Starting Monday Podcast
Starting Monday Podcast
The Journey From January Goals to Sustainable Health Habits
Ever found yourself at the crossroads of wanting to push your limits while still enjoying life's guilty pleasures? Join us, Barry and Matthew, as we shake off the podcasting rust and get candid about our fitness journeys and setting impactful New Year's goals. We're not just talking about the same old resolutions; we're digging into the real stuff, like how to balance indulgence with dedication.
We've all been there—struggling to get out of bed for that early morning spin class or grappling with the decision of whether to hit the gym or the pub. In this heart-to-heart, we chat about spinning, the changing face of fitness trends, and how crucial sleep and hydration are for your well-being. Plus, we reveal the dark side of over-exercising, sharing personal setbacks and the importance of rest, so you can navigate the fine line between commitment and excess without winding up with a tale of swollen testicles—yes, you heard that right!
As we rev up for an epic fitness retreat, we're dissecting the telltale signs of overtraining and the ways to keep your fitness flame burning bright without burning out. It's not just about the workouts; we're discussing everything from the sober-curious Dry January to why short-term dieting may not cut it for long-term gains. Get ready to laugh, learn, and maybe even wince a little with us, as we prepare you to tackle all the adventures 2024 has lined up.
Hey guys, how you doing? Welcome back to another episode of the Start Monday podcast. It is January 2024 and we are here, myself and Mr Matthew. How you doing, I'm fantastic. How you doing, barry, I'm doing alright, I'm doing good. So it's nice to see you, it's good to be back.
Speaker 2:This music is obnoxiously loud, isn't it?
Speaker 1:It is a little bit, I'll bring it down. We're a bit rusty, as always.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Not quite sticking to our schedules but we hope you guys are sticking to your schedules and you are training well.
Speaker 2:Let's just pretend we're like sticking to our schedule. This is what we meant. We meant to leave it for another month before we recorded, didn't we Barry?
Speaker 1:I think we did. Yeah, of course. I mean it's got to the stage where we weren't actually sure.
Speaker 2:We've got to stop bringing it up that we didn't record it now we should.
Speaker 1:So last time I'm going to mention it. But we didn't know how to start the record button. We didn't know if it was hit it once, twice or hold it down. Yes, we could be speaking to no one right now, and that's good it's a bit like when our members have a big layoff of the gym and they forget what the code is to get in the door. It's a bit like that. It's not a good place to be. It's not locked outside in the cold.
Speaker 2:Yeah, barry, what's the?
Speaker 1:code. So how you getting on anyway, matthew, how's the start of the year been for you? How's Christmas? Tell us a little bit about where you're at.
Speaker 2:How's the start of the year been? The start of the year's been alright. Actually it's been busy. Obviously, we both work in gyms January, so it's been busy. Lot going on, especially at work, but training wise. Good, I get less hit pay in these days, is it good? Brilliant, I did a 200 deadly for five, not a PB, but it's respectable. And then over Christmas and all that, I just enjoy myself two times, isn't it?
Speaker 1:That's what you've got to do so. Did you kick back a little bit at Christmas time, not train as much, or were you very consistent?
Speaker 2:No, I trained actually Because I live in town and obviously I had a bit more time off. I got a little two week pass at a gym and I trained there.
Speaker 1:A little bit more nights out over December.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a little bit more drinking, but not a lot, it's a little bit. Saw the guys a couple of times. Yeah, nice, nice, catch out of people, see people.
Speaker 1:So when Christmas and New Year and all that's done out the way for you, is it just another week or just another day, or do you feel like it is the turn of a new page or whatever?
Speaker 2:Do you know how a lot of people are like that yeah, I know what you mean, but no, it's just another day, just wake up and do my usual stuff on a matter of routine, so nothing changes. I guess I maybe have a think in terms of fitness goals. Maybe that's probably a good question. So I'd probably sit and go oh, what would I like to achieve this year? But I would say last year, because of my injuries and all that, I didn't really get anywhere near to achieving what I wanted to. So maybe I was a bit more relaxed with my fitness goals this year, but no, it's just another day, isn't it Another day?
Speaker 1:Oh, definitely, I try and just keep fairly consistent through December, not treat it like any other different month. But inevitably, once you take that time off work, the calories build up, the alcohol starts to increase.
Speaker 2:That's when the training is good, though, isn't it?
Speaker 1:The training drops a little bit because you're not, it's got all those calories and stuff.
Speaker 2:Great workouts, don't you? I do actually find around Christmas I'll probably hit the most PBs, usually in my training, because I'd better sleep. More time off, more food, hit some PBs. How was your start of the year being? You've been away. You were in London. Good Guys already had a holiday. It's month number one. He's already away.
Speaker 1:I wasn't a holiday A couple of days away. I'm allowed that.
Speaker 2:How many days away were you?
Speaker 1:Just two.
Speaker 2:We only wait for two days, was that it? Yeah, just the weekend in London, two fair flights were very cheaper, weren't they?
Speaker 1:They were quite reasonable. For once I thought All right how much British Airways as well.
Speaker 2:Oh, heathrow, I can't remember. Honestly, I can't remember. It was about that, yeah, but that's decent, I think for. I'm going down next month guess how much for flights. I'm flying to Luton, obviously a lovely place 44 quid.
Speaker 1:A bit more difficult to get in the town from there, though 44 quid.
