Gary & Paddy discuss best practices for managing diet & exercise during the summer. Not just fat loss though, as fat loss isn’t for everyone during the summer. Learn the best strategies to keep prioritising your health, performance, and body composition amidst holidays, summer events, and other obstacles.
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Transcript
The following transcript is AI generated, so please allow for any inconsistencies or mistakes!
Gary McGowan:
Hello and welcome to the Triage Method podcast. My name is Gary McGowan. I’m here with my cohost, as always, Mr. Patrick Farrell. It’s been a few weeks. There have been interim podcasts. You had Dean last week, and now I’m back. So I had my medical exams. That’s all finished and wrapped up now. And now it’s back to focus primarily on triage for the summer.
Paddy:
And how did your exams go, Gary?
Gary McGowan:
I’ll find out tomorrow.
Paddy:
Well, by the time people are listening to this, you’ll have found out. Hopefully, you have been celebrating. If not, you’ll have been fired from triage and I know maybe you’ll be homeless. I don’t know. So yeah, there’s a lot riding on this.
Gary McGowan:
Yeah, you’ll probably never hear from me again if I fail. So if you’re hearing this podcast, to be honest, I’ve probably passed my exams.
Paddy:
Anyway Gary, what are we talking about today?
Gary McGowan:
Today we’re talking about the summer protocol. And this is of course a key issue. It’s May, right, a lot of people are coming into summer if they happen to live in a country that has sun. In Ireland, it’s actually been quite beautiful the last few days, which has been surprising. But we’ve got the leaving start period of time of coming in Ireland, which means we’re probably gonna get some nice leaving cert weather. And then the summer will probably finish. But a lot of people do go on holidays. A lot of people have a lot of events over the summer. Even people that have careers that work through the summer. they often take a bit of time, you know, in August, you know, a lot of companies will, you know, tone down a bit and then ramp up again in September. So as a result, a lot of people during this time are thinking about a couple of things. One, should I diet and try to get in shape for my holidays? Two, if I’m doing that, or if I’m not doing that, how am I gonna stay in shape during the summer? And then three, you know, people who have performance goals and things like that, they might be thinking, how am I gonna keep up my training while I’m abroad? How am I gonna stay fit? How am I gonna stay active? So they’re the… different types of things that we want to tackle in this episode and fundamentally I’d like you to be in a position where you can leave this episode with a rough plan of action and strategy as to how you’re going to approach the summer period.
Paddy:
Yeah, 100%. And effectively, this is nothing new. We’re not gonna be covering anything that’s like groundbreaking, earth-shattering, like, oh my God, they gave us the secret. I can’t believe, you know, I didn’t know about this or I was missing out on this. But I know a lot of people, they do struggle at this time, and we can get into a variety of issues that potentially come up when you’re trying to diet for summer. We can also get into a lot of… discussions around whether or not you even need to diet for summer, you know, that’s a good conversation to have because, like, what’s the point of it? Is it something that you should do? Is it something that you should feel you need to do? You know, there’s a whole bigger conversation to be had, right? However, that’s not really what this episode is about. Well, dealing with some of the issues that potentially crop up, we will cover that in this episode, but I know a lot of people just want to know what to do. They’re going, okay, look, I have a holiday in August. I wanna be in a better shape than I currently am. Maybe they used to be a bit more athletic or had a certain physique and they were like this, I really like the look of this. I really enjoy looking like this. I feel confident, et cetera. I feel confident taking my top off at the pool or whatever. And now due to work, family, whatever other things that have gotten in the way, they’re now not at that level of leanness. level of muscularity, whatever it is, right? So they want to come into August, usually it’s August, that’s usually when, at least in Europe, when people are like, right, this is holiday time, like you try to book a holiday in August and everywhere is six times the price because everyone also had the same idea, right? So today’s episode is all about really dialing in a kind of general framework or general protocol for getting lean and getting. quote unquote, aesthetically pleasing for your summer holidays, right? Now, of course, this is going to be a different journey for everyone. Like if you are, that’s like 12% body fat and you’re like, I just wanna get, you know, I wanna be the most shredded person at the pool, right? Or at the beach or whatever it is, right? That’s obviously a different conversation than someone who is, you know, whatever, 25% body fat. And they’re like, look, I just wanna feel a bit more comfortable being able to take my top off at the pool. get a tan, whatever, right? So obviously we’re coming at this from a variety of different angles depending on who exactly you are, what exactly you have going on, where you are in your journey, et cetera, et cetera, right? But we can still give you this kind of broad outline of what needs to be done to get you from where you are to where you wanna be. So where do we start with this guy?
Gary McGowan:
Yeah, so first and foremost guys, it’s gone the middle of May now. So what I always say to people is, you know, you have to have a realistic timeline. That’s the first thing. So if you’ve been, you know, gorging on food since Easter, you’re still getting rid of the leftover Easter chocolate. You’ve got like 30 pounds to lose to reach your goal physique. And you’re planning on going on holidays in June. That’s probably unrealistic. OK. you have to be realistic with your timeline and you have to have an appropriate plan of action to meet that timeline. The ideal for anyone that’s trying to get lean for summer, let’s say you wanna lose 10 to 20 pounds, is that you start probably a month or two ago at least, I would say, because you wanna have a nice, slow and steady approach, particularly because people are quite event oriented in this context, where people might be going away for let’s say two weeks to Turkey in June or July. They’re trying to get to that point where they want to be nice and lean feeling good feeling confident Right before the holiday and then they want to maintain that and the problem is that if you’re aggressively Crash dieting with an approach that isn’t going to be sustainable What happens on your holiday you get over there your appetites totally? Dysregulated your relationship with food is a bit disordered and now you’re gorging on food. You’re binging you come back 20 pounds heavier and now you have no habits to carry you through the rest of the summer or the rest of the year. Now you come back and you gain loads of weight again. That happens a lot. And the best case scenario really is that if you’re thinking about dieting for summer, because we’ve decided, right, this is an appropriate approach for you right now, you’re taking it slow and steady, and then you’re maintaining throughout the summer. So you’re maintaining throughout your holiday. You’re keeping your basic habits. So for example, it might be that you’ve reduced your calories by 20% from where they were when they were at maintenance. You’re maybe a little bit hungry, but not too much. Your workouts are going fine, everything’s going well. And then when you go on your holidays, you’re able to keep some of those habits that you developed. You know, it might be that you have a protein shake and fruit for your breakfast. Can you do that on your holiday? You sure can. You might have, normally have a, I don’t know, a chicken salad, a couple of slices of bread for your lunch. Can you do that in holidays? You probably can. And then maybe you indulge in the evening. We’ll get into some of those strategies shortly, but fundamentally it has to be appropriate timeline Slow and steady ideally. And if you’re gonna be more aggressive, you need to make sure that you’re confident that you can actually sustain that weight loss that you’ve achieved.
