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,
and our handle on both is the same.
It is @outlift.ing
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