How To Get Lean For Your Summer Holiday

Yusef from PropaneFitness.com joins me as we navigate the perilous waters of cutting for a holiday. We've all been there. Drilling our diet into the ground on 800kcals a day only to see our condition evaporate in the sunshine as soon as we look at a Corona or take a mouthful of that first hungover Burger King. Expect to find out our hard-learned solutions after years of making errors during a summer cut, get a grip on a training protocol and calorie deficit which allows you to still function pre-holiday, and learn the optimal weekly weight loss target you should be aiming for to safely lose fat. Further Reading: https://propanefitness.com/propane-protocol-infographic/ - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/modern-wisdom/id1347973549 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0XrOqvxlqQI6bmdYHuIVnr?si=iUpczE97SJqe1kNdYBipnw Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - I want to hear from you!! Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Email: [email protected]

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Chris Williamson?

  So, hi. Hi, everybody. Hello. You may notice that there is about 105 kilos of missing Aryan perfection over the far side, just there. And if you're just listening, you will notice that there is not the sound of a massive arse moving around. Just squeaking all over the leather sofa. That is because Jonny is away on holiday, so it's just me and Yusuf today. And we are going to be talking about how to get lean for your summer holidays. This is actually take two. This is technically take two. We had a technical problem, but this sounds good. 10 minutes in of pure gold, pure how to get shredded for summer gold. So if this is, if this is not as good, then it's not our fault. We already gave up our best. So.

• 0:52Chris Williamson?

  How to get lean for your summer holidays? I did a little Instagram post about this yesterday and had an awful lot of messages coming back, not least of all because it's June and a lot of people will have realised, shit, I'm going away on holiday within the next eight weeks. And I'm maybe not as lean or as muscular as I want to be, and I'm going to have to take my top off on the beach, or I'm going to wear a bikini or whatever it might be. The point that I think struck a chord with a lot of people was what I said about the typical approach for getting lean for holidays. And if you have a look online, a lot of the resources that you will find about how to get lean will focus on

• 1:31Chris Williamson?

  potentially fitness competitions or long-term, slow deficit fat loss approaches. The crucial difference between stepping on stage and going on holiday to Ibiza or Marbella is that when you step on stage, all that you're going to do is flex and tense. When you go out to Marbella or Ibiza, you're going to be drinking Corona and having baguette all day, every day. Baguette. Baguette. As in? One baguette, one huge fuck-off baguette. Yeah, you take a baguette out. You know, taking a baguette out with you on holiday. Just a long baguette. I think this is where the alcohol reference goes. Is there some kind of drink called? Baguette, no. No, you do mean baguette.

• 2:16Chris Williamson?

  Baguette, yeah. La baguette? La baguette, yeah. So is it le baguette? Don't know. I'm not sure. It's, it's something. You're going to have a lot of carbs and what happens is people will drill their diet into the ground. Reduce, drop carbs out completely. Everyone's got that ex-bodybuilder, current bodybuilder friend in the gym. Yeah, mate. Well, what you need to do, yeah, is

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Two scoops strawberry.

• 2:40Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Seven a.m.

• 2:42Chris Williamson?

  And um, and then fish and a rice cake at midday. And it's just like, all that you're doing is creating an environment in which your body will absorb Corona like a fucking sponge. And so many times I went away on holiday, I drilled myself into the ground on like a fifteen hundred calorie per day allowance, got out on holiday, looked peeled to bits for one day. The next morning looked even better because I was dehydrated to hell. And then as soon as I had that first breakfast in the hotel, I just balloon out. There's no shape left and any size that I did have eight weeks ago has been lost due to this catastrophic deficit that I'm in.

• 3:26Chris Williamson?

  So what I wanted to do was try and put together a little bit of a structure and some principles that you can take away if you've got between four and ten weeks, something like that until you're holiday. So are we right in saying that if you've got less than four weeks until you go on holiday, it's going to be very difficult to make a profound change?

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Honestly, if you've got less than four weeks, don't bother. Just carry on as normal. Because you're just going to be making yourself suffer needlessly. Like you're not going to elicit any change in your body visibly in four weeks' time. And I think what you said is interesting because right now it's the second of June. It's a common question that that we get in terms of inquiries. I'm sure you've got some messages about this stuff as well. And it's endemic.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Of the the mindset that we have towards fitness, which is shit, I've got twenty eight days. I've got to drastically undo the last thirty five years of my bad sedentary habits and make a change in my body from now. And it's like, what's the rush? Like, people often, um, you know, there there's no, there's no thought given to it until suddenly, oh, I've booked my flight, shit, I need to make a change.

• 4:43Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  And, you know, second of June, it's cutting it fine, to be honest. I'm not, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna sugarcoat that. As you said, four to ten weeks. So if you have, say, eight weeks.

• 4:53Chris Williamson?

  Um. So if you're going on a holiday after sort of the start of July, start to mid July, up until the end of the summer, you're sweet.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, you're not sweet, but you're.

• 5:04Chris Williamson?

  You're salvageable.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  You're definitely salvageable by that point. And I think there's a lot of key principles here, but the first thing is that muscle gain is a very slow process. And so all we can expect at this point is to lose fat.

• 5:17Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  And we were saying this on the first take that my favourite thing, when you're looking at a Facebook photo of someone's like summer holiday and it's like six lads, all eighteen, but five of them eighteen percent body fat, one of them is like six percent body fat and huge and just shredded. And it's like odd one out there.

• 5:35Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, that's the guy who has it as part of his lifestyle as opposed to a crash diet.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Exactly. Like that, that is the result of the ten years of the previous training. So there's no point that if you're worried about how you're going to look relative to your swole mate, that you're going to be comparable. So don't set that as your reference point. Like, realise that if you are, and so the the numbers wise, eight weeks away, eighty kilo man, eighteen percent body fat, you die.

• 6:03Chris Williamson?

  Just to, just to interject there, am I right in saying that the principles are the same for men and women that we're going to be talking about here?

• 6:09Speaker 01

  For this time period, it's, it's the same for sure.

• 6:12Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so both, both genders can broadly take the same approach that we apply here.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So for, for women, eighteen percent body fat will actually look quite lean.

• 6:21Chris Williamson?

  Eighteen percent body fat would be fucking.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  I mean, you, yeah, you, as a woman, you pretty much start to get abs at fifteen percent body fat. So if you're not sure about these ranges, don't get hung up on the percentage. I, I, I use this as kind of a anchor point, but um, don't try and get calibrated or anything. Basically, if you're carrying a bit of extra fat and your abs are not visible, you've got no. Deltoid tricep separation. You're probably around eighteen percent body fat and then, you know, linearly fatter as that goes up. So.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  So if you're around that, let's say eighty kilo man, eight weeks time. Aggressive diet would mean one percent of your body weight lost per week, assuming you hit your average calories without fail for that time. And we have to hit the ground running. There's no time for fucking around when you've got eight weeks to go. You can't ease yourself into this program. This is like.

• 7:13Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  The time is already.

• 7:14Chris Williamson?

  Well, that's that's that's definitely one of the things that. I think people need to realize that if you have left it as late as you've only got eight weeks and to the one of the things that we need to state from the beginning is eight weeks sounds like ages. But physiologically. In terms of fat loss, eight eight weeks is a couple of seconds. Like, it's not a tremendously long amount of time. And you have you have less time than you think.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  You can't take liberties.