Speaker 2:No, you don't Get a bus to the train station. Jump on a train. That's a good price, that's well worth it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for me I always just sort of think, yeah, like you said there, what I want to achieve in 2024. Because I do think setting some goals at the start of the year is quite useful, quite important.
Speaker 2:But do you have? Obviously we spoke before and you're doing your Hierarchs event, so do you have any other goals? Yeah, I'll set myself a little mini-goals, you might go on what you got my mic's dropping, sorry guys, my mic's slowly falling.
Speaker 1:It's falling off the edge of the thing.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, fix it. I'm trying.
Speaker 1:I'll waffle while you're fixing your mic. Okay, I'm going to try.
Speaker 2:Wait, can you? You know what, barry? Go mute me for a second. You can waffle and I'll be muted, so you can.
Speaker 1:You're muted, he's off. So as Matthew fixes his mic and tries not to break anything else that we are using in with our setup, I'll tell you about my 2024 goals. So, as you know, I did a Hierarchs last year, so big goal is to do another one this year, probably at the end of the year, a Hierarchs solo, and hopefully improve on that time, which I think is quite a good training goal, gives me good motivation to stay consistent throughout the year. But I've really been wanting to climb some Monroe's. I've only actually ever climbed one Monroe which is kind of like quite pathetic being a personal trainer from Arredine's shirt and I've only climbed one Monroe. So I've climbed Mount Keen, but the aim is to do at least four this year. So hopefully I'll bring you back in Matthew.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fixed it, I fixed it, I fixed it.
Speaker 1:Hopefully Matthew can come with me and we'll climb Monroe's together. What do you think?
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:Monroe, any Monroe.
Speaker 2:So you climbed Mount.
Speaker 1:Keen. I've only climbed one, so I'd like to climb a few more. I've climbed zero.
Speaker 2:So you know what I'll climb Monroe. Yes, one up on you Climbing.
Speaker 1:Monroe. I just think it's a good goal to set. I might do more than four, but going by, like we said, we're going to do four episodes in December. We did one, so I'll keep I'll keep.
Speaker 2:Well, technically, we did two, didn't we? Because we jumped on. Oh yeah, we did, you're a lovely friends podcast as well, don't we?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we should probably plug that. We were on the Journey Home podcast, which is on YouTube.
Speaker 2:It is on YouTube.
Speaker 1:The interviewed myself and Matthew.
Speaker 2:How did you feel getting filmed?
Speaker 1:Fine, I quite liked it. I was fine with it.
Speaker 2:You feel like they got your good side.
Speaker 1:I had to put on a better jumper if I was thinking about it first before I got down.
Speaker 2:Yes, same, I would have dressed more appropriately.
Speaker 1:We were both wearing blue, so we kind of clashed.
Speaker 2:I came just from work and I was pretty tired. I just chucked on whatever.
Speaker 1:Anyway, another goal I've got this year. Actually, Matthew, I've noticed that my pull-ups have got pretty poor over the last few months. I don't know why, just maybe not being programming them in as much.
Speaker 2:What would you categorize as poor? Like that Poor, yeah, it's poor, it's not poor. You know that right.
Speaker 1:Poor is like a poor milk. No, no, no. So I've actually, don't you?
Speaker 2:start, don't you start. I've had this conversation with a client. We checked it, we checked it. You poor something, you're poor something.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, Matthew, but we're not going to waste five minutes speaking nonsense. Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys. This is non-sense.
Speaker 2:Look it up, research it it's poor, right Okay, continue.
Speaker 1:We'll say a different word to poor right. We'll say pathetic, Okay.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're saying like poor Okay, you're confusing me now. Yeah, okay, continue, yeah, poor Anyway.
Speaker 1:As in someone's poor. I get what you're saying. It could be poor or poor. Yeah, I don't know Anyway is to do 20 unassisted body weight weight, arm pull ups. Like in a row In a row 20. I could do it 20 is brutal. I'll be honest with you. I'm glad you think it's a good goal. Then If you did, 20, I'd be impressed. I know, I know it's a tough goal Like full range.
Speaker 2:I think the most I've done full range oh, maybe like 14. That's when I was a lot lighter. Obviously can't do it now, what can you? Do now? I could probably do like. I think maybe like I could, I'd like to say I could push 10, but probably like nine.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I could do a set of eight, so I'm about eight, nine, just now. Of like overhand wide grip.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, probably eight or nine.
Speaker 1:But I'm going to push it. I'm going to speak to you in December 2024. And I'm going to show you a little video of me doing 20.
Speaker 2:There, you go Okay, all right, cool, no, I love that. Yeah, that's a good goal, that's a good goal.
Speaker 1:Other than that, that's a bit really just be healthy.
Speaker 2:Couple of minerals, couple of rocks. Build that consistency. Do high rocks?
Speaker 1:I kind of go through periods where my nutrition is really good and then it falls off a little bit. Really good Falls off a little bit, and I know that is probably like what most people are like, but I would really like to just get a little bit more consistency throughout the year with it. Do you know what?
Speaker 2:I mean yeah, yeah, yeah. What's your goal then in terms of do you have a body fat level?
Speaker 1:No, not necessarily More, just like wanting to be healthy and just wanting to look after yourself. Look after myself, make sure I'm eating good, healthy food, good sources of protein, good sources of carbohydrates, good sources of fats, limiting all the sort of junk that comes into our diet over the year, and I'm not saying that it's definitely unhealthy to like restrict things and I would never do that.
Speaker 2:Cause, you know, I like a bag of crisps.
