very demotivating

if you're just looking at this end goal

and feeling like you're really far from it.

So yeah, brilliant advice.

So another one I really liked was, honestly, I

stopped trying to be perfect all the time.

No more over planning workouts,

no all or nothing mindset.

No guilt if I missed a day once.

I focused on just showing up

consistently and doing the basics well.

Everything clicked.

Progress got way easier when I stopped treating

fitness like a punishment and more like a

long-term thing I actually want to stick with.

Yeah, absolute gold, that one.

And I think it's the all or

nothing approach is definitely something that I

think a lot of people fall into.

So it's like, oh, I'm doing really, really well, bump

the road, I f***ed it and then you just stop

and then it's hard to get back into it again.

I'll be the first to put

my hand up. Guilty! And especially,

I think that's especially prevalent in

me because of my ADHD.

And a lot of people with ADHD find

that they do suffer from this

all-or-nothing thinking that totally then paralyzes

them because they can't get going again.

Yeah. So yeah, definitely.

The key point in that one is the consistency,

you know, it doesn't matter what you're being consistent

with, as long as you've got that consistency there

and it's something that's having a positive impact.

And yeah, that ties quite well into the last bit,

which I thought was the key takeaway for me

was the thing about it's a long term thing.

So stopping thinking of it as I'm trying

to get fit, I'm trying to get fit.

No, you are changing your lifestyle long term.

And when you, when you view it that way

and you start thinking of yourself as instead of,

I'm somebody who wants to get fit.

You think of yourself as I am

someone who goes to the gym.

It's that flip in identity that is

really going to work because long term,

that's who you're going to be.

You need to let yourself believe it first.

Can I talk about Ian actually, our client.

So he's got an end goal of Mighty Hoopla in May.

He wants to be wearing nice little

titty tops, as he called it.

I'm sure he'll be fine with me saying that.

And he has, yeah, that's the end

goal, but he has been so consistent.

So since before, you know, Christmas, but then he

had a little bit of a break at Christmas.

But since Christmas, he's had more results,

than before Christmas

and it's because he's turning up,

being consistent with his nutrition,

he's being consistent with his workouts

and he's enjoying the process

and he's just... in it.

And because he's getting those results

and because he's being consistent

it's motivating him even more

and he's absolutely smashing it just now.

That's it. And it doesn't have to be a slog.

You can enjoy the process.

This next one might seem contradictory to

what we just said, but this person

has said they stopped thinking short term.

It's okay if your weight didn't move in

the right direction for the past seven days.

It's okay if your measurements didn't

move in the right direction today.

It's okay if I couldn't lift as much

today as I could on my last session.

I figured out that I need to compare month to month

Not week to week or day to day.

That is brilliant advice, especially when it

comes to looking at the scales.

Yeah, I think if you take a macro

approach to it, rather than a micro approach,

then that's going to serve you well.

And although they're saying they're, oh, I

wasn't focusing on the short term,

you know, more the long term, but that's

more in terms of let's look at all

the positive things that have happened rather

than focusing on that one negative thing.

And that's when, again, the all or

nothing approach can come in, you know?

Exactly.

That's the thing.

Progress is not a straight line.

It doesn't go all the way up.

It's like a piece of wet spaghetti.

It goes all over the place.

It goes down. It goes up.

You're going to have good days.

You're going to have bad days.

You're going to have bad weeks.

So it is important in those terms to look

at your progress over longer timeframes instead of trying

to focus in on just what you've achieved.

Very important to celebrate the small

wins at the same time.

So day to day celebrate your small wins,

but don't focus on the things that

you see as negative day to day.

Yeah, absolutely.

As humans, we tend to focus on the negative things.

So think about your last week

work, gym, whatever might have happened.

Getting bitten by mosquitoes.

If I asked you how your week went, probably

the first thing that people would say is, well

actually I did it earlier, talked about my knee,

you know, but actually me being laid up for

a little bit gave me an opportunity to do

some Spanish, which I've been wanting to do.

So actually that's a positive that's

come out of that, but...

I've just focused on that negative there and people do

it all the time on our check-ins as well.

I'll be like, how's your week been?

And they'll say, oh, I didn't get that workout in.

I'm like, but what did you achieve?

And then they can rhyme all five

or six things that they did achieve.

And that's a prime example of that.

Yeah, totally.

This next one, this just

like absolutely speaks to me.

I stopped shorting myself on sleep, which is

something I did for a few years

in order to get more training in.

Existing on 7 to 9 hours sleep is so much

more superior to existing on 5 to 6 hours sleep.

I train a bit less now,

but the results are worlds apart.

I'm also less hungry all the time,

less grumpy and more able to focus.

Now for me, I've spoken about

sleep being a struggle for me.

It's probably the biggest block and it's the

biggest part of my ADHD that I hate.

My mind overworks.

If I wake up during the night, I find

it really difficult to get back to sleep.

My sleep is broken, it's

disturbed and it's very irregular.

I have tried this year as one of

my New Year's resolutions to really focus on

my sleep and my quality of sleep.

And I have to say, we're definitely getting there.

I found things that work for me.

I still have some bad nights, but the

quality of my sleep has definitely been better.

And I've noticed that my mood has improved, I

definitely have more energy, my brain fog lifts.

Yeah, definitely sleep I think is huge

and so many people underestimate it.

Yeah, it's key to your goals really.