• 7:40Chris Williamson?

  No. So if you've got, if you're planning to go away this winter. Beginning your cut now, six months in advance.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  It's leaving, it's too long even, six months unless, well, it depends on how fat you are, I suppose.

• 7:51Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, okay. So beginning, beginning a fitness regime that works towards that.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  If you've got six months, you've got time to even gain a bit of muscle and then.

• 7:58Chris Williamson?

  And then cut from there.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  And then we're even reverse back up. But eight weeks, yeah, not long enough. And so one percent of your body weight per week for eight weeks, eighty kilos body weight is eight hundred grams of weight loss per week. Six point four kilos of weight loss over eight weeks. So that is going to make a visible difference in how you look.

• 8:15Chris Williamson?

  It can be an awful lot, yeah.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  It will, but that, I mean, that one percent of body weight loss per week is the top end of how much weight you should be losing each week. It's going to impact on, as you said, like how you feel, how um the potential rebound at the end. So.

• 8:28Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Obviously, the faster you lose fat, the higher the cost at the end. And so this is something we have to bear in mind. Anyway, the principles are the same, that we want to be lifting weights to retain as much muscle as possible, even if you're a woman. Something that the the the most common and the most heartbreaking fitness mistake I see with women. I'm glad you said are the principles the same for men and women. Is that the woman who's like, oh, I wanna drop a couple of dress sizes. I'm gonna pound the cardio and eat just a bit of cabbage every day or some celery. And it's like, you are only going to look like a smaller version of yourself, but just as shapeless. And yeah, your dress might be a smaller size, but not actually gonna have any, any shape. You're not gonna look any better than.

• 9:14Chris Williamson?

  A hundred percent. And the other thing as well is that now, especially since Instagram and fitness chicks and stuff are a lot more prevalent, having a good set of legs as a woman, like it's sort of a, you know, a shapely set of legs is kind of cool now, right? Like, it's not, it's not obscene for CrossFit, CrossFit girls to go out wearing dresses and stuff like that. Like, it's, it's actually almost desirable.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 9:38Chris Williamson?

  I think probably if you asked girls.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  And people look more muscular on Instagram because the, you know, you can't tell scale. But when you see some of these CrossFit girls in real life, they're absolute babes. And it's not, you know, you see them on a photo and you think, oh, she's a bit big. But actually, they've got small frames and.

• 9:52Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  They just fit.

• 9:53Chris Williamson?

  Still very, very womanly.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Definitely. If you put them in a dress, then.

• 9:58Chris Williamson?

  So, yeah, what you're saying is that we need to hit the ground running. We don't have any time to lose. That lifting weights rather than pounding cardio is a good start. So for me, I'll, I'll put forward what my proposal would be for a pre-holiday routine and why. And then I'll let you critique it and I'll let you put yours forward. So I am the sort of person who is inherently very lazy and I need to stack the deck in my favour. You may have noticed due to the fact that we do endless episodes of life hacks, that shortcuts to an effective outcome is something that I value quite highly. For

• 10:43Chris Williamson?

  me, I need to try and make all of the right decisions as easy as possible. What that means is. I would get up on a morning, I would have a black coffee, I would go for a walk on a morning. Reason for that is firstly, it allows me to clear my head. Secondly, it allows me to get a little bit of low intensity, steady state cardio in. Now, the list versus high intensity debate, I'm not really that bothered about. For me personally, I do CrossFit a lot, so my high end power endurance output gets looked after by my training methodology.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Should probably clarify that you do CrossFit not to burn calories, you do CrossFit because you enjoy CrossFit.

• 11:20Chris Williamson?

  Yes, yeah, it's not, it's not a

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Strategy, it's a fat loss.

• 11:24Chris Williamson?

  It's, it just happens to be the methodology that I'm following. But on a morning, if you get up and you go for a walk, you've got some fresh air in you, you've had your coffee, you're set for the day. So that's a few, a few different.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Big wins just.

• 11:38Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, exactly, that you've put in the bag and the, the low intensity, steady state stuff's nice. Get back, prep your food for the day, either pay someone to, to a meal prepping company. There's loads, especially in Newcastle, Aurora Kitchen, Spoonhead Nutrition. There's a load of different guys that do awesome food prepping in Newcastle. So check them out or look in your local area. If not, prep your food yourself on a morning.

• 12:04Chris Williamson?

  Get yourself out for the day. For me personally, I would train around about midday or a little bit earlier. It means that my training is done for the day and I don't have to worry about it. Going on to diet and going on to my calories, I would tend to have between 200 and 300 grams on a training day, around about 200 grams on a recovery day and about 100 grams on a rest day.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Of what?

• 12:30Chris Williamson?

  Carbs.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 12:31Chris Williamson?

  Sorry, I don't say carbs, I just say grams. Did I just assume that everyone knew what I was talking about?

• 12:36Speaker 01

  You might have said carbs, I might, but yeah.

• 12:38Chris Williamson?

  Straight over, um, yeah, of carbs. Protein and fat would generally stay the same. A little bit more fat on my, on my rest days.

• 12:48Chris Williamson?

  Some of the strategies that I use for curbing hunger would be natural set yogurt on a night time, which is without a doubt the single best approach for stopping yourself from trying to cheat on your diet. Firstly, if you don't want to cheat on your diet, do not have junk in the house. If you, like me, have got a sweet tooth. And you do not have chocolate bars in the house, you will not eat them. You can't eat what isn't in your cupboard. And going to the shop, getting yourself up at ten o'clock at night because you've got craving for chocolate and walking all the way to the shop.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  At least you built up some steps that way.

• 13:21Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, you've got, you've got, you've got some more low intensity cardio in, but it's just, it's probably not gonna, like, it's not gonna happen.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 13:29Chris Williamson?

  You're gonna protect yourself. Um, so, yeah, for me, I would natural set yogurt, scoop of protein powder, some mixed blueberries, and unless you're an absolute animal, that will satiate pretty much anyone's craving for something sweet. The macros on it are unbelievable, like, it, it'll fit. You can probably add it on top of any diet, I think, and it'll, in total, it'll be like, what, hundred and twenty calories, something like that, for a big tub, bowl of proteiny, fruity niceness. And then you're sweet from there. So.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Berries are like wizardry as well, like, considering how low calorie density they are for what you get.

• 14:12Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, there, there's a lot of volume and, and they taste pretty good. So, yes, my few little tips would be, get up on a morning. If you want to do the high intensity stuff, then go and do some hill sprints. Um, something like between ten to twenty rounds with thirty seconds rest, run up a hill, then walk back down, wait for thirty seconds at the bottom and then go again. If you can do that ten times, up a moderately steep hill that it has output for about thirty seconds, something like that. So you're getting like two to one work to rest, something like that. Uh, sorry, two to one rest to work. Um, that's a good way to get some cardio in on a morning. Then if you can train later on in the evening or the afternoon,

• 14:55Chris Williamson?

  make sure that you're lifting weights. Don't get stuck or hung up on the toning from going to super high rep ranges. Still focus on the moneymaker sets, which are between sort of six to fourteen reps at a weight which is moderately heavy, um, and still testing. It's unlikely that you're going, unless you're new to training, that you're going to PR during this particular period. But, yeah, that's, that would be broadly my approach.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  So I like that you've split it out into a day, a daily schedule and also the principle of make the good decisions as easy as possible and make the bad decisions as hard as possible is definitely the way to set up your environment for success. Cause if you have to consciously make the good decision and it's, you know, you have to jump through a bunch of hoops each time.