Speaker 1:I like a pint of beer, but I would like to, you know, have a more nutrient diet, so to speak. Nutrient dense, nutrient dense diet, sorry.
Speaker 2:But now I would probably say you look after yourself quite well and you probably have quite a good balance. As it is right, you still go out have a drink.
Speaker 1:You're quite lean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. Quite fit. Probably way better balance than me. It is probably pretty good. It is pretty good as it is.
Speaker 1:That's just something that I like. I think probably a lot of us are working on as we're getting older. I mean, we're all trying to you know, better our lifestyle in some way. Yeah, so that we enjoy our lives for longer.
Speaker 2:Right, valid. All I want to do is just be strong again.
Speaker 1:You're just obsessed with lifting weights, are you?
Speaker 2:I like lifting weights. Yeah, yeah, but I've been so injured. I just want to get back to a level where I was like you know what good weights yeah, I'm not at that.
Speaker 1:So your focus is going to be on, you know, staying injury free. Just what can you do differently in your training?
Speaker 2:I would say I've changed something already and my hips are a lot better.
Speaker 1:Tell us about it.
Speaker 2:I was. I don't want to bad mouth any classes, but I was teaching a class and, to be fair, the people at my gym come to my classes. No, this class bothers me, not like I don't mind doing it and I enjoy doing it.
Speaker 1:Why did you go to it if it bothers you. It's a spin, spin you teach, spin, I did yeah. No, we don't teach it now, do you yeah?
Speaker 2:last year I did like four spin classes a week, lemme know, and I meant I do it because I cover or I help out, and you know what I mean. It's my job. It's my job and I will still cover and help out what I need to. But recently I haven't been teaching them and I haven't been required to, and my hip is so much better, like so much better. It's not like pain free yet, but it's getting every day, it's getting better. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Crazy.
Speaker 2:Crazy one thing in your training. If you just like change, it can make such a big difference. But yeah, spin.
Speaker 1:And is there anything else that aggravates these little injuries you get, or is there anything you could do differently?
Speaker 2:I think I spoke about before, like I had a back injury when I was young and since then, and now when I get in my back, we're just going to spasm and that's it.
Speaker 1:Is there anything in your training that you could be better at?
Speaker 2:Well, it's probably directly linked to going heavier, right? So if I wanted to give up lifting heavy, would my hip and back be better? Yes, do I want to do that?
Speaker 1:No, Well, sometimes you've got to have a happy medium somewhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we all have our crutches.
Speaker 1:Yeah, talking about taking spin, I used to, obviously, years ago and years ago I used to take spin.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I used to have to do the Monday morning six, six, 15 am Spin class every Monday, and that was back in the day when I used to really enjoy my Saturday nights. I'd be hanging all Sunday and I'd be, petrified about going in and doing that.
Speaker 2:That time in the morning for like a spin. They just look at you. Well, nobody communicates until that spin class is finished. Yeah, no one speaks. Nobody speaks, everyone's just like looking at you and they're like guys, you ready? And they're like, yeah, okay, let's go.
Speaker 1:If anyone knows me, I'm not the best communicator. At six am in the morning and six am on a Monday morning. That's probably really bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's probably like grunt at them, put the machine, put the music on, got on the bike and then transformed myself in the hour spin class and then by the time it's finished, everybody's happy as well.
Speaker 2:Did you do an hour spin class?
Speaker 1:I can't remember what it was. It was probably 30 minutes then.
Speaker 2:We do 30 these days. We used to do 45, but COVID, we cut to 30 for like getting more classes.
Speaker 1:We used to be more hardcore 15 years ago. Everyone's gone a bit soft and well, you know classes last 10 minutes.
Speaker 2:Everyone's gone a little bit soft classes last 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:To be fair.
Speaker 2:it's true, Everything's quick and fast these days.
Speaker 1:Did you ever take body pump?
Speaker 2:No, I've participated in body pump. I've never took it, but I am grit qualified in Les Mills, grit, grit, and we do barbell classes, but they're more like lifting than there are body pump, where it's quite fast and a lot of pulses and all that. We do barbell classes where we have they're doing exercises, but more properly, if that makes sense. So that's good.
Speaker 1:We enjoy them. It's good to do all these classes and being instruct in different.
Speaker 2:I love classes. I think they're great, like you do boot camps right, anything like that, like community based. There's a lot of banter, a lot of chat Love that.
Speaker 1:I took part in today's boot camp. By the way, I'll with the members.
Speaker 2:Did you do posting?
Speaker 1:Don't need to, don't need to show off all the time.
Speaker 2:I like how you usually do me.
Speaker 1:Don't need to show off all the time. Sometimes I'm working and people don't know about it.
Speaker 2:You know To be fair. Actually, you know what I need to get better at posting these days on Instagram about actual stuff. I do. I've noticed that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because, if I look at you right, you're social media.
Speaker 2:All I see you do is squat deadlift bench.
Speaker 1:You know, you vary the angles from now again, which is really good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I should film like whole workouts and then film my clients mornings and just so people have some more content they can expect or get motivated by but yeah, I think we're all a bit lazy. You know what says you Actually? No wait, you're better these days. You're better than I am.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking about it, I'm all right. Anyway, what's good? What could be better with your lifestyle just now, Matthew? For example? For me, I could definitely be better with my weekends. I'd say that my weekends have sort of tailed off a little bit towards the end of last year and I haven't sort of really picked up on them. How do you mean? Well, just like you know, bottles of wine, that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2:Okay, like drinking alcohol, that sort of stuff, yeah, like.