Paddy:
And it’s also important to realize that being aggressive with fat loss generally isn’t the best approach for the vast majority of people. Yeah, for sure if you have all your healthy habits dialled in, you have a great relationship with food, great relationship with yourself in general, maybe you can be a bit more aggressive with things. But for the vast majority of people, if they try to be more aggressive, they’re just going to stumble, usually every week. It’ll be Monday to Friday. I was eating in a thousand calorie deficit and I was hungry and starving, but because I was working and I was busy and whatever, I was able to stick to it. But then again, it’s coming into summer. Your friends are gonna be like, oh, do you wanna go for a barbecue on Saturday, maybe a few pints as well? Like you’re going, oh man, I’ve been good all week. I can definitely afford to just eat a little bit more on that Saturday, you know, but then you get a little bit tipsy, a little bit drunk, and then all of a sudden you’re. 20,000 calories in that evening over consumption, right? And obviously I’m being facetious there, but you know what I mean? Like you over consume that Saturday night, Sunday is now right off and you’re like, oh, I’m hungover and then I’ll get that McDonald’s and I’ll just start again Monday, right? And that’s a very common thing. And it’s especially the case in summer because there’s usually a few more events to navigate, right? There’s usually a bit more like both daytime activities and nighttime activities to navigate, right? So being excessively aggressive. with your fat loss coming into a holiday, usually means that you don’t even, it’s effectively the worst of both worlds, right? Because you get all the negatives of dieting, like you feel like shit, you feel tired, you feel hungry, et cetera, during the week because you’re eating so little food, and then you feel like shit because on the weekend you binge eat, right? And then also when you look back on it, you’re like, well, what was the point of any of that? Because…
Gary McGowan:
Yeah.
Paddy:
I’m actually up in weight now. I’ve actually gained weight rather than lost weight. You could maybe… justify it to yourself if you’re like, right, I feel like shit, I feel tired, I feel hungry, et cetera, but at least I’m progressing towards my goals. You could maybe justify that. You’re like, okay, maybe it’s not the best approach, but at least it’s getting me where I need to be. I can see that justification, right? But to do all that hard work, to get all that hardship, to feel like crap, and then to stagnate, just maintain or even gain weight, that is literally the worst of both worlds. So for the vast majority of people, you’re gonna be in a way better position both in terms of the shorter term, like week on week, and then actually when you get there, being able to maintain the fat loss that you have done and then also being able to maintain that fat loss far into the future, you’re gonna be in a much better position if you go slow and steady. And I know, that’s not what people wanna hear. People wanna hear, right, they’re giving me the summer protocol, how can I get absolutely shredded in six weeks? Because that’s all I’ve given myself to lose. 20 kilos here, right? And unfortunately, it’s just not gonna happen, right? You might be able to lose 20 kilos in six weeks if you’re just a phenomenal dieter, fat losser, but for the vast majority of people, that’s just gonna be unrealistic, right? For most people, like a 1% drop in body weight per week is probably still even aggressive for the vast majority of people, especially if they haven’t had success with dieting previously. if they don’t really have good healthy habits in place. Like obviously if you’ve done this before, you’ve really dialed everything in, or you’re working with a coach that can help you, or whatever it is, a 1% drop in body weight per week, that’s fairly achievable, fairly sustainable, right? But most people, they’re not happy with that. Most people are like, let’s say you’re a man, you’re 90 kilos, and you’re like, all right, I’m actually 20 kilos overweight. I’m gonna try to lose five kilos a week, right? Like that’s literally the mentality that people go into it with, right? And it’s just not realistic, right? So we’re thinking here, 1% drop in body weight per week is probably still on the aggressive side of things, but at a maintainable rate for most people. So you can reverse engineer where you can get, right? So if you’re like, right, I have a holiday in 12 weeks, or you could literally be 12% of your body weight lower. Now it is a moving target because it’s 1% of your current. body weight, so if you’re down, I don’t know, whatever, 10 kilos, it’s not 1% of your previous body weight, it’s 1% of your current body weight, right? So it is a moving target here. But yeah, that’s just my thoughts initially in terms of just making sure you plan things out, right? Going, okay, well, I have an event, or this is when I roughly want to be ready for, let’s reverse engineer that, what’s realistic? Okay, it’s six weeks away, we could lose maybe 6% of your total body weight in that timeframe. Right, so what does that look like? Oh, you weigh 100 kilos? Okay, so that’s roughly six kilos, right? So again, just being realistic, of course, the first week you go into this, you’re probably gonna lose some water weight, you’re probably gonna lose some muscle glycogen, you’re probably gonna lose some food in your digestive tract. So that first week, you might be higher or faster than that initial or that ultimate like 1% drop in body weight per week. But after that, we still wanna kind of be at that 1%. Now, again. There is a time and a place for a more aggressive fat loss strategy and there are protocols for that, but for the vast majority of people, it’s just not appropriate.
Gary McGowan:
Absolutely. So in summary, they’re kind of big picture conceptually. We generally recommend that people lose an average of 0.5 to 1% body weight per week. So that’s kind of our average recommendation. Let’s say you’re trying to be a little bit fast. Let’s go 1%. As Patty said, you then reverse engineer your timeline from there. Okay. So if you’re looking at your goal and you’re saying you want to lose, you know, 15 kilos in eight weeks, you look at that from a percentage perspective, you’ll begin to realize that that’s Probably not realistic. Okay, and So that’s the first thing conceptually there are the targets we’re aiming for and then the way you practically track that is You regularly weighing yourself Ideally daily under the same conditions because it just gives you more data that ends up being more reliable You look at your two to four week averages and then you’ll have an idea of how that weights moving as Patty said when you initially Start dieting it’s quite common for weight to drop quite rapidly. Okay, don’t worry too much about that noise look at the two to four week trends, what’s your average? So what I’ll often…
Paddy:
Sorry to interrupt, what I always do with my clients. I’m like, these are the two numbers we care about. Well, there’s other things we do obviously, but I’m like, here are the two things we care about. We care about the lowest number you hit that week and then the average number, right? If we’re seeing new low numbers, happy days, right? If we’re seeing the average moving in the direction that we want, happy days, right? But we don’t actually want to get caught up in any individual measurement because that is where most people fail. They go, oh my God, today I was up two kilos. I’m supposed to be losing a kilo per week or whatever. I’ve absolutely fucked it. I don’t think I did anything different yesterday, but I’m standing on the scales here now and clearly I did. And then they basically fuck it. They’re like, all right, fuck, I’m either doing everything wrong and it’s not worth it. And then they over-consume or what usually happens, especially midweek, I go, I’m just gonna eat less. I’m gonna move more. I’m gonna punish myself for the fact that my body is a kilo heavier today. You need to get that out of your head. You need to just go, okay, well, are my weight low or my low weigh-ins, are they trending downwards? Cool. Are my, or is my general weight, my weekly average, my two week, my monthly average, is that trending downwards? It all is. Happy days, we’re on track, right? But don’t get too caught up in any individual measurement. Anyway, sorry for interrupting.