• 15:47Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Then by five P M. You've, the decision fatigue sets in, which is a real thing. Like you, you tired. You think, well, I'm just gonna.

• 15:54Chris Williamson?

  I'm mistreating.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Mistriining, the chocolate bars in the cupboard, any of that. Definitely. The yogurt thing. There's, there's some evidence behind this as well, which is interesting. People have done studies looking at if you feed someone yogurt with a little spoon and then see how mu- how many calories they eat subsequently in the rest of the day. It's lower than if they were to eat other types of food.

• 16:16Chris Williamson?

  There was an equivalent amount of.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. So they, they compare calorie matched amounts of tuna, uh, carbs, crackers, milk, whey, all those kinds of things and whey, whey and yogurt with the highest.

• 16:29Chris Williamson?

  So in terms of satiety, you're gonna, you're gonna feel better from that. On a, on a side point, on the making sure that it's easy for you to, to um, stack the deck in your favor. That includes prepping your food. So roll back the clock from the morning that you need to prep your food. If you've got chicken in the freezer and you haven't defrosted it, when you wake up the next morning, you can't cook the chicken that's still frozen.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  So you default to Cocoa Pops.

• 16:53Chris Williamson?

  Exactly. So you think, oh, well, fuck it. The diet's gone for today. So I'll just order in some takeaway or I'll do whatever. I go to Greg's and get a pastry. Like, you know, it, it is all about making the good decisions as easy as possible and the bad decisions as hard as possible. Remembering that you are going to have a lower, you're already using up an awful lot of willpower here. Dr. Roy Baumeister is um, studying that he did with turnips where he had two groups of people in a room. One group had cookies and turnips and another group just had cookies. The group that just had cookies were allowed to eat them or not if they wanted. The group that had cookies and turnips were told they couldn't eat the cookies and could only eat the turnips. So they were then given, they were then given

• 17:36Chris Williamson?

  a cognitively demanding task to do afterwards and the group that wasn't allowed to eat the cookies gave up fifty percent faster than the other.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  So it's, it's a finite resource, willpower. And yeah, that, so that's, that's such an interesting study. Like do, do not trust the future version of yourself to make the right decision. Treat yourself like a little child because.

• 17:57Chris Williamson?

  You are.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Well, that's it. Like the, um, you know, another thing on decision fatigue. We know that juries and even judges, like fucking professionally trained senior people in the legal sector, industry sector.

• 18:12Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Um, will judge people as guilty more often in the afternoons than in the mornings. Just because ah, screw him, he's guilty, like, you know, can't be asked to.

• 18:22Chris Williamson?

  Is that statistically significant figure?

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and and it's also related to blood sugar levels as well.

• 18:27Chris Williamson?

  Was it not, was it not something to do with biscuits? Did you not tell me? Was it whether they've been given biscuits or been given food or something like that?

• 18:33Speaker 01

  I've not seen that one.

• 18:34Chris Williamson?

  Maybe, maybe I've run it along from the blood sugar thing.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Okay, I mean, there, there's, yeah, there's also correlations with blood sugar. So, yeah, so basically.

• 18:41Chris Williamson?

  So if you're in court, bribe the jury with biscuits and make sure that you get an.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Get a morning session, biscuits, you're sweet.

• 18:47Chris Williamson?

  Laughing.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, to be honest.

• 18:48Chris Williamson?

  Kill someone.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  Stack you, yeah, stack it in your favour.

• 18:50Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  So, yeah, the other thing you said about cardio, I love a good morning walk as well. I agree, it's not done to try and burn calories and I, they're getting into this chasing your tail of trying to do cardio so that you can earn the right to eat more calories and eat them back and all this. Don't get into that cycle at all. Remember that the reason you are losing fat is a hundred percent from your calorie intake and just leave it there. So let the fat loss be driven by your diet.

• 19:21Chris Williamson?

  So.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Let the muscle retention be driven by your training.

• 19:24Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so you wouldn't say G flux theory, which?

• 19:27Speaker 01

  So, to answer that, the, the, yeah, ju- sorry.

• 19:31Chris Williamson?

  Can you briefly explain what G flux?

• 19:32Speaker 01

  So, so G flux theory is that the effect on your body in terms of cellular turnover and body composition of eating a calorie deficit of a thousand calories is different if that deficit is created from eating two thousand and burning three thousand compared to eating four thousand and burning five thousand. So there's still the net deficit is the same at the end, but actually the body's had to go through a lot more processing to

• 19:58Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  to achieve the same deficit and that it would have a more favourable com- effect on your body composition to do the set, the latter rather than the former. That is true. But again, telling someone to do that when they want the minimum effective dose, the risk is that they end up chasing their tail. And people always underestimate the number of cali-, uh, sorry, they underestimate the number of calories that they eat back.

• 20:19Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  From ca-, from cardio and they overestimate the number of calories that they think that they've burned from cardio.

• 20:25Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  I knew a guy who gained twenty kilos in two months, I think. And he just got really fat and it was because on my fitness pal, he played basketball and he was like, oh, well, I I entered ninety minutes of basketball on here. And it says that it burns five thousand calories. So I've been eating six thousand six hundred, like.

• 20:42Chris Williamson?

  Look at the scales, look in the mirror.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 20:44Chris Williamson?

  Obviously not burning that many calories.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  And it's, I don't know whoever entered that bit into the, because my fitness pal is just user generated.

• 20:50Chris Williamson?

  It's on Wikipedia for.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, so anyone.

• 20:53Chris Williamson?

  Exercise, isn't it?

• 20:54Speaker 01

  So maybe some like Michael Jordan came along was like, oh, well, you know.

• 20:57Chris Williamson?

  Five thousand calories, yeah.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Okay, NBA level basketball.

• 21:00Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Fine. So, so yeah, basically don't get into that game. As, as Chris said, walking, increasing your general neat, so your non-exercise activity like, you know, taking the stairs, getting, getting off the bus at an ex-, uh, stop earlier.

• 21:16Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Um, just general moving around, not sitting like a fat turnip during the day, fine. But don't try and count the calories that you're burning when you're hoovering the house and, you know, just see that. And, and the other reason why we say lift weights, even if you're not trying to gain muscle, is that lifting weights and the effect that it has on your body is so much more biologically expensive than going for a walk or a run. Because when you lift weights, you're tearing muscle, you're breaking down the tissue. Your body then has to marshal a lot of resources to build that back up again, which is very expensive in terms of calories, which is what you want. You also said, don't fall into the trap of toning and doing.

• 22:00Chris Williamson?

  High rap.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  High reps, fifteen plus or whatever. Remember, when you're in a calorie deficit, you're never going to be gaining muscle anyway. So if you're a woman and you're afraid of gaining too much muscle, common fear, just like I go to the library and I'm sometimes scared that I might get too clever, so I have to leave early. Um, I went, I went for a jog once and I was like, no, no, because I might win the hundred metre gold medal. So I, I better stop. Um.

• 22:26Chris Williamson?

