Why Extreme Diets Fail Gay Men (And What Actually Works)

Scroll through your social

media feed right now

and you'll see a dozen guys

telling you to cut carbs,

massively cut calories

or fast for 16 hours.

It's a toxic culture

and basically

they're selling you a ton of crap

so that they can get clicks.

What if we told you that

we have a better method

that helps you stop restricting,

enjoy your life and your foods

and get you those results

that you've been chasing.

It sounds impossible

but it works and today

we're going to tell you how.

Welcome back

to The Outlifting Lounge.

I'm Alan. And I'm Derec.

This is the show

that's all about pride,

fitness and everything in between.

We are calling out the BS

surrounding nutrition

in the second half of the show

but if you can't wait

to fix your relationship

with food, jump

to that chapter right now.

But if you want to hang around

for a while first we're going to discuss

the latest announcements

from the world of RuPaul's Drag Race

and we're going to talk about

some good news from World AIDS Day.

Okay let's get into it.

Right will we kick off with the Drag Race

announcements, your favourite subject?

Yes you know me,

I can talk about

Drag Race until I'm blue in the face.

Yeah okay Drag Race

season 18,

go for it.

It was a very exciting week

because Drag

Race US season 18

promo trailer dropped

and the Meet the Queens dropped.

I have to admit

I have not watched the Meet the Queens

because it is over an hour long

and ain't nobody got time for that.

And I think that just proves the point

that I said last week, there's too

much Drag Race.

No I still

don't agree, I still don't agree.

I'm quite excited for the season

and I think that it's a bit

of fresh blood coming into it

because they're all a little bit older.

Define older.

Well you might hit me when I say this

but apparently from what

I've heard all of the queens

that are competing

this time around are over the age of 30.

Clutch pearls, fan face.

But when you compare

that to for instance

the last season that just

finished of Drag Race UK,

that is a bit older.

They've got more experience

under their belt put it that way.

Oh my god if they're older what are we?

F***ing ancient.

Granddaddies.

Oh no

I'm just, I'm

just accepting our daddy

era, we're not jumping to

granddaddy era already.

No, definitely not.

Do you know what, I'm just happy

that there is maybe a bit

more experience in this cast.

I think it'll be a really good season.

The promo in particular

looks phenomenal.

Yeah the promo looks

really really good,

it's really stunning actually.

I want to give a shout out

to queer visual artist

Romain Gauthier

who produced that promo,

absolutely incredible work.

And I really love the tag

line of the season

as well, in shady times

let there be light and

right now

I think that is so fitting

because that's that's what we need.

And especially for the American season

because let's face it everything over

there is a bit of a sh** show

at the minute. Yeah exactly.

And obviously we love a drag queen name

because you've got about

20 names for yourself.

What's your favourite name

from the new cast?

Do you know what,

there's actually not much competition

because I think that there's

only a couple of the queens

that have like pun

drag names

but my favourite one

is Kenya Pleaser.

Brilliant,

absolutely brilliant.

Have we mentioned

what our drag names are?

Not that we have like

drag personas.

Oh but if we were ever going to do drag?

Yeah yeah yeah.

I don't think we have.

So

Alan you are...

This works on a lot of levels.

Right this, Alan's drag

name that I have come up with

which he hasn't used yet obviously

because he hasn't done drag

but it works on a lot of levels.

Levels that was a good pun,

well done. Yeah

because Alan is of a short level.

I'm a short arse.

I'm five foot five. So

Alan is a short arse,

Alan is Scottish

and Alan has a bladder

that is the size of a pea,

like an actual pea.

We cannot leave the house

without five minutes later

Alan say like oh I need the toilet.

I actually need a pee right now.

There we go.

So Alan's drag

name is Anita Wee.

I do like that, I do like that.

So maybe for Pride in

May we need to go out in drag

and Anita

Wee will come to life.

And then I can bring up my drag

persona as well then.

