How Culture Affects Health With Paul Dermody
Audio
Nolan speaks with Paul Dermody, an online personal trainer, podcaster, and part-time professional writer passionate about travel and languages. Paul shares his tips on achieving your fitness and health goals with a holistic approach that can apply to all aspects of life. You can check out the specific topics below and select which segment of the podcast you want to listen to.
Video
00:00 - Intro
01:56 - Why Paul Dermody chose to make Spain home.
05:30 - How travel affects your identity
11:51 - The problem with travel (and life) no one talks about
16:45 - Benefits of travel
20:19 - How culture affects health, diets, and fitness
24:38 - How to change your mindset for better health
33:19 - Culture-bound eating disorders
40:49 - Diet culture & woke culture
51:25 - Paul’s personal training
Support the show
If you believe in research and writing that break down borders, foster cross-cultural understanding, and inspire people to live unbound, consider becoming a paid subscriber to Born Without Borders.
My work can only exist if you share and support it.
Need Specialized Coaching or English Classes?
- Unlock Your Authentic Voice (Across Cultures & Systems): If you're a multilingual professional or "cultural inbetweener" who feels unseen or misread, let's refine your English for nuance, confidence, and true self-expression.
Transcript
1
00:00:00.910 --> 00:00:04.480
[Nolan] Inescapably, inescapably, inescapably.</v>
2
00:00:05.430 --> 00:00:10.200
[Nolan] Inescapably, foreign. Welcome to Without Borders. I'm your host, Nolan Yuma.</v>
3
00:00:10.220 --> 00:00:13.720
If this is your first time tuning into the show, you know that this, um,
4
00:00:13.720 --> 00:00:16.600
if this is your first time tuning into the show, you don't know [Laughter] uh,
5
00:00:16.600 --> 00:00:20.680
but this is the podcast for nomad, expats, immigrants,
6
00:00:20.680 --> 00:00:25.640
third culture kids, or anyone else that feels inescapably foreign. Today,
7
00:00:25.740 --> 00:00:29.680
I'm here with Paul, uh, Dermody, an online personal trainer,
8
00:00:30.190 --> 00:00:30.860
podcaster,
9
00:00:30.860 --> 00:00:34.960
and part-time professional writer who's also passionate about travel and
10
00:00:35.200 --> 00:00:38.600
languages. In other words, I think we have a lot in common,
11
00:00:38.900 --> 00:00:43.840
and I'm looking forward to exploring how culture influences fitness and
12
00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:46.840
nutrition. Um, I have a bunch of studies to bring up,
13
00:00:46.940 --> 00:00:50.280
but first I want to know a bit about your travel, um,
14
00:00:50.300 --> 00:00:54.320
and how it's influenced your work, your experiences, and well, Paul,
15
00:00:54.320 --> 00:00:55.240
where are you right now?
16
00:00:56.430 --> 00:01:01.130
[Paul] Thanks, man. So first, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. It's strange,</v>
17
00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:04.890
it's interesting hearing how you're introduced in a podcast. Uh,
18
00:01:04.890 --> 00:01:06.730
part-time professional writer is cool. I mean,
19
00:01:06.830 --> 00:01:08.370
one part of me thinks that is so cool.
20
00:01:08.390 --> 00:01:11.250
And then the other part of me saying I've met a couple of hundred books over
21
00:01:11.260 --> 00:01:14.410
about a year, it's nothing to go too crazy about, but, uh,
22
00:01:14.410 --> 00:01:16.870
thank you for the kind word I have to say. But.
23
00:01:17.010 --> 00:01:20.070
[Nolan] You're, and even though maybe money-wise, only a couple hundred bucks,</v>
24
00:01:20.070 --> 00:01:22.590
but you're successful, you have a lot of a,
25
00:01:23.070 --> 00:01:26.550
a lot of comments and a lot of engagements with your writing, I've noticed.
26
00:01:27.350 --> 00:01:28.710
[Paul] I, I've don't,</v>
27
00:01:28.710 --> 00:01:33.550
I've broken onto medium and I've managed to qualify for the paid articles from,
28
00:01:33.750 --> 00:01:35.310
I think you've, to get a hundred followers.
29
00:01:35.620 --> 00:01:38.350
It's one of those things where I think every creator says this.
30
00:01:38.390 --> 00:01:42.110
I joined the platform form a little bit later than I would've liked in terms of
31
00:01:42.110 --> 00:01:45.150
kind of getting the, the spoils. But no, I, I love it, dude.
32
00:01:45.190 --> 00:01:46.590
I don't do it for the cash. I mean,
33
00:01:46.630 --> 00:01:49.910
I would love to be full-time professional writer at some point in the future,
34
00:01:49.930 --> 00:01:53.270
but I don't do it for the cash. I wouldn't sustain it if I did it for the cash,
35
00:01:53.350 --> 00:01:55.910
I wouldn't be able to, I think you have to have a deeper motivation.
36
00:01:56.250 --> 00:01:58.950
But do your question. Currently I'm back in Malaga.
37
00:01:59.490 --> 00:02:02.230
My travel story is a little bit long-winded.
38
00:02:02.230 --> 00:02:06.350
So the long story short is I left home in 2018,
39
00:02:07.370 --> 00:02:10.870
uh, to go to Barcelona. I was only originally going for three months,
40
00:02:10.930 --> 00:02:15.230
and I actually haven't been on to live since. I found, interestingly,
41
00:02:15.750 --> 00:02:20.650
client sent me an article asking me if I would read it around the winter of
42
00:02:20.650 --> 00:02:24.370
2018, and it was about seasonal effective disorder.
43
00:02:24.510 --> 00:02:25.730
And I had never heard about that,
44
00:02:25.990 --> 00:02:29.330
but I noticed that every winter I was getting progressively more anxious than
45
00:02:29.590 --> 00:02:31.770
sad. And on my last winter in Ireland,
46
00:02:32.160 --> 00:02:35.250
some days I would just be lying in my bed and I just couldn't drag myself out of
47
00:02:35.250 --> 00:02:37.330
bed. And I've never had any mental health problems.
48
00:02:37.330 --> 00:02:40.980
I've never really had any mental health issues of any sort. And I thought,
49
00:02:40.980 --> 00:02:43.580
this is getting strange, like I'm getting sadder and sadder.
50
00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:45.220
And then my client sent me the,
51
00:02:45.280 --> 00:02:47.460
her article she wrote on Seasonal Effective Disorder.
52
00:02:47.680 --> 00:02:51.340
And it was like she had written to me about me,
53
00:02:51.920 --> 00:02:54.060
and I went to my girlfriend that day and I said, look,
54
00:02:54.200 --> 00:02:56.140
are you up for leaving Ireland? Do you wanna go travel?
55
00:02:56.790 --> 00:02:58.250
And she was a bit apprehensive at first,
56
00:02:59.070 --> 00:03:01.690
and so we decided to go away for the summer to Barcelona.
57
00:03:02.030 --> 00:03:04.370
So we spent the whole summer of 2018 in Barcelona together.
58
00:03:04.510 --> 00:03:07.090
And then she said to me, she goes, you're such a better person here.
59
00:03:07.470 --> 00:03:10.850
You should stay. I'm gonna go back to Ireland and teach.
60
00:03:11.710 --> 00:03:13.210
So I stayed for a couple of extra months,
61
00:03:13.210 --> 00:03:14.810
but we decided not to do long distance.
62
00:03:15.430 --> 00:03:19.370
And I suggested she moved to Barcelona with me full-time,
63
00:03:19.370 --> 00:03:23.170
but she didn't want to. She felt it was a bit too much of a culture shock,
64
00:03:23.170 --> 00:03:25.770
which is going to blow your mind, because then she came back and said,
65
00:03:25.980 --> 00:03:29.130
let's move to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. So I'm [Laughter]
66
00:03:30.640 --> 00:03:34.540
I'm thinking Vietnam really that much more familiar than Barcelona.
67
00:03:34.540 --> 00:03:37.460
But she had a few friends, private school teachers, she had a job lined up.
68
00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:40.580
So we went from Barcelona to Vietnam, spent two years in Vietnam.
69
00:03:40.840 --> 00:03:44.500
We went back to Malaga for one year when my visa expired in Vietnam,
70
00:03:44.730 --> 00:03:47.940
then back to Vietnam. Uh, spent a few months in Vietnam,
71
00:03:48.110 --> 00:03:50.900
lived in Malaysia for a couple of months, and now we're back in Spain.
72
00:03:51.970 --> 00:03:55.900
[Nolan] Nice. We actually have a, kind of of a similar story there, because I, well, I,</v>
73
00:03:56.140 --> 00:03:58.340
I didn't really live in Vietnam, I say four months.
74
00:03:58.420 --> 00:04:02.340
I don't know if you can consider that, that living, but I was in, uh, Hanoi.
75
00:04:02.360 --> 00:04:05.420
Did you spend time there as well, or just in, uh, Ho Chi Min City?
76
00:04:06.140 --> 00:04:10.220
[Paul] I spent, I took a trip to Hanoi. I Okay. Lived in, in per two and a half years.</v>
77
00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:13.380
But I can, I kind of always say I lived in Malaysia, but if,
78
00:04:13.720 --> 00:04:15.700
if your thing doesn't count, then mine doesn't count.
79
00:04:15.740 --> 00:04:18.460
I think we were a few months in Kuali Lumpur, so I didn't really live there.
80
00:04:18.500 --> 00:04:20.100
I just spent a few months in Qual Lumpur.
81
00:04:20.710 --> 00:04:24.200
[Nolan] Yeah, I think, I think four months are kind of on the borderline, right? Uh,</v>
82
00:04:24.460 --> 00:04:27.840
you're still in this phase of aculturalization where everything's really
83
00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:30.480
exciting and I don't think you kind of reach the,
84
00:04:30.740 --> 00:04:34.180
the dips and you don't really get into all the more,
85
00:04:34.180 --> 00:04:38.700
the negative sides of immigrating somewhere. Right. Um, so, well,
86
00:04:38.700 --> 00:04:40.060
what I found really interesting too is that you,
87
00:04:40.060 --> 00:04:42.940
you were in Barcelona and now you're near Malaga.
88
00:04:43.780 --> 00:04:48.550
What made you choose to go to Malaga instead of go back to Barcelona or
89
00:04:48.550 --> 00:04:49.710
pick somewhere else in Spain?
90
00:04:50.730 --> 00:04:52.660
[Paul] Barcelona was amazing experience,</v>
91
00:04:52.960 --> 00:04:56.660
but I just guess I had no desire to go back when I left.
92
00:04:57.060 --> 00:04:58.860
I always wanted to live there, and I just,
93
00:04:59.620 --> 00:05:03.520
it felt like that time was o was over the chapter of my life had done.
94
00:05:04.390 --> 00:05:07.310
I like the climate in Malaga. I like the nature of the people in the south.
95
00:05:07.630 --> 00:05:11.470
I think the lifestyle is really nice. It's quite relaxed. It's sunny year round.
96
00:05:12.330 --> 00:05:15.170
And, um, yeah, I think that honestly, I,
97
00:05:15.290 --> 00:05:18.370
I don't think there's anything to it other than I just googled a couple of nice
98
00:05:18.370 --> 00:05:21.210
places and I decided to take a few trips around Spain and just,
99
00:05:21.830 --> 00:05:24.290
I'm sure you felt this Nolan, but when you,
100
00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:27.850
when you land in the faith and you instantly feel, yeah, this could be home,
101
00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:28.993
this could be home.