Speaker 1:I think it's good to have a chat and say like you know, where are we doing good, what could we do better? I always have this conversation with my clients. You know, let's look at what we're doing really well. Just now You're hitting your three or four sessions a week. Brilliant, you've got you're building that great consistency and you're training. You know what's not going so well. Okay, your sleep has been a bit of an issue that sort of thing. How can we address that? For me as well, sleep probably hasn't been that good.
Speaker 2:I can relate to that right now. My sleep's not been too great.
Speaker 1:I always find that if sleep's not good, it's like a domino effect. All other stuff round about it, it's just shot, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, 100% Like you train worse because you're tired. I feel like you eat more because you're tired, yes, and then if you I'm not sure, but if you have a bad workout I put you off a little bit and like, oh, can't be bothered.
Speaker 1:So, it's demotivating as a whole and that kind of will be tied back to things like yeah, sleep so even like, just like addressing sleep is like so important and like that could be like the one thing that you change, that you make with yourself or with your client. That three or four weeks down the line you haven't changed anything else, but everything else is starting to be better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, 100%, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:They're starting to choose better foods. They're feeling more energy.
Speaker 2:Feeling better, training better they're going outside more.
Speaker 1:They're moving more.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I always think sleep and maybe you're walking and your daily activity are so, hand in hand, it's kind of the boring stuff, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Like the things to go, oh, it's not that important Makes a big difference.
Speaker 1:Exactly because if we were going to mention, like, what should people do in January to sort of get themselves going again, it is quite a boring chat but like you go on social media, you see everyone's telling you the same things. But it is literally things like drink more water, start the day with a pint of water, focus on your hydration, prioritize your sleep, get outside, get fresh air, get walking, get moving. And these are three really simple things. But if you nail them, your diet and your training will probably, you know come back in.
Speaker 2:So what are you finding with your sleep then, right now? What's bad about it? What's the issue?
Speaker 1:Well, I wasn't sleeping. Are you staying up later? Yeah, it's easy. Well, that's what I do is go on.
Speaker 2:I do feel like over the winter period, because it's dark all the time, even when it's like 11 o'clock at night, you're sitting there going oh I, still dark. It was dark at five o'clock, it was dark at six in the morning, so, like you don't notice the difference, do you have that day like waking you up and then the night time comes, you go, oh, it's bedtime now, do you? It's constantly dark, so I've been bad for like staying up, probably a bit too late.
Speaker 1:No, I've been bad for watching things like things on Netflix and that Watching things. And then no, I didn't want to say series because I knew I can't say it.
Speaker 2:What are you watching?
Speaker 1:Well, I was watching the Kin.
Speaker 2:I'm actually interested because I didn't want to watch Kin Kin.
Speaker 1:K-I-N, and then I've actually the second season I was watching as well. Okay, On a fire stick.
Speaker 2:Did you watch that film Salt Burn that everyone's chatting about?
Speaker 1:So is it called.
Speaker 2:Salt Burn.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Have you seen it? It's on Netflix. No, it's not on Netflix, it's on Amazon. It's very weird. Well, it's not very weird.
Speaker 1:I was also watching Gangs of London as well.
Speaker 2:Gangs of London.
Speaker 1:So binging a little bit on these things, scrolling through social media, these are things that if I address quite quickly, I know that I'll start training better, choosing better foods and probably sleeping better.
Speaker 2:I feel like I've been working quite late as well, working quite late dark days, just haven't been sleeping as well. Maybe it's like half 12, one o'clock in the morning. I'm like, oh, I'm going to bed now. I'm like this is pretty irresponsible. I should have been sleeping like two hours ago.
Speaker 1:So you've obviously seen loads of people come into your gym. Your gym's a lot busier. We're a lot busier as well, just not that we've picked up lots and lots of new members or anything like that, but it's more just been a lot of the members that maybe weren't as consistent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or coming up, coming up again.
Speaker 1:They've started dialing down a little bit more and getting their sessions in that sort of thing, which is really really good. Have you had a lot of people come to you for nutritional advice or diet advice, or do you know people that are doing diets or this sort of stuff? Or what do you think about dieting in general?
Speaker 2:There's been a bigger uptake in like, well, yeah, we're probably similar. We've had a lot. We're busier mainly because a lot of people are coming back or motivated again, being like, oh, it's started the year, getting back into it. Obviously, we've had an increase in members, but it's not probably our busiest January in terms of that. But have people been approaching me more? Possibly? Yeah, yeah, I would probably say so, but I'm trying to think because what do you think of when you're working like?
Speaker 2:10, 12 hours. It's all blended into one, isn't it? People just asking you questions. You answer them. Try to think if I've been busier.
Speaker 1:Are you not going to be doing dry January? Or is it vegan, vegan-ury, whatever?
Speaker 2:Well, if I was meant to be doing dry January, I've failed already, haven't I Like? No, I do like people do dry January. I actually saw sorry this is off topic a little bit, but I saw a clip today of a Liverpool fan who was in the pub and he's getting interviewed. Oh, what do you think about Jurgen Klopp's leaving? And he was like I'm just so upset. I was doing dry January, but I just had to have a pipe, so he's quite as well. I do like people who do it, though. I think it's good change in habits, right. So if you're drinking a lot in December, then kind of cold turkey it, but I don't drink much as it is. I think you drink more than I do, don't you? No, I don't Got my bottles of high at the weekend, eh.