You've got like 20

so which one are you choosing?

So if I was to do drag

I think I would like to have

the body-ody-ody.

Body-ody-ody! Body-ody-ody.

So I would be shaped,

I would have half a sofa stuffed

into my tights. Cinched?

Cinched, the whole lot.

So my drag name

would be Paddy

d'Arse,

little D apostrophe.

Paddy d'Arse.

So what's the relevance of that?

Because I would have a padded arse!

Because you're Irish? And I'm Irish.

There we go. So Anita

Wee, Paddy d'Arse.

Season eight of

Drag Race UK.

There's too much Drag Race.

Or if we get our Spanish good enough

we could be on temporada

seis of Drag Race España.

Yes, or All Stars.

Well you're going right

into the next thing.

So Drag Race US season

18 starts on the 2nd of January.

Something to look forward to.

Don't think I'm ready for another one.

Blow away those New Year's blues.

Less than a month away, okay.

And let there be light!

Let there be light.

And do you know what brings light?

Stars.

Oh, more specifically...

All Stars.

I think that was the cheesiest

link we've ever done.

That was a good segue.

That was good, well done.

Let's high

five for that. Yes, oh that's

totally off camera by the way.

But

yeah, Drag Race

España,

which is our favourite

franchise, have announced this week

Drag Race España

All Stars 2. Can't wait.

It's something that we said

that we were hoping for

in a previous episode

so I'm taking full credit.

I think they've commissioned

it based on the strength of our podcast

with our handful of listeners.

We manifested it.

Yeah, I know I've said there's

too much Drag

Race at the minute but I'm quite happy

that there's a Drag Race

España

season 2. Yeah,

we'll always make an exception

for Drag Race España. Yeah,

it is fantastic.

I don't know what it is about.

It's not even the calibre

of drag queens that are on it,

it's just,

and we've spoke about this

before, it's the family

and it just feels

so special. Yeah,

like the episode a couple of weeks ago

which was like

the actual final proper episode

before the finale tonight.

Yeah, all the judges were in tears,

the host Supremme De Luxe was in tears

because they actually care

about the contestants

and we were in tears as well

because it's just such a special,

special season.

So yeah, Drag Race

All Stars 2 is going to be amazing.

So who do we want to see in

season 2? In season 2

I want another Canarian drag queen

so I want either

Drag Vulcano from season

1 or Drag Chuchi

from season 3. Yeah,

so for me I think Clover Bish

from Barcelona,

the first cis woman to ever

compete on Drag Race España,

she was brilliant.

She was one of my all-time

favourites. We really liked Clover

Bish and I think we liked her for

two reasons.

Number one,

we could understand

her when she spoke Spanish

because she speaks really clearly

but also her creativity was so good

and she has this

really bubbly

infectious personality,

she's a really good queen. Yeah,

I think we really warmed to

her as a person

and then them as a drag queen

because she's just lovely. Yeah,

I would also really like to see

Kelly Roller make a comeback.

So she was also on season 3,

she was eliminated

in one of the early episodes,

like episode 4,

but then she got brought back

and she ended up making it

all the way to the finale.

She's so good, so talented

and easy

on the eye out of drag.

Well if we're talking about easy

on the eye out of drag.

Oh I know exactly who you're going to

say. Who? Megui?

Yes, Megui Yeillow.

You know how they always talk about

the trades of the season?

I think Megui

is probably the trade of all seasons,

all franchises

ever, ever produced.

So Megui

Yeillow was... Pit crew. Pit crew.

Yeah, Megui was pit crew

for the first three seasons

and I think in All Stars season one

and then came back

as a fabulous drag queen. Yeah.

Okay, one more.

Who are you going to go for?

I've got two

and I'm going to mention them both

and then I'll just pick one. Make

a decision. Ah,

so from season two,

Estrella Extravaganza. Yes.

And then from season

four, Chloe Vittu.

