Hello and welcome to episode
10 of The Outlifting Lounge. I'm Alan.
And I'm Derec. This show is going out during that period between
Christmas and New Year when generally you don't even
know what day of the week it is.
So nothing too serious today.
We are just going to have a bit
of a chat about our Christmas, about our
New Year's resolutions, and we're going to share
quite a funny Reddit post that we found.
So let's get going.
Right, let's have a little chat about our
Christmas, our second Christmas on Gran Canaria.
It was fun, it was a different kind of
Christmas as well because it's so hot here, nice
and sunny, not to make anybody feel jealous.
I was about 21 degrees on Christmas Day.
Definitely was not a white Christmas here.
And of course on Christmas morning we did
our favourite thing to do here and that's
to check the weather back in Glasgow.
So they didn't get a white Christmas either.
No. Although they got a dry Christmas which I mean
if you're living in Glasgow you'll take that.
I'll tell you what, our Christmas day wasn't dry.
I'm still feeling the effects of it.
The spirits were free flowing shall we say?
They were. But it was good fun, it was really good fun.
There was a good crowd of us that went
out and celebrated Christmas together with a nice meal.
With a nice bottle of fizz at Nik's which was nice,
that was just to kind of set us up for
the day and then we went to our local, Copacabana.
Couple of nice wee cocktails in
there and then our Christmas lunch.
We went to a little place called The Bistro, fab
guys that run a really nice staff that work there
and stuff and it was a huge big table of
us so lots of people there people we hadn't met
before people we had met but didn't know really well
so it was quite nice to get to to speak
to them and enjoy Christmas and have a laugh.
Yeah, it was good. Like you said, there was some people we didn't know
and people that we kind of know of and
we say hi to, but to actually sit down
and have a chat with them was really nice.
It was really good. And then after the meal, we went and got Haggis.
So Haggis spent the rest of Christmas Day with us.
And yeah, we just went down to the Yumbo
Centre, went to Copacabana for a few drinks, went
to Mardi Gras for a few drinks, went
to the Rainbow Room for a few drinks.
Then it was time to go home.
No. Oh no, then we went to Tom's for a drink.
Did you forget that we ended up in Tom's?
It came back to me then, yeah.
Yeah, and then it's very difficult to get Haggis
home because the taxis just won't take dogs normally,
so we ended up having to bribe a taxi
driver with 20 euros to take us home.
We had to double the fare to take us home.
But listen, we got home and that was the main thing.
Haggis loves being in the Yumbo, doesn't he?
Because he just gets so much attention and
he was getting plenty of attention in
Rainbow Room when we were round as well.
It was a good Christmas for him too.
Aye, he enjoyed it.
But of course in Spain, the Christmas doesn't really
start or end on the 25th of December.
Christmas really starts on the 22nd of
December for the Christmas lottery. El Gordo.
And if anybody hasn't experienced this, I
think we wanted to talk about
this because it is an experience.
It's actually mental.
It starts really early in the morning. Everybody buys
their tickets well in advance and you get basically
get a ticket with a five digit number on
it and then they have two huge big
they're like those old bingo ball things, yeah.
So they've got like a hundred thousand numbers in
one of them and then in the other one
that they've got, this is the smaller one, they've got
lots of different prizes. And it's a massive draw
as well they give out something like, was it
two and a half billion euros worth of prizes?
Yeah none of it came our way though. Raging!
Two Christmases in a row we've won nothing. I know, raging!
And it's a huge thing as well because you said when
you took Haggis out for a walk like walking past
all our neighbours you could hear it on the TV
as well because everybody watches it. There were people in
the street with their phones like watching it on their
phones there were people that pulled their cars over to
watch it and it goes on for hours and it's
these like we'll put a little clip in so people
can hear what it sounds like but they’ve these kids that
take part and they sing the numbers and the prizes
Cincuenta y dos mil doscientos sesenta y seis.
Mil Euros.
Ochenta y siete mil novicientos trenta.
Mil Euros.
But it goes on for hours like this, so
long that they have to keep changing the kids
over so none of them lose their voice.
And it's a good way for us
to practice our numbers in Spanish.
Well, yeah, I think they sing way too fast.
But in Spain, it's such a massive thing.
For people in Spain, it's like tradition.
So for them, that's when Christmas begins.
It's when they tune into the lottery and hear
the songs being sung, hear the numbers being sung.
And it is just tradition for them.
What's the best part of it, though?