Gary McGowan:
No, that’s fine and absolutely. So that’s the kind of conceptual overview. And the next question you have to ask yourself before you go forward with the practical things we’re gonna discuss is, is dieting actually for you right now? And this is really important for a couple of different kind of archetypes of people. So firstly, if you’ve struggled with your relationship with food, body image, you’re somewhere on that kind of disordered eating spectrum and you’ve tried dieting many times before, it hasn’t worked, it’s left you in a worse place, what you need to do right now. And I know sometimes it can feel like, and of course we’re in this camp by discussing dieting for summer, sometimes it can feel like it’s necessary, like oh well I’m going on holidays, I have to diet. The reality is you don’t. And if you can kind of make peace with your body and embrace the fact that okay, I don’t actually have to be lean, how can I enjoy my holiday otherwise? That’s not always an easy thing to do, but if you can do that, you often have a better time. Because if you’re starting from that position, even if you do get leaner, sometimes if you have those kind of psychological comorbidities, let’s say, if you’re coming from that position, you may still be on your holiday, 10 pounds down, but you’re still super fixated on how you look. Oh my God, you know, the bikini doesn’t fit, or the shorts don’t fit, the Speedos don’t fit. I’m still not feeling very confident. You know, I’m still worried about all the food I’m consuming. you can still have some of those residual issues. You know, weight loss doesn’t solve all your problems. So that’s the first thing. If you’re in that category, you may want to reconsider, but other people should reconsider as well. If you’re an athlete, let’s say, and summer’s actually your off season, and you’d benefit from getting more muscle, then now is kind of the time where you should actually be considering a gaining phase. Now could be a good time for that. That also applies, for example, if you’re like a… a really busy student or you work a profession where you have summers off and you’re not normally able to allocate much time and attention to your training but now you can, this could actually be a great muscle building opportunity. So similarly then there’s other sports maybe you’ve got a Jiu Jitsu or a martial arts competition upcoming in the winter, maybe you’re a bodybuilder and you’ve just come out of a competition or you’re actually just dieted recently for a photo shoot or something, dieting again now probably isn’t the right idea. So all of those different categories and more of course would cause us to reconsider, should we actually diet for summer? Is this actually something that’s necessary? So it’s definitely not necessary for everyone. A lot of people do it by kind of convention norms and a lot of people do it because do you know what? They are in a good place. They’ve been bulking for the winter. They’re primed now for a bit of a diet, a bit of a cleanup and they do have a holiday booked and they generally feel confident when they feel a bit leaner and that’s all perfectly fine in my view.
Paddy:
Yeah, I’d 100% agree. I don’t think we need to demonize or vilify wanting to get a little bit leaner and acknowledging the fact that, oh, actually I feel a bit more confident when I am a bit leaner or whatever. I mean, that’s perfectly fine. I don’t think there is pathology or pathologicalness to that. I think it’s perfectly acceptable. So you don’t have to feel bad for wanting to diet. You don’t have to feel bad for wanting to get lean. However… you have to also acknowledge that it’s not appropriate for everyone. You know, I would actually argue that the vast majority of people would do themselves a much bigger favor by just eating in and around maintenance and just working on good healthy habits, good healthy diet strategies and you know, habits in general, lifestyle practices, sleep, stress management, training and just go, okay, I’m actually just going to spend the next six months. really getting everything dialed in. I don’t care about the actual outcome in terms of fat loss or muscle gain or whatever. What I wanna do is build really, really solid habits that are gonna sustain me throughout my life. That would be my ideal. I think that’s the thing that the vast majority of people would actually benefit the most from. However, I know a lot of people are like, okay, yeah, that sounds great and everything, but right now I want fat loss. Right now I want to get shredded for summer. So you kind of have to, especially like obviously we’re in this industry. when we’re coaching people, we kind of have to meet them halfway where we’re like, right, I’m going to give you some of what you want and then also some of what you need. Right? And obviously, especially the way we coach, very often we are building those good habits, building those good training, diet, sleep, stress management, et cetera, practices as part of the process. But if you don’t know what that actually looks like, like say you’re just training yourself, you’re coaching yourself, like it can be hard to build all those things in… into a strategy, into a cohesive plan of action. So I do understand that it is difficult. And then if you layer on a calorie deficit where you’re maybe a bit more hungry and you’re a bit tired, a little bit lower energy, you know, whatever, like it’s even harder to get those good habits and good practices in place, right? So for the vast majority of people, look, you probably should eat at maintenance or thereabouts and just focus on good, healthy habits. But that’s not what today’s episode is about. Today’s episode is about, okay, you’ve screened yourself, you think it’s appropriate for you to lose some fat, you’ve left it till now to get ready for the August holiday or whatever. What do you need to do? That’s what we’re talking about today. So where do we kind of start with this, Gary?
Gary McGowan:
Yeah, so quite obviously you need to get your nutrition in order. And we’ve discussed this, you know, hundreds or thousands of times probably wouldn’t be an exaggeration. You need to be in a calorie deficit. OK, you need to be able to consistently reduce your calories and maintain sufficient protein. These are the core behaviors related to nutrition that contribute to fat loss. And this is obviously within a broader framework of healthy nutrition. So, for example, eating plenty of fruits and vegetables. eating plenty of fiber, whole grains, beans, legumes, those types of things, healthy complex fiber rich carbohydrate sources, that you’ve got plenty of protein sources in your diet that are in accordance with your dietary preferences. So for example, maybe you’re someone that doesn’t eat seafood, you don’t like white meat, so maybe you eat a combination of red meat, dairy, eggs, and maybe some plant-based sources. If you’re on a plant-based diet, maybe… all the meat options they’re all out of the way so you have to focus on your plant-based sources. Okay so this is just the broad general nutrition advice but within the context of maintaining a calorie deficit i.e. that you’re burning more calories than you’re taking in and you’re consuming sufficient protein and during a dieting phase we generally say at least two grams per kilogram of body weight okay so that’s the first thing but associated with that then is the fact People sometimes eat seasonally. Okay, so, yeah, go ahead.
Paddy:
Before we go on to that, the one thing I just want to say is, right, it’s really important to get those two things that Gary said into your head. The major levers that we have to pull here, calorie intake and protein intake, right? If you focus on nothing else and just get those two dialed in, you’ll be in a great place. That doesn’t discount the fact that there are all these other things that we have to consider with the diet to make a good, well-balanced, nutrient-dense, wholesome, healthy diet, right? But… Again, we’re just thinking right now, okay, the summer protocol, okay, I need to, you know, what are the big levers that I have to pull? That’s getting your protein intake to a good place. That’s getting your calorie intake where it needs to be, right? There’s an article on the website that we have. It’s about, you know, fundamental nutrition. Go to that website, go into that article. You will find everything you need to know about the diet, right? But at the start of that, there’s a little like a… what are they called? Table of contents, right? You can just go, okay, look, they said calories and they said protein. They’re the two really important things. Click into calories. Okay, I’ll read everything about calories. Fantastic. Read everything about protein. Now you’re in such a phenomenal place to really, really build a good diet for yourself, right? Now, like Gary was saying, we have to factor in the rest of the diet. We wanna build a good wholesome diet that is actually going to be, like we referred to earlier on, it’s actually gonna be something that you can sustain. far into the future. It’s not just, oh well, I’m just gonna eat as little calories as possible, and I’m gonna get just protein, and hopefully by the time I get on my holidays, I’ll be lean enough, and then I’ll have a great relationship with myself, a great relationship with food. That’s not gonna happen, you’re gonna binge eat. It’s just the way it is if you eat fuck all calories and only eat protein, right? So we need to build out the diet overall. But a part of that is dealing with the fact that it is also summer now. And like Gary was just about to go on to, people do eat seasonally. There is certain things that happen during the summer. Again, like we mentioned earlier on, maybe it’s barbecues, for example, a lot more people do barbecues. You have to have a strategy, you have to have a protocol to deal with those things. And again, this is something that I know you do Gary, and I know I do myself with my coaching, where very often we’ll talk about having this big toolkit, or a toolbox, or whatever. And we’re just trying to build tools, or trying to use tools. for different jobs, right? And one of those things, we’re like, okay, we’ve got this issue going on, it’s a recurring thing. What strategies, what protocols can we bring in to deal with that, whether it’s ahead of time, whether it’s during the event, or maybe it’s retroactive, like after the event, right? We just wanna have tools, right? And this is kind of what we’re gonna go into now in terms of there’s going to be certain things that happen during the summer that you’re going to have to have tools to deal with, right? And… You don’t just learn how to use a tool or know how to use a tool the first time you use it, right? You’re gonna fuck up. It’s part of the process. There’s gonna be speed bumps and you’re gonna fucking blast off that speed bump, crash your car and it’s gonna be a shit show, right? But that’s fine. It’s part of the process, right? You can’t have this all or nothing mentality. You have to have this, okay, I’m gonna take what comes and I’m gonna see what happens and then I’m gonna adjust. I know the two big levers are calories and protein intake. We’ll see again, we’ve talked about the rest of the diet, whatever, so I’m gonna keep my focus on those, but if there’s speed bumps along the way that derail either of those, okay, I’m gonna have to come up with a strategy for that in future. I’m not gonna beat myself up. I’m not gonna feel guilty, ashamed, whatever, because I had a few extra calories, or I didn’t stick to my diet perfectly. That really doesn’t help anyone, right?
