Highlights of the Podcast:
01:13 – The mother of a bride-to-be wants to look great for her daughter’s wedding
02:24 – Have a clear goal and date for your goal
03:01 – Write down your goal and have a target date for its achievement
03:48 – She wants to be an easy, comfortable dress size 12
05:10 – Look at what you’ve done in the past that can negatively affect the present
05:19 – She had done a number of different diets
06:59 – You have to maintain your muscle
07:57 – It takes 21 days to build a habit
08:41 – Establish habits that are going to get you closer to your goal
09:21 – The first habit created was to exercise 4 times a week
10:56 – Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)
11:57 – Have a protein and healthy fat breakfast
13:05 – Cut out any foods that bloat you up
13:19 – Keep a food diary
15:39 – You have to be consistent with your habits
16:33 – Take magnesium to lessen stress
18:20 – Do resistance training with some interval work
18:40 – You must break things down to achieve your goal easier
Transcript:
Mark: Hello and welcome to another new episode of the TheDVCC.com podcast. I am Mark Gray.
Stephen: Good afternoon. I am Stephen.
Mark: So, today – well, firstly, I hope you’re well. I hope you’re enjoying this podcast. Make sure that you have subscribed to them on iTunes. You can get them so they automatically download to your iPhone or Android or whatever phone you have on iTunes. And then, you’ll always be updated.
Stephen: Alternatively, you can obviously read the transcriptions of all of these on our TheDVCC.com site. And if you haven’t put your email into any of the boxes there, you can get a free chapter of our book. But also, we’ll then be able to send you the latest and best articles and podcasts that we do. And by all means, share them with your friends if you know anyone that you think any of these podcasts is going to benefit them, please, just share them. They’re free. We want to try and help as many people as possible.
Mark: Yeah. And actually, we get a lot of emails from people that are…
Stephen: All over the world!
Mark: That have had these articles and podcasts and what have you sent to them. So yeah, do that. That’s cool. So, today, we are going to be talking about, Stephen?
Stephen: We’re going to be talking about – well, actually, it was a question via email. Where were they? I can’t remember where they were, but they asked about their daughter is getting married and they are the mother of the bride.
Mark: Yeah.
Stephen: And this lady has therefore expressed deep concern that she had to look as great as possible on the day because for one, the mother of the groom is going to be there, obviously, so you got to outshine her, haven’t? But two, she actually just wanted to feel good overall and it’s a good motivator for her. So she asked us for advice how to do. I think – how long out was she?
Mark: I think maybe 6 to 8, something like that. Six months. I can’t remember. Because this happened a while ago. We had been storing up, ready to do this podcast, and she asked for our advice. So, we thought we’d use this as a bit of a case study, and to say, basically, to talk through what we told her. And then, the results that she got.
Stephen: And the results she got.
Mark: So, yeah, this was a while ago. Well done for remembering that we did all these, by the way. Basically, what was the first thing that you told her?
Stephen: Well, the first thing obviously…
Mark: Because you replied to her. We talked about it, but you replied.
Stephen: Yeah. The first thing was about the goal. And that was to set the goal up. So when was it she wanted? Because I know she wasn’t having a dress fitting as such. She was going to buy a dress that she felt good in and she had her kind of style that she wanted. I can’t remember the type of style. I’m not an expert in women’s clothes. But I know that she said she had an idea of what. She certainly had the dress size in mind that she wanted to lose. So the first thing I said was, “Well, you need to get a clear goal and date for your goal.” So it just kind of crosses over to goal-setting.
So a lot of people play around with setting their goals, but they tend not to do it correctly so they tend not to, for one, have a clearly defined written down goal. Two, they don’t tend to have a date set for it. And both of those things are key. One without the other is useless. When you do set a goal, you have to make sure that you have a date for when you want to achieve that goal by, and it wants to be written down. I can’t remember the exact stats, but a goal written down is so much more likely to be achieved than one that’s just verbalized or you’ve thought about in your head. So, that was my first advice, was to have a real clear idea of exactly what it was she was trying to achieve or wanted to achieve and by when.
Mark: And what was her goal?
Stephen: I believe it was a dress size 12. I think she was 16 and she wanted to get down to it an easy, comfortable dress size 12 at top hand body. And I know if you’re a lady – and any guys listening to this and wonder why I know such depth of that is the number of women we obviously trained in Bedford and Milton Keynes, we know that the upper body is not necessarily the same dress size as the lower body.