102
00:05:30.010 --> 00:05:34.260
[Nolan] Yeah. Yeah. I, I've, I've felt that in a way in Spain as well.</v>
103
00:05:34.800 --> 00:05:37.500
Um, but I've, I mean, I'm a third culture kid,
104
00:05:37.520 --> 00:05:42.460
so I've never really had a place where I say this is home. Right. But, um,
105
00:05:42.600 --> 00:05:45.020
the longer I live here, the longer I'm starting,
106
00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:47.940
the more I'm starting to adapt to the culture. And, uh,
107
00:05:48.470 --> 00:05:52.100
maybe it'll end up being a long-term home, but I really don't know.
108
00:05:52.180 --> 00:05:53.340
I think I'm like you as well. I,
109
00:05:53.420 --> 00:05:58.060
I like to travel and have new experiences all the time. Um.
110
00:05:58.680 --> 00:05:59.513
[Paul] No, uh, but.</v>
111
00:05:59.520 --> 00:06:00.353
[Nolan] Uh, yeah.</v>
112
00:06:00.770 --> 00:06:03.660
[Paul] I've heard you say third culture quite a few times. Do you mind,</v>
113
00:06:03.830 --> 00:06:06.580
maybe it's just me and I have not heard that phrase before. You,
114
00:06:06.650 --> 00:06:08.460
will you elaborate a little bit on that one?
115
00:06:09.210 --> 00:06:11.020
[Nolan] Sure. So I've, I've brought it up on the show before,</v>
116
00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:13.660
but just for the listeners that don't know and for you, uh,
117
00:06:13.740 --> 00:06:18.500
a third culture kid is someone that was raised in more than two
118
00:06:18.580 --> 00:06:22.860
cultures, forget what age before a certain age with, uh,
119
00:06:22.860 --> 00:06:25.060
so during childhood. Um,
120
00:06:25.760 --> 00:06:30.420
so they've never really had the time to just adapt to one culture, right?
121
00:06:30.560 --> 00:06:32.820
So they're, um, and what, what these,
122
00:06:33.090 --> 00:06:36.460
what they've noticed is that often third culture kids,
123
00:06:36.760 --> 00:06:41.660
the pros are that they adapt easily. They're kind of like chameleons. Um,
124
00:06:41.890 --> 00:06:45.580
they're able, and usually more open-minded and things like that.
125
00:06:45.640 --> 00:06:49.380
But then the negative side is you don't really have much of a stable identity.
126
00:06:49.480 --> 00:06:52.740
You might have some identity issues, obviously, um,
127
00:06:52.980 --> 00:06:56.980
your values might clash with the culture that you're in. And, uh, yeah,
128
00:06:56.980 --> 00:07:00.900
pretty much all the symptoms, or not symptoms, but characteristics that they,
129
00:07:01.090 --> 00:07:04.780
they write down for third culture kids. Kids are just spot on. Um,
130
00:07:04.780 --> 00:07:06.180
at least from for my life.
131
00:07:08.730 --> 00:07:11.550
[Paul] Um, I was just interested, I heard you spoke what our mutual friends desire,</v>
132
00:07:11.550 --> 00:07:13.110
so I just wanted to actually get a very,
133
00:07:13.140 --> 00:07:15.890
just to make sure that I'm following along well.
134
00:07:16.550 --> 00:07:18.920
[Nolan] Yeah, well, I thought it was interesting with Cesar as well,</v>
135
00:07:18.920 --> 00:07:23.480
because how he describes his personality almost sounds like a third culture kid.
136
00:07:23.500 --> 00:07:27.360
But that was just from growing up in a different, or not growing up, but uh,
137
00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:29.840
living in a different country as an adult throughout your twenties.
138
00:07:30.220 --> 00:07:34.520
And I think there's just not that much research done on that yet. But I think,
139
00:07:35.060 --> 00:07:38.320
um, growing up somewhere in your twenties definitely has,
140
00:07:38.330 --> 00:07:43.190
plays a huge role on your identity. Has it for you, uh,
141
00:07:43.190 --> 00:07:47.150
living in Spain, do you feel like your personality has kind of shifted?
142
00:07:47.150 --> 00:07:51.310
You said you're a better person in Spain. Um, what about anything else?
143
00:07:51.310 --> 00:07:55.550
Have your values kind of changed or you're just happier and more pleasant or?
144
00:07:57.400 --> 00:08:01.760
[Paul] I grew up in Ireland. I left Ireland at 28, so I,</v>
145
00:08:01.860 --> 00:08:06.850
I'm as Irish as ham and bacon and cabbage without turning into one
146
00:08:06.850 --> 00:08:10.510
physically. Right. And I,
147
00:08:11.190 --> 00:08:13.590
I never felt particularly Irish. I have to take,
148
00:08:14.130 --> 00:08:16.470
and I think now is ironically,
149
00:08:16.470 --> 00:08:21.150
after living abroad for five years across say three different countries and or
150
00:08:21.150 --> 00:08:25.070
many cities now is the most Irish I've felt because something I've learned since
151
00:08:25.070 --> 00:08:28.230
I've been away is I really like how the Irish represent abroad.
152
00:08:28.690 --> 00:08:31.270
The groups of Irish people that I've met are usually open-minded.
153
00:08:31.440 --> 00:08:35.110
We're very progressive and will usually listen to an opinion even when it
154
00:08:35.110 --> 00:08:38.150
clashes with something we currently believe. At least that's been my experience.
155
00:08:39.060 --> 00:08:41.660
I never really felt that Irish when I lived back at home. I,
156
00:08:41.740 --> 00:08:46.720
I felt somewhat disconnected from my own culture and I suppose
157
00:08:46.720 --> 00:08:49.920
even something small, but people walking in and complaining, saying, you know,
158
00:08:49.920 --> 00:08:52.840
it's a, it's a wet all day. It's a rotten all day. It's a dirty all day.
159
00:08:52.990 --> 00:08:56.100
Like I'm from the west of Ireland, it rains about three, 300 days a year, right?
160
00:08:56.260 --> 00:08:59.560
So it's a wet, rotten, dirty all day, 300 days a year. And I,
161
00:08:59.640 --> 00:09:02.600
I had this profound realization around 24,
162
00:09:03.320 --> 00:09:07.360
I can't live under a gray sky and a raining on top of me all my life.
163
00:09:07.360 --> 00:09:10.960
This is not a life for me. And it didn't, I thought it was strange because I,
164
00:09:11.040 --> 00:09:12.520
I seem to be the only person that it bothered.
165
00:09:13.020 --> 00:09:15.920
And it really bothered me to the point where it's not just, oh,
166
00:09:15.920 --> 00:09:17.600
I don't like the rain. It's like my mood.
167
00:09:17.740 --> 00:09:20.800
You just chop 50% of my happiness away under a gray sky.
168
00:09:20.950 --> 00:09:25.680
Like even I spent a month at home this year between moving away from Vietnam
169
00:09:25.820 --> 00:09:30.480
and moving here to Spain and all the, the things that my brain cues for,
170
00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:34.120
like going for a walk, go to do some chin-ups, go to do some push-ups, it's,
171
00:09:34.120 --> 00:09:37.480
it's almost like it stopped queuing for those. And I had to really flex,
172
00:09:37.580 --> 00:09:40.400
say more discipline and willpower to the point where I skipped about four
173
00:09:40.400 --> 00:09:44.440
workouts a week when I was back home every, every week for about three weeks.
174
00:09:44.460 --> 00:09:47.320
Cuz my, my shoulders would creak and I felt sore and I felt stiff.
175
00:09:48.150 --> 00:09:51.650
And I mean friends, my Spanish teacher from Colombia, my,
176
00:09:51.670 --> 00:09:55.290
my one of my best mates in Vietnam from England, uh, they've both said to me,
177
00:09:55.400 --> 00:09:58.410
when you used to talk about the weather, I thought you were such a drama queen.
178
00:09:58.590 --> 00:10:02.570
But I'm, after going back home with the winter and I get it now, oh yeah.
179
00:10:03.590 --> 00:10:04.770
So I'm a better person,
180
00:10:04.800 --> 00:10:07.770
more so in the sunshine and sunny weather just because I'm happier. But yeah,
181
00:10:07.770 --> 00:10:11.530
in terms of Irish culture, the most Irish I've ever felt.
182
00:10:11.870 --> 00:10:14.730
But I had to leave home for a prolonged period to get that,
183
00:10:14.750 --> 00:10:15.850
if that makes any sense.
184
00:10:17.190 --> 00:10:18.160
[Nolan] Yeah. What,</v>
185
00:10:18.160 --> 00:10:23.120
what about the parts of you that are Irish that have made it difficult to adapt
186
00:10:23.300 --> 00:10:24.133
in Spain?
187
00:10:24.500 --> 00:10:28.480
Or maybe there's just a lot of correlations and it's just been easier to adapt
188
00:10:28.480 --> 00:10:29.880
in Spain as an Irishman?
189
00:10:30.530 --> 00:10:32.900
[Paul] What, it's been easy. It's been so easy.</v>
190
00:10:33.020 --> 00:10:35.460
I think having a few words of the language has really helped.
191
00:10:35.940 --> 00:10:40.060
I think being generally quite curious and open-minded has helped.
192
00:10:40.800 --> 00:10:43.980
Um, none of my transitions have been difficult. None of them. I,
193
00:10:43.980 --> 00:10:45.540
people I know people say, you know, the,
194
00:10:45.540 --> 00:10:48.940
the first night away from home or the first week I wanted to go home,
195
00:10:48.940 --> 00:10:52.100
turn the plane around. I've never had that experience in any of my travels.
196
00:10:52.180 --> 00:10:55.180
I have landed in Kuala Lumpur, ho Chi, min City,
197
00:10:55.530 --> 00:10:59.580
Malaga, Barcelona with this sense of cool, like, the world is so huge,
198
00:10:59.820 --> 00:11:03.260
I can't wait for this. My first night in Ho Chi Min, I had this feeling of,
199
00:11:03.810 --> 00:11:08.140
holy crap, where am I? But it was, it was amazing.
200
00:11:08.200 --> 00:11:10.660
It was exactly what I needed at 29 years of age.
201
00:11:10.660 --> 00:11:13.380
And Ho Chi Minh was the best two years of my life. It turned out it was,
202
00:11:13.560 --> 00:11:16.740
it went so much better than I expected. I remember my girlfriend said to me,
203
00:11:17.170 --> 00:11:21.420
babe, I I hope you really adapt. And I remember thinking, I'm fine.
204
00:11:21.420 --> 00:11:25.900
Worry about yourself. I'm good. I'm gonna have a great one. Oh, she should have.
205
00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:28.900
It was actually legal Ho Chi Min and coming back to Spain, the,
206
00:11:28.920 --> 00:11:31.500
the second time, I found that a particularly difficult transition,
207
00:11:32.230 --> 00:11:33.690
but that wasn't because I don't love Spain.
208
00:11:33.690 --> 00:11:35.690
It was because I wasn't actually ready to leave Ho Chi Min.
209
00:11:35.690 --> 00:11:38.050
It was just visa complications. So, I mean,
210
00:11:38.050 --> 00:11:39.410
I've gone on a bit of a tangent there,
211
00:11:39.430 --> 00:11:42.330
but I've never struggled to adapt Nolan in any of my travels.
212
00:11:42.530 --> 00:11:43.970
I have loved every moment of the.
213
00:11:44.990 --> 00:11:48.750
[Nolan] I I feel you man. I'm, I'm the same way. Um, but no, just a,</v>
214
00:11:48.750 --> 00:11:51.190
just to tie this into one of your articles, uh,
215
00:11:51.370 --> 00:11:56.200
the problem with travel no one talks about. Yeah. And um,
216
00:11:56.200 --> 00:12:00.520
like I was going through it and if I were to sum up the article in one line,
217
00:12:00.680 --> 00:12:03.840
I think it's a little bit difficult cause you, you cover so much. Uh,
218
00:12:03.840 --> 00:12:06.200
but the one line, uh, I'll look for it one second.