Mil Euros.
No, because that's the thing you hear all the time.
The thing I was going to say
was when somebody wins a prize.
Oh yeah. So when somebody wins a prize, what you do,
basically, if you win the big prize or
the second big prize or whatever, you go
to the place where you bought the ticket and celebrate.
But they've got camera crews like situated all over
Spain and they're there within like 10-15 minutes.
It's mental actually how quick they can get
there and then there's people there celebrating
with their champagne and stuff and they
get a literal 15 minutes of fame.
That's good fun and it's nice that
we're falling into these new Christmas traditions.
So our Christmas is finished, but actually Spanish
Christmas isn't actually until the 6th of January.
Yeah, it's really weird.
Their Christmas is totally different here.
They've got different things that they celebrate.
And so today's like the 28th of December
and it's Día de los Inocentes, which is
basically their version of April Fool's Day.
but let's go back so let's follow the timeline
properly so we've got El Gordo on the 22nd.
Yes. Then on Christmas Eve is Nochebuena. Yes.
And that's really when people
celebrate here, because our neighbours
were up to two o'clock in the f***ing morning.
Well, that's the last time you heard them. I
think I heard them after that but they really
celebrate it's such a big thing here is like
Christmas Eve night. But then their Christmas Day
is more like a traditional UK Boxing Day.
Yeah everybody's off work. You see people out doing like DIY
and stuff like that and it's just a bit of
a normal day and the only people that
you really see out doing like the Christmas day thing
are tourists or people from other countries that live here.
Like us. So yeah, so that's up to the 28th
and so this is a little bit of a lull now
before as i would call it Hogmanay. New Year's Eve.
But we're back to work tomorrow. I've got client
check-ins tomorrow so that's quite nice to have a
wee bit of normality before having a couple of
days off again. Yeah. And we don't really do
much at Hogmanay because of Haggis because he's
scared of the fireworks.
Yeah he's a s***ebag
No, he's bad with the fireworks so we've
never really been able to do anything
at New Year's Eve because of that.
Yeah. Which is a shame but he's priority.
So normally stay in, have a couple of
drinks at the bells, watch The Steamie.
Oh. Now if anybody doesn't know what The Steamie
is, I'm sure a lot of people
from Scotland will know what it is.
Actually probably a lot of older people.
Because it's from the 19...
You're telling on yourself here?
I know, I know. It's from the 1980s I want to say.
I remember it as a kid. It was late 1980s.
Yeah, I remember it being on the TV as a kid
and it's Tony Roper who wrote this play and it's about
Glasgow women in the 1950s going to the steamie which is
where they used to go to wash their clothes and
it just... so many memories of watching it with
my gran and my mum as a kid and we
love it. I introduced it to you and you...
We always have a greet as we would say in Glasgow
which is a cry basically at it because it's so nostalgic.
It's heartwarming. It captures a moment in time and
there's so many different themes to it as well
it's like, one of the main underlying themes in
it is about the strength and resilience of women
and there is something really timeless about that as
well but particularly for that period in time. They
talk about their husbands, what their husbands have
been getting up to and the one male
character that's actually in it is just getting
drunker and drunker as the show goes on
and the women are having to put
up with his nonsense as well.
It's really good. If anybody hasn't seen The Steamie
before, it's such a good watch.
It's just so funny.
There's so many stupid little lines in
there that we quote all the time.
And we get really excited to watch it every year.
I love it. I love it.
And the actual day of, when the women are at
the steamie, is Hogmanay, New Year's Eve as well.
So that's why it's kind of got
that theme running through it as well.
Everybody gets a chance to go and see the stage show
of it because they do it every now and again.
Go and see it, it's brilliant.
And we actually went to see a drag version of it.
Dragged To The Steamie, that was brilliant.
It was so funny.
They had so much success with that that they
then got to tour around Scotland and do
Dragged To The Steamie all around Scotland and
that got a really good reception as well. People loved it.
And then we went to see Nine to
Five, they did a drag version of that.
That was very funny.
And I'm sure one of the actors that
they had on was just dragged in
that night because they kept making mistakes.
Yeah, it was very good.
So if anybody hasn't seen The Steamie, it's on STV
Player which is available in Scotland but also I
think you can watch it on YouTube as well.
I don't know how legit that is but
I'm pretty sure the whole thing's on YouTube.
Watch it, definitely, yeah. We will.
And we've got a visitor on New Year's Eve as well.