  I think that's such a, it's such a good point, like.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  I leave work early as well because I don't want to make too much money.

• 22:30Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, like, girls, girls do have this fear of, oh, well, I'm not going to lift too heavy because wh- what if I start to get arms that I don't want, or caps, shoulders that I don't want. Like, there are professional bodybuilders, female bodybuilders, who spend hours and hours and hours every single week in the gym, desperately trying to gain.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  On drugs as well.

• 22:49Chris Williamson?

  And, and they look like they lift. And your fear is that by moving from the eight kilo to the ten kilo dumbbells.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Oh, it's, it's insulting to them, actually, yeah.

• 22:59Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  To the people who are busting their arse.

• 23:02Chris Williamson?

  It is not that easy to gain muscle. Trust me, I've been trying to do it for ten years. Like, it's really quite hard. So, okay, so we're, we're, we're talking about when we get to training, someone's gonna go in. They're gonna be training how many days a week?

• 23:16Speaker 01

  So, so i- in a, in a deficit, three times a week is that, is all you need. Because all you're trying to do is hold on to the muscle that you already have.

• 23:25Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  When you're trying to gain muscle, yeah, you want to be training four or five days a week if you can, schedule permitting.

• 23:31Chris Williamson?

  Is there a potential here, so, uh, uh, your, um, criticism about, about GFLX theory aside, is there a potential here that if someone was to train, if they enjoy their training schedule?

• 23:43Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 23:44Chris Williamson?

  And they're able to train between sort of three to six times a week, if they're able to, to up that frequency.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 23:51Chris Williamson?

  That that may afford them a little bit more on the calorie side.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Sure, if, if they have the time and the freedom to do that, then why not? Like, as long as you.

• 24:00Chris Williamson?

  But again, if we're saying, I think personally, a lot of the people that will be listening, that have got the holiday that's coming up. I think especially for eight weeks, you can probably. Being yourself, like you can put, you can go balls to the wall and go, right, okay, well, I, I can train for five, five days a week.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  And for this time period, it would be helpful because yeah, as you said, you, you haven't got much time, so you may as well just do as much as you can.

• 24:24Chris Williamson?

  So, okay, so what's the split?

• 24:25Speaker 01

  The approach that just meta speaking here, like big picture, the approach that I would prefer is to start six months earlier. Have a much easier time.

• 24:33Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  And also bear in mind that the difference you're gonna make in the next eight weeks compared to if you, like, yeah, you might look a bit better for this summer holiday. But next year's summer holiday, if you carry on the momentum.

• 24:44Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  You're gonna look world better, so.

• 24:46Chris Williamson?

  For sure. But again, we are creatures that like to leave, leave things until the last minute. So. Let's take into account the fact that as soon as people go away on holiday, they're going to be eating and drinking disproportionately higher than they were.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 25:03Chris Williamson?

  While they were due, while they were doing this diet to get themselves to look good.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  And you said yourself that you, you went on a fifteen hundred calorie diet and then you rebounded and looked, looked uh watery for the rest of the.

• 25:15Chris Williamson?

  Oh, yeah. You have, you have one day where you look awesome. You have a second day where you look even better. And then as soon as you have the hangover food, you just fill out.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 25:22Chris Williamson?

  And anyone who's listening, who's done a crash diet for a holiday, knows that this is the case. And you get there on holiday and you're like, I don't understand. Like, I was so lean all the way up until this point and I've got out here. And now I'm not lean anymore. Now, well, you're no longer training. You're eating. And eighty percent of your diet is coming from alcohol, uh uh eighty percent of your calories coming from alcohol and carbohydrates. And you haven't had either of those for eight weeks. So again.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  True, like expenditures suddenly dropped, intake suddenly gone up.

• 25:55Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. And you're wondering why, why you don't look as good as you did in the mirror two days ago.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 26:00Chris Williamson?

  So for me, I think that trying to increase output. And not drill calories super, super low. If you can get your calories closer during the prep phase to where they're going to be when you're away, you're going to be less sensitive.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 26:15Chris Williamson?

  Can you explain about why, um, why having low calories in the build up will make you more sensitive to them once you get out there?

• 26:23Speaker 01

  So I I mean, I made this mistake myself on the meditation retreat, for example, as well, where I've lost loads of weight um from being in hospital, actually, I wasn't dieting per se, but and then suddenly went for it. And obviously, when you're in hospital and you're ill, your expenditure is quite high because you there's there's so much.

• 26:42Chris Williamson?

  Immunity takes a lot of energy, right?

• 26:45Speaker 01

  And and so then I went from that to having recovered and sit for tw- for ten days in silence with unlimited vegetarian food, so low protein food, no activity, no training, and I did regain a lot of fat.

• 27:00Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Um but yeah, it's it's simply that there is an abundance of food and alcohol, as you said, alcohol will stimulate your appetite further. You can create a reactive hypoglycemia, which will make you hungry and get the the munchies afterwards, plus um the general lack of restraint that you or the the inhibition.

• 27:20Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  The the disinhibition that you get from drinking. So all of that will contribute just to overeating. Plus, as you said, it's hot weather, you're in the sun.

• 27:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, physiologically as well, I'm gonna guess that your metabolism will have dropped during the prep phase.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:33Chris Williamson?

  Because intake of food is going down and.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Intake's gone down and you've lost weight. So you're actually, your maintenance calories have dropped, even if there was no metabolic damage per se, you've still you you.

• 27:45Chris Williamson?

  And then that means that when you get out there, that the the danger is.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Overshooting.

• 27:50Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely.

• 27:51Chris Williamson?

  And it's very difficult. I think another thing as well to consider is

• 27:57Chris Williamson?

  one of the most fun things about going on holiday is the planning and the anticipation for it as you build up to it. Now, that anticipation, you can use the anticipatory energy to motivate you to go and train, and that's good. That's a good use of that energy. But one thing that you don't want to do is absolutely hate your life for eight to ten weeks in the build up to this holiday. I think.

• 28:24Chris Williamson?

  People need to appreciate that if you are, if you're below thirteen percent body fat, thirteen to twelve percent body fat.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  So you're approaching outline of your abs.

• 28:35Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, outline of your abs with some visible vascular, maybe in bicep and forearm. Like to ninety percent of the people on the beach, you're gonna look awesome. Like you look like you lift and you're probably shredded to even like a slightly lower proportion of those people.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  So yeah, Johnny mentioned this and I've definitely experienced, I'm sure you have as well, where like we, if you've been training for some time and you're, you're like trying to diet from yeah thirteen to eleven or from nine percent to seven percent and you're like, oh, I've got to make these fine tunes. Oh, actually I've lost a bit of size and I'm a delta. Actually, like these differences are to only to you.

• 29:14Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  As far as anyone else concerns on the beach, you're either, you're either a bobby builder or you're not a deadly doubler. And so like, yeah, like, and people are easily, someone who doesn't train, like the untrained eye will look at a guy who's sixty five kilos and has abs and be like, oh, he's huge.

• 29:32Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Because.

• 29:34Chris Williamson?

  The illusion is there, right?

• 29:35Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 29:35Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  So getting hung up on the small details compared to if you're just generally in shape, even if it's a few percentage points out of your own reference point.

• 29:44Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  It's such a big source of insecurity.