219
00:12:06.380 --> 00:12:11.120
Our mental images of travel are hugely edited constructs of the mind
220
00:12:11.540 --> 00:12:15.960
duping us constantly with the same mechanism that makes us curious if
221
00:12:15.960 --> 00:12:20.560
happiness lies elsewhere with another partner, place or in another
222
00:12:20.880 --> 00:12:24.160
scenario. Um, can you expand on that a bit?
223
00:12:24.160 --> 00:12:27.800
Because I always love talking about the positive aspects and we will talk more
224
00:12:27.800 --> 00:12:29.240
about the positive aspects of travel,
225
00:12:29.460 --> 00:12:33.760
but I think that's one thing that you highlight that is kind of a problem and
226
00:12:33.760 --> 00:12:37.280
something that could be negative, um, in, in travel.
227
00:12:38.500 --> 00:12:42.880
[Paul] Do you know, it's kind of a metaphor for life really. I've, um,</v>
228
00:12:43.390 --> 00:12:46.600
I've probably fallen guilty even there talking to you to something I believe,
229
00:12:46.600 --> 00:12:48.120
which is the trap of nostalgia,
230
00:12:48.120 --> 00:12:52.840
which is taking Paul from the past and heavily editing them with the ro
231
00:12:52.840 --> 00:12:54.760
tinted goggles. You know, I was happier when,
232
00:12:54.760 --> 00:12:58.240
because I can't extrapolate my own insecurities from the past and bring them
233
00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:00.680
into this moment. And that's the same ones that I feel now.
234
00:13:01.320 --> 00:13:05.750
I think with travel as it is with romance and love as it is with
235
00:13:06.630 --> 00:13:07.020
anything,
236
00:13:07.020 --> 00:13:11.830
it's easier to envision that there's a better moment anywhere
237
00:13:11.830 --> 00:13:14.870
else in some other place, just not here and just not now.
238
00:13:15.470 --> 00:13:19.710
I think it is a common mechanism of the mind that traps us. I see it,
239
00:13:19.710 --> 00:13:23.380
if I can relate it back to my career, I see it a little bit with clients who,
240
00:13:23.380 --> 00:13:27.730
some people might be like dieting for fat loss or dieting for weight loss and
241
00:13:28.120 --> 00:13:28.800
they, they,
242
00:13:28.800 --> 00:13:32.090
they envision how happy they'll be as soon as they go out and have that burger
243
00:13:32.110 --> 00:13:33.730
and fried that they decided to forego.
244
00:13:34.070 --> 00:13:36.530
But then they're eating the burger and the fried and they're no sooner doing
245
00:13:36.530 --> 00:13:39.170
that. Then they want to be back on routine instruction, feeling good.
246
00:13:39.630 --> 00:13:42.250
And I think there's a real tendency of the mind to
247
00:13:43.760 --> 00:13:48.120
constantly look over the shoulders of here and now and into the future.
248
00:13:48.140 --> 00:13:51.320
And I think that's very normal. I don't think you can ever resist that. Um,
249
00:13:51.480 --> 00:13:53.920
I think the mind tends to edit things, though. It's like,
250
00:13:54.040 --> 00:13:56.760
I love the sun more than I love anything in the world.
251
00:13:57.270 --> 00:13:59.920
I'll be the first to tell you that sunscreen spills into my eye.
252
00:14:00.040 --> 00:14:03.160
I get sand all over my socks and my girlfriend gets irritated with me because I
253
00:14:03.440 --> 00:14:06.960
walked through the tile floor with grains of sand follow following me from the
254
00:14:06.960 --> 00:14:08.840
beach. Like, it's not some utopian dream,
255
00:14:09.820 --> 00:14:14.360
but it's my idea of a relatively happy light. Um, so yeah,
256
00:14:14.460 --> 00:14:18.280
and even even things like, you know, there's an idea from Alanda Batan,
257
00:14:18.320 --> 00:14:19.680
I dunno if you're familiar with his work,
258
00:14:19.780 --> 00:14:23.550
but he's been a huge influence for me where he talks about how
259
00:14:24.540 --> 00:14:25.910
once you have a crush on somebody,
260
00:14:26.670 --> 00:14:30.610
you should really enjoy that moment because the only thing separating you from
261
00:14:30.680 --> 00:14:33.890
that and then the reality that they're not as perfect as you think is time and
262
00:14:33.890 --> 00:14:34.970
getting to know them. [Laughter] .
263
00:14:35.600 --> 00:14:38.610
[Nolan] Yeah. A lot of dream to that one.</v>
264
00:14:39.660 --> 00:14:42.530
Don't think there's one person listening to that right now, be like, no,
265
00:14:43.010 --> 00:14:43.843
[Laughter] .
266
00:14:44.900 --> 00:14:47.570
[Paul] Ultimately when I talk about travel and the problem with travel,</v>
267
00:14:47.640 --> 00:14:49.130
it's the idea that, you know,
268
00:14:49.510 --> 00:14:53.720
in your suitcase you put in your shorts and your t-shirts and your sunscreen and
269
00:14:53.720 --> 00:14:54.340
your shampoo,
270
00:14:54.340 --> 00:14:57.600
but you are bringing your anxieties and your insecurities and your shortcomings
271
00:14:57.600 --> 00:14:59.280
and your, your mental wellbeing.
272
00:14:59.940 --> 00:15:04.320
And sitting on a beach in Malaga doesn't make me happier.
273
00:15:04.380 --> 00:15:07.160
If I'm not a happy person back home, I'm, yes,
274
00:15:07.280 --> 00:15:10.680
I get the sun does change my mood. Of course it does. I I get that. And that's,
275
00:15:10.680 --> 00:15:11.840
that's the point I'm trying to illustrate.
276
00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:15.200
It's a very consciously created value that I have, which is good weather.
277
00:15:15.620 --> 00:15:16.520
But aside from that,
278
00:15:16.540 --> 00:15:19.960
I'm not just going to be more confident in myself or I'm not going to just
279
00:15:19.960 --> 00:15:22.960
happen to love myself just because I've changed from point A to point B.
280
00:15:23.140 --> 00:15:23.900
And I do think you,
281
00:15:23.900 --> 00:15:27.960
you risk disappointing yourself when you place happiness elsewhere.
282
00:15:27.990 --> 00:15:29.440
Just not here and not now.
283
00:15:29.470 --> 00:15:32.840
Only to get to that destination and realize that your mind has constantly been
284
00:15:32.840 --> 00:15:35.720
fooling you into I'll be happy when I'll be happy in the future.
285
00:15:35.790 --> 00:15:36.960
I'll be happy in this location.
286
00:15:37.870 --> 00:15:39.740
[Nolan] Definitely. Now, Paul,</v>
287
00:15:39.740 --> 00:15:43.180
everything you just mentioned right now is something I want to get a little bit
288
00:15:43.290 --> 00:15:46.540
into later on because you're, as you mentioned, right,
289
00:15:46.540 --> 00:15:50.820
is kind of a metaphor for life and the way that you're talking about travel is
290
00:15:50.890 --> 00:15:55.740
also the way that you talk about fitness, um, nutrition,
291
00:15:56.090 --> 00:15:59.420
love as you're mentioning right now and just life in general. Uh,
292
00:15:59.420 --> 00:16:01.340
but before we get into all that,
293
00:16:01.340 --> 00:16:04.340
and also I have some studies I want to ask you about. Um,
294
00:16:04.340 --> 00:16:08.100
I'm just curious a little bit more about the travel side of things because on a
295
00:16:08.300 --> 00:16:11.540
previous episode, uh, Why we travel with Dr.
296
00:16:11.540 --> 00:16:16.300
Matthew Niblett and Chris Beret, uh, they wrote a book, why Travel?
297
00:16:16.560 --> 00:16:17.060
And, um,
298
00:16:17.060 --> 00:16:21.720
they're Britain's foremost independent transport and land use thing tank,
299
00:16:22.020 --> 00:16:26.680
and they work with various researchers. So you got like the sociological, uh,
300
00:16:26.680 --> 00:16:28.920
physiological, economical, spiritual,
301
00:16:28.980 --> 00:16:33.440
and all these different perspectives in this textbook about why travel. Uh,
302
00:16:33.480 --> 00:16:38.000
I think you'd enjoy it in a lot of the listeners. But, um, one study,
303
00:16:38.140 --> 00:16:39.240
and I'm just curious if,
304
00:16:39.260 --> 00:16:42.560
if you've experienced it with your writing or any of your other creative
305
00:16:42.800 --> 00:16:43.633
pursuits,
306
00:16:43.820 --> 00:16:48.560
but researchers found that participants asked to solve a problem.
307
00:16:49.110 --> 00:16:52.160
They are told originates from a far away place,
308
00:16:52.590 --> 00:16:56.280
give more creative solutions to the problem, um,
309
00:16:56.280 --> 00:17:00.160
than those participants who believe the problem is local in origin.
310
00:17:00.900 --> 00:17:03.640
And I was just wondering if you've ever utilized this like subc,
311
00:17:03.990 --> 00:17:05.360
like without even knowing it,
312
00:17:05.360 --> 00:17:09.680
maybe you were writing about something and at the time you were just thinking
313
00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:13.200
about a far away place and it had, it had an effect on your creativity.
314
00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:19.860
[Paul] And it's such a good question and I'm not even sure I fully understand it. So.</v>
315
00:17:20.860 --> 00:17:24.440
[Nolan] Imagine you, you are like, you're, you're,</v>
316
00:17:24.460 --> 00:17:26.600
you're preparing for one of your articles, right?
317
00:17:26.690 --> 00:17:29.480
Which they're often about fitness and nutrition,
318
00:17:29.480 --> 00:17:33.600
but they're also about psychology and life in general and love. Um,
319
00:17:33.670 --> 00:17:36.920
have you noticed that maybe you're sitting in Ireland or now you're sitting in
320
00:17:36.920 --> 00:17:39.080
Spain and before you write the article,
321
00:17:39.500 --> 00:17:44.320
you are imagining these situations in a country you haven't been
322
00:17:44.340 --> 00:17:48.400
to or maybe a country you've been to once and it just is far away from the
323
00:17:48.400 --> 00:17:50.880
environment you're in right now. Ha.
324
00:17:50.910 --> 00:17:54.240
Have have you noticed it ever plays a role in your writing or,
325
00:17:54.340 --> 00:17:55.800
or any of your other creative works?
326
00:17:56.910 --> 00:17:59.710
[Paul] I don't know if this is cheating, but Vietnam,</v>
327
00:18:00.290 --> 00:18:03.670
my favorite counter in the world has the lowest rate of obesity in the world.
328
00:18:04.620 --> 00:18:09.340
And when clients are starting with me and they have weight management goals,
329
00:18:09.410 --> 00:18:13.980
sometimes they will pay something that instantly, I don't know why I go there,
330
00:18:14.040 --> 00:18:18.100
but it clashes with a lot of the cultural eating values in Vietnam that I've
331
00:18:18.100 --> 00:18:18.933
experienced.
332
00:18:19.360 --> 00:18:23.540
So I might be writing an article on something like weight management and there's
333
00:18:23.540 --> 00:18:27.540
a, I like to think there's a philosophical undertone because I don't think
334
00:18:27.540 --> 00:18:30.540
philosophy, big words and complicated things in grumpy old men.
335
00:18:30.700 --> 00:18:32.700
I think philosophy is quite simply how you live your life.