Yes, so the boys from Copacabana, Grant and Jeff,
they have a dog Nala and she's very very frightened
of the fireworks probably worse than Haggis actually so we're
going to have her that night so that the boys
are obviously working and we're going to make sure that
the doggos are okay. We’re going to build them
a wee den so they feel nice and safe.
Yeah. So that's gonna be our favourite thing. The Steamie
and dogs. Pretty much and then we'll start the
new year as we mean to go on. Out
with the dogs first thing in the morning and...
And we'll be fresh probably as well.
Yes, we'll probably be the
freshest people for kilometres around.
And Christmas won't actually be done here
by that point. In the UK, 5th
of January, everybody's back to work, depressed.
And then the 6th is actually the King's Day here.
Día de los Reyes, I'm pretty sure it's called.
Most kids in Spain I think pretty much get
the presents from the three wise men, the kings.
So they don't arrive until the 12th day of Christmas
which is the 6th of January so that's a big
thing here. That's like kind of like Christmas Day essentially.
And then Christmas is done. And then Christmas is done!
And it starts getting back to normal. Christmas is
very much finished for us though and once New
Year's is over we are looking ahead. Yes, 2026.
yeah and we're going to set ourselves some resolutions and
stick to them and make 2026 a really good year
and kick it off the way we want. So
we'll announce what some of our resolutions are on
camera so that we have to stick to them.
F***. Nae pressure. So what are your resolutions?
I think for me it's
definitely learning more Spanish.
We kind of dip in and out of it don't we,
our study, but I need to be more structured and strict
and have a bit of a routine with that so that
by the end of 2026 I'm at least C1 level. I'm
kind of at B1 level at the minute which is intermediate
I would say but I want to be above that.
I think you're finding the same difficulty
as me because we are self-taught, we're
learning ourselves, we're watching programs in Spanish,
we're learning things as we go on.
I think very much the problem for me
is I can read Spanish really well.
Like I've read a couple of books and things and it's
a good way to learn because anytime I come across a
word I don't know, I'm adding it to my vocabulary.
So I can do that really well.
I can write in Spanish pretty okay.
But when it comes to having a conversation in Spanish,
some days I'm really good and I can blab away.
And then other days I just, or with certain
people, I just freeze and I find it difficult.
So for me, definitely learning Spanish is
a big priority, big resolution going into
2026, but specifically I think practicing
speaking. Yeah. Speaking and listening that's the the problem and
I think here as well because the Canarian accent is
so strong, it's fast, they miss off letters from the
ends of words. So it's just for us it's
really really difficult. And how we describe it normally
is if someone was to learn English and then
they suddenly found themselves in the middle of Glasgow
city centre and people are like, all right pal
how you doing what's happening, you’d just be like,
what the hell. Or asking somebody oh excuse me have you
seen where the newspapers are and somebody from Glasgow turning
around going, there they're there. There they're there.
Yeah, so I think that's the situation we find ourselves
in that the Canarian accent is so strong that
we find it difficult and it's fast, the cadence
is like super fast so we just need to
throw ourselves into it.I think we need some more
gay Canarian pals because that will help us with like
pop culture as well. Yeah I think for me as
well as well as the Spanish one thing that I
was not as good at in 2025 which I
previously was really good at was my yoga practice
so I think for me a big resolution going into
next year is definitely to pick the yoga practice way
back up again, do it much more regularly because I'm
starting to notice that I'm becoming a little more inflexible
my body's definitely got a little bit more rigid and
yeah just in general my body is not as
loose as it used to be. Yeah I think
with the amount of strength... I can't believe I
just said that and you didn't even make
an innuendo. You're not on your game today.
Right, hang on...
You're quite loose.
Yeah, I think as well, because
we're getting a bit older.
Maybe you are... But listen, this was a
running theme on Christmas Day.
You kept saying that you were considerably younger than me.
I am! You're a year and a half younger.
It's gay years though.
That's not a lot.
March is coming and you're going to be two
years younger, apparently. Because I'm 45 in March.
Yes. And you’ll still be 43.
Anyway, we digress.
That should be the name of our podcast, actually.
Never mind The Outlifting Lounge, it
should just be, We Digress.
So I think as we get a bit older, it's super
important to make sure that we are stretching a bit more
because of the amount of training we do in the gym.
You know, we look after ourselves in that sense,
but we definitely need to do a bit
more because when we lived in Glasgow, you
were teaching three Bodybalance classes a week.