Mark: No. Normally, women are larger in size in the bottom than they are at the top. Although, strangely, I don’t know if this is a new phenomenon, I’m experiencing more ladies that are the opposite. So, a larger size in the upper body compared to the lower body now, which would be an interesting little study to do over the next few years to see about hormones and things. But, actually, this would be a good podcast because there’s a few of the boys, Milton Keynes personal trainers, who have some brides getting ready for their wedding as well, which would be great. We’d be able to send it to them, I just suddenly thought.
Stephen: Yeah. Basically, it was from a dress size 16 to 12, a comfortable 12.
Mark: Right. So, what else?
Stephen: Well, after I mentioned about the goals and having them clear, she replied with obviously saying it was a comfortable dress size 12. Obviously, I had to ask about – and actually, this applies. You have to look at what you’ve done in the past. Is there anything that you’ve done in the past that can actually negatively affect what you do now? So, for example, she had done before quite a few different types of diets. So immediately, I knew that that would probably have – because she actually said, “I don’t want to be a dress size 12 but feel flabby, which I had done before.”
Mark: Hadn’t she done or – no, no. Actually, this is wrong. She hadn’t done. She had talked about it or her daughter talked about it – intermittent fasting or something like that, wasn’t it?
Stephen: She did mention should I do the Two a Day diet. The 5:2 or whatever it is. I think it’s called Two a Day.
Mark: The 5:2, yeah.
Stephen: And that was when I’d asked have you done any other types. I think she had done – it wasn’t LighterLife, but there’s quite a few now that are just 500 calorie drinks on there. I can’t remember which one it was. But anyway, so I knew that she had done a few diets. So, I think it’s important that you kind of audit your history almost so you know what you’ve done in the past because the fact that she had said “I don’t want to be a flabby size 12” made me think that in the past, she had probably lost a lot of muscle whilst trying to lose weight.
Mark: Yeah. Doing like a low calorie diet or the Two a Day diet or whatever.
Stephen: Exactly. So that would be one of the first things to remember, is that you don’t want this. Being a dress size 12, but having a lot of body fat won’t make you feel comfortable in your clothes. Actually, your dress size probably wouldn’t be a dress size 12 if you’d lost a lot of muscle anyway because fat tends to take up more space or does take up more space than muscle does.
Mark: It tends to. It does, it does.
Stephen: And certainly, like this lady, this lady wanted to have quite a high cut arm, I think it was, so that her arms were showing. Because that was one of the things she was worried about, was her arms were showing. It’s very important that you do maintain your muscle. And if you actually ever want to lose proper amounts of body fat, you have to maintain your muscle. It’s one of the biggest misconceptions people have. If you lose your muscle, eventually at some stage, you will regain the weight mostly through fat because your metabolism slows down and you’re burning far less calories. Till eventually, your metabolism just comes to a grinding – not a complete stop, but very, very close to it.
Mark: Okay. So you got that. You got that out of the way. And then, what was your next advice to this lady?
Stephen: Well, I explained to her about how we do things in our transformation centres. We do it in both Bedford and Milton Keynes the exact same because it’s the most effective way to get transformations, and that is…
Mark: And we normally deal in weight loss.
Stephen: Correct. Body transformations, but mainly revolving around weight loss. Of fat loss, actually. I said to her, “So you have…” I think it was 6 months. I said basically, it takes 21 days to build a habit. So in a year, I think that’s 17.33 or something along those lines of habits that you could build in a year. So let’s call it 17, or was it 16? Anyway, 17 habits you can build in a year. So, divide that by 2, we’ll call it roughly, she had about 8 habits that she could build up to her daughter’s wedding. So I said, “Well, imagine you incorporate 8 good, strong habits that are congruent, are positive towards you reaching a dress size 12. Then you can see that to achieve a goal is not that far off.”
I explained it to her how if you just think about developing those habits, because once you develop one of those habits, they stay with you and you keep doing them, whether you’re aiming to do another habit at the same time or not. Then you can see how they end up. I think it was like a compound effect, isn’t it? Where one builds on the other and it made it very simple for her. I said, “So let’s think about what are the habits we can incorporate into your lifestyle that are habits that are going to get you closer towards your goal.”
And so, basically, that was the way we went. I asked her to look at her food, her exercise habits and things like that and she wasn’t actually exercising at all. So the first habit we actually incorporated was she started exercising 4 times a week. Now, I didn’t just say, “Alright. Exercise 4 times a week from today” at the very beginning. We built it up. So she did a few sessions one week, and then built it up to in a few weeks, she was doing 4 good resistance-based – using also interval type training as well – but basically, hour long workouts 4 times a week. That was her first habit. So once she had done for 21 days, it became a habit and it was just something she did.