Gary McGowan:
Absolutely. And that brings us then to some of those seasonal considerations. And this varies quite a bit by person, you know, in the fitness industry, especially among like bodybuilders and people that take the training quite seriously, doesn’t matter whether it’s Christmas day or the 20th of July, they’re eating the same food. Okay. It doesn’t matter cold, warm. Doesn’t matter. A lot of normal people vary their diet quite a bit. So barbecues, you know, having things like more summery salads. smoothies, ice creams, those types of things. People will vary their diet during the summer. A lot of people don’t like things like a big heavy Irish stew or porridge during the summer. Again, if you do, nothing wrong with that. Keep going. But if you’re someone that does like to change your diet a little bit, then you have to adapt it to fit these needs that we’re talking about. And it can actually be quite easy because a lot of more summery meals tend to be a little bit lighter. So if you’re trying to diet something like a lighter salad you know boosting the protein content though because you’re conscious of your protein intake you’re going to add a bit of extra chicken and maybe it’s vegetables maybe you got some fruit and seeds in there things like smoothies again if you normally have smoothies you like fruit smoothies in the summer you’re getting a scoop of protein in there and so on okay so that’s one of the things I would you know do coming into summer is try to adapt your diet a little bit and try to make it something that’s actually enjoyable because that will really help your adherence when you’re in a deficit. you’re not just thinking about the tupperware life. You’re not just thinking about having this diet that isn’t compatible with you going to barbecues or isn’t compatible with you sitting outside and having a meal you enjoy. So make these adaptations. You could also do it when you’re going to barbecues, for example, barbecues are very easy to get a lot of protein in. Maybe there’s a lot of sides that are richer in carbohydrates and fats and desserts and things. So you just choose to have more of the protein with some of the salad and you’re able to make that work then towards your goals. So make those adaptations in accordance with your own situation and it will be a much easier time.
Paddy:
Yeah, 100%. And one of the things that I very often say to my clients is, look, you want to just pick your battles, right? You don’t want to be battling every single thing, right? You don’t want to have it be a battle. Every single time you have breakfast, you’re like, fuck, it’s a slog. I don’t even know what to do. I’m going, should I do this or do that? Just make it easy for yourself. Automate as much as possible. Have two or three different breakfast options. Cool. Fantastic. You don’t have to think about it anymore. You just choose one of them. Same way at lunches. Cool. Just two or three different options. Choose one of them. If you can prep stuff ahead of time, happy days. But then when you’re actually going out to events, think about this as, okay, is this one of these events where I actually just, I wanna let my hair down a little bit, I wanna let loose a little bit, I wanna just enjoy myself. I don’t wanna be the person that’s like, well, sorry, do you have the low calorie spread for this? And you don’t wanna be that person at that event. Cool, that’s not a big deal. You can still make good, healthy choices. You can still make better choices. They may not be the best, they may not be the most optimal, perfect choice, but they’re still a better choice. And again, you can pick your bottles. Maybe you wanna have the ice cream, the dessert, cool. But you’re like, I need to stay within my calories. Then maybe you make the trade off and go, well, okay, I’m not gonna be drinking alcohol as a result. I know I wanna indulge in a bit of dessert, so I’m not gonna just have all these extra calories from alcohol. So there, you’ve picked your bottle, you’re going, okay, this is my poison for today, it’s the dessert. I’m gonna stay away from the alcohol. or vice versa, you might go, you know what, actually I wanna have a few beers tonight at this barbecue, so how am I gonna make the barbecue meal that I get a little bit leaner? Maybe you go, oh, you know what, actually, I know they’re serving burgers and chicken or whatever, and there’s like burger buns, and normally I do like a big fatty, beefy burger with a brioche bun and whatever else. You’re like, okay, well, look, if I wanna have the alcohol as well, and then my calories are X, Y, or Z or whatever, you’re like. they don’t really fit nicely together, maybe you’re going, okay, I’m gonna choose the chicken breast and I’m actually just gonna not eat the bun, right? So you can make better choices, you can save a few calories here that allow you to do something over here that isn’t necessarily as optimal. And that’s again, the process of dealing with these different things. You’re gonna have to come up with strategies. And some of them, they’re gonna be a trade off that you’re like, that’s not great. Like, you might be like, look, I actually really, really just enjoy a big beefy burger, brioche bun. I’m like, that’s actually the best, the most enjoyable thing for me. Then again, you go, okay, well, maybe I forego the alcohol or maybe I forego the dessert or whatever. Again, it’s just all these different trade-offs. Again, like I said, sometimes it might just be a case where you go, you know what, today’s a bit of a fuck it. I’m still gonna make good decisions. I’m still going to try to make healthier choices. I’m not going back for seconds, even though I’m not actually, I’m actually a little bit bloated and full from eating that, but you know, I’m. I’ve pressed the fuck it button, so I might as well get as many calories as possible now. We’re not doing that, but you’re allowed, you know? You’re a human, you’re allowed to let your hair down every once in a while. Like, or you’re just finished your exams. I actually think you’re dieting as well for summer, you’re trying to get a little bit leaner. I presume, you know, you’re gonna celebrate on Friday when you get, or if, I should say, you pass. You’re gonna be like, oh yeah, I’m gonna celebrate. I’m not gonna care too much. about the calorie intake that I have on the Friday night or maybe a Saturday night that you’re celebrating, whatever it is, you’re going, okay, I’ll still make good choices. You know, I’m not gonna go hog wild, but I’m not going to beat myself up if I have 200 extra calories from a meal that I’m enjoying with friends, family, you know, after, you know, a major life event, right? Now, the converse of that is, if you are blowing… 1000 extra calories, you’re just consuming 1000 extra calories every single weekend. You know, you’re just like, oh, this is a life changing event. This is, this is an absolute must. You know, nobody has such an exciting life that every single week they have something that’s like, oh, this I’m celebrating my friend’s wedding. I’m celebrating my friend’s, uh, birth of their child. I’m celebrating X, Y, Z, you know, if it’s literally just a random Thursday night and you’re going, oh yeah, like I just consumed 2000 extra calories for no reason, again, you’re not picking your battles with that. You’re just, you’re just, you know, you’re just doing it because YOLO.