Yeah, then I was going and covering some classes
and we were doing our own practice as well.
I was really good at stretching in
the evenings and things like that.
I've not been as good at it recently.
And it's just like anything, it just kind of falls
on the wayside unless you have a focus on it.
So that's a big focus for me.
Yeah. Something I want to continue doing into the new
year in 2026 is reading more. Since I bought a
Kindle like in October last year I've absolutely loved it
and I never thought I would be a Kindle person
I like a book but it's great grabbing my Kindle,
getting into bed, and just having a right good read
and I've been loving a lot of the things that
I've been reading lately and I still need to
read A Room Above A Shop which...
Did we speak about it a couple of weeks ago?
I don’t think we have spoken about it yet.
So, it’s a book that you’ve read twice actually
and I need to get into it
so we can speak about it.
I never do this but
I read that book cover to cover
in like, a couple of hours.
It’s not a particularly long book.
But I read it cover to cover, did not stop
until I'd finished. It is beautiful and I don't know
like what it is about it there's, there's so many
different themes underlying in the book it's one of those
books that when you do finish it just sits with
you for a little while. I didn't know how I
felt afterwards. Honestly the book is just so beautifully written.
The sentences are quite short but they
are dense, like they're so descriptive.
It's almost like poetry in places.
A Room Above A Shop by Anthony Shapland.
Phenomenal. Cannot recommend it more.
We're going to get you to read it and we'll maybe
talk about it on a, like, properly on a future show.
Yeah, I think so.
I've just finished reading Shuggie Bain, it's 1980s, it’s
Glasgow, so you know you can relate to
it because I was an 80s child growing up
in Glasgow, so if anybody hasn't read Shuggie
Bain then I would recommend that as well.
I need to read Young Mungo, that's the follow up.
I haven’t read that yet and I need to.
Yeah I think I preferred Young Mungo
to Shuggie Bain just because... I won't
give too much read but yeah.
Young Mungo is on my New Year's reading list and
Room Above A Shop can be on yours then. Okay deal.
And then we're going to need some more recommendations
so if anybody's tuning in and knows any good
LGBT specific interest books because that is what we
like reading, LGBT fiction, please comment, send us
messages, let us know what your recommendations are.
Any other resolutions then?
Definite work-life balance. Yeah. And I think we’ve been
quite good over Christmas. We have switched off. Yes.
We haven't... the only thing we're doing really work
related is this right there but this is fun
as well. That's because you don't do the editing.
So we started the business at the start of 2025.
I know. In January.
Outlifting's nearly a year old.
Nearly a year old already.
It has been great. It's been so much fun.
Like we love what we do, but we have
maybe been guilty of not taking enough us time.
And that definitely, it's something we got better at
towards the end of the year, but going into
2026, that has to be a non-negotiable for us,
is time off.
Yeah and during the summer we were very good at
taking a Friday afternoon off and going for a beach
walk and then we stopped doing that because we were
so busy so I think getting that back into our
schedule during the week is a good thing. Yes, even
just taking an hour out sometimes like we have done
that where we take a lunch break, we go
into the garden, sunbathe and then we continue on
with our day and that hour of just switching
off, forgetting about work, is like really essential.
Yeah and I think as well because we are
self-employed, obviously we're partners, we live together,
we work together it's very easy just to start talking
about work because it's there all the time
so we need to have...
Boundaries. Boundaries, yes!
Definite boundaries and taking an actual day off
as well we need to decide on a day off.
Yes. Having a better work-life balance is
an aspirational resolution but some of the other
stuff that we're talking about about setting boundaries,
having a set day off, making that plan,
that's how we're going to make it work
and that leads quite nicely into a little plug
but this is something that we're doing for free
for people so please listen in. We're not trying,
this is not going to be a hard sell.
So we are running from the 3rd of January
for 28 days, we are running a new year's
resolution workshop called Make It Stick so this is
all about making your new year's resolutions a reality
and bringing them forward into 2026 and hopefully beyond
How many times have you started a New Year's
resolution or set an intention and maybe it's okay
at first but then it falls on the wayside?
What we want to do is bring people
together as a group and we've also already
got quite a few people interested in this.
So on the 3rd of January,
we will run an online webinar.
Everybody gets together.
We will provide a digital workbook with lots
of resources in there to support your journey.
You will set your resolutions and we will
go through the process of bringing a plan
in place to make those resolutions a reality.