• 29:46Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, and I think as well, like you, especially if you've been lifting for a little while, I've got a lot of friends who I know that, you know, they train consistently, but maybe they're not super strict with their diet.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm looking shit at the minute, don't look at me.

• 29:56Chris Williamson?

  Like, well, mate, it, like, it really, really, you shouldn't be obsessing over it. Like, if you're walking around at ten percent, allow yourself, do you know what it is? Here's something to think about. We're talking about this rebound effect, as soon as you get out there and you start having beer and all the rest of it. I bet that a significant proportion of people who are sat at about ten percent body fat, let's say, which is probably fairly maintainable for people who train consistently. If they went into a holiday on maintenance calories or just a little bit above with a slightly increased training output. That after day three or four, they would look better than the same person that they were. Had they drilled themselves into the ground with a deficit and then got this rebound effect.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  So when you said that day two and three of the holiday, you looked your best and then got worse is simply that, yeah, you've carved up almost.

• 30:47Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  And then, but then you keep carving up more and more until it just.

• 30:51Chris Williamson?

  And your body's just wholly unprepared to deal with it.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  So the solution that I would propose to to the is this the simplest way as well, meaning that you finished your diet. You aggressive approach that you've had to take because you're an idiot and you've left it until the last minute. Um, rather than trying to track your calories while you're away and stressing out over it. Pick the the shittest, most pointless meal of the day, usually breakfast, especially if you're in Ibiza and you're in a hotel and you're getting boiled eggs and like what croissants or something.

• 31:19Chris Williamson?

  You've never been to Ibiza. It's not, it's not boiled eggs and croissants.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. What so what what would it be for breakfast?

• 31:26Chris Williamson?

  Pills probably.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, that's excellent.

• 31:32Chris Williamson?

  Well, they're thermogenic, aren't they?

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 31:34Chris Williamson?

  I'm talking about caffeine.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  So stay on the, well, I'm not going to endorse having pills for breakfast, but yeah, like. Pick the meal which is the most pointless, doesn't provide a social purpose, doesn't really help with your hunger. Most people find that they just eat breakfast because they feel like they have to or they're told they should.

• 31:49Chris Williamson?

  What about the hangover?

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Okay, if if breakfast serves you hangover, great, but I'm what I'm saying is like, yeah, pick the meal that doesn't. Doesn't really contribute to your day in that sense. Like, I know a lot of people that are like, oh, well, people always told me breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so I'd eat it anyway, even though I'm never hungry in the morning. It's like, well. Don't eat it, like save it for the evening. Yeah, so do that. And then instantly you freed up an extra. Four or five hundred calories or more.

• 32:13Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  That you can dedicate to drinking, to an evening meal, whatever you want.

• 32:16Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Or restrict your eating window. That's another way of doing it. So start, pick eight out in the day.

• 32:22Chris Williamson?

  Being being being frank, I think some of this is going to be difficult to do when you're when you're away. If you've got a five day holiday.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  It's gonna be easier than tracking your calories and trying to.

• 32:30Chris Williamson?

  Oh, yeah, I think. I just think that when you're hungover, like.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Things go.

• 32:35Chris Williamson?

  Your willpower is, and the, the Ebb is so low.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  So in that case, if, if it's not an option to change how you're eating while you're on holiday, then you need to prep over a longer period.

• 32:46Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  It's one or the other, really. And I think um the, the weight re- rate, weight rebound is related to, slightly to the speed of weight loss, but more so to the amount of weight lost.

• 32:58Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  And the way that you can counteract that is every time you've lost a bit of weight, hold out there for a while, establish a new set point.

• 33:06Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  And then do a stepwise diet. And people that do that, hold on to their weight loss more than people who just drop and then they'll drive diets over and let's just rebound.

• 33:17Chris Williamson?

  So we're talking about not trying to go super, super low on the calories before we go away on holiday, because what that's going to end up doing is creating this uh environment for a rebound effect, which ruins the hard one leanness, that you've just sacrificed eight weeks or ten weeks for, or whatever it might be. You're saying focus on muscular movements, focus on resistance training rather than relying on cardio. If someone does want to add cardio in, how do they do it?

• 33:48Speaker 01

  So, but as long as we make those three days that you're lifting weights sacred.

• 33:54Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  So, and then up it to four if you want to. This is assuming that you've got more space in your schedule to do five or six training sessions a week.

• 34:02Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  Then fine, you've got the resistance training covered. Once you're training three or four times a week, there's very limited benefit, especially in a deficit, to adding in an extra few days of lifting weights, because you haven't got the fuel available to, to build the muscle. And so you may as well use your fifth and your sixth training day in a week to do some cardio.

• 34:22Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  In which case, I would suggest do the cardio that you enjoy the most. So because then you're more likely to stick to it. So if you hate rowing, but you're told that rowing is the best way to burn calories, then you're going to stick to it for a couple of weeks and fall off the wagon.

• 34:37Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  If you like hill sprints, I mean, if you're a nutter and you like hills, then fine, do them. If you know, CrossFit is. And I've come full circle, not full circle, I've come one eighty on this.

• 34:49Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  Um. Because I really like, having seen the results it's had on you, because so CrossFit really, in a lot of ways, it's it's given you the community environment. The the motivation to push yourself more than you would. There's a lot of volume that you're accumulating just from the amount of lifting in there.

• 35:05Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  And it's very, it's it's very high cardio demand as well. So it ticks all of those boxes. So so really, as far as that goes.

• 35:15Chris Williamson?

  Just do CrossFit for eight weeks.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Well, you could do.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, if you're if you're not used to training.

• 35:22Chris Williamson?

  Bad idea.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Going balls, I mean.

• 35:25Chris Williamson?

  Well, I think one of the problems, one of the problems that you'd have with going and doing CrossFit for something like this is that technically it's very demanding. The barriers to entry for a lot of the movements are actually quite high.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  So this is it. You're not going to be able to hit the ground running in terms of intensity because.

• 35:39Chris Williamson?

  For eight weeks, you're not even going to have learned all of the movements. So I think maybe something like a bootcamp. Might give you a little bit of external accountability.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you've got a trainer there that's able to adjust your technique and and so on.

• 35:51Chris Williamson?

  For me, doing cardio on your own is it's pretty miserable, especially if you want to push yourself quite hard.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 35:57Chris Williamson?

  Um. But, you know, you can find almost everywhere, you can find a good bootcamp class for. A tenner, a session. And if you're paying ten pounds once a week or twice a week. You know, for if that's what it takes to get you to get that cardio in, then cool.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they, you know, bootcamp. Runners, the, the, the bootcamp organisers want you to come back, so they're gonna make it as fun as they can make it.

• 36:26Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  They'll have partner exercises and all that stuff, so yeah.

• 36:29Chris Williamson?

  You get, you get, um, you get kidded into thinking that it's fun, but it's actually, by the end of the session, you actually look at what you've done to yourself. And you think, fuck, this really hurt.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  And that's a big advantage, and it's the same advantage for CrossFit, that there was no way that I would have, like, when I, I came to CrossFit once, or a couple of times, and it was grim. But there's no way that I would put myself through that on my own.

• 36:49Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  But it's because if, if you, when you're with a group, and if you just start, I'd be like, I'm leaving, then you're a dickhead, so.

• 36:56Chris Williamson?