Gary McGowan:
Absolutely, you know, it’s not every event is important. You don’t have to be at every party. You don’t have to be at every night out. And that’s one of the things you do have to get used to if you’re gonna be, if you’re gonna be fit and healthy long-term, like big picture, but also if you’re gonna be fit and healthy throughout the summer, okay? You know, you can come up with these strategies to reduce calories midweek and consume a bit more at the weekend. But there comes a point where you’re just kind of, just taking it far too far. You know, if you’re out, massive session every Friday and Saturday, you’re having takeaway all day Sunday, you know? Half the week is gone then, like you’re just gonna starve yourself then for the rest of the week. It’s just, it’s just not what we’d advise. So you can try it, but it’s not what we advise. So that’s the diet side of things. Of course, please refer to the Triage Foundation nutrition article on the website if you’d actually like details on how to set up your nutrition, but we’re just talking big picture here in terms of how to manage your summer. Okay. So that brings us to a discussion of training, you know, how might your training change during the summer? So firstly, if you’re trying to, you know, just look good on the beach, you wanna develop your so-called beach bod, then you can actually just use a beach body focus protocol. There’s nothing wrong with that. People are often kind of scared to train the muscles or say that they’re training the muscles that they want to develop most. Guys will often pretend to love leg day and like, oh no, I’m more hardcore. Chest and arms, not for me, bro, I love leg day. Even though like deep down, yeah, they love the feeling of having a pump in their chest and arms and they’d love to develop them more. There’s no shame in that. Okay, so if there’s muscles that you want to develop, now could be a good time to maybe focus on those more. You know, will it give them maybe more of a pop? Will it give them a little bit more of the storage? Will it develop them a little bit more of the summer? Potentially, so you can do that. And there’s nothing wrong with it.
Paddy:
100%. And again, you can go into the research and be like, well, you know, it’s most optimal to train X amount of sets per body part per week. And, you know, maybe you want to do it twice per week. And like all of that stuff is still true, right? It doesn’t stop that from being true. But that doesn’t mean that you have to do everything optimal for every single muscle group, you know, I would say, yeah, it probably makes sense to at least train legs once a week, right?
Gary McGowan:
For sure
Paddy:
Even if it is, you know, I want to build this beach body. Like you’re going to see your legs at the beach, right? If you’re wearing shorts. you’re gonna see your legs, right? And if you’re going for a European summer, because we’re Europeans, Gary, you’re gonna be wearing those Speedos, those little budgie smugglers, you know, you’re gonna have the legs out, right?
Gary McGowan:
Yep.
Paddy:
So you don’t wanna have…
Gary McGowan:
…that little quad sweep?
Paddy:
Exactly right now again. It doesn’t have to be you know the major focus of your program But you know it makes sense to at least train right but after that you can allocate your volume Whatever way you want you’re like look I actually want to just build my chest my arms my back I have a few clients that that’s kind of their focus right now. They’re like look my legs there. They’re fine You know they’re not as big as they possibly could be they’re relatively well developed But I actually just want my upper body to look you know good on the beach right or to look like X, right? And so for them, we’re like, okay, cool. We’re just gonna allocate volume accordingly, right? Do you have, you know, maybe we say, oh, for arms, they’re the key focus here. We’re gonna get up to 16 to 20 sets for your arms per week, right? In terms of biceps, 16 to 20 sets, triceps, 16 to 20 sets, right? So it’s a higher volume approach. You’re focused on it more. And again, you would expect that you would get some return on investment. Now, if you’re dieting, the amount of muscle that you can build is not as much as if you were gaining. So again, kind of same thing here where you’re like, okay, maybe we should have focused on this a couple of months ago, but we’re here now, right? And this also goes through, like obviously we’re talking about that from more of a male physique standpoint, but it also goes through for women as well. If there’s areas of your physique that you’re like, actually, I wanna really just develop these. Like a lot of women, they train their glutes three, four, or five times a week, right? And they’re like, that’s the area that I really wanna develop. There’s nothing wrong with that, dude. have at it, right? If that’s the area that you’re like, that’s where I need to develop to have this beach body that I desire here, the look I wanna create involves having bigger glutes, crack on, right? Now we still wanna adhere to sound training protocols and there will relatively soon be a foundational training article on the website, but for now there isn’t one. So you’ll have to go back and listen to our previous podcasts on how to set up training, et cetera, right? But you can effectively do. regardless of your sex, gender, whatever, you can do a specific training protocol for those goals. And that’s perfectly fine, right? If that means you’re doing 20 sets for chest and only six sets per week for your quads, that’s okay, you know, that’s fine. It doesn’t have to be everything all at once all the time.
Gary McGowan:
Absolutely. And then there’s another element to this, which is kind of beyond just the beach body stuff, which is maybe doing a bit more cardio and outdoor training during the summer. It serves a couple of purposes. Number one, cardio might help with your fat loss goals. OK, well, that’s the least of it, really. The other thing is that, you know, if you’re going on holidays, you’re going to be swimming a lot. Maybe you like to do hiking. You like active holidays. We like active holidays. You want to be fit for that. You know, being fitter is probably going to give you more options in terms of activities that you could do and allow you to enjoy your holidays more. That’s one thing you could do. There’s also the benefit of doing cardio outdoors. If you live in a nice area, it’s nicer weather this time of year, maybe you’re spending a lot of time abroad during the summer, doing more cardio outdoors might be perfect during this time or just another form of outdoor training. So maybe you’ve classically been doing a lot of gym work indoors, the weather’s fantastic, maybe you could bring a couple of kettlebells to the beach, do more workouts like that, or bring the dumbbells that you have at home outside in your backyard and train like that. That’s all very much worth doing because it comes down to preference and enjoyment as well, as opposed to just what optimal training is. You know, I had planned to go to the gym there two days ago in the middle of the day, and the sun was just shining, which is quite rare here in Cork. It was dry. It was warm. The sun was shining. So I just did a workout in my backyard instead. And very enjoyable. Was it the optimal workout for what I was trying to achieve? Maybe not, but. Did I need that at that point in time? No, I didn’t need Optimal. I just needed something that was practical. And if it’s gonna be enjoyable and help with, you know, my adherence, then spot on.
Paddy:
100%. Right, so that’s your baseline diet. That’s your baseline training. Fantastic, right? Again, I’m talking big picture here. What’s the next thing we move on to, Gary?