Over the course of the next 28 days we
will check in with you weekly to see how
you're doing with your resolutions, to see if you
need any support and to help keep you accountable.
Then at the end of the 28 days we
will get together for another video chat and everybody
can discuss how their January was for their resolutions,
where they were successful and we can hopefully help
each other out if we've maybe not had the
level of success that we wanted with our resolutions.
So, if this sounds like something that
you would like to take part in,
we would love to welcome you along.
It's totally free, totally no obligation, you don't
need to be a member of Outlifting.
We'd love to bring you on board.
We are opening the registrations very, very soon.
So in order to get on the waiting list all
you need to do is sign up. There is a
link in the show notes or the description that you
can click through just pop in your name and your
email address and you will be the first to know
when registrations open. So don't delay, do that now, get
on that list, and we will let you know
and we are looking forward to kicking off January
2026 together and making it our most successful yet.
Right, let's get on with the show.
Just before we wrap up, we're going
to do our regular fitness segment.
This is just going to be short.
This is absolutely no hate whatsoever to
the person who posted this on Reddit.
We are not making fun of them.
We are not laughing at them.
This is probably quite a relatable fitness
problem to have as a guy.
As a guy, yes.
For many guys, I would say.
Right, let me just get this a bit
closer because I'm at that age now where
I'm probably needing glasses, to be honest.
Okay so... I'm a teenager who just recently in
brackets very recently started lifting and I've noticed that
my right arm, in brackets, dominant one is
much more developed. I only use 10 pound
weights and exercise both arms evenly. Should I
start doing the exercises on each arm individually?
This is something that's pretty natural.
If you're using your right arm for a
certain vigorous activity, quite regularly, that muscle's going
to develop a little bit more, eh?
Like a seven minute elliptical.
So this, digressing again, but there was a scene
on Gogglebox a few years ago, and it's
the brother and sister from Blackpool, can't remember
their names, but I love them, they're hilarious.
And the sister says to the brother, I got a
notification on my Apple Watch that you had a
seven minute elliptical workout last night and it was
about midnight and his face went absolutely beetroot.
To be fair he didn't realise at first
but you could see when you were watching
his face the realisation dawning on him.
That, oh god, I was in bed at that time.
I definitely was not on an elliptical trailer.
So we use that quite often as a running joke.
It's a euphemism for the five knuckle shuffle.
But on a more serious note, if you find
that you do have imbalances in your muscles, then
yeah, unilateral training. So training one side separately
from the other is a really good way
of fixing those imbalances that you might have.
And that can go for any part of your body as well.
I had a lateral hip tilt. So one side
of my hip was higher than the other and
over time that became worse because I hadn't addressed
it and it means then you're overcompensating on one
side and because of that you end up
overdeveloped on one side, under and the other.
So it is the kind of thing that you need
to be very conscious of when you are training.
So if you have these imbalances you can even them up
but you need to be very mindful of
how you do that in your training.
Perhaps what you might want to do is just maybe do
an extra set on the left side when you're doing bicep
work to try to get a lot more work on that
side or you could have a day when you're maybe
not exercising your biceps in the gym where you maybe
go and do a couple of sets on that side.
So it is about working out what you need and
there are certain ways that you can measure that as
well. How you look in the mirro, you can take
tape measure measurements of your biceps or any other
body part and see whether they are imbalanced, how
badly imbalanced they are and then you can also
monitor your progress if you keep taking those measurements.
Yeah you tend to find that, chest press for example. So
if you're doing a barbell chest press, if you have
an arm or a side that's more dominant than the
other that one will lead, so a good way of
balancing that out is using dumbbells because they both have
you know both sides need to work equally to get
the dumbbells up. So yeah a fun post but actually
there is a message in there as well about how
training unilaterally really, really benefits you.
Let's wrap it up then.
As ever, thank you so much for
tuning in to The Outlifting Lounge.
Next week, we are going to
be talking about plant-based nutrition.
If you didn't know, Alan and I don't eat any meat.
So we are wanting to share tips with you.
If you are doing Veganuary or maybe one
of your New Year's resolutions is to just
eat less meat and eat more plants,
this is going to be the show for you.
We have new episodes every Sunday
and we're available on all major platforms
YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music.
And remember we're on social media as well. You can
follow us you can catch up with our content
and you can get in touch with us there.
We're on Instagram and TikTok and our user handle
is the same on both it is @outlift.ing
But for now that's everything.
So, over and Outlifting!