  Would you, would you say that potentially during the prep to go away on holiday, getting another one of the guys who's also going away to be a training partner would be a good idea?

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 37:05Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  As long as you, as long as you don't mind that you both look better. If you just wanna look better than your mate.

• 37:12Chris Williamson?

  Ah, this is the Highlander thing, like, there can only be one.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, if, if you think it's a zero sum game of like, you've got the group of people that you're going with, and there's only a certain amount of.

• 37:22Chris Williamson?

  So sabotage them with like cake, leave cake on their desk as much as possible.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  Fine. So buy a load of cake. So basically fifty quid, either spend it on bootcamp for your mate, or spend it on cake for your mates.

• 37:34Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Depending on how Machiavellian you are. And then.

• 37:38Chris Williamson?

  Relatively, I haven't lost any weight, but everyone else in my friend, friend circle has gained fucking loads.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Achieves the same, and yeah, bloody hell, right, so actually, sack, sack away everything we've said so far. Get all of your mates to gain six point four kilos over the eight weeks.

• 37:50Chris Williamson?

  Which is probably a lot easier.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Gain one percent of their body weight per.

• 37:53Chris Williamson?

  Per week, yeah, fine, eight hundred, yeah. Well, we've, we've, we've come to a, we've come to a solution there. Okay, so, find yourself a training partner. Probably one, preferably one who you're going away with, because it means that you're both working towards the same schedule. You're looking at resistance training, three to four times a week.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 38:10Chris Williamson?

  If you wanna add some more training in, then another one to two sessions of.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Of enjoyable cardio.

• 38:15Chris Williamson?

  Of cardio in whatever it is. We're talking between thirty minutes to an hour.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you can spare it.

• 38:21Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I think I do think that a lot of people, I think your schedule is unrepresentatively busy.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Unreasonably tight.

• 38:28Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, and and that's one of the reasons that I don't do cardio because one, I'm lazy. Two, my schedule is so tight and I have to go for the highest yield, the lowest hanging fruit first. Um, but yeah, the the other thing outside of cardio is the the non-exercise activity that we talked about, so.

• 38:46Chris Williamson?

  I'm terrible with this.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, me, me too. You know, if you work at a desk a lot, then try and push the daily activities, just fit it in. So it's not formal cardio, it's walking to the shop, walking to work.

• 38:58Chris Williamson?

  Have a walking lunch, maybe something like that.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  Exactly. Anything that involves movement but isn't formalized, like you don't have to put on your shorts and go and do something for.

• 39:07Chris Williamson?

  All of this will help to not let your metabolism drop too far through the floor as well. Which will also mitigate this rebound effect once we get out there. So, okay, so we've got the three to four sessions in terms of muscular training. Um, for that, push-pull legs, something similar?

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the the the simplest way, and I like this, was from Spencer Nadolski, who he's a family physician and talks to. This is the kind of standard exercise advice he gives to patients, which I think is great because you can't get it wrong. Is go to the gym three times a week, do some kind of pushing, some kind of pulling and some kind of legs in each session for.

• 39:45Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so do that in every session?

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Well, that, I mean, that, yeah, or or as you said, you can do a push session, a push session and a leg session.

• 39:52Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Did I say push, push?

• 39:54Chris Williamson?

  Push, push.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  Push, yeah, push-pull legs on each of the days.

• 39:57Chris Williamson?

  Okay. I think for some people that may be a more easy to to work out split. So have the listeners, have you got any resources on propanefitness.com that the guys can have a little bit of a look at?

• 40:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have. So if you go to propanefitness.com and search for the propane protocol infographic. There is a full training program laid out for you. It's four days a week. It covers all of the bases. It's structured in a way that you. Will avoid injury and maintain structural balance. And it's all laid out in there and there's a diet framework in there as well.

• 40:32Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's just a big, it's a big, long image, right? It's a, it's a big, not animated, it's like a big illustration.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Full, yeah, full infographic.

• 40:40Chris Williamson?

  You scroll for a little while, but everything's in there.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Exactly, everything that, the, the only thing I would change about that is because we're talking about a short timeframe. You're gonna be, need to be more aggressive with the calories.

• 40:51Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  And if you want to really take things up a notch and guarantee that you will lose, um. So we, we have a, we have a program called the twenty eight day shred.

• 40:59Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Which typically people lose five percent of their body weight within twenty four, twenty eight days.

• 41:05Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  So that is done, it's relatively easy as far as losing five percent. It's the easiest way that we know of to lose that much of your body weight. So, um, yeah.

• 41:15Chris Williamson?

  So this is, this is push the red panic button.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:17Chris Williamson?

  Stations, right? This is four weeks till I go away, I need to do it. And how much is that?

• 41:21Speaker 01

  That's sixty seven pounds.

• 41:23Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  And you'll get lifetime access to that, you get support, weekly, weekly calls, um. Two one on one calls with you, with your coach. And it's basically everything that you need, just.

• 41:33Chris Williamson?

  That's cool.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  You know, done for you, basically.

• 41:35Chris Williamson?

  If people want to step up a notch, then they've got that as a, as a resource. If they want the free resource, then they've got propanefitness.com and search for the propane protocol. And if they are too, uh, headstrong or lazy or anything else to, uh, not want to do either of those things. Then we've got it laid out for them here. Train, resistance training three to four times a week, couple of sessions of cardio. Make sure that you get someone who you can train with, get some external accountability. In terms of diet, typically for the typical sized man, so five eleven, eighty kilos. You need to be looking at what about two thousand to sort of eighteen hundred calories, something like that?

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, start at, start at two thousand. Take your daily body weight every morning, post poo, pre breakfast, naked at the same time.

• 42:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Um, I'll put a link, I'll put a link to the set of, uh, Sandler scales that I've got, which were six pounds.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Great.

• 42:36Chris Williamson?

  And they're, they're perfectly accurate and use my fitness pal to track your weight. So my fitness pal is also free, create an account, download the app on your phone. Put your weight in every single day and it'll track it over time. It'll make sure that you know.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  It's why it's important to get it every day. And yeah, if you're using the sounds of the digital scales, then that's going to give you a more accurate reading.

• 42:52Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Take that daily body weight every morning over the week, calculate the average. So if my fitness pal might do this.

• 43:00Chris Williamson?

  It does. It does a week on week.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Fine. Our propane spreadsheets will do this as well. Or if you use a Y things or withings.

• 43:06Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Uh, wifi scale.

• 43:08Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, that's super.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  That'll like link with.

• 43:10Chris Williamson?

  Johnny, Johnny would be jizzing in his pants if he was here.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Oh, God, it goes to the grid and then like some guy comes out with an envelope and they cut you watermelon for you and it's amazing. But no, I think, um. Yeah, once you've got that, then you can start to see whether the 2000 calories is producing the expected.

• 43:26Chris Williamson?

  If someone doesn't know, if someone doesn't know what 2000 calories is, how can they roughly eat 2000 calories a day? And so we're talking man, 80 kilos, 2000 calories, female, maybe 1600, typically between 50 and 60 kilos, something like that.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, maybe go slightly lower. If you've got a short timeframe, maybe 15 or 1400.

• 43:47Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Um, but it has, the, the thing is, the starting point is just a starting point to see how your weight's responding and then you need to.

• 43:53Chris Williamson?