You can perform better in the gym because

you've got more energy and also when you're

tired it increases your hunger hormone, ghrelin,

which means you're going to eat more.

You're probably going to want to snack

more, get iritable more and when you're

iritable what do you want to do?

Grab foods that are going to

give you that instant gratification.

So yeah, sleep is super, super,

super important for fitness goals.

Yeah, and what I've also found is that

as we age, we definitely need more sleep.

I, mentally I still think I'm 25, as you know.

And you say that quite often and I need

to remind you that you're in your mid-40s.

Thanks. Not yet.

Not until August.

Almost, but...

Yeah, there's just this thing about sleep.

As you get older, you think, you

still think in terms of being young.

So when I was in my twenties, I

could have survived on five hours sleep, no

problem, and got on with things fine.

Nowadays, that is game over for me, especially

if I have a few nights like

that where I have not slept well.

It seriously impacts me, majorly impacts me.

So I need to acknowledge the needs of my

body as they are now at this age.

Yeah, I agree with you 100%.

Right, what's the next one?

This one's short and sweet.

So the next one is they

just, they stopped drinking alcohol.

So, we had a bottle of wine last night between

us and I want to say that's pretty much a

special occasion for us because it's the first time that

we've had alcohol in maybe a couple of weeks.

Since Christmas, really?

Well, yeah, since Christmas, yeah.

Yeah.

So, oh God, that's more than a couple of weeks.

So,

We have not stopped drinking totally,

but we don't drink very often.

And we do notice the impact

that drinking alcohol has on us.

It affects our mood badly.

It can affect our quality of sleep again.

And yeah, it just...

I think it stops you from really

achieving what you want to achieve.

And I don't particularly like the way that

alcohol makes me feel the day after or

the couple of days after I've been drinking.

So yeah, I think that's a, that's a good one.

Yeah. Everything in moderation, you

know, it's about balance.

If you're someone that likes to enjoy alcohol,

it's have a think about the things that

we just mentioned about your moods, couple

of days after, your quality of sleep.

But yeah, it's definitely something that we've reduced greatly

over the past few years I would say,

because we just don't enjoy the days after.

No, and we don't need it to have

fun, have a good time, so yeah.

Right, will we picked one more and we'll finish.

Let's do it.

Right, this is just one last one.

This is quite long, but I'm gonna

just focus on the first bit.

I stopped avoiding carbs and now I

feel a lot more energetic in general.

Absolute gold, we've spoken about this before.

There is this thing, I think, and I

do think it's definitely a generational thing, it's

our generation in the UK in particular.

There was this whole period in

time where carbs became the enemy.

And we see this, there are trains with nutrition

and suddenly it's like you have to have

lots of protein or you need to have lots of

fibre or you need to have, all really good but

I think there's just this tunnel vision focus on

different nutritional trends and for a while carbs became

this like public enemy number one. We've touched on

it before. It was The Only Way Is Essex.

No Carbs Before Marbs.

No Carbs Before Marbs. And that became like

a thing, people saw carbohydrates as the

enemy of progress when really they are

what fuel you and fuel your workouts.

The body's main energy source and that you

know hits the nail on the head.

As soon as I started eating carbs

again my energy increased. When we were

doing the research for the show and

I read that one and I was like,

oh, it's great that they've flipped to introducing

carbs rather than stopping carbs, you know, that

they've went the other way, which is perfect.

And also as well, from an aesthetics point of

view, if you're eating carbs, you know, if you're

wanting to look a bit bigger and a bit

bulkier, carbs are going to do that because the

glycogen from carbohydrates are then stored in your muscles.

So cutting out carbs is not the way to go.

And that's all I've got to say on the matter.

And that's the tea.

OK, laptop down, because I'm

done with that just now.

The last thing I will say about carbs

is that instead of focusing too much

on trying to cut down on carbs,

focus more on the quality of the

carbohydrate sources that you are eating.

So instead of stuff that is really high GI, so

stuff that's going to be a lot more sugary,

things that are going to be broken down in

your body a lot quicker, focus on low GI.

So that's glycemic index.

That doesn't mean that you have to completely

rule out anything that is high GI.

So what we're really talking about, or what I'm

really talking about here is complex carbs, carbohydrate sources

that also pack quite a lot of fibre in.

The carbohydrates in the food

will be digested more slowly.

So that also gives the added benefit of making

you feel fuller for longer as well, because they

don't break down in your body as quickly.

You're also not going to get

that blood sugar spike as rapidly.

It'll be more consistent over time.

So changing some of your carbohydrate sources to

low GI will help you avoid that

kind of spike and then the slump.

It'll be a bit more even.

So it's not even that complex, if you'll pardon the

pun, to figure out what the complex carbs are.

It's things like

brown rice, wholemeal foods, anything that

has been a little less processed,

not really bleached, things like that.

They are going to be better for

you in general as your carbohydrate source.

But again, I will say, you know, it depends on you.

It depends on your diet, what's convenient for you.

So none of this is to say you

can't eat this or you can't eat that.

That's not what we do.

80-20 rule. 80-20.

Everything in moderation, so long as 80% is?

Minimally processed whole foods.

And then the other 20%

things that are more indulgent.

So that could potentially be those high

GI foods that you're talking about.

Yeah, totally. Totally.

Okay. Have we finished that section then?

Yes.

Shall we wrap up the show?

Let's wrap it up.

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