Mark: That’s good.
Stephen: So the first habit that I gave this lady was to train 4 times a week because she wasn’t exercising at all. But like I said, I didn’t just throw her into exercising 4 times a week. I built up to there. But within 21 days, she was exercising 4 times a week, and that was her new first habit.
Mark: A good first habit as well.
Stephen: Yeah.
Mark: And she knows that because she nailed it, didn’t she? After 21 days, it was a habit. So, okay. Did she experience any problems with that? Any issues with it?
Stephen: She was very sore to begin with, but I had actually warned her about that. And that’s one of the most important things I think to do. I find that if you’re prepared for something, it’s a lot less frightening than if it comes out of the blue. So, when you first start exercising, be prepared for soreness. Be prepared for a lot of soreness, but what you’ll find – it’s called DOMS, which is Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. It sometimes happens 24 hours after, but often 48 hours or two days after. It’s quite an individual thing. Some people actually get it quicker than that. I get it in about 48 hours normally. Sometimes, it can come on within 12 hours. It really depends on the severity of the session and the training, but certainly when you first start training and exercising, you’ll find that you’re likely to get very sore. But, just be aware that that soreness, you’ll never get that level of soreness again. It is just your body having to adapt to a very new stimulus.
Mark: Exactly. So, good. And then, the next habit you gave?
Stephen: Well, I won’t go through all the habits. I’ll just probably give the first two. The second one was actually breakfast.
Mark: Right.
Stephen: But I didn’t feel it necessary to start talking about nutrition until we’d managed to get that first exercise habit in there. So the second habit after the first 21 days was breakfast. So, I asked this lady to have a high protein, high healthy fat type of breakfast. I think she get that first exercise habit in there. So the second habit after the first 21 days was breakfast. So, I asked this lady to have a high protein, high healthy fat type of breakfast. I think she was having a typical what she thought was healthy brown flakes breakfast and it just is not optimal for fat loss. So, I actually just mentioned to her the most effective thing that she could be eating would actually be, for example, an omelet and salmon is actually ideal for breakfast.
Mark: Yeah.
Stephen: And I’m liking, especially when it’s warmer – so obviously, you could be listening to this in the winter or whenever. I mean, it’s still a great breakfast, but salmon and half an avocado is a great breakfast of healthy fat and good protein. That’s going to have you losing weight, being healthy, living longer and being…
Mark: Having more energy.
Stephen: More energy and being much more mentally aware. So, if you have children, I mean that’s a great one for them to have. You’ll find that they’ll perform a lot better at school.
Mark: So, okay. What was the other things you suggested for this lady?
Stephen: Well, it was also to cut out any foods that she felt actually caused her to bloat up. So, for example, when she actually did a food diary, so she wrote food down – actually, that could be another tip, if you really think about it. But she wrote down all the things she was eating for about 3 days or she thinks she was drinking. And actually, it was interesting because that’s another point. I found out that she was drinking like 4 cans of Coke, but hadn’t really thought about it as making any difference to her weight loss efforts.
So, we gradually cut that out. That actually became one of her habits, which was replacing that by having – I think it was 2, 2 ½ liters of water a day. She used to put lime in the water because it’s very good for your alkalizing and it makes the water taste a bit better. But she was having 4 cans of Coke a day and just by cutting that made a big difference to her. But she also then, by writing her foods down and her fluid intake, she was able to pinpoint what actually caused her to feel bloated and feel lethargic and feel a bit yucky, basically. And she ended up cutting out any sorts of wheat-containing foods. So gluten-containing foods, actually. Things like white pastas and things like that, because she found, like probably 75% of the population, she was intolerant to gluten.
Mark: Right. So she would eat it, and then she would feel crappy afterwards, basically.
Stephen: Yeah. But sometimes with these types of foods, it can be hard to actually pinpoint because you tend not to just eat a bowl of pasta by itself. You tend to eat a lot of different types of food at the same time over the days or what have you. So by writing it down into a food diary – and this is good and we get our clients to do this in Bedford and Milton Keynes periodically because it is very good to be mindful of what you’re actually putting in your mouth.
Mark: Exactly. So many jokes there as well!
Stephen: And I think those jokes are made on the graffiti.
Mark: The graffiti we’re just by. So, okay. So she’s drinking more water, she’s reduced her Coke. I mean, she must have got results pretty quickly?