  Cause you may, you might, in that first week, you might drop two kilos.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. In which case your calories are too low.

• 43:58Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Or if you don't, if your weight doesn't change and the calories are too high. So the adjustments have to be made week on week and that's where the magic happens really. So. Um, and again, try and keep your average weight change between 0.5 and 1% of your body weight. If it goes too far above that, you start to step into, um. Cutting into your recovery too much and dropping testosterone, increasing cortisol.

• 44:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Depression symptoms, all of that.

• 44:24Chris Williamson?

  I think another one of the, the things that we need to mention, we haven't mentioned so far is that.

• 44:30Chris Williamson?

  Like, there are other costs, there are other things going on in your life outside of how good you're going to look for your holiday. And I alluded to this earlier on, like you don't want to absolutely bin your life. Just to look a little bit leaner while you go away, especially seen as presumably this summer holiday is something that you're supposed to be looking forward to.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:48Chris Williamson?

  You don't want, you don't want to go out there.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  Period miserable.

• 44:50Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, you've got, you, you know.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Which is why I'm saying start as early as possible, you know, or like, at least, yeah, fine. Follow the advice in this podcast, get shredded for the next eight weeks or as much as you can, but keep up the momentum and. Focus on next year.

• 45:06Chris Williamson?

  Definitely, definitely as well. Like a lot of people lean out for eight weeks, go away. Maybe have a little bit of this rebound that we've discussed here, but within seven days of coming back, you could get back to the set point that you were at beforehand quite easily.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Oh, exactly. Don't think holidays are over, back to the.

• 45:23Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, oh, I've ruined it. I've ruined it. I'm never going to be lean again. You're like, well, no, that's the exact opposite. So a structured and consistent training program is sort of number one. That's the zenith.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  So what you and I have done is a proper, proper diet, get lean once and for all. I got, last time I dieted was two thousand thirteen. I spent five or six months getting bone shredded, like pancreas lean.

• 45:49Chris Williamson?

  Dig skin lean.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Dig skin lean and then gradually reversed, reversed dieted, which is systematically increasing the calories up to a point where body weight isn't, isn't influenced by it.

• 45:59Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  And then if it starts to spill over, then you pull calories back. Painstaking process, but what it's meant is that I've now topped out my calories.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  It supports your training, you're eating as much food as you, as you want, really. You're, you're very happy with the amount of food that you're eating. Maintaining your post diet condition and I'm still reaping the benefits of that five years later.

• 46:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, you're still, you're still absolutely.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Still have lean thanks to that diet. So the short.

• 46:26Chris Williamson?

  You only need to get lean once.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Exactly. Get lean once properly, do it gradually and then systematically reverse back.

• 46:32Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  And then set yourself for five years or for life, really.

• 46:35Chris Williamson?

  So someone's, someone's gone away, they've managed to hold on to the training protocol. They've kept controlled with their diet up until then. If you've only got eight weeks, are you allowing someone to have a refeed day or are they just on this, are they just in the deficit every day?

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can do a refeed day.

• 46:50Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so you could have one day where you would maybe bump up your calories to two and a half thousand to three thousand calories.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  And I think that, I'm, I'm glad you said that because uh, refeed can mean, can be quite a flexible meaning in some.

• 47:01Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, you can undo all of the deficit for an entire week in one day of eating ten thousand calories.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, easily. So, so and when, when you're dieted, eating ten thousand calories is not beyond the realm of possibility.

• 47:14Chris Williamson?

  When we're talking about doing a refeed day, one day a week, um, or I, I would be more tempted to say one day every fortnight, especially given that you've got this short timeframe.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  Calories are just thirty percent higher, for example, it's not, it's not like an absolute.

• 47:28Chris Williamson?

  No, I think, I think it's important, it, it, I know that it's important for me to work towards a day where I have a little bit more leniency, I can feel a little bit more satiated. Also, choose to do your refeed day on a day where you're training a muscle part that you really want to go for it on. If you are used to eating, uh, training in a deficit where your training quality maybe isn't quite where you're used to it or where you'd want it to be. If you have this day where you've eaten a little bit more, your training output's going to be so much better. You're going to go in, pump's going to be more in, in, improved, your level of strength's going to be more improved, energy levels, feeling of society, like.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Everything's going to be fueled by that.

• 48:09Chris Williamson?

  Feeling of society, that, feeling society, feeling of satiety. Um, so, final thing, someone's gone away on holiday and they've come back.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 48:20Chris Williamson?

  How do they then slowly recomp themselves back up? How do they do this re-diet that you've said so that they can maximize the return on all of the sacrifices they made in a couple of months leading up to this?

• 48:33Speaker 01

  So someone's come back from holiday?

• 48:34Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, they've gone away, they've maybe done the thing, they've.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Have they gained any weight while they're away?

• 48:40Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I think it's, I think it's very, very prudent to assume that that's gonna happen.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  So rather than get into the self-flagellation, self-punishment cycle straight away, come home, restore your momentum with training.

• 48:52Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I think that's.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  On the training again.

• 48:54Chris Williamson?

  That's number one.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, just eat normally for a while, don't, don't try and go into a big crazy cycle. Do that for a couple of weeks, set yourself a baseline.

• 49:02Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  Then decide, has the weight, has the excess weight come off? It may have come off naturally, just having returned from, you know, even flying, travelling somewhere will increase your weight and I, it might be.

• 49:14Chris Williamson?

  Why is that?

• 49:15Speaker 01

  Probably because it disrupts your, your blood salts and, and water retention and that kind of thing.

• 49:19Chris Williamson?

  Is that significant?

• 49:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, at least with our clients, like, I mean, it's, it's not a.

• 49:25Chris Williamson?

  Huge proportion.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  Well, it, it's also that, I mean, it'll affect your scale weight, but it won't, it doesn't mean that you've got fatter. It just, yeah, it's just that it disrupts the data that you're seeing on the.

• 49:34Chris Williamson?

  Okay, that's interesting.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Sheet, yeah, so, um, wa- wait till you've established a new baseline and then you can say, look, actually, I'm lean enough, I could go, I could do with gaining some muscle, so I'm going to spend the next year gaining muscle. And then by the time I put my next holiday, I can do. Five or six weeks before before the holiday and just cut a bit of fat.

• 49:53Chris Williamson?

  I think I think definitely for me, um, getting back into training as fast as possible is a really big deal. A few things to remember is that if you've just been away on a party holiday and you've filled yourself with all kinds of substances, that first training session, it's it's gonna be pretty uncomfortable. You sweat's gonna be viscous and multicoloured and you're gonna be really, it's gonna be an unenjoyable experience, however.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  I heard about a, I don't know whether this is true, but someone said that LSD is stored in your fat cells.

• 50:24Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, there were all of these people who lost weight, who'd been in the part of the summer of love in the sixties and then lost weight during a midlife diet, sort of maybe in the nineties, and were driving along the road and the adipose cells would have um,

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Just released a bunch of them.

• 50:39Chris Williamson?

  Dumped a load of psychedelics back into the bloodstream and there were people tripping while they were driving.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Oh, man, um, I mean.

• 50:46Chris Williamson?

  I'm not sure that the same is true. I'm not sure that the same is true for um, speed masquerading as cocaine in Zanti, but um, yeah, there's there's definitely, you you're gonna come back, you're gonna feel like shit, your training's not gonna be tremendously good, but you will feel better if you can get yourself back into that routine.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  So another benefit to getting a baseline, I suppose, is if you had a bunch of substances, just a couple of weeks where you just.