That is a tough choice actually.

And the reason,

one of my reasons for Chloe Vittu

was because she gave

one of the funniest

snatch game performances.

I think we watched that

and rewound and watched again and again

and we were on the floor

crying with laughter.

Please tell me where you're

going to put the clip on the

YouTube video. Well,

I don't know

if I can because

I might need to blur out

the offensive object.

But basically

somebody throws an object to her

and the way

I would describe this object is

if you wanted to make some bread,

so you would make a dough

and if you wanted to flavour it

with a herb, maybe dill.

I was like,

where are you going with this? So

somebody threw the dough to her

and she

then stuck it to the table

and couldn't get it back off.

The thing that makes it so

funny is the,

I'm actually crying with laughter

right now, is the panic

in her eyes

trying to get this object

off the table.

Oh my God. Drag Race

España is a whole other level.

Anytime

I need cheering up,

I just watch that clip of that video.

It is hilarious

Okay, I will put the clip

in the video version of this,

so obviously if you're listening

to this on

one of the streaming

platforms that we use,

you might

want to check out the YouTube video

so that you can see

what we're talking about.

It's so funny.

It's brilliant. So shall we talk about

the other topic

that we wanted to talk about

which was some good news

that came out on World

AIDS Day? Absolutely, let's do

it. Monday was World

AIDS Day and on that day

there was an article published

in New Scientist magazine

about a man who has become

the seventh person

to basically become

free of HIV

after he was treated with

a stem cell transplant

to treat his blood cancer. Yeah, he's

actually the second of seven

who received

stem cells that weren't

actually resistant to the virus.

Yeah, which is really, really good.

So from what I understand

of the article, basically this has now

given scientists a new way

of thinking about this,

that it might not actually be necessary

to use HIV

resistant cells to treat it

and it could potentially

open up the gateway and the pathway

to a cure eventually.

It doesn't mean that there's

a cure around the corner because stem

cell treatment isn't going to be suitable

for the vast

majority of people with HIV.

Definitely the best way

that we have got to treat HIV at

the minute is anti-retrovirals

and also prevention as well,

so things like PrEP and good

old-fashioned condoms.

Yeah, PrEP has been brilliant

in bringing down the transmission

rates within the community

especially for gay

and bi men and actually there's

the new injection as well

that's just come out. Yeah,

I think you're talking about Lenacapavir,

so that is the injection

that's taken twice a year

and it basically works like PrEP

and it means somebody doesn't

have to take a tablet every day

and I think in September

that got approval in the EU,

it's already been approved in the US

and I think

it hasn't been approved in the UK yet

but I think that the body

that looks after that

kind of thing

is due to meet to discuss it

in March, so

fingers crossed,

hopefully it becomes available in the UK

quite soon. Yeah, really positive news,

so looking forward

to hearing more about that

in the new year.

Right,

shall we move on to the fitness

section? Let's do it.

Welcome to the

fitness section of today's show

and we are looking at why

extreme diets

fail gay men

and we're going to tell you

what actually works.

So Alan, do

you want to kick us off

with talking a little bit about what

we experience as online fitness coaches?

I think when guys sign up with us,

they always think that the gym is going

to be the hardest part of their journey,

when actually

the hardest part is nutrition

and it's the fear

surrounding nutrition

because there's so much

misinformation

out there. I think we've lost

count of how many times

that a new client has come along to us

and they tell us that

they have tried to "eat

clean" in inverted

commas before

and what generally ends up happening

is they last

for a few days,

maybe Monday to Thursday,

then the weekend hits

and they maybe

have some drinks, they eat out,

they do whatever and then

by the time

that Monday rolls round again,

they get that Monday morning

guilt

and it's guilt that they're very much

putting on themselves.

And that's where restriction can

then come in because they've

maybe overdone it at the weekend

and so they start restricting

and then that just creates

that cycle. Yeah,

that cycle of guilt

that is really toxic and

when you break it down and

you understand it, it's

absolutely unnecessary.