336
00:18:32.700 --> 00:18:36.050
And I think everyone's a philosopher at heart, whether you realize it or not.
337
00:18:36.050 --> 00:18:39.170
Just like I think everybody has kind of personal values at heart. It's just,
338
00:18:39.240 --> 00:18:41.010
have you taken time to create your own?
339
00:18:41.470 --> 00:18:44.450
So sometimes I'll be writing about fat loss and I always come back to the idea
340
00:18:44.680 --> 00:18:49.050
that what I've seen in Vietnam and Ho Chi Min city specifically
341
00:18:50.030 --> 00:18:53.210
is so different to what I see in the, in the west say, you know,
342
00:18:53.210 --> 00:18:58.010
people tend to not obsess over every individual food or every individual
343
00:18:58.010 --> 00:19:01.170
ingredient in Ho Chi Min. They tend to eat in three or four times a day.
344
00:19:01.170 --> 00:19:02.850
It tends to be quite structured and regimented.
345
00:19:02.850 --> 00:19:05.890
They seem to have a genuine appreciation and just a, a real
346
00:19:07.600 --> 00:19:12.510
happy outlook say compared to those of us who take it for granted because let's,
347
00:19:12.510 --> 00:19:14.830
let's be real, if you're not enjoying your food right now,
348
00:19:14.890 --> 00:19:17.830
you are taking that for granted. Because if we were taken away from you,
349
00:19:18.130 --> 00:19:20.350
that's when you would really see the, the value in something.
350
00:19:20.500 --> 00:19:23.950
Sometimes you need to lose something or to put yourself in the position of
351
00:19:23.950 --> 00:19:27.030
losing it or to see it done. Another way to appreciate it, you know,
352
00:19:27.470 --> 00:19:31.390
I think acquaintance with struggle is one of the stranger prerequisites for any
353
00:19:31.390 --> 00:19:35.350
kind of gratitude. And, And and,
354
00:19:35.450 --> 00:19:37.750
and it's not even struggle that I've seen in Ho Chi Minh,
355
00:19:37.870 --> 00:19:41.030
although I have seen it in parts of Asia. But yes to, to your question,
356
00:19:41.410 --> 00:19:46.200
and sometimes I struggle to be succinct in my point making,
357
00:19:46.200 --> 00:19:50.830
which I am trying to work on, I will often go back to my experiences in Vietnam,
358
00:19:50.830 --> 00:19:54.990
especially with my Vietnamese friends and the way they eat and live and do
359
00:19:54.990 --> 00:19:56.710
fitness and just do life in general.
360
00:19:57.170 --> 00:20:01.230
It is markedly different than my more say Western or more, more Irish friends.
361
00:20:01.250 --> 00:20:04.710
100%. Same with Spain. Spain have a very rich food culture too.
362
00:20:05.030 --> 00:20:06.710
I don't know what their obesity rate is like,
363
00:20:06.710 --> 00:20:09.390
but I do know the Mediterranean diet is quite high in the list of
364
00:20:09.390 --> 00:20:09.910
recommendations.
365
00:20:09.910 --> 00:20:13.390
So I've seen the lowest obesity rate in the world and the Mediterranean diet
366
00:20:13.390 --> 00:20:18.250
firsthand for the last five years. And not one, the the common thing Nolan, the,
367
00:20:18.350 --> 00:20:19.050
the common thing.
368
00:20:19.050 --> 00:20:23.680
I have never heard one of my Spanish or Vietnamese friends demonize or single
369
00:20:23.740 --> 00:20:26.760
out one specific food on the plate that's, I can't touch that.
370
00:20:26.760 --> 00:20:27.920
That's off my plan. Yeah.
371
00:20:28.060 --> 00:20:31.680
And I've never heard one of my Vietnamese or my Spanish friends.
372
00:20:33.090 --> 00:20:34.950
[Nolan] We had a bit of an internet issue there,</v>
373
00:20:34.970 --> 00:20:37.750
so I'm not quite sure where this is leaving off. Uh,
374
00:20:37.750 --> 00:20:40.950
but Paul was talking a lot about, um,
375
00:20:41.530 --> 00:20:46.390
the attitude towards food and how that affects obesity more
376
00:20:46.390 --> 00:20:47.720
than just what you're eating.
377
00:20:48.700 --> 00:20:51.440
And I was gonna bring this up later on the show,
378
00:20:51.500 --> 00:20:54.600
but since you're already talking about it, um,
379
00:20:54.660 --> 00:20:59.360
are you familiar with the French paradox? Have you heard this term before?
380
00:21:00.560 --> 00:21:04.920
[Paul] I, without having heard it, I would've a theory that I know where it can go,</v>
381
00:21:05.060 --> 00:21:07.280
I'm assuming with the French?
382
00:21:07.340 --> 00:21:10.520
[Nolan] No, I'll I'll go over it. I'll go over it. Um, but you'll,</v>
383
00:21:10.520 --> 00:21:12.920
you'll know exactly what I'm talking about because you,
384
00:21:12.980 --> 00:21:17.440
you actually already talked about it a couple seconds ago. Um, but it's,
385
00:21:17.670 --> 00:21:21.480
despite the greater prevalence of fat and much of the French cuisine,
386
00:21:21.580 --> 00:21:23.560
the French have a longer lifespan,
387
00:21:23.620 --> 00:21:28.520
are thinner and have lower heart disease rates than Americans.
388
00:21:29.210 --> 00:21:30.043
Right?
389
00:21:30.580 --> 00:21:34.480
And the researchers started looking into this and, uh,
390
00:21:34.480 --> 00:21:39.320
two researchers Renauld and de Lord from—
391
00:21:39.320 --> 00:21:42.960
uh, 1992 was the study. And they thought it,
392
00:21:43.430 --> 00:21:45.040
they said it was because of the wine,
393
00:21:45.630 --> 00:21:50.320
because the wine I inhibits plum uh,
394
00:21:50.760 --> 00:21:52.880
platelet reactivity. Um,
395
00:21:52.940 --> 00:21:57.200
and that could reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. But that,
396
00:21:57.200 --> 00:22:00.440
that theory is a little bit iffy. I mean especially since 1992,
397
00:22:00.440 --> 00:22:04.400
we've done a lot more research into alcohol and I think especially our
398
00:22:04.400 --> 00:22:08.160
generation, we know just how bad alcohol can be. Uh,
399
00:22:08.180 --> 00:22:12.720
but then some other researchers started looking at it and it was more about the
400
00:22:12.720 --> 00:22:14.960
portion size and that's, um,
401
00:22:15.010 --> 00:22:18.840
seven that the portions in America are 70 to 80% bigger.
402
00:22:19.740 --> 00:22:22.130
But then they also looked at,
403
00:22:22.150 --> 00:22:26.410
and I think this is the main one and and you've already, uh, hinted towards it,
404
00:22:26.750 --> 00:22:31.690
is that the French view cooking as a leisure activity and they don't,
405
00:22:31.710 --> 00:22:32.930
as you said, um,
406
00:22:32.930 --> 00:22:36.770
when you're talking about Mediterranean cultures demonize the food, right.
407
00:22:36.790 --> 00:22:38.930
And I think, I think that's has,
408
00:22:39.530 --> 00:22:42.890
I think that's the most important thing for people to think about is just love
409
00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:47.210
what you're eating and um, I forget which article it is of yours,
410
00:22:47.630 --> 00:22:52.610
but you lay out all these questions you should be asking yourself while you're
411
00:22:52.610 --> 00:22:54.490
eating. Or just like some of the descriptors,
412
00:22:55.090 --> 00:22:58.330
I was fortunate enough just to be raised that way. Like my parents,
413
00:22:58.780 --> 00:23:02.930
while we're eating, we would always be talking about the smells, the tastes,
414
00:23:03.070 --> 00:23:06.050
the memories it's bringing up and everything like that.
415
00:23:06.110 --> 00:23:09.610
And thought about alcohol being bad. Sometimes we do that with a good scotch,
416
00:23:09.610 --> 00:23:13.050
right? You smell the scotch, you think about the notes, how it makes you feel,
417
00:23:13.150 --> 00:23:17.970
and that also ties into the French with their wine and everything. Um,
418
00:23:19.030 --> 00:23:20.090
so yeah.
419
00:23:20.510 --> 00:23:25.210
Do you wanna expand a little bit more about that and how you help clients who
420
00:23:25.260 --> 00:23:29.170
might not have this mindset, like, I'm lucky enough just to be,
421
00:23:29.360 --> 00:23:32.930
just to be raised with it, but how do you help your clients who,
422
00:23:33.350 --> 00:23:35.290
who need to adapt this type of mindset?
423
00:23:37.010 --> 00:23:39.950
[Paul] Two things stood out for me there about you is the joy,</v>
424
00:23:40.210 --> 00:23:44.190
the actual joy on your face when you spoke about your own diet is very,
425
00:23:45.260 --> 00:23:47.640
um, it was lovely to see, I have to say,
426
00:23:47.780 --> 00:23:51.120
as someone who speaks to a lot of people that have maybe lost the joy in food,
427
00:23:51.120 --> 00:23:53.960
it's lovely to see when someone genuinely has that. And your,
428
00:23:53.960 --> 00:23:58.600
your self-awareness in terms of recognizing the role of your upbringing is key
429
00:23:58.600 --> 00:24:00.920
as well because I, I think that tends to get downplayed a lot.
430
00:24:01.220 --> 00:24:06.070
I'm sure you're very aware as someone with your typical introspection that our
431
00:24:06.230 --> 00:24:09.830
behavior as adults sits on the shoulders of how we were raised as kids.
432
00:24:10.610 --> 00:24:15.470
And I, I see people who have had the joy ripped away from food, uh,
433
00:24:15.470 --> 00:24:17.150
from a a young age. Look,
434
00:24:17.190 --> 00:24:20.750
I suppose the biggest thing that I try and do as a trainer and as any kind of
435
00:24:20.960 --> 00:24:25.930
guide or mentor that I might beat to anybody is to distinguish
436
00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:29.050
between really healthy nutrition guidelines,
437
00:24:29.670 --> 00:24:34.610
really harmful food rules, and then maybe personal abilities or personal skills.
438
00:24:35.150 --> 00:24:38.770
So for example, I think it's a terrible thing to have a food rule.
439
00:24:38.910 --> 00:24:43.850
You're not a machine so that I can't tell you not to eat food X not to eat after
440
00:24:44.090 --> 00:24:47.570
y o'clock or to eat precisely this quantity of such a thing.
441
00:24:48.010 --> 00:24:51.490
I think it's kind kind of like telling you to use the toilet at this hour and
442
00:24:51.490 --> 00:24:54.650
only get sexually turned on by this activity. I don't think it helps.
443
00:24:55.960 --> 00:24:58.480
I think guidelines are fantastic cuz they create routine.
444
00:24:58.540 --> 00:25:02.240
If you're gonna enjoy a flexible dietary pattern, you have to have boundaries.
445
00:25:02.580 --> 00:25:06.200
You can't be flexible unless you have something in order to adhere to.
446
00:25:06.200 --> 00:25:10.280
If you are just eating quote on quote junk foods, and I don't love the term,
447
00:25:10.300 --> 00:25:13.760
but roll with me here. If you're eating low, low nutrient food all day,
448
00:25:13.980 --> 00:25:16.520
that's not really flexible because you're not adhering to anything.
449
00:25:16.580 --> 00:25:17.320
To be flexible,
450
00:25:17.320 --> 00:25:21.560
you need to have an feel to say no and the skill to say yes appropriately.
451
00:25:22.460 --> 00:25:25.860
And with guidelines you might say, you know, create a routine,
452
00:25:26.280 --> 00:25:30.020
eat every so many hours, um, really figure this out for yourself.