Gary McGowan:
Yeah, so there are two kind of key barriers that will come up regardless of the situation if you’re going on holidays or not, and they’re alcohol and eating out, okay? Of course this can happen any time of year, but it is a very frequent barrier during the summer. So with alcohol, as we mentioned previously, nothing wrong with having a couple of drinks, nothing wrong with trying to fit it into your calories across the week, that can all be done. But if you’re consistently consuming, you know, far in excess of the… basic alcohol recommendations for health or even just that it’s a very high percentage of your calories, it’s going to be very difficult to sustain that. It’s just not a great approach. Okay. So if you are having a couple of drinks at the weekend, let’s say, let’s say once per week, you’re having a few drinks, what you can generally do, and this also goes for if you’re eating out, is maybe a day or two before reduce your calories a little bit. Okay. So maybe you reduce your caloric intake by 200 to 300 on Thursday and Friday because you’re having dinner. Saturday night and now you freed up 400 to 600 calories on top of your standard intake for that day if you do that It’s going to make no difference to your fat loss outcomes You can continue to lose fat or maintain your body weight depending on your goal Just because you had you had alcohol or just because you had sticky toffee pudding Doesn’t give it inherent properties that are going to change the laws of calories working Okay, so that’s still very much achievable as I said You can totally overdo it here. Same thing with eating out. If you’re eating out every night and you’re constantly trying to catch up and you’re going through this yo-yo phase where you’re binging and restricting, it’s not a great approach.
Paddy:
Yeah, 100%. This kind of proactive, okay, I’m gonna reduce calories coming into an event. It can work for a lot of people. For other people, it just leads them to be excessively hungry during the week…
Gary McGowan:
Absolutely.
Paddy:
…and then they start binge eating because they’re like, oh, I’m free now. So you still have to make good choices if you’re eating out or you’re drinking out or whatever. It doesn’t negate that just because you’ve saved a few calories during the week. And then also, you know. We’re talking when we generally do it with clients, I’m saving maybe 100, 200 calories, depending on their intake, each day of the week. A lot of people I see try to implement this, they go, oh, I’m gonna save 500 calories, Monday, Friday, each one. And you’re like, okay, you’re already in a 300 calorie deficit, now you’re in nearly fucking a thousand calorie deficit, just because you’re trying to save calories. Like you’ve just dramatically increased the likelihood that you’re going to binge eat at that event, because you’ve been starving all week, just thinking about, oh, I can’t. for the Saturday night when I get to eat into that juicy whatever it is, right? So again, you have to be smart with this stuff, you still have to make good decisions, you can overdo it. So there is that kind of proactive approach, you can also do that retroactively if you go look, actually, you know, I think I consumed 200 extra calories that, you know, at that event or that meal or whatever that, you know, I kind of want to make it up. So you know, you could do that, you could do the next few days or just a little bit lighter calories and that’s fine. Like there’s no big deal with that. Now again, you don’t want to get into this like a… kind of binge restrict mentality where you go, oh, I had a thousand extra calories, so the next few days I’m just gonna restrict massively because it’s just gonna lead to another binge. You don’t wanna just punish yourself, but it is a strategy that you could potentially use. That’s also something that I very often use with clients that are including alcohol in their weekend because if you are out drinking the night before, maybe your stomach is a little bit off, you’re not as hungry that next day. you know, you’re a bit tired and whatever, maybe you’re sleeping a bit more. Like it’s pretty easy to drop out 300 extra calories the day after a night out, you know? Now, of course we still have to focus on good habits. You can’t just be like, oh, I’m gonna save some calories the next day because I’ll be hung over. And then you’re down in McDonald’s or wherever else, getting your like hangover meal. That’s, you know, it’s hard to fit in your calories. You know, like again, we still have to make smart choices. It doesn’t negate that. But effectively the three strategies here are, you can… Proactively save some calories you can retroactively, you know restrict some calories that you already overspent Or and this is one that applies for all of them You can just be a little bit smarter with your intake when you’re eating it or you’re drinking it right like if you’re going oh, I’m gonna go for a night out and it’s gonna be a Heavy one or a fucking hectic one. You’re like, okay, like, you know that going into it and again Not negating the fact that you know, sometimes you do want to just let the hair down you want to be a bit looser with things, that’s fine. You have to accept the trade-offs with that. But if you’re saying, oh, actually I wanna kind of stay on track with my goals, then you’re just gonna have to drink less. You know, like it’s a simple fact, you know? Like if you’re going, oh, normally I’d have, you know, 12 pints, you know, it’s a relative regular occurrence in Ireland at least, you know, you’re like, oh, yeah, literally before you go out, you know, it’s like, oh yeah, like if you’re gonna be drinking that much, then it probably makes sense to be like, okay, look, I’m gonna… try to reduce that, I’m gonna try to drink less. One of the strategies that I very often use with clients is just every second drink you get is a pint of water. Right, like it’s not hard, you’re still able to engage in this kind of like buying rounds culture that people often engage in. Like if you go down to the pub, although you know pubs are quite expensive these days, most people are pre-drinking at home, or just drinking in fields, even if you’re in your 30s, that’s very often the case. But you know. You can have a drink of water every second one. You don’t need to just be like, oh, this is the only drink that I’m drinking now that I’m out drinking alcohol. Like, it doesn’t need to be the case. You can go, okay, I had a pint of this, I’m gonna have a pint of water. I’m gonna have a pint of this, and I’m gonna have a pint of water. Like, it doesn’t make a big deal, right? Or at least it shouldn’t be a big deal. Now, your friends, they might be calling you all kinds of names, but like, once you’ve done it two or three times, they just… get over it. Like it’s not like it’s not a big deal. Like, oh wow, I drank some water and you’re going to give out to me about that? Like get a fucking grip. We’re not children here.
Gary McGowan:
Absolutely and it’s become increasingly easy as well with all the Zero options out there now as well including like both You know classically alcoholic and just soft drinks, you know, you always have something you know if you if you’re holding a Coke zero on a night out with a straw like people are probably gonna think you’re having a vodka and coke or something Like so they’re those kind of social issues Not as much of a problem anymore really and not that you ever have to explain yourself to someone anyway, you know But you know if you’re holding something like Guinness zero and obviously don’t drink it if you don’t like it, but that’s something that again, like people just assume you’re drinking a pint. It’s just not that big a deal. And it’s becoming increasingly…
Paddy:
Gary, you have to remember, everyone’s an individual until they get some sort of social pressure.
Gary McGowan:
Yes, and then suddenly I don’t want to be an individual.
Gary McGowan:
But I’ve done that because I actually quite like the Guinness Zero. I think it’s actually one of the better ones of the Zero drinks. And I’ve done that on a night out for, when was it? We had our school reunion there last year because it was going to be a super long night. We were out from like five. Like, I’m not drinking all night. That’s driving me nuts. So. I just had a pint, then a pint of zero, then a pint, then a pint of zero. And where you would have normally had eight pints, now you’ve just had four. And you do have a full stomach, for sure, because it still all adds up. But they’re the types of strategies that you can employ. Different things work for different people, but if you can find a way of controlling your drinking, like that’s the big win here, especially if you’re one of those classic Irish people that’s going out, you can’t even count the amount of drinks that you had.