Speaker 1:It's never a bad thing for you to go through a period of not drinking. Let's put it that way. So you know on that front it's probably pretty good and I know people do it in. I was at October as well, sober October or something Is that a thing there as well?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I think it rhymes. Yeah, let's make it, why not?
Speaker 1:But it's also a lot of shit, is it Like? I mean, like you know what's the point if you're just gonna get tanked up December and February?
Speaker 2:Yeah, then at least for one of the months here, all right, the other 11, you might be crap, but at least one year, okay, yeah. But what did you achieve from doing that? I think it's because December's so heavy that then January cold turkey it. By February people aren't going out as much, and then suddenly it's summer and you can start drinking again.
Speaker 1:I would probably say it is a good thing.
Speaker 2:As a whole. I would probably have to, I'd have to be devil's advocate here. I'd argue against you that I do actually quite like it. I feel like a bit of cold turkey is not a bad thing, even if it's just for a month.
Speaker 1:It might break some habits. Like I said, it's never gonna be a bad thing, but If you're an alcoholic.
Speaker 2:You're gonna go back on February.
Speaker 1:It's just going through that. It's similar to that cycle of dieting. Stop diet, gain weight dieting. Lose a little bit weight. Stop diet, gain weight. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:It's like.
Speaker 1:What are you learning from it? What are you teaching yourself?
Speaker 2:There is a mad stat with that. There's like 90% of people who diet will put that weight back on Exactly. That's crazy, isn't it?
Speaker 1:So I think, if you're doing like a dry January, trying like it's great that you're doing it.
Speaker 2:Maybe things.
Speaker 1:February. You're maybe doing it because you have an issue with alcohol or something like that, which.
Speaker 2:We're not saying you do, but you might.
Speaker 1:But take away something from it like how did it make me feel Like, what did I enjoy about it, how did it affect my performance in the gym, how did it affect my life in general, how did it affect my sleep, how did it affect my energy levels, my choices with food, that sort of stuff, my body composition, and take some positives from it and then try and continue that into, like the other months of the year. You don't have to go like you don't have to go like in the cold turkey or here.
Speaker 2:So rather, it's just January or February, you go. How am I gonna maintain this sort of habit? Maybe I'll drink once every two weeks. You know what I mean. You're gonna maintain it rather than yeah, it's going back to wagging.
Speaker 1:Exactly, or maybe ask yourself like what are my reasons for drinking? Is it because I feel a certain way? Is it because I'm meeting up with friends that I haven't seen for a while and it's about having a good time, or you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's like I sometimes think people I work with, that I try and coach, and things like that, you know they're drinking too much and stopping them from achieving the things that they really want to achieve. So, therefore, you need to sort of, you know, look at the reasons why you're doing X, y and Z.
Speaker 2:People also don't realise how much it's impacting their life as well. Right, probably don't realise it's making an impact. I don't drink much at all. I had two gins two weeks ago. So my mum got me a bottle of gin for Christmas and I woke up and more and my head was killing me. I was like, wow, I do not drink much, but I'm a social drinker. I'll go out with my mates and like, have one or two, you know, but then I'll probably go to diet coke after that. I'm not one for binge drinking.
Speaker 1:So after this, you fancy going to the pub Start the corner.
Speaker 2:yeah, why not? Why not? I'll have a large diet coke.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll talk about drinking, Maybe.
Speaker 2:Thursday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I'm trying to relate the dry January thing to like you know diets, Like you know, I always think as well, like if your diet is like excluding like a major food group, like carbohydrates or really low carbohydrates or fat or really low fat, or you're not eating a lot of like proper food, you're just having shakes and things like that. It's kind of for me, that's not something that I would entertain personally for myself or get a lot of my clients to entertain, because what they learn from that Do you know?
Speaker 1:what I mean yeah yeah, yeah, I tell you what they learn from it is they learn from it that when they do this cycle of extreme eating, they lose a lot of weight, but when they stop and they go back to like their normal eating, they gain a lot of weight. So they think that they can only lose weight if they do these extreme things.
Speaker 2:They probably build like a hatred towards certain food groups. So you said if someone eliminates carbs and they lose weight, they go. All carbs are evil. Now.
Speaker 2:And whenever they probably eat carbs, they feel bad. I shouldn't really be having that, it's bad. But yeah, you're right, people yo-yo quite a lot. It's probably like that bit between like the diet, so what you do, and then the bit afterwards where you try and reintroduce things. So you said, like, if you are going to drink, how are you going to reintroduce that? If you did eliminate carbs, how are you going to reintroduce carbohydrates without you then just going back to where you were before and putting all the weight back on and rinse and repeating over and over again. As I said, I think it is like some like 90% I think it's overnight percent of people who lose weight through a diet will just put it back on. It's just brutal.
Speaker 1:Exactly. It's a huge statistic. It's a scary stat, to be fair, and I think, like generally, diets don't work. I prefer to look at your nutrition and just generally and make general changes and adaptations week to week so that when you can look back, say six months down the line, you don't feel like you've been on a diet, but you can tell the difference between your nutrition now to what it was before. It looks different, it feels different, you've made results and it's more sustainable.
Speaker 2:You get where I'm coming from, Matthew. How do you feel about like unhealthy exercise habits then People who possibly do too much exercise or over train or kind of run themselves into the ground?