Yeah and I think that's the problem

for so many men in our community

because there's so much misinformation

out there

and conflicting information as well

and especially the word diet,

I think it has so many

negative connotations to it

and we never use it

because of that.

The problem is that

there is actually nothing wrong

with the word diet itself

but it has become a dirty word

because it's used

very negatively.

That is reinforced

through people's experiences

or maybe what

they see their friends going through

when they're going on these

quote-unquote diets.

They become restrictive,

they become destructive,

they signal misery for people.

I think that in essence

is the problem.

Yeah, I think you've hit the nail

on the head there because there's been

so many guys

that I have spoken to before

and I've said to them

that you know you haven't failed, it's

actually the diet,

inverted commas again,

that has failed you.

What I have found from

dealing with clients is that

it's very

simple to fall into

this all or nothing trap

and that's what

a lot of these diets are essentially.

It's like you have to go all in,

you have to go hard

with these rules and it's diets

maybe like the keto diet

or the paleo diet or the one that

I absolutely despise

the most

which I've heard of so many times,

the 1200

calorie diet. Again,

all fad diets

that are over restrictive

and you don't need to be doing that

to get the results that you want.

I actually thought

I was biting my lip there

because I actually thought you were going

to say no carbs

and the phrase

that I absolutely hate,

no carbs before Marbs.

If I could find the person

that invented that

I would actually throttle them.

Well I think that came from TOWIE,

I think that was like a TOWIE thing

where they were doing this like special

where they went to Marbella

and that was like a mantra that they used

was no carbs before Marbs.

You're cutting out a whole food

group. It's not sustainable

and even that slogan,

no carbs before Marbs,

it is signalling that

it's a quick fix,

that you've got an immediate target,

you just need to maybe

lose some weight quickly

but the problem is

that it's not sustainable,

it's doing damage to your body

and it's really not healthy.

That's the thing

when you restrict yourself

then your body's got to fight back,

you know it's survival mode

so you'll find

that your energy in the gym

is absolutely rock bottom.

Never mind even just the gym,

like your energy

in everyday life,

there's no way that your brain

can function on such a restricted diet.

For instance

the 1200 calorie

diet quote unquote,

that isn't a diet

that is a starvation plan.

You're not giving your body

what it needs to actually

just even function.

And again I'm going to line

that person that invented

that phrase and the

no carbs before Marbs together

then just bash their heads together.

For anyone that wants to build muscle

you can't build muscle on fumes

which is exactly what you're going to be

getting on 1200 calories. Exactly.

And the thing is if you do

try to run your body on fumes

and you're not giving it what it needs,

what's going to end up

happening? Binging.

You're going to crash,

you're going to binge

and that's

just going to lead

you into a cycle,

a very toxic cycle

and that's why

so many people

yo-yo diet.

Yeah that's exactly it

because you restrict something,

you binge on it,

you restrict it again, you binge on it

so it's trying to break that cycle.

And just going back to carbs

because they're demonised so much,

carbs are your body's

main fuel source

so if you're not fueling your body

it's not going to run properly.

The problem is as well

that this leads to a craving paradox

because the more

you restrict or say

I can't have that,

the more your body wants it.

It's just the way humans are built

and that is what leads to eventual

binging. Absolutely.

Now here's a question

you should ask yourself before

you change your nutrition.

Can you see yourself

eating like this

for the rest of your life?

If the answer is no,

it is absolutely not the way to go.

Yeah and do you know, I think in this day

and age as well

things have changed a little bit.

It used to be more about these fad diets

so maybe going back 20 years

it would have been a new book came out

and that would have been the fad diet

that everybody wanted

and everybody bought the book.

Nowadays

I think it's much more geared

towards influencers

online

and one thing

that really boils

my piss is these influencer

videos on TikTok, on Instagram

and it's like here's

what I eat in a day

and it's sometimes it is useful,

sometimes it's good

and sometimes it's quite realistic.