Paddy:
You have to get a belly full, you know? Anyway, right, so that’s dealing with the pre-event, right? Or the pre-end of the diet, right? So I’ve kind of been dealing with this as if like, oh, you know, August, that’s when I’m gonna go on holidays. That’s when I wanna be ready for whatever, whatever date it is for you as an individual, right? How do we then deal with that holiday that we have planned? What do we do then to either stay on track or? ease the kind of transition from being in a deficit to being in a different environment, to being somewhere that you’re not able to necessarily fall back on your general healthy habits. Like you’re in a completely different environment, you’re not able to just go down to the shop that you normally get food from, you’re like, they don’t even have that shop here. Or you’re at an all you can eat, you’re at a fully catered type thing, right? So how do we deal with that? And then maybe we’ll say at the end of that kind of. how do you ease back into the real world post-holiday?
Gary McGowan:
Yeah, so I’ll start first and foremost with just five tips for healthy holidays. This applies if you’re trying to lose fat, if you’re not trying to lose fat, even if you’re trying to bulk, all these things can actually be quite useful. And these are things I try to employ myself and they’re things that for someone that has really got the habits in a good place, they’ve mastered their health, they’re health and fitness guru, these are the things that you should be doing. Okay, these are the really important things right here. Because if you can do all these things, and not be the person that just diets up to their holiday and then has no plan of action and just totally splurges, this is a way better approach, okay? So first and foremost, try to bring protein powder with you if you can. It can often be difficult to get enough protein, depending on the type of holiday you’re going on, but if you can bring some protein powder or assess the availability of different foods, different food products prior to traveling, that can be really helpful, okay? Obviously it depends on. your luggage, how much you have available, that type of thing. Most places you go these days you’ll probably be able to pick up a cheap tub of protein or some sort of protein products. So just before you go, have a rough think. What food am I going to be able to get when I eat out? What food products do they have? Do they have protein powders? Do they have protein ready to drink? Those types of things. Is there good access to fresh fruits and vegetables? And now of course this is more important if you’re going for a longer period of time. If you’re going for a weekend, it’s probably not that big a deal. But… I would still pay attention to these things prior to traveling. The second thing then is assessing the availability of local gyms. So if you’re going to wait for two to four weeks, let’s say, you probably want to keep getting your training in. Even if it’s just two, three days a week where you normally train four to six times per week, it can help you to just maintain some of your progress, all right? And all of your progress really, to be honest. So assess any local gyms in the area. Personally, I really enjoy going to new gyms. So if I’m away and I know there’s a nice gym in the area. that’s something I’d actually look forward to. But you could consider as well, bringing some light exercise equipment such as resistance bands or skipping rope, they don’t take up much weight or space in your luggage and it can be a really easy way to get in a nice body weight workout with some of these accessories, okay? You can also assess your environment, which is something we’ll come back to shortly. So number three then would be to try to polarize your meals if you can. So what I mean by this is, are you a… buffet breakfast person, you love breakfast, you wanna have a massive breakfast. Or are you a dinner and dessert person? A lot of us are both, but you know, you decide what you enjoy most and then enjoy that. So for example, if you like going out for dinner and dessert and maybe a pint after and that’s your thing, you might have a lighter breakfast. So for example, you go to the breakfast buffet, bit of yogurt, bit of fruit, maybe you have your whey protein with you, into the yogurt, mix it up, nice light breakfast. a salad or something for lunch and it’s again, it’s a bit lighter and then you’re splurging on dinner. Dinner is your thing, okay? There’s infinite ways you could do that, you know, in terms of maybe your heavy breakfast and then you skip lunch and then you have a lighter dinner. Whatever way works for you, try to have some sort of strategy so that every meal isn’t really, really indulgent, okay? Even if it’s just one meal is a little bit lighter, that’s perfectly fine, okay? Now, number four then, is to choose activities that serve both fun and health. Okay, so for example, instead of lounging around at the pool all day, you might go for a walk, you might go for a hike, you might go for a walk on the beach, go swimming, et cetera. Okay, so if you can build in these small little habits, these little bits of exercise, you’ll probably see more of the area you’re in, you’ll probably enjoy it, and it’s going to serve your health. So I’m not just saying it so that you have to make your whole holiday about hitting 20,000 steps, that’s not necessary, but it’ll often make your holiday more enjoyable rather than just lounging around, okay? Now that brings us to the final one, which is, and this is a really important one, remember that this isn’t your last chance to eat nice food, so you can have it when you go home as well. This is all about avoiding the kind of all or nothing mindset, which is what we’ve alluded to previously, where if you go on holidays and you’ve been restricting yourself, really low calories, really limited food choices up until your holiday and then you go away and you give yourself just this free for all for a week you’re going to eat everything in sight and you’re telling yourself I’m going to have all the chocolate I can because I can’t have it when I go home, I’m going to stop I’m going to be strict again when I go home you have to give yourself this permission to eat these foods so that it’s not just this single opportunity where you’re going to splurge and that will give you a lot more control over the foods that you’re eating because it means that If you’ve had a chocolate bar just now, and there’s a second one there, you might already be a little bit full. And if your thought process is, well, I’m not gonna eat it again when I go home, you’re gonna have that second chocolate bar. If your thought process is, meh, I can have that at home, it’s not a big deal, then you’re less likely to do so.
Paddy:
I actually don’t really have much else to add. Basically, you need to assess what foods are available to you. Do a little bit of pre-planning. Is there a supermarket near you? Is there a supplement store near you? Whatever, you just need to go, okay, how am I going to deal with this? It takes maybe 15 minutes to look that stuff up ahead of time. I know some people, especially if they’re really into their health and fitness, they’ll do that before they even book somewhere. They’ll be like, oh no, I’m not gonna book. hotel or Airbnb or whatever it is, unless it’s near somewhere that I can get X, Y, Z that I need to include in my diet, right? But for most people, that’s not necessary, right? You can also bring some things. If you’re like, look, it’s just, it’s clearly gonna be very difficult for me to hit my protein intake. I’m going somewhere that their culture just doesn’t eat protein. They really don’t eat protein for breakfast especially, so I know I’m gonna struggle with that, and I wanna be able to save some calories at breakfast so that I can eat a little bit more indulgently in the evening. Okay cool, you’re just gonna have to bring some protein powder or something like that. You know, it’s literally not a big deal, right? Same with the training environment, like what are you gonna do training wise? Oh look, there’s no gyms available to you, can you do some body weight things? Can you just be, okay I can’t even do some resistance training, I’m just gonna be more active in terms of going for more walks, going for a swim, doing whatever, right? Maybe you also do something that a lot of health and fitness people, trainees, trainers, whatever, do which is… they just train a little bit excessively or harder in the lead up the week or two going into a holiday, not because they think it’s gonna increase their results or anything, it’s basically so that you’re a little bit overtrained coming into the holiday, and you’re basically using that holiday as a bit of a deload, right? So you’re kind of allowing the body to, super compensate would be the term that’s often used, but basically just allowing yourself to recover a little bit, right? And this can be used even if you don’t just train a little bit excessively the week or two coming into a holiday. Like if you’ve been training hard for the last 12 weeks, a week off the gym or whatever, man, it’s meaningless. But having said