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
But that's us for another week, so thank you so
much for tuning in. But for now, over and Outlifting.