453
00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:32.540
And then skills are more personal aspects.
454
00:25:32.840 --> 00:25:35.060
Do I really need this mindless snack right now?
455
00:25:35.560 --> 00:25:39.180
If I'm gonna have a delicious scotch, do I really need the third,
456
00:25:40.040 --> 00:25:42.860
the third getting into hangover territory? Could I stop at two?
457
00:25:42.860 --> 00:25:45.060
Could I have the joy in two? Could I leave it at two?
458
00:25:45.190 --> 00:25:47.380
Could I be happy that I'm saying no? It,
459
00:25:48.480 --> 00:25:52.930
and and it's like you're just touching base with yourself
460
00:25:53.070 --> 00:25:56.890
skills. Like, like I said, right? There's being taught about safe sex,
461
00:25:57.190 --> 00:26:02.120
but then there's knowing what and when turns you on and who and with
462
00:26:02.120 --> 00:26:04.720
what and what the boundaries of that relationship. To some people,
463
00:26:05.440 --> 00:26:07.200
monogamy is the norm. And to others,
464
00:26:07.670 --> 00:26:10.400
like to some people a third party would be the ultimate portrayal.
465
00:26:10.400 --> 00:26:12.480
And to others is the casual evening when they open up.
466
00:26:12.940 --> 00:26:16.120
And I'm saying that as somebody who is in a very healthy, committed,
467
00:26:16.120 --> 00:26:17.120
monogamous relationship,
468
00:26:17.480 --> 00:26:20.960
I would not like anybody else's ideals inflicted onto me.
469
00:26:21.260 --> 00:26:23.800
So I have no interest in inflicting my ideals onto someone else.
470
00:26:24.080 --> 00:26:26.640
I think values are vital and,
471
00:26:26.640 --> 00:26:28.720
and that I think it's values that ties it back together.
472
00:26:29.330 --> 00:26:30.840
Nolan comes to me today and says, Paul,
473
00:26:30.860 --> 00:26:35.120
I'm gonna have a slice of cake and a scotch and I'll say, why? And you'll say,
474
00:26:35.440 --> 00:26:38.780
I couldn't be bothered cooking and I'm not so sure I'll,
475
00:26:38.780 --> 00:26:39.980
I'll tell you it's the best option.
476
00:26:40.200 --> 00:26:43.280
But if you say it's my birthday today and I want cake and scotch, I'm like,
477
00:26:43.280 --> 00:26:43.920
knock yourself out.
478
00:26:43.920 --> 00:26:48.770
That sound that sounds amazing and values is knowing that you will
479
00:26:49.010 --> 00:26:51.330
probably have goals that kind of conflict with each other. Like,
480
00:26:51.330 --> 00:26:54.410
I love being healthy and I love getting stronger at chin ups and I love beer.
481
00:26:54.600 --> 00:26:57.770
They immediately conflict with each other unless I dig deeper and think, okay,
482
00:26:57.770 --> 00:26:59.090
well I'm gonna need to negotiate here,
483
00:26:59.350 --> 00:27:01.650
but I can eat 20 beers a night and get better at chin ups.
484
00:27:01.670 --> 00:27:04.130
But I [inaudible] three and I twice a week.
485
00:27:04.440 --> 00:27:07.450
Like I think you always have to put yourself in a wise way,
486
00:27:07.590 --> 00:27:08.890
but nobody can do that for me.
487
00:27:09.310 --> 00:27:13.240
And when I'm trying to bring clients to a better understanding of themselves,
488
00:27:13.240 --> 00:27:17.030
ultimately I'm trying to remind them you're going to come face to face with a
489
00:27:17.030 --> 00:27:20.910
really ugly part of the process that has to make you be a philosophically
490
00:27:20.910 --> 00:27:21.690
different person.
491
00:27:21.690 --> 00:27:24.030
You're gonna be tempted to quiz and go straight back to the old pattern.
492
00:27:24.570 --> 00:27:27.230
That's the moment I need you to tap into that value system,
493
00:27:27.230 --> 00:27:28.670
that wisdom that you're trying to cultivate.
494
00:27:28.830 --> 00:27:30.830
I can't tell you what to do in that situation. And I,
495
00:27:31.030 --> 00:27:34.430
I would argue you find yourself in that situation cuz you've constantly
496
00:27:34.430 --> 00:27:37.510
outsourced the what should I eat, when should I do it to somebody else?
497
00:27:37.610 --> 00:27:40.910
And I think it's a subliminal out of doing the, the,
498
00:27:41.050 --> 00:27:45.720
the value work needed to create a good relationship to food. And I mean,
499
00:27:46.020 --> 00:27:48.760
no, I could talk about this all day long and barely scratch the surface,
500
00:27:48.860 --> 00:27:51.600
but that covering a little bit of the labor of what I think feather of the
501
00:27:51.600 --> 00:27:52.433
trainers day.
502
00:27:53.040 --> 00:27:54.770
[Nolan] Perfect. And yeah, a as you said, you,</v>
503
00:27:54.770 --> 00:27:58.330
you can only scratch the surface right now and it's something that is an ongoing
504
00:27:58.330 --> 00:28:00.650
battle. And I think that's the mistake.
505
00:28:00.650 --> 00:28:04.610
Well I used to work as a personal trainer as well, um, and like you,
506
00:28:04.630 --> 00:28:07.090
I'm just very into fitness and nutrition,
507
00:28:07.350 --> 00:28:11.130
but I've never been someone that's followed all the fads and the trends.
508
00:28:11.650 --> 00:28:14.930
I always like to look at the rules and look at all the new things that are
509
00:28:14.930 --> 00:28:19.370
coming out just to kind of like learn from it and pick and choose. Um,
510
00:28:19.430 --> 00:28:21.290
but I think a lot of personal trainers,
511
00:28:21.290 --> 00:28:25.570
they make the mistake because it's easier to just give the rules, right?
512
00:28:25.600 --> 00:28:28.610
Like this is what you're supposed to do. Try this, try this trend.
513
00:28:29.080 --> 00:28:32.770
It's so much harder as a personal trainer to do what you are doing.
514
00:28:32.870 --> 00:28:34.610
And that's actually like changing the mindset,
515
00:28:34.990 --> 00:28:38.750
but it's also going to have such a better result on the,
516
00:28:38.770 --> 00:28:42.710
on the people and such more long, long-term results. But as you say, it takes,
517
00:28:42.720 --> 00:28:45.550
takes a lot more work as well. Uh.
518
00:28:45.700 --> 00:28:50.350
[Paul] Well Nolan, the why, why are you beaming with joy when you talk about food? Why,</v>
519
00:28:50.450 --> 00:28:53.390
why are you not sitting anxiously now worried about those things?
520
00:28:53.390 --> 00:28:54.223
You can't have?
521
00:28:54.580 --> 00:28:58.430
It's because you clearly don't have a dichotomy that you can't have the thing,
522
00:28:58.690 --> 00:29:01.510
the thing isn't on your mind cuz you're not thinking about the thing.
523
00:29:01.810 --> 00:29:04.950
So as soon as I tell you you can't have the thing, it becomes a thing.
524
00:29:05.410 --> 00:29:07.550
And if I say think, yeah, not my
525
00:29:08.870 --> 00:29:11.150
[Nolan] I, I, so I've never had it with food.</v>
526
00:29:11.150 --> 00:29:14.710
I've always had a really healthy relationship with food. Fitness, Um,
527
00:29:15.330 --> 00:29:20.030
I'm addicted. Like I can't go three days without uh,
528
00:29:20.030 --> 00:29:24.390
working out. If I'm not a little bit sore, I just feel awful. Uh, [Laughter]
529
00:29:24.390 --> 00:29:27.030
that's more of an addiction there. But alcohol,
530
00:29:27.030 --> 00:29:29.630
that's one where I've noticed that kind of mindset.
531
00:29:29.890 --> 00:29:34.510
And I know that with alcohol, genes can play a role as well. But for me,
532
00:29:34.810 --> 00:29:37.430
um, when I lived in Canada and uh,
533
00:29:37.450 --> 00:29:42.080
one of my partners was someone who didn't like when I got wasted and the more
534
00:29:42.230 --> 00:29:45.880
like mentioned like, don't drink more than three beers, don't do more than this.
535
00:29:46.020 --> 00:29:50.680
Be careful with this, you act like this. The more I would try to drink less,
536
00:29:51.100 --> 00:29:54.320
but then when the opportunity would come, I would just lose control.
537
00:29:54.390 --> 00:29:58.680
Like after four drinks, it's like, okay, uh, [Laughter] let,
538
00:29:58.690 --> 00:30:00.120
let's just keep this going.
539
00:30:01.180 --> 00:30:04.920
And it's always been something like I've kind of had to, to keep an eye on.
540
00:30:04.990 --> 00:30:09.000
Luckily with my fitness addiction, I, I couldn't get hungover very often,
541
00:30:09.060 --> 00:30:12.400
so it would only be like, you know, maybe twice a month or something like that.
542
00:30:12.940 --> 00:30:17.840
But I've noticed that I've got rid of this in Spain and I don't know
543
00:30:18.160 --> 00:30:22.560
if it's like what you talked about earlier with the sun or if it's just a
544
00:30:22.560 --> 00:30:23.260
culture here,
545
00:30:23.260 --> 00:30:28.200
people don't get wasted like they do in Ireland or in Canada or in
546
00:30:28.200 --> 00:30:32.400
England, right? People drink at 9:00 AM here sometimes [Laughter] .
547
00:30:33.100 --> 00:30:37.720
Um, but they're not getting wasted. And it's, it's again, with that mindset.
548
00:30:37.900 --> 00:30:42.560
And I think I've adapted to that now because now even if I have three beers,
549
00:30:43.100 --> 00:30:45.880
I'm not all of a sudden like, oh, I want to drink more. I'm like, I,
550
00:30:46.280 --> 00:30:48.880
I feel way more in tune with my body.
551
00:30:49.340 --> 00:30:52.200
And that wasn't like a conscious thing. It was really,
552
00:30:52.600 --> 00:30:53.840
I think just from moving here.
553
00:30:55.110 --> 00:30:58.870
[Paul] I, it's so funny, me and my girlfriend talk about the same thing the whole time.</v>
554
00:30:58.970 --> 00:31:01.190
We could go out with friends here and we often do,
555
00:31:01.410 --> 00:31:05.630
and you might have four or five cañas of those little beers throughout a
556
00:31:06.480 --> 00:31:10.060
six hour evening, say three hours for dinner and a couple of drinks after.
557
00:31:10.200 --> 00:31:12.940
And it would be the equivalent of having say, two pints back home.
558
00:31:13.320 --> 00:31:17.210
But I'd have two pints in the first half an hour back home, just the culture.
559
00:31:17.720 --> 00:31:21.130
It's just how we drink. It's just the norm. So yeah, I,
560
00:31:21.210 --> 00:31:24.210
I have found my relationship with alcohol has changed drastically. Like,
561
00:31:24.210 --> 00:31:25.290
I drank heavy when I was younger.
562
00:31:25.650 --> 00:31:28.730
I quit entirely in my mid twenties when I became a trainer and I wanted to build
563
00:31:28.730 --> 00:31:30.810
up a business. But since I've moved to Spain,
564
00:31:31.010 --> 00:31:33.970
I I have a very good relationship with alcohol. I,
565
00:31:34.880 --> 00:31:38.170
it's another thing I suppose that I don't resonate with, with the Irish culture.
566
00:31:38.330 --> 00:31:41.130
I find a lot of people are kind of on the beer or off the beer.
567
00:31:41.550 --> 00:31:42.930
You know where I'm off now? Yeah.