Stephen: Yeah. I can’t remember the weight she had to lose. I just know that she was an easy dress size 12 with about 2 ½, 3 months left to go.
Mark: Right.
Stephen: Because the things she did had that much of a drastic change.
Mark: And they’re only small changes.
Stephen: Fat loss doesn’t have to be a struggle. It really is how consistent you are with those habits.
Mark: It is. It is all about consistency with habits. And once they form part of your normal everyday life, the weight loss is just a side effect that you will notice, obviously.
Stephen: Yeah. Exactly. You’ll notice. But it’s just once you focus on the smaller things or the habits, like we said, then the rest will follow.
Mark: Okay. So, were there any other little tips you gave her? Because, I mean, so she’s the mother of the bride. Muscle tone is obviously an issue. I mean, she must have…
Stephen: Ah! I know what. I remember, I remember it. Because obviously, she was obviously helping organize the wedding.
Mark: What we could have done was friends who are females, if we had them. That was silly of us.
Stephen: We could have it done. Can we change the way it is?
Mark: Yeah. Well, we’re probably not that organized. We just keep it all in our heads.
Stephen: But anyway, so the point I was going to make was she was finding her sleep was poor because she was under a lot of stress, dealing with all these organization and things. And I just simply got her to take some magnesium in the evenings because basically you deplete magnesium when you’re stressed, you deplete magnesium when you exercise. So, the fact that she had started exercising when she hadn’t been also would have meant that she was turning over magnesium quicker.
Mark: Using a lot of magnesium.
Stephen: Using a lot more magnesium than she had been. So basically, the more magnesium you have in your body, the better able you are to handle stress. So, I basically got her eating and having some magnesium at dinnertime. And that meant that she slept all the way through since she was much more calm, much more able to handle things.
Mark: It must have made her husband feel a lot happier as well.
Stephen: Probably.
Mark: Okay. So, good. Is there anything else that you suggested for her? That was a good little case study. I mean, what age was she, by the way?
Stephen: Well, I know her daughter was 30, I think, or 31. So what age was she supposed to be about?
Mark: 60.
Stephen: No. I think she was 55, 55ish.
Mark: Okay. So that worked for her.
Stephen: But the whole point is that the principle is there.
Mark: Exactly.
Stephen: So, the goal-setting. So having a goal, writing it down, having a date you want to achieve this goal by, setting the habits that you need to incorporate into your lifestyle to then achieve that goal and not trying to do more than one habit at a time, doing a habit 21 days at a time. And obviously, you keep doing the habit that you did previously as you go along.
Mark: Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a habit.
Stephen: Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a habit. And also, obviously, because it was a weight loss thing, I’m sure everyone listening to this is mainly wanting it for health and weight loss reasons, then the exercise was important. The type of exercise she was doing, which was resistance training with some interval work as well. Then yeah, added or all combined, that made a really massive difference. But it was breaking it down which really did make a difference. I could’ve just initially sent an email just saying, “Do this, do this, do this, do this,” and I know from not only books I read that have done a lot of different studies on this sort of thing, but also, from my own experience, that if you try and do everything at once, you end up doing nothing.
Mark: Exactly.
Stephen: Yeah, and you often get the people that are, “Oh no, I want it all written down. I can follow it all to a T,” but I’m pretty much refusing nowadays because I’d much rather they formed the habits that change their life than just do another diet or view it as another diet. And that’s the main thing, really.
Mark: Okay. Good for you, Stephen. Well done! I’m sure she was happy and had a good day, I’m sure.
Stephen: I think so. She seemed to be very happy.
Mark: If you have any comments, if you have any questions, do put them anywhere in the boxes you can see, on Facebook, tweet it or whatever you want to do. We’ll answer them. And if we can be of service to help you in any way, if you are living in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire or anywhere around, we’ll be happy to speak with you and invite you into the centre just to have a conversation with us. Obviously, we do maintain a maximum of 150 clients in each centre, and Bedford is pretty much full. I think there’s like 6 or maybe 5 – because a new chap because a client yesterday – 5 spaces available. And we are strict with that now. 150 clients only. Obviously, Bedford’s been around longer than Milton Keynes, but Milton Keynes is getting some amazing results also. But if you want to, do go to any of the sites – BedfordPersonalTraining.com or MiltonkeynesPersonalTraining.com – and we will be happy to speak with you. So, till next time, bye-bye!
Stephen: Bye-bye.