Often though

it's not

and you know it's

not that these influencers

are trying to paint this perfect

rosy image of their life,

this perfect diet

that they have

and that in itself

is really toxic as well

because it makes you feel

that you are inferior,

that you lack the discipline to do this,

that you are not as good

as this person

and that in itself

gives you a negative view

of how you approach

nutrition. People have different

goals, people have different

caloric needs

so what someone else eats

might not be what you need so

yeah click on it,

have a look at it,

maybe take a wee bit of info from it

but do not follow what they're doing.

The advice that I would give is

if you're following

an account online

and they make you feel

negative feelings

when you watch those videos

rather than feeling

genuinely inspired or you're feeling

like you've been educated

properly on something,

unfollow those accounts,

don't watch them,

block them, mute them,

whatever you need to do because

letting that into

your life is not good for you.

So we have discussed the problem

I think here, we've identified

what the problem is,

shall we go on

to talk about what we see

as the solution to this?

So the solution that we feel works

best for our clients is the 80-20 rule

and it really takes

a bit of a mindset shift

for clients to follow it.

And as we have found that mindset

shift does not come immediately,

it normally takes

a few weeks

for them to really get it.

How many times

have we taken on a new client

and we have set a calorie goal

for them to meet each day

and we find

that they are under eating

and they're not hitting

their calorie goal

because they have this idea

in their head that they need to eat less

to hit their goals

despite the advice

that we're giving them?

Yeah that happens all the time

and we understand it because it comes

from that fear

and also

that misinformation

and the over restricting

that we see happen time and time again

and it's about

trusting in the process

and them believing that what we are

telling them is the right thing

for them to do.

And

once we explain it

as we have already

given you a calorie deficit

if it's a fat loss plan

that they're on, we've given

you a calorie deficit

within the calories

that we've provided,

if you eat under that

you're then in a double deficit

so it's about explaining

that concept to them

but also we need to meet them

where they are as well

so if they're not comfortable

reaching that goal

what we do is,

okay well you're eating here

now let's build that up

gradually over the week

so that they can see that

actually eating

more isn't going to mean

that they're going to put on weight.

What most people don't realise

is that not eating enough

calories

is dysregulating to your body.

So making sure

that you're eating enough is important

because that helps you

regulate stress,

it helps you regulate your hormones,

and both of those things

actually help to aid

weight loss if that's

what your goal is.

Absolutely agree with you

and that's why

the 80-20 rule is so important.

Yeah so today

that is our answer.

Our answer is the 80-20 rule.

So that is the golden ratio.

Rather than go on a restrictive diet,

rather than worry too much

about foods

being the enemy

or things that you can't eat

or denying yourself what you want,

we advocate

for most people

and this is suitable

for most of the clients that come

to us,

80% of the food that you eat

should be nutritionally dense.

It should be food

that feeds and fuels

your body correctly.

Fresh foods, freshly

prepared foods,

fruit and vegetables, food

that most people would consider

as healthy.

The other 20% is stuff

that you enjoy eating.

It's things that you want

to eat and

they are probably

foods that a lot of people would consider

as bad foods, again

in inverted commas,

or foods

that they might not see as healthy

but it doesn't

necessarily need to be that way.

Yeah and the mindset shift

that we ask clients

to do when we talk about

that 20%

is we talk about them

as foods that are more indulgent,

you know.

They're not treats.

They're not rewards. Because you're not

a dog. Exactly!

You don't need to be rewarded

with treats.

You don't need to be...

you don't need to view food as something

that is a reward

for behaving well. Yeah.

There's no good food, there's

no bad food, there's just food

and once you make

that mindset shift

it makes that 80/20 rule so much easier.