568
00:31:42.930 --> 00:31:43.050
[Nolan] Well,</v>
569
00:31:43.050 --> 00:31:46.210
it's a little bit freaky how much we have in common because it was same routine
570
00:31:46.210 --> 00:31:47.330
with me, like early twenties,
571
00:31:47.330 --> 00:31:52.050
like had a couple party years and then mid twenties actually took like an entire
572
00:31:52.050 --> 00:31:53.970
year off of drinking. Uh,
573
00:31:54.070 --> 00:31:57.130
and then now have more of like a healthy relationship with it here in Spain.
574
00:31:57.200 --> 00:31:58.033
It's crazy.
575
00:31:58.410 --> 00:32:00.850
[Paul] I I think we have, we have a very similar trajectory.</v>
576
00:32:01.490 --> 00:32:05.470
I think when you leave your home, when you see other cultures,
577
00:32:05.470 --> 00:32:08.270
when you see other people, it does expand.
578
00:32:08.270 --> 00:32:09.910
It's the most cliche thing in the world. It,
579
00:32:09.910 --> 00:32:12.910
it expands you in just ways that you didn't think were possible.
580
00:32:12.930 --> 00:32:16.070
You can't know what lessons you're gonna take on the journey. Um,
581
00:32:16.090 --> 00:32:19.550
if you'd have told me that this would be my relationship to alcohol and to food
582
00:32:19.550 --> 00:32:22.870
and to my body, even say five, six years ago, I would've never believed you.
583
00:32:23.370 --> 00:32:26.110
But there's something in the water down here in Nal Lucia. It,
584
00:32:26.130 --> 00:32:29.510
it just gives me a better relationship to all the things that I enjoy.
585
00:32:30.340 --> 00:32:31.080
And you know,
586
00:32:31.080 --> 00:32:35.720
I wish it for everybody to find the place or to find the environment that makes
587
00:32:35.720 --> 00:32:37.640
you a more enriched person of yourself.
588
00:32:37.640 --> 00:32:40.480
Because I know not everybody's fortunate to get that. I am lucky,
589
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:43.870
I have good friends, I have good people, and I live in a nice place.
590
00:32:44.950 --> 00:32:49.290
And once you kind of find that, that's a real sense of enough. So,
591
00:32:50.080 --> 00:32:52.900
and, and then the nature of my work as well, I, I see what,
592
00:32:53.450 --> 00:32:56.700
what bad relationships to food and to alcohol and to certain things.
593
00:32:56.740 --> 00:33:00.780
I see what they do to life. And you can only see that so many times before you,
594
00:33:00.880 --> 00:33:03.900
it, you question your own relationship to certain things too, you know,
595
00:33:03.900 --> 00:33:04.940
that kinda way.
596
00:33:05.630 --> 00:33:08.540
[Nolan] Yeah, definitely. Here now pause, since we're talking about,</v>
597
00:33:08.540 --> 00:33:11.180
we talk a little bit about our personal connections and you talk a little bit
598
00:33:11.180 --> 00:33:12.860
about your clients. Um,
599
00:33:13.400 --> 00:33:16.500
and we're talking about how culture influences the,
600
00:33:17.200 --> 00:33:18.980
the nutrition and our own health.
601
00:33:19.210 --> 00:33:21.140
Something that's a little bit more serious than,
602
00:33:21.210 --> 00:33:25.500
than our issues here is when we're looking at like eating disorders and even
603
00:33:25.530 --> 00:33:26.860
that is culturally bound.
604
00:33:26.860 --> 00:33:30.700
So I just wanna read a couple things here and just get your thoughts on it. Uh,
605
00:33:30.700 --> 00:33:31.410
like bu uh,
606
00:33:31.410 --> 00:33:36.300
bulimia is a culture bound syndrome because it's mostly just in the modern
607
00:33:36.540 --> 00:33:39.020
cultures, uh, with Western influence.
608
00:33:39.720 --> 00:33:41.660
And like if we look at the historic literature,
609
00:33:41.660 --> 00:33:43.660
there's little evidence of it existing,
610
00:33:44.360 --> 00:33:48.380
but then anorexia is a lot more complicated.
611
00:33:49.320 --> 00:33:54.020
Um, like they did one study in 1992 and they found no evidence of
612
00:33:54.180 --> 00:33:58.020
anorexia among Pakistani schoolgirls. Um,
613
00:33:58.130 --> 00:34:02.940
they also found fewer instances of anorexia in China compared to the
614
00:34:02.940 --> 00:34:04.420
west. Um,
615
00:34:05.620 --> 00:34:10.400
so it seems like anorexia is less culture bound than
616
00:34:10.990 --> 00:34:14.320
bulimia. What, what, what do you think, what, what,
617
00:34:14.320 --> 00:34:19.210
what are some of the reasons this might be or have you noticed it with clients
618
00:34:19.350 --> 00:34:23.930
at all or have you had to use any of your knowledge to
619
00:34:24.120 --> 00:34:25.930
kind of adapt to this?
620
00:34:27.470 --> 00:34:31.930
[Paul] My big I have a, a theory that I believe on good evidence. I would,</v>
621
00:34:32.490 --> 00:34:35.250
I would even like to look into it further before I really speak on the air.
622
00:34:35.250 --> 00:34:36.010
But I'm happy to,
623
00:34:36.010 --> 00:34:39.530
on the basis that I'm confident what I'm about to say isn't incorrect.
624
00:34:39.750 --> 00:34:43.730
And if somebody does have knowledge who listens and can, you can let me know.
625
00:34:43.790 --> 00:34:48.290
But I, I have worked say on a binge eating course with Dr.
626
00:34:48.290 --> 00:34:52.210
Jake and Arden. So this isn't me just pulling a theory randomly on the air.
627
00:34:52.760 --> 00:34:56.420
It's, I have a strong suspicion that these kind of mechanisms,
628
00:34:57.410 --> 00:34:58.830
individualities aside,
629
00:34:59.330 --> 00:35:04.280
are linked to the rigid diets that one takes up
630
00:35:04.280 --> 00:35:07.160
when they believe that the ideal body images on the other side.
631
00:35:08.290 --> 00:35:09.123
So if you believe,
632
00:35:09.570 --> 00:35:13.990
if you just follow this exact style pattern with no regard,
633
00:35:14.130 --> 00:35:15.510
the toll it takes on your mental,
634
00:35:15.610 --> 00:35:19.690
mental and emotional health because you are going to look like the advertisement
635
00:35:19.690 --> 00:35:23.850
that it promised you that you would look like very possibly unlikely from
636
00:35:23.850 --> 00:35:27.010
someone who advertised that that was taking some kind of medicinal fat burner or
637
00:35:27.010 --> 00:35:30.450
anabolic steroid, you are not going to get that result.
638
00:35:30.990 --> 00:35:34.410
You are going to question why you're going to put the blame solely on yourself.
639
00:35:34.670 --> 00:35:37.480
You're going to attribute a lack of willpower and discipline to yourself.
640
00:35:37.980 --> 00:35:41.680
And then you're going to try and diet yourself up further out of the hole that
641
00:35:41.680 --> 00:35:45.680
you have dieted yourself into. Now I hesitate to say things,
642
00:35:46.400 --> 00:35:47.840
I think eating disorders,
643
00:35:48.030 --> 00:35:52.990
real ones that debilitate lives the pathology there is so, say,
644
00:35:53.860 --> 00:35:54.693
nuanced,
645
00:35:55.560 --> 00:35:59.130
that I feel that that kind of top exact topic should be left to the experts.
646
00:35:59.950 --> 00:36:01.690
And I believe that they, they're somewhere.
647
00:36:02.030 --> 00:36:04.170
And I believe as trainers and coaches, we are in,
648
00:36:04.190 --> 00:36:06.170
in some ways body image coaches not,
649
00:36:06.170 --> 00:36:08.770
not in a sense that I need to be coaching someone to a better body image.
650
00:36:08.850 --> 00:36:12.460
I don't have that ability, but it's my job to look out for the signs.
651
00:36:12.800 --> 00:36:17.260
And if somebody's exhibiting those kind of severe issues,
652
00:36:17.950 --> 00:36:19.980
these binge restrict tendencies,
653
00:36:20.810 --> 00:36:24.060
they are the onset of severe eating disorders.
654
00:36:24.930 --> 00:36:28.670
And I think like roots, they grow when they grow and they grow.
655
00:36:29.420 --> 00:36:33.520
And you mentioned, I think that they, there's no historical evidence long term.
656
00:36:34.620 --> 00:36:36.360
[Nolan] For, for uh, bulimia.</v>
657
00:36:36.550 --> 00:36:40.600
They haven't found much historic literature. Anorexia, yes. Um,
658
00:36:40.840 --> 00:36:44.760
actually among Cath um, sec of Catholics, there were, uh,
659
00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:48.680
Catholic saints and um, then later that,
660
00:36:48.680 --> 00:36:51.080
cause I think I have to go double check think the 12th century,
661
00:36:51.210 --> 00:36:54.800
don't quote me on that. Um, and then later in the 17th,
662
00:36:54.800 --> 00:36:59.560
18th century teenage girls started modeling themselves after those,
663
00:36:59.940 --> 00:37:04.320
uh, those saints, um, I gotta look into the specifics there again, but,
664
00:37:05.260 --> 00:37:08.960
uh, that, that's, that's anorexia but bulimia, they couldn't find anything,
665
00:37:09.300 --> 00:37:13.120
any evidence of that outside of the west, the modern west.
666
00:37:13.780 --> 00:37:17.720
[Paul] You, you'd have to suspect that it is the ideals that have been portrayed.</v>
667
00:37:17.960 --> 00:37:21.040
I know for sure that I've had my own problems with, uh,
668
00:37:21.040 --> 00:37:22.840
certainly bulimia and binge eating in the past.
669
00:37:22.840 --> 00:37:24.560
That's why I'm so passionate about what I do now.
670
00:37:24.560 --> 00:37:28.680
And that's why I'm so obsessed professionally with helping people get a really
671
00:37:28.680 --> 00:37:31.800
good relationship with food. You know, I've been asked so many times,
672
00:37:32.140 --> 00:37:35.840
was my upbringing a part of why I developed severe body image hangups?
673
00:37:36.100 --> 00:37:40.280
And I don't believe it was, I don't, I didn't have an upbringing.
674
00:37:41.220 --> 00:37:43.520
Um, I would, I'd be hesitate to say it was any difficult,
675
00:37:43.620 --> 00:37:45.080
any more difficult than anybody else's.
676
00:37:45.320 --> 00:37:48.800
I genuinely believe it was picking up fitness magazines at 15 years old and
677
00:37:48.800 --> 00:37:52.080
seeing a really jacked guy who was on steroids telling me that eat,
678
00:37:52.140 --> 00:37:53.080
eat big to get big.
679
00:37:53.080 --> 00:37:55.360
And then you do that for three weeks and then the next month is a really
680
00:37:55.360 --> 00:37:57.680
shredded dude and it's, you know, zero carbs for the,
681
00:37:57.680 --> 00:37:59.160
for this amount of fat loss.
682
00:37:59.160 --> 00:38:02.120
And you try that and all of a sudden you don't really know what you're doing,
683
00:38:02.220 --> 00:38:06.480
but you're tired and you're hungry and you're starving and you can't flex your
684
00:38:06.880 --> 00:38:07.620
critical thinking muscle.
685
00:38:07.620 --> 00:38:11.120
You've taken no time to create your personal values and then you just find
686
00:38:11.280 --> 00:38:12.520
yourself exhausted.