Speaker 1:It's probably not as many people out there as we think that are probably in that category, but I think it's a pretty. I think it's a good thing to speak about, because from the time that I've been in the industry, I've definitely witnessed quite a lot of people that have been in that sort of loop. Yeah, yeah, like what are you specifically?
Speaker 2:referring to. Yeah, so people going to, I kind of see it a lot, probably with more, more class goers.
Speaker 1:Folger at home are sitting going, definitely not me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but like class goers you might see people You've been once in the last two weeks they come into.
Speaker 2:they go to the gym like six, seven days a week and they feel like they've got to burn calories every day, they've got to work out every day and then, as we were saying, before they come home they're fatigued, they don't sleep well, and then they're just in the cycle of constantly being tired and constantly exercising and then not really achieving their goals. But if you're that tired, you're inherently probably pretty miserable at the same time. So I was saying in aspects of like taking time off, recovering and then going back into it. I've done it in the past, especially when I got like first into lifting. I was training like seven days a week and then you don't realize what you're doing. You're like, oh no, let's go in and do something light, and then Do you've you've been in this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I've trained like six, seven days a week and it's been tired and you don't really achieve like, for example, my strength wasn't really going up as fast it probably should. I wasn't probably gaining as much muscle as I probably could if I was recovering properly and you're stuck in this loop, being going oh no, I need to train so then I can get stronger, and or I can get fair and you're just going round and round and round. And I want to bring it up because I feel like a lot of people out there take your rest days. If you're training like seven days a week, just calm down a little bit as well.
Speaker 1:No, there's two things that annoy me the most is people that don't do anything, and that you know, complain about not getting the results and but they're extremely lazy, so like they're at one end of the scale and another, the people at the far end of the scale that are just constantly doing everything, and then also morning that they're not getting the results. But you know, it's just, it's that middle ground, exactly, you know. You know you do stay away from the extreme ends and try and get yourself into the sort of middle middle zone. I've definitely been in that situation once that I can think of, and that was when I was when I first started my my own business on myself. I was training for the New York marathon. I was still doing like a lot of like classes to earn extra money, like teaching body pumps, spin, that sort of stuff, doing personal training from from my own business, which is quite stressful anyway, playing football for a team and also just training my weight, Because I was like.
Speaker 1:I know, because I was like I need to keep strong and I need to make building muscle and all this sort of stuff, and I actually got myself into a bit of a mess. I ended up getting these allergic reactions at the time. I didn't know the reasons behind it, I just thought probably my retrition wasn't too good at this time as well. I started to get like like a swollen, swollen lip or a swollen tongue or things like that. Yeah, and a couple of times it was quite scary because you know, if you wake up during middle of the night and your tongue's swollen, what are you panicking?
Speaker 2:Why, what happened?
Speaker 1:Why are you?
Speaker 2:getting this Exactly?
Speaker 1:I don't know if I'm training or I'm just swollen tongue. Well, it was just. I'm trying to get to it, I'm trying to explain it.
Speaker 1:You know, I had no idea what was going on, I thought there was something not right with me. I thought I had an allergic reaction, some of eating or something like that. Initially that's what I thought. So I was in hospital first few times and I think it was an anti-histamine plus a steroid injection sorted it out and then you go back, you're back to normal within a few hours, whatever. But I kept happening over and over again. But the weird thing was it was like a different place in my body each time. It was initially just like my lip or my tongue, but that was quite scary, actually your tongue's swelling up, because it was like, if you don't address this quickly, it's going to keep getting bigger. You know.
Speaker 2:Your whole body would just be a tongue.
Speaker 1:It's going to be that big, so over the course of a period right, obviously, I started to see a doctor and things like that and get like blood tests and tests of everything I wouldn't say you're just doing too much bicep curls, I'm going to get to that. You just put down the dumbbells, I'm going to get to that, but there's a couple of funny bits before we get there.
Speaker 2:So yeah, my eyelid was swollen, my chin- I've never seen someone with a swollen chin before.
Speaker 1:Anywhere, there's like soft tissue to my feet. I actually went to the hospital once because I couldn't get my feet inside shoes.
Speaker 2:There's one more. God, you're just like an old man. You've got this water retention everywhere.
Speaker 1:I go one more. What else my testicles Honestly mate. It was a bad time, but anyway it turned out. I wasn't allergic to anything. They couldn't find anything wrong with me. They did a lot of blood tests and all this sort of stuff. Everything was really normal or healthy, but I was just like extremely stressed.
Speaker 2:It was like a what was pure stress Possible?
Speaker 1:stress, over-exercise, over-exertion, like putting my body through too much things mentally and physically at that time. That's the explanation I got. Anyway, I was given some medication to take on a permanent basis which would sort this out. And then I took it for like maybe nine months or something and I was like I just feel different. You know in yourself you feel different, yeah, like I just stopped taking it and it never, ever came back, and that's probably like I don't know 50, 50 years ago.
Speaker 2:Well, you're meant to take the medication forever.
Speaker 1:Well, go back and get more when it runs out, that sort of thing, and keep it going.
Speaker 2:I'd probably like making an appointment or whatever, but so I was saying, guys, if you over exercise, you're going to be tired and you should look after yourself and take some days off. Bari exercise is so hard, it's testicle. It's like fucking massive. That's crazy. That's the worst thing I've heard Over exercising. It started like ballooning up in random areas.
Speaker 1:And it never happened ever again, like it was just like almost I felt like I don't feel, like I felt different.