• 51:08Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, don't don't obsess over it too much.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Sleeping normally and no drugs.

• 51:11Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, get your sleep, get your sleep, get your sleep back, stop taking drugs, stop drinking all the time and get back into some training and enjoy it, make yourself feel a little bit more healthy, remember that, and try and fall back in love with training because it, the thing, the thing that's so impressive to everybody about someone who is lean, that understands what it takes to get lean, is that they appreciate the sacrifice that person's made to get there, because it is a miserable process to to not eat as much food as your body wants and to then try and get your body to exert physical uh exercises on top of that, like it's, it just sucks. So allow yourself to fall back in love with your training, if you've always liked walking,

• 51:55Chris Williamson?

  rowing, running, hill sprints, jogging, CrossFit, martial arts, whatever it is, do the training that is going to allow you to remain physically active as easily as possible. And then make sure that you keep on top of your resistance training, make sure that you're not letting your weights drop too much, keep tracking your weight when you get home, and then, yeah, take it from there.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:15Chris Williamson?

  We've covered it, covered most of the bits there.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  Solid advice. I think that's, that's the, that's the complete picture. So to be honest, everything that discussed in this podcast, if you just do this now until that your holiday in eight weeks' time, you're gonna, you're gonna make the most progress that you can in that time.

• 52:31Chris Williamson?

  I think you'd be laughing. So let's break it down again, going from the top. Find your training partner, someone who you're going away with.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Yep. Or if you can't find one, accountability partner, some, there's an app, I think, where you can, you put five hundred pounds into, or a thousand pounds or whatever into a, uh, what, what's it?

• 52:49Chris Williamson?

  Like an escrow account.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  Escrow, yeah.

• 52:51Chris Williamson?

  And then it gets released if you don't do the thing you said you're going to do. That's, yeah, that's one way to motivate yourself. Um, but try and find a training partner.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  We have a client that gave a thousand pounds to his mum and was like, mum, if I drink before Friday, then.

• 53:04Chris Williamson?

  Oh my God.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  You've got a thousand pounds.

• 53:06Chris Williamson?

  Imagine if your mum just went and spent a thousand pounds.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Or if your mum just kept leaving shots or running, or running.

• 53:12Chris Williamson?

  Desperately wanting you to give a thousand pounds. Um, training three to four times a week resistance, a couple of times of, um, of cardio, maybe on a morning, try and get a ten to fifteen, twenty minute walk in, fasted, black coffee before you go.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  I also like what you said about just get training done in the morning and then it's like, that's the win for the day.

• 53:32Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, you know that you've taken it off the list and you don't need to worry about it.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  You're also more likely to stick to your diet because then you, you've not had a, a, a stumbly shit day where like, you know, oh, I haven't been to the gym and diet's gone out the window or whatever. But whereas if you started it as you mean to go on, then.

• 53:46Chris Williamson?

  Get some, get some easy wins under your belt. And if the session's one of them, then so be it. Um, push pull legs, we think for a, for a session.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 53:56Chris Williamson?

  Uh, a split. Um, you can get a good breakdown of that, propanefitness.com, have a look at the propan protocol.

• 54:04Chris Williamson?

  Diet, you're going to be looking at around about two thousand calories a day for men and about sixteen, fifteen, sixteen hundred for women.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  To start with, yeah.

• 54:13Chris Williamson?

  To begin with.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  Then adjust based on how your weight's moving.

• 54:15Chris Williamson?

  Yep. Tracking your weight on a morning after you have been four wee and poo, but before you've had food, naked.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 54:21Chris Williamson?

  Set of scales will be linked in the show notes, which you can get, they're like. Five or six pounds and they'll do you for the rest of time as well. Um, my fitness pal, use that to track your weight and see how your weight's getting on throughout the day. Um, don't get caught up with too much meal timing, BCAAs before and after training.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  Sack all of that stuff. Yeah. You, your only goal during the next eight weeks is hit your average weekly calorie intake and your minimum training volume. Like, don't, don't get hung up on, don't buy any supplements, don't, yeah, any of that is distraction and masturbation.

• 55:00Chris Williamson?

  So grass fed, predigested MCT oil in your coffee before you train and thermopure and you know, all of the.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Only if it's the one that costs a hundred dollars for the, the little tub and it's grass fed and.

• 55:15Chris Williamson?

  Right, okay, then in that case, it's gonna make a, a big difference. Um, and then when you get out there, maybe don't go completely crazy on the baguettes. If you've got the option of having vodka diet coke on a night or if you're drinking during the day.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  Oh, so that was another thing I was gonna mention, actually, yeah, I forgot about this, which was, when you are going out drinking. Consider what is your intention. Is your intention, I really like the taste of beer, so I'm gonna drink lots of beers, or is it, I want to get as drunk as I can without gaining fat. If that's the case, then treat alcohol like any other drug, like you want to have the highest concentration and to get as drunk as possible for the least amount of money and least amount of calories.

• 55:57Chris Williamson?

  This is such a use of like approach. I've heard you, I've heard you make this, make this argument about twenty times.

• 56:03Speaker 01

  So ten beers is gonna, let's say a beer is two to three hundred calories, then you've instantly.

• 56:11Chris Williamson?

  Actually, your, your day is calorie, calorie intake.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  Fucked it. So whereas if, if you say, right, I'm not gonna eat three, four hours before I start drinking to sensitize myself to being drunk as much as possible, then I'm gonna have spirits or some, you know, some high density form of alcohol.

• 56:28Chris Williamson?

  Most Muslim approach to trying to get drunk.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  Front loaded, so drink as much early as possible in the night. So that you then, by the time you end up going home, it's starting to wear off, you sleep better. You haven't blown your calories too much. You've got the most of the alcohol for the least amount of effort, calories and time.

• 56:50Chris Williamson?

  I think if anyone implements this on the holiday, anyone goes, right lads.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  It's what people are doing anyway.

• 56:58Chris Williamson?

  You know that evening meal, right? Well, I'm, I'm just gonna have neat vodka. Another neat vodka over here, please, Ollie. And then.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  You wouldn't just have one, you'd be like, I'll have ten, just lay the table, please. And I'll just bash them all in.

• 57:13Chris Williamson?

  So you know that maximum recoverable volume?

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:15Chris Williamson?

  Is this like maximum consumable alcohol?

• 57:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 57:18Chris Williamson?

  Without throwing up.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Hitting all of your maximum, oh, you don't wanna throw up because then you wasted the money.

• 57:22Chris Williamson?

  Wasted money, yeah, exactly.

• 57:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:23Chris Williamson?

  Although you may have got rid of some more calories.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Thing is, I, I know people that naturally drink like that. But it, that's more just like a, it's kind of a novelty thing, isn't it? Oh, look at the egg bombs out and it's just like.

• 57:34Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 57:35Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so we've got that. When you come back, start back into training, try and find something that you like. And begin tracking your weight again and plan for summer twenty nineteen now.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:47Chris Williamson?

  As opposed to eight weeks.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  Don't be naughty.

• 57:50Chris Williamson?

  Don't be naughty. Right, okay, bye then.