687
00:38:12.520 --> 00:38:15.600
Or you eat something that makes you feel guilty and you just think maybe I'm,
688
00:38:16.540 --> 00:38:20.080
I wasn't supposed to eat that. Maybe if I get sick it will help.
689
00:38:20.540 --> 00:38:23.520
And then all of a sudden that becomes a mechanism every single time you eat
690
00:38:23.520 --> 00:38:25.280
something that's quote unquote not on the diet,
691
00:38:26.340 --> 00:38:29.910
that you make yourself sick to justify eating it and it becomes a really
692
00:38:29.910 --> 00:38:32.150
problematic behavior. Or at least that's what happened to me.
693
00:38:32.410 --> 00:38:35.680
And I spent years on and off in that cycle and not many people would've known
694
00:38:35.680 --> 00:38:36.513
that.
695
00:38:36.620 --> 00:38:39.920
And I'm sure because of my personality and the way I present to my friends,
696
00:38:39.920 --> 00:38:42.320
they would've definitely not noticed to do. But it, you can,
697
00:38:42.340 --> 00:38:43.800
you can play face around people.
698
00:38:43.860 --> 00:38:47.140
You can always pretend to be someone you're not or,
699
00:38:47.140 --> 00:38:49.820
or even not exactly pretending to be someone I'm not.
700
00:38:49.820 --> 00:38:52.940
But you can pretend that part of you you're struggling with doesn't exist and
701
00:38:52.940 --> 00:38:54.420
then you go home and you suffer alone.
702
00:38:55.080 --> 00:38:59.460
So I do suspect big time that these images are a massive
703
00:39:00.370 --> 00:39:04.360
part of it. But then I think I heard you and Cesar there talk about kind of, um,
704
00:39:04.600 --> 00:39:07.800
I know you mentioned woke culture on your podcast and I'm not opening a kind of
705
00:39:07.880 --> 00:39:08.200
worms here,
706
00:39:08.200 --> 00:39:11.040
but I think the pendulum has swung a little bit too far in the other direction
707
00:39:11.040 --> 00:39:11.873
where it's [Laughter] .
708
00:39:12.600 --> 00:39:15.880
[Nolan] I am opening that can of worms cause I was actually just gonna ask you about,</v>
709
00:39:16.810 --> 00:39:18.360
about that. Um, Mary,
710
00:39:18.460 --> 00:39:21.600
say what you're gonna say that I [Laughter] I do have some questions related to to
711
00:39:21.600 --> 00:39:22.480
that I, no.
712
00:39:22.480 --> 00:39:24.760
[Paul] You asked what you've wanna ask cuz I have a feeling we're about to clean up.</v>
713
00:39:24.790 --> 00:39:25.623
Okay.
714
00:39:26.590 --> 00:39:30.800
[Nolan] Okay. Yeah cuz I think the pendulum [Laughter] swung a little bit too far as well.</v>
715
00:39:31.420 --> 00:39:35.480
Um, with any, before I get into one, one quote I wanted Yeah.
716
00:39:35.780 --> 00:39:36.000
[Paul] No,</v>
717
00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:40.120
about any movement and with any ism there's always going to be a subset of very
718
00:39:40.120 --> 00:39:43.920
loud voices that take the best aspects of any given movement and turn a toxic.
719
00:39:46.290 --> 00:39:50.980
[Nolan] Yeah, definitely, definitely. Here I'm going to read a few things. Um,</v>
720
00:39:51.480 --> 00:39:56.130
one comes from um, uh,
721
00:39:56.130 --> 00:39:59.850
what's her name, uh, Anne Helen Peterson.
722
00:40:00.340 --> 00:40:04.970
She's a writer from culture study on. And there was one line from an article I,
723
00:40:04.970 --> 00:40:08.650
or a couple lines or I thought it was pretty clever then I comment on it,
724
00:40:08.650 --> 00:40:10.970
commented on it. But here, uh,
725
00:40:10.990 --> 00:40:15.930
the evils of drinking your calories became a constant drumbeat of diet
726
00:40:15.930 --> 00:40:20.410
culture around the time because we were told that juice flavored milk and non
727
00:40:20.410 --> 00:40:25.370
diet soda were just ways to pile on empty sugary calories that offered no
728
00:40:25.370 --> 00:40:26.203
redeeming value.
729
00:40:26.830 --> 00:40:31.770
And we can already see the classist racist weirdness emerging because this was
730
00:40:31.880 --> 00:40:36.650
also the heyday of smoothie culture juicing and master cleanses to say nothing
731
00:40:36.870 --> 00:40:40.210
of the legacy of SlimFast Slim, slim SlimFast.
732
00:40:40.550 --> 00:40:44.890
So don't drink your calories unless you're only drinking your calories. Cool.
733
00:40:45.670 --> 00:40:49.210
And [Laughter] I thought that was a pretty interesting segment of it,
734
00:40:49.210 --> 00:40:49.760
but what are,
735
00:40:49.760 --> 00:40:53.970
what she was really talking about there was breaking free from diet culture
736
00:40:54.670 --> 00:40:59.260
and then using fat as a neutral descriptor.
737
00:40:59.880 --> 00:41:03.670
Right? And this is where I think it ties into [Laughter]
738
00:41:03.670 --> 00:41:07.990
let's say woke culture and uh, kind of swinging it too far.
739
00:41:08.850 --> 00:41:13.070
Um, I think using fat as a neutral descriptor is excellent,
740
00:41:13.570 --> 00:41:18.190
but it's been so natural in many cultures and I think, uh,
741
00:41:18.190 --> 00:41:21.430
especially when I talk to some older generations here in Spain or in South
742
00:41:21.430 --> 00:41:24.870
America, like Gordo, que tal, right?
743
00:41:24.970 --> 00:41:29.630
It was always just like more normal. If I teach my Chinese students,
744
00:41:30.410 --> 00:41:34.160
um, a lot of times it's like they talk about their body size,
745
00:41:34.500 --> 00:41:39.040
the way they talk about, about hair, right? Like, oh,
746
00:41:39.340 --> 00:41:43.800
uh, my mom's fat, uh, my dad's skinny [Laughter] I'm blonde, right? And it's,
747
00:41:43.820 --> 00:41:47.440
it doesn't have this sense of shame, doesn't have the sense of guilt,
748
00:41:47.440 --> 00:41:49.880
doesn't have any of that around it. And I,
749
00:41:50.160 --> 00:41:54.360
I think that is something that we should be trying to promote when we're being
750
00:41:54.390 --> 00:41:59.200
more open to like having, you know, like fat models and things like that.
751
00:41:59.280 --> 00:42:02.600
I think it's great to show like, okay, you can have a healthy,
752
00:42:02.740 --> 00:42:04.560
bigger body, excellent,
753
00:42:04.980 --> 00:42:08.800
but that's not what the magazines are doing at this point anymore, right?
754
00:42:08.800 --> 00:42:13.160
They're showing people that are truly obese on like an
755
00:42:13.230 --> 00:42:14.280
unhealthy level.
756
00:42:14.900 --> 00:42:19.440
And I think they're doing it to counter all the other side of it, but I don't,
757
00:42:19.900 --> 00:42:23.640
it always has to be these extremes. Like all these super jack steroids people,
758
00:42:23.640 --> 00:42:28.560
steroid people and anorexic models and then now very obese models
759
00:42:28.800 --> 00:42:33.720
which are also not, um, like showing a healthy body image.
760
00:42:34.460 --> 00:42:38.500
And I'm not like, I'm sure a lot of people right now listening to this show,
761
00:42:38.500 --> 00:42:41.900
they're probably thinking, you're fat shaming, you're fat shaming. I'm like,
762
00:42:42.700 --> 00:42:45.040
really? Like that's the rhetoric around it now,
763
00:42:45.070 --> 00:42:49.920
just because I'm saying we shouldn't have models that are that huge as an
764
00:42:49.930 --> 00:42:53.680
image of health because it's not. And wait,
765
00:42:53.780 --> 00:42:55.240
I'm growing a little bit on tangent here,
766
00:42:55.260 --> 00:42:59.080
but lets put a finish up before we get your side into it. Um,
767
00:42:59.920 --> 00:43:04.860
I mean if we look at the predisposition of a bigger body that
768
00:43:05.040 --> 00:43:06.060
exists for sure,
769
00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:11.540
but if we look at culture and we can see the amount of like
770
00:43:11.970 --> 00:43:16.660
just extreme obesity that exists in the United States and doesn't exist in other
771
00:43:16.660 --> 00:43:20.340
cultures, you can't say it's a like a genetic thing anymore.
772
00:43:20.400 --> 00:43:22.420
It really is like a health,
773
00:43:22.530 --> 00:43:26.460
it's a choice that you're making in those cases, right. Now,
774
00:43:26.460 --> 00:43:29.620
There might be mental issues and everything around that. Um,
775
00:43:30.460 --> 00:43:32.440
but I think that's where it goes a little bit too far.
776
00:43:32.440 --> 00:43:36.400
Like we shouldn't be saying that it's good to be
777
00:43:37.200 --> 00:43:41.640
incredibly huge. And another thing that ties into this is,
778
00:43:41.640 --> 00:43:42.880
I've heard this line before,
779
00:43:43.460 --> 00:43:48.240
one from a really close friend and I didn't know how to react because I don't
780
00:43:48.240 --> 00:43:53.160
want to fat shame and I, I didn't, I didn't really know the correct wording and,
781
00:43:53.180 --> 00:43:57.640
and maybe you do. Um, but he, he and he is a wonderful guy,
782
00:43:57.640 --> 00:43:59.560
but he mentioned to me, um,
783
00:44:00.420 --> 00:44:04.440
the doctors are telling me that I need to lose weight. Um,
784
00:44:04.440 --> 00:44:06.560
like cuz it's on a dangerous level, right? And the doc,
785
00:44:06.560 --> 00:44:08.760
the doctors are telling me that I need to lose weight.
786
00:44:09.100 --> 00:44:10.840
I'm tired of this fat shaming.
787
00:44:12.710 --> 00:44:17.140
And I thought to myself is, is that really fat shaming?
788
00:44:17.140 --> 00:44:21.260
Like are we really at that point now where a doctor can't tell you to try and
789
00:44:21.460 --> 00:44:26.290
lose weight? But yeah, that's kind of my, my tangent and my rant there.
790
00:44:26.400 --> 00:44:30.370
What what do you think? And feel free to disagree, right? It's,
791
00:44:30.370 --> 00:44:31.920
it's something that I'm, I'm just exploring.
792
00:44:32.180 --> 00:44:34.920
[Paul] No, I think it's great. I think you need to be able to explore your thoughts.</v>
793
00:44:35.300 --> 00:44:36.960
Um, so if I'm, to be perfectly honest,
794
00:44:37.040 --> 00:44:41.650
I tend to stay completely away. Maybe I don't even tend to,
795
00:44:41.710 --> 00:44:45.130
I'm just not interested in the pendulum of extremes that the industry swings
796
00:44:45.130 --> 00:44:45.680
into.
797
00:44:45.680 --> 00:44:49.970
I've seen that kind of debate of like super drugged up steroid people versus
798
00:44:50.080 --> 00:44:53.530
then not the other extreme. But I think that's just typical of human nature.
799
00:44:53.690 --> 00:44:56.930
I think the pendulum swings from extreme to extreme in any given domain.
800
00:44:57.410 --> 00:45:02.100
I just think weight is very emotional and I understand why I actually take a
801
00:45:02.220 --> 00:45:03.053
slightly different stance,
802
00:45:03.230 --> 00:45:06.980
which is ironic because it's kind of the same stance that a lot of the body
803
00:45:07.300 --> 00:45:10.810
positive movement would take when a client wants to lose body weight from,
804
00:45:10.840 --> 00:45:13.170
from my point of view, I ask them, can they separate?