Speaker 2:Is that your cue? If it ever happens again, you're like, oh God, you need to take a few days off.
Speaker 1:If anyone's listened to this and this has ever happened to you, then we should like create a focus group.
Speaker 2:Let us know, Focus group make a Facebook group. We can chat about it, our experience.
Speaker 1:No, but it's a bit weird, is it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's random man.
Speaker 1:It is a bit random.
Speaker 2:It's quite interesting Cut.
Speaker 1:Long story short. Sorry if that bore you to death there, but I think it was to do with doing too much Like so much, like you know, and yeah, you were asking about that, so I thought I would speak about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, valid.
Speaker 1:Good story, but in general signs that you're doing too much. What could we say? They were Fatigue, low energy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And especially if you feel like you have an unhealthy habit, if you're feeling guilty about not exercising on a day. You have an unhealthy habit around that Like you shouldn't feel guilty for taking a day off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's kind of almost a different conversation altogether, isn't it yeah?
Speaker 2:But I think it's a link, because if you're feeling guilty, people then go exercise. You know what I mean. It is a vicious cycle, trouble sleeping. Yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like you won't sleep, right, and then Generally like if your performance is dropping, you know, or your results are reversed.
Speaker 2:I remember when I was doing it and I was over training and it's like you go in and you're not hitting the numbers and you feel like, oh, it's because I haven't been training hard enough, rather than I'm not taking the time off. And again it's in that cycle of just going round and round and round.
Speaker 1:Well, if your week's got no rest days or you're doing double sessions, you know, three or four times a week, you're probably doing too much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. Do you have double sessions?
Speaker 1:Um ages ago when I was younger, when I read that it was it was good for hypertrophy, so yeah, but probably didn't back up with the right nutrition.
Speaker 2:I wish I could say, people would just purely work on mine, If I had like more time. I could never do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, no, it's interesting to speak about and hopefully, hopefully, someone out there at least laughed at my balls swelling.
Speaker 2:I think it's a good story. Do you want a random story that's actually linked to testicles? I met a guy he's he's ace. He's such a lovely guy, he's my first ever client and we still keep up with each other and like now and again. But I bumped into him and say and we just say I was like oh hey, how are you getting on? And he was like I've got swollen testicles.
Speaker 2:Basically, he's like look, I like a couple of weeks off Um had a massive growth my testicle. I have to get it removed. I was like okay, thanks for sharing, thanks for that man. He's like no, put it live.
Speaker 1:And you've just shared it with the 12 people that tune into this podcast 12 people. So what's uh, what's happening um this weekend for you, matthew? Anything exciting?
Speaker 2:No, it's a good answer. Just end the podcast. Um, what do I? I'm training tomorrow? I train every Sunday. I like training Sunday. Well, I used to work on Sundays and then I would train after working, and now I've just kept up that I train on a Sunday, um, and then today we're. This is a Saturday right now, guys, and we are filming the podcast, and I've had a productive day. I've been doing not filming it, but film recording it, god. And then, uh, well, we felt to be fair, we filmed the last one, uh, with your lovely friend, um, and then, just a choice of day, I'm just going to chill out. Tonight I think you watch a film I don't train on a.
Speaker 2:Sunday.
Speaker 1:I very seldomly train on a Sunday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you have a family, though it's very different, isn't?
Speaker 1:it, yeah, but I don't, I don't like training Sunday. Anyway, I don't think.
Speaker 2:I just built habit. Yeah, I, I usually wouldn't train on a Sunday, but now I do, I'll train on a Saturday though I like a Saturday.
Speaker 1:I think you know always played football on a Saturday. I always feel like you know exercising on Saturday is a good thing. Yeah, I get this, it's habitual though, isn't it?
Speaker 2:So it's like your habit is a Saturday morning training. I would never train on a Sunday otherwise, but now I just do, and it means I get the on a Friday. I don't have to train, which is quite nice. I get to just work and get stuff done. Quite productive at work now because I've got more time to do stuff, which is quite good.
Speaker 1:Did you see that we're running on our fitness retreat?
Speaker 2:Have I seen where you're running your fitness retreat?
Speaker 1:Did you did? Did you see my Instagram posts about running another fitness retreat?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you told me about it ages ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just wanted an excuse to speak of it.
Speaker 2:I will say, without plugging it, I the the gym setup looks fantastic.
Speaker 1:Looks good.
Speaker 2:Cause I remember you went out there. You were telling me you were going out there and you sent me pictures and I kind of get this. What like racks underneath, isn't it? And then it's got racks in, the like it's got a gym area on top and it's got racks under as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's got. It's like two levels. And who got curious or who owns it, Like Well, it was a guy, a guy from Bristol actually.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:And him, and his him and his wife.
Speaker 2:He must have stupid money.
Speaker 1:He's worked super hard to like build this, this retreat location, which is beautiful.
Speaker 2:Is it built for retreats, or is he built it in them? Oh, let's do some retreats.
Speaker 1:No, I think. I think he's built it with retreats in mind, but what does he work, as this is what they do, full time.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's what they do for retreats and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1:And, like you know um, obviously they can. You can sell Airbnb and stuff at their place.
Speaker 2:Ah right, Okay, yeah, yeah, cause the gym setup's like brilliant, like guys I don't only have, like. It's like there's four or five racks underneath, isn't it? If you're interested, guys, two or three in the main gym as well.
Speaker 1:Just drop me an email personaltrainingatbarrystevencom or contact me on any of my social media channels. I'll give you all the details and you can come along. It's seven days.