And the thing is if 80% of the food

that you're eating is

well-balanced, fresh,

nutritionally dense

food,

that will actually leave

you feeling fuller

so you will break

that kind of craving cycle

and over time within maybe a week,

two weeks, three weeks

of eating this way,

you'll find that the cravings

dissipate very very quickly

and if you do then

have a craving it's

not as if you can't eat that food.

You can, but

it's all about balance.

Yeah I think we need to break free

from this moralizing foods, you know.

Food is fuel.

It's there to be enjoyed.

You should never feel guilty

for eating food

and quite often

going back to that cycle,

that mMnday cycle

that you mentioned earlier,

when clients come on to me

on a Monday on their check-ins,

I can tell that they want to tell me

that they've been bad,

inverted commas again,

at the weekend

and my first question is

did you enjoy yourself?

Did you enjoy that food?

Yes? Great!

Let's move on.

I think a really good example of

that is our client Drew

who did not

sacrifice his social...

he had a great social life

while he was on his programme with us

and in those

first three months on the programme

he smashed it. Yeah.

He lost

quite a lot of weight.

12kg. 12kg!

He built muscle as well,

so that makes that weight

loss even more phenomenal

and he just looked like

such a happier version of himself

because he trusted

the process, it clicked for him

really quickly

and he realized

it was not about deprivation,

it wasn't about missing social events,

it was about changing your mindset

so that you can enjoy

those things

at the same time

as owning

your nutrition,

owning your exercise,

and owning your life. Drew as an example

is about sustainable results.

He understood that

it was a lifestyle change

that he was making

and it wasn't a crash (inverted

commas) diet,

because a crash diet is exactly that.

I think it's probably

well named as a crash diet

because you're okay

doing it for a little while

but then you crash. Yeah,

crash and burn, absolutely. Crash

and burn, yeah.

And you'll see time and time again

that when people go

on a crash diet

they lose a ton of weight.

Amazing, because it takes dedication

and hard work to do that,

but usually

they put the weight back on again.

And then some!

I think that

the approach that we advocate

for, the 80/20 rule,

yeah you might lose weight

slower than you would

on one of these crash diets

but it's sustainable

and you will keep the weight off

we've seen it with Drew, we've seen it

with so many other clients

because it's

almost like a re-education.

It's forgetting

and unlearning

all of the nonsense

that has somehow made it into your brain

through magazines, through tv shows,

through influencers,

and realizing

that that's not fact,

that those are just opinions

and people trying to sell

you nonsense.

What is fact is

really quite basic

and really quite simple.

And someone else who has learned about

sustainable weight loss

is Fraser.

He's been on such an incredible journey

and one of his fears

is going back to his old habits

and putting weight back on again.

Now we're reverse

dieting him at the minute.

We're bringing him

out of a calorie deficit

and bringing him up

to maintenance calories.

He is eating more calories

than he has eaten in a long

while, he's still losing weight

and he's the lightest he's

been since he was 13 years old,

which is just incredible.

And the work that we're doing with him

is around the mindset

and it's don't fear food.

You can eat more

and still lose weight

but we need to make sure

what works for that person.

So i think that's probably

our overarching comment here, isn't it?

Don't fear food.

Fraser is a prime example.

Drew is a prime example.

We could name so many other guys

that we have worked with who

when they let go of the guilt

and they let go of the confusion

they let go of the quote

unquote dieting

and they just get on

with living under this

very simple 80/20 rule,

they find it enjoyable,

they get good results,

and they love their relationship

with food, they're loving life.

Shall we wrap it up there?

Yeah. Okay.

In summary,

don't think of food as good

or bad,

forget fad diets

that overly restrict you,

and eat what

you want in moderation

with the 80/20 rule.

Remember as always,

we love to hear from you.

If you want to get in touch with us

you can email us.

The address is podcast@outlift.ing

and also

if you do not follow us

on social media already,

why not?

Give us a follow!

We're on TikTok, we are on Instagram,

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