that, we do generally recommend people try to get some sort of training in while they’re away. And this is purely just keeping that habit in check. Because if you don’t do any training while you’re away, it can be a little bit of a slog when you come back, when you’re gonna go. I haven’t been in a gym or I haven’t even thought about exercise for the last week or especially if you’re going away for something like two weeks, you know, if you’re like, I haven’t even thought about exercise for two weeks, that first week you come back into the gym, it’s just going to be a little bit, there’s just going to be a bit more friction to get into the gym to actually pushing hard in the gym, right? So generally we do recommend just doing some sort of training, even if it’s literally, okay, I’m going to do 15 minutes of a bodyweight training circuit here, a couple of bodyweight squats. Couple of push-ups, happy days, see you later, right? It doesn’t have to be excessive, you just need to do something, right? And like Gary was saying in terms of like polarizing your meals, this goes back to just picking your bottles, you know, where are you gonna spend those calories that you have available to you? For most of you, you’re probably gonna wanna eat somewhere around maintenance calories, you probably don’t necessarily need to still be in a deficit. However, I am also aware that the vast majority of you probably don’t want to keep tracking calories, probably don’t want to keep, you know, being excessively rigid with your diet once you go away, and that’s perfectly fine. However, we still need to have a plan of action, right? Because you’ve no plan of action, and you’ve gone from being a little bit more rigid, a little bit more focused on your diet, to going, okay, the gates are open, have at it, right? It’s gonna be difficult to transition into that. So having a plan of action, what are you gonna do for breakfast? What are you gonna do for lunch? What are you gonna do for dinner? What’s your general strategy? What’s your general protocol for the day? Crack on, right? But having that kind of strategy or protocol really does actually make the holiday more enjoyable because you’re not getting this like Fuck I shouldn’t have had that ice cream at lunch now I can’t have the dessert at my dinner because I fucked it You know like you don’t like you don’t want to have those kind of thoughts You want to be able to enjoy your holiday let the hair down Enjoy yourself right so if you’re able to do that by virtue of oh I’m gonna have a little bit of a lighter breakfast a little bit of a lighter lunch Which if you’re going to somewhere warm you probably want to do anyway, and then you have a little bit more flexibility enjoyment in the evening. Like I said earlier on, generally, I do tend to tell people to pick your bottles. If you’re gonna go for this big indulgent meal and dessert, probably skip out on the alcohol. Don’t be adding calories unnecessarily. If you’re like, no, actually I wanna have a few more beers or whatever, then yeah, okay, don’t go for the dessert. Don’t go for the extra buttery whatever, pill pill or whatever it is for your dinner, right? Okay, save a little few calories there. so that you can have a few beers. Again, it’s just being smart with your calorie budget, right? And again, if you wanna let the hair down, let the hair down, but just have that as the mentality. Don’t go in with this kind of, I’m kind of half in, half out. You know, I’m like, oh, like, I kinda wanna enjoy myself, but I kinda wanna just stay on track. So half the time you’re being overly strict with yourself and overly berating yourself, you know, feeling guilty or ashamed or whatever of the extra calories you had last night. and you’re like, oh, I’m just gonna starve myself today. Again, you just need to have a protocol. You need to have a plan of action for this stuff. And then like Gary said earlier on, just be active on your holidays. Don’t just sit there lying by the pool all day. There’s a time and a place for that for sure, but it’s very easy to get, whatever, let’s just say 10,000 steps per day, and still spend the majority of the day lazing by the pool. It’s very easy to do.
Gary McGowan:
Absolutely and I think that wraps it up pretty much.
Paddy:
Yeah, the only thing I do wanna add on is and that transition back to reality. That can be quite difficult. And for the vast majority of people, you make it harder on yourself than it needs to be, right? Effectively, we don’t necessarily need to go back to exactly what we were doing before the holiday, as in like, maybe we were in a 500 calorie deficit, but going back to roughly the kind of same meal schedules that you had, the kind of same, you know, rough meal setup that you had, like you’re like, oh, I had these two or three breakfast options. you know, stay with them, right? Maybe you add a few extra calories, maybe you’re like, okay, you know, I wanna go back up to maintenance rather than being in a 500 calorie deficit. Then that’s fine, just add to what you’ve currently been eating or previously been eating before the holiday and then crack on with that. However, having said that, the vast majority of people, they come back from holiday and they’re kind of like, oh, I feel a bit bloated, I feel a bit waterlogged, I feel a bit, you know, off. And just going back to where you were the week before your holiday, assuming that it wasn’t an excessively calorie restrictive diet. Like that can be fine. Do that for a week, drop off some of the water weight, get back into a good rhythm with the diet, and then start thinking about how you’re gonna change it going forward, whether you’re gonna push for more fat loss, whether you’re going to try to maintain the fat loss that you’ve got, maybe you wanna go into a muscle building phase and eating a surplus, whatever, right? So that’s how you deal with a diet. Now a lot of people, I’m saying that very quickly as if that’s gonna be an easy job, a lot of people will find the first few days just a little bit. of a struggle to really get back into the rhythm. Their hunger schedule is gonna be a bit off. Maybe they have been indulging their sweet tooth a little bit and they’re gonna be like, oh, you know, I wouldn’t mind a little bit of something sweet at this time. All of that stuff, again, it does get better. It does get easier over time, but it is something just to consider. The same with the gym. Just go back to the previous schedule that you were doing. Maybe you do wanna change things up. Maybe you’re like, oh, actually, I wanna go back to training legs twice per week. I was skimping out on them. That’s perfectly fine, but that first week back at least, just take it easier. Just drop the weights that you were using. Don’t try to go jump back into exactly what you were doing previously. Use a lighter weight. Maybe don’t do as much volume. Maybe you drop off a set or two. Maybe you do lower reps, or sorry, I shouldn’t say lower reps, I should say reps further away from failure. Like maybe you were doing 12 reps out. Maybe just do eight reps and you’re like, okay, that’s it. I don’t need to do that 12 rep max this first week. just ease back into the training sessions, and again, just get back into those healthy habits, right? And after that, it’s really just that first week that is difficult, right, in terms of, you’re basically just easing back into the healthy habits that you’ve ideally built previous or going into the holiday, right? Now, if you’ve been not building healthy habits, then it’s gonna be a lot harder. If you’ve just been like excessively restricting, if your training has just been punishing or whatever, it’s gonna be a lot harder, right? But easing back in and just kind of building some momentum again, that’s all you really need to do. Would you have anything else to add to that?
Gary McGowan:
No, I think that covers everything to be honest.
Paddy:
Fantastic. Well then, Gary, where can people find us?
Gary McGowan:
So guys, obviously first and foremost, if you’d like specific help with this, maybe you’ve got an event coming up and you’d like coaching, we do have coaching spaces available. That includes myself and Paddy and the remainder of the triage coaching team. We have both training and nutrition and nutrition only coaching depending on your needs. Okay, so get in touch. The details are down below. We also put out a lot of free content, as you know. So we’ve got the podcast, we put out a lot on our social media as well, but the best place to keep up with us is probably the newsletter. So make sure you subscribe to our email list. Again, the link for that is below. Make sure to subscribe. We have a nutrition certification as well. If you’d like to become a nutritionist with triage, you can learn everything you need to know about the theory and practice of nutrition coaching and then begin to help more people. If you like the podcast, do share it, like it, leave a rating and review if you can. We always appreciate it. And yeah, I think that’s everything.
Paddy:
I don’t have much else to add. I hope everyone enjoys both of us being back and we’ll see you in the next one.
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