Speaker 2:It looks crap, it looks terrible.
Speaker 1:Seven days, october, 11th October, the 18th 2024. Portugal, 90 minutes from Porto. It's very rustic, it's in a farm environment, but very nice, really good accommodation, great training facilities, Swampool, Sauna, Jacuzzi right by the river, If you like.
Speaker 2:Will you do day trips to Porto?
Speaker 1:No oh.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:It'll be like we'll be on site and we might go somewhere a little bit local, but no, but there'll be the. There's a good chance that you could finish your holiday in Porto.
Speaker 2:Is it nice?
Speaker 1:I want a good Porto, yeah, porto is so nice, the city of Porto, beautiful. So for me I'll probably do the retreat for seven days and then I'll spend two or three days in Porto and then come home.
Speaker 2:Where'd you fly from?
Speaker 1:Edinburgh.
Speaker 2:Also. Yeah, yeah, I've seen some flights to Porto from there.
Speaker 1:But would you ever go on a Finnish retreat, Matthew? Would it be up your street?
Speaker 2:Would I ever go on a Finnish retreat? That's a great question, really thinking about it. Is it my cup of tea? Probably not, as in, if I was going to go to exercise, if I was going to go and do it, I was like, oh, I really want to do that. No, probably not. I like a city break. I like my holidays for holiday sake.
Speaker 1:Okay, I get that.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it, but I also sort of get them as a whole. I think it's a really good experience.
Speaker 1:There is a lot of people out there that really they like those sort of holidays. They also like family holidays, but they enjoy going on a sort of different holiday experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. I'm at a stage in my life where it's like I'm single, I don't have a family, I can just go city breaks and all that. So that's for me right now. That's what holidaying is. But in 20 years time or 15 years time or 10 years, if I had a family and things like that and I am really into fitness would I want to go on one? Yeah, probably be very different. Maybe I would. Yeah. So especially with spending time with you, Barry.
Speaker 1:Exactly, you come along, so you just sort of let us know that you're single.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He's moving away from me. What's the question? He's giving me the chop the head off?
Speaker 2:What's the question? What's the?
Speaker 1:question Do you use that online dating sites and stuff like that?
Speaker 2:I don't really know what they're called or how they work. I've got two apps.
Speaker 1:You're on two. What are they? Come on tell us. This might lead to something.
Speaker 2:I'm on Tinder, I'm on a hinge, I'm on Tinder.
Speaker 1:You're on Tinder and you're on hinge.
Speaker 2:And I will say why do you call that hinge? You know what Good question? I don't know.
Speaker 1:Weird.
Speaker 2:Because it's it's you require a hinge to open a door. Look at that. That's quite good, wasn't it? Maybe it is, but my thing is people always said to me my mates tell me like you need to put yourself out there and I will chat to nobody on these apps.
Speaker 1:So you won't chat to people online? No, would you chat to people in the pub? Yes, you're more of a traditional guy I am a traditional guy.
Speaker 2:I like meeting people and speaking to people and then getting to know them. I find that better. But would I speak to people on like dating apps? No, why I just? I don't know you.
Speaker 1:Why? You don't know me, it sounds general.
Speaker 2:Whenever I've used it in the past, it's always such a general chat. I'm on it purely for an ego boost, barry, you go on and go. Oh, they like me. I'm not bad looking and I went. Ah, yep, can move on with my day now. Is there not one where my my best, the guy I was best man for at the wedding I went to in September? He met his wife through Tinder.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So it does work. It does work. He's she's still saved, as I think it's Tinder babe on his phone, which I brought up at the wedding. I said thank God you're keeping first names out of it to keep your options open.
Speaker 1:So have you had dates on off off of this? No, never.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no. Maybe not never, maybe one or two, but don't forget, I've had what I've probably had like one or two serious girlfriends in the last like 10 years, so I've been on dating apps for a while and I would not a day off of Tinder. I think one or two.
Speaker 1:So dating app where the woman makes a first move, Bumble I think yeah, bumble. You match and the girls go and speak first you just Because you're not doing anything.
Speaker 2:Barry, it's the guys. It's the worst chat. It's the worst chat. It's the worst Okay.
Speaker 1:It's like oh, they're like they're like, how are you?
Speaker 2:And you go oh, I'm good, thanks, how are you? Yeah, yeah, the busy day, yeah, pretty busy. Well, I was like, yeah, busy too. Yeah, you've been up the whole time Like such crap chat. Or they hit you with like a, with a, with a chat up line, and it's, you know what I got? I had a funny one recently, so I'm going to go look it up quickly. I'm going to chat while I look, but then you've never really experienced any dating apps, have you Barry? No, obviously, you're married, happily married, and yeah, they're a bit, they're a bit random.
Speaker 1:Guys, I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. It has took a little bit of a side path into some different, different conversations, but it's it is what it is it is what it is.
Speaker 2:I was trying to find this that some girl did fire me a chat up line recently and I actually was quite good. It was quite good, was it? Yeah, I laughed. Okay, it's rare that anyone gets you to laugh that way, it's nice.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about this chat up line next time. But we'll wrap up there, guys, because we try not to make these sessions too long. But it's been good to getting back into it. It's been good speaking to Matthew and it's been good to chat to you guys.
Speaker 2:It's been terrible to chat to Barry.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what we spoke about today, but hopefully there was some take home. We'll see you next time. Bye.