805
00:45:13.430 --> 00:45:17.210
Say I'll use you as an example just if you had a 20 pound weight loss goal,
806
00:45:18.200 --> 00:45:19.780
we need to separate Nolan the person,
807
00:45:19.910 --> 00:45:23.420
Nolan the character from body fat to substrate body fat to tissue.
808
00:45:23.480 --> 00:45:25.180
We need to view it like a mathematical equation.
809
00:45:25.560 --> 00:45:29.180
If we wanna break down 20 pounds of body fat over a period of so many weeks,
810
00:45:29.210 --> 00:45:32.620
we'd like to essentially break down 70,000 stored calories.
811
00:45:33.330 --> 00:45:36.470
If you can take the emotion out of it and see it as a substrate and a
812
00:45:36.510 --> 00:45:40.790
mathematical equation to breakdown, you can become a much calmer,
813
00:45:40.790 --> 00:45:45.350
clearer strategic observer of your own thoughts and you can finally become aware
814
00:45:45.350 --> 00:45:50.200
of that wonderful sprinkle of human psychology. We all place over our own goals,
815
00:45:50.250 --> 00:45:54.190
right? And honestly, I don't think about it any deeper than that. Uh,
816
00:45:54.430 --> 00:45:59.430
I think the body positivity movement, when I started my Instagram page in 2015,
817
00:45:59.630 --> 00:46:02.910
I really genuinely thought I was about to stare some kind of body positivity
818
00:46:03.430 --> 00:46:04.263
movement. I really did.
819
00:46:04.550 --> 00:46:07.790
I had just come out of kind of men's physique body building and it wasn't a life
820
00:46:07.810 --> 00:46:11.110
for me. And then I kind of went on Instagram and I thought, whoa, hang on.
821
00:46:11.110 --> 00:46:14.110
These guys are saying that all dieting is bad. And you know,
822
00:46:14.370 --> 00:46:17.830
the accumulation of fat tissue is harmless and that's not true either.
823
00:46:18.010 --> 00:46:19.470
So if we're going to have the conversation,
824
00:46:19.470 --> 00:46:20.790
it needs to be centered around truth.
825
00:46:21.050 --> 00:46:23.590
And unfortunately extremists don't love truth.
826
00:46:23.940 --> 00:46:27.830
They explain of a traumatized worldview is a very black and white
827
00:46:28.420 --> 00:46:29.950
worldview in, in in a sense.
828
00:46:30.410 --> 00:46:34.750
And it's just the same absence of critical thinking on the other side of the
829
00:46:34.830 --> 00:46:38.190
spectrum to be completely bound by diet culture and then to be completely anti-d
830
00:46:38.190 --> 00:46:42.210
diet values come into it. Values are the main thing. So you,
831
00:46:42.650 --> 00:46:46.450
I don't currently wish to diet, but that doesn't mean I think dieting is bad.
832
00:46:47.190 --> 00:46:51.340
Um, so that's kind of the initial point that I wanted to make. I can't,
833
00:46:51.540 --> 00:46:53.220
I can't even, I've lost my train of thought for the second.
834
00:46:53.560 --> 00:46:56.540
You had two points there. One was the body positivity movement,
835
00:46:56.600 --> 00:46:57.433
the second one was.
836
00:46:57.560 --> 00:47:00.020
[Nolan] The body positivity. Um, I brought up a lot there.</v>
837
00:47:00.040 --> 00:47:02.660
And then I was also wondering about your thoughts,
838
00:47:02.880 --> 00:47:07.620
how to approach a friend or a client that says something
839
00:47:07.620 --> 00:47:11.860
like, says something like, oh the doctors are fat shaming me. Right?
840
00:47:11.960 --> 00:47:14.540
And it's like, you're, you, you are worried about them cuz you,
841
00:47:14.540 --> 00:47:18.780
you want the best for their health. How, how would you approach that? I.
842
00:47:18.780 --> 00:47:23.460
[Paul] Think it's probably difficult for a lot of people who have spent a lot of their</v>
843
00:47:23.460 --> 00:47:28.300
life feeling or being judged for a characteristic that they
844
00:47:28.300 --> 00:47:30.440
don't wish to be judged for. Um,
845
00:47:31.160 --> 00:47:35.320
I think there's always an element of whatever element of personal responsibility
846
00:47:35.530 --> 00:47:37.200
comes into any kind of decision making.
847
00:47:39.190 --> 00:47:43.890
I think tact is the biggest thing to involve in
848
00:47:43.890 --> 00:47:48.290
helping anybody change. And I actually don't believe in unsolicited advice.
849
00:47:48.610 --> 00:47:52.770
I think some doctors lack tact. So they'll say things in a very unskillful way,
850
00:47:52.830 --> 00:47:56.250
in a way that basically reenact the same stigma that somebody's always been met
851
00:47:56.250 --> 00:48:00.950
with. But I suppose I say this as a trainer who has, I I've,
852
00:48:01.070 --> 00:48:04.990
I have had a fully booked up client roster say since 2020 online.
853
00:48:04.990 --> 00:48:06.070
Before that I was in person.
854
00:48:06.130 --> 00:48:10.150
So since 2018 I have not not had a full client roster.
855
00:48:10.580 --> 00:48:12.670
Many of those would struggle. I call it this way.
856
00:48:12.670 --> 00:48:13.870
And I'm not trying to be overly pc,
857
00:48:13.970 --> 00:48:17.390
but they struggle with adiposity cause I do separate the person from the tissue.
858
00:48:17.450 --> 00:48:21.590
Cuz I think it makes people more clearer. And I think in the first world,
859
00:48:22.350 --> 00:48:26.110
a lot of our eating habits, it would be easy to dismiss as first world issues.
860
00:48:26.110 --> 00:48:30.310
But I think they're also a symptom of emotional malnutrition and a lot of the
861
00:48:30.310 --> 00:48:34.080
lives that we've been, I guess coaxed into.
862
00:48:34.670 --> 00:48:37.010
And then we realized that this wasn't the life we actually wanted.
863
00:48:37.230 --> 00:48:39.210
And then food is probably the only comfort and joy.
864
00:48:39.260 --> 00:48:43.140
Maybe there's a lot of rigid thinking that comes with it.
865
00:48:43.140 --> 00:48:46.020
And then there's obviously a lot of people that do try diets that don't actually
866
00:48:46.020 --> 00:48:49.540
make them a philosophically better person. Ultimately,
867
00:48:50.380 --> 00:48:52.320
if you want to lead someone to change,
868
00:48:52.460 --> 00:48:55.680
not making them feel like a bag of garbage is probably the first step.
869
00:48:56.720 --> 00:49:00.960
I would also say if you're not a doctor, why? Why does it bother you so much?
870
00:49:01.790 --> 00:49:05.250
I would also say that even if it does bother you,
871
00:49:05.470 --> 00:49:07.490
cuz you're concerned with someone's habits,
872
00:49:08.210 --> 00:49:10.930
I still think they're a better way to bring someone's attention to certain
873
00:49:10.930 --> 00:49:14.130
things that they're doing without shaming them on the outcome that it's bringing
874
00:49:14.130 --> 00:49:17.050
about. Like, Hey, I've noticed you're less active or Hey I've,
875
00:49:17.050 --> 00:49:19.530
I've noticed that you're not going for your walks anymore or you,
876
00:49:19.530 --> 00:49:22.330
you don't seem yourself not even something to you don't seem yourself lately,
877
00:49:22.330 --> 00:49:26.090
is everything okay? But I'll always kind of go back to it.
878
00:49:26.090 --> 00:49:30.330
You need to make people feel safe to express themselves or I don't think they
879
00:49:30.330 --> 00:49:32.090
will do it. I don't think anyone ever wants advice.
880
00:49:32.560 --> 00:49:35.210
People don't change when they're told they need to change.
881
00:49:35.210 --> 00:49:40.190
People change when they undertake voluntarily a strategy that they
882
00:49:40.190 --> 00:49:42.550
deep down suspected they know they need to take.
883
00:49:42.850 --> 00:49:45.790
And then they might find assistance from somebody who they feel they trust.
884
00:49:46.310 --> 00:49:50.190
I have a lady who I'm currently working with in her message to me,
885
00:49:50.330 --> 00:49:52.870
she said the words and she's okay with me sharing this.
886
00:49:52.870 --> 00:49:55.310
She's actually told me this. I'm eating myself to death.
887
00:49:56.220 --> 00:50:00.470
And when she told me on the call her eating habits, I said,
888
00:50:00.570 --> 00:50:01.670
why are you sharing this with me?
889
00:50:01.830 --> 00:50:05.830
A lot of people are not quite as forthright as you because
890
00:50:06.590 --> 00:50:08.920
there's an element of shyness. And she just said,
891
00:50:09.080 --> 00:50:10.680
I just don't get the impression you're judging me.
892
00:50:10.840 --> 00:50:12.360
I get the impression you're solely here to help.
893
00:50:12.530 --> 00:50:14.600
Which is a very kind and gratifying thing to hear.
894
00:50:14.980 --> 00:50:17.440
And it's not that I don't get, it's not that like as a human,
895
00:50:17.540 --> 00:50:20.960
I'm not compelled to judge. Of course I feel compelled to judge things.
896
00:50:20.960 --> 00:50:25.120
That's that's mechanism in my brain. But then immediately within milliseconds,
897
00:50:25.120 --> 00:50:27.600
I can catch myself and think if I went to someone,
898
00:50:28.010 --> 00:50:30.320
let's say a therapist or someone, and I said, look,
899
00:50:30.320 --> 00:50:34.620
this is an issue that I'm having. And they said, really get over that,
900
00:50:35.240 --> 00:50:38.520
that's laziness. Or I'd be, I,
901
00:50:38.600 --> 00:50:42.440
I don't know how thrilled I'd be about that. And, um, I,
902
00:50:42.560 --> 00:50:45.480
I don't think it's my job to be anyone's therapist or psychologist. I,
903
00:50:45.620 --> 00:50:46.680
I'm not saying that at all.
904
00:50:46.820 --> 00:50:50.880
But I consider the dynamic of a client and trainer to have the same respect that
905
00:50:50.920 --> 00:50:54.200
a therapist and a client would have so that they can tell me anything.
906
00:50:54.260 --> 00:50:58.970
And I can either say, I can help you here without my judgment, mudding
907
00:50:59.030 --> 00:50:59.550
the water,
908
00:50:59.550 --> 00:51:02.530
or I can refer you out to somebody else because this is actually much more of a
909
00:51:02.530 --> 00:51:06.050
mental health issue than it is a perspective a trainer can help with issue.
910
00:51:06.510 --> 00:51:09.650
So I, I think if more trainers and more people take that stance in society,
911
00:51:09.700 --> 00:51:13.010
we'll have a lot more people who are, feel emotionally safe to be vulnerable.
912
00:51:13.010 --> 00:51:16.810
Cause I think vulnerability is true courage and true strength and
913
00:51:18.000 --> 00:51:20.490
yeah, that's just, that's what I've found as a trainer.
914
00:51:21.590 --> 00:51:25.060
[Nolan] Definitely. Yeah. I, I agree with that. And well,</v>
915
00:51:25.060 --> 00:51:27.620
I think a lot of people listening to right now are probably, they're like,
916
00:51:27.810 --> 00:51:31.740
shit, I want Paul as a trainer, [Laughter] . Um, so just, just on the show,
917
00:51:31.740 --> 00:51:34.660
can you just give a li uh, a little bit of, um,
918
00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:37.380
an idea of how the sessions work online,
919
00:51:37.380 --> 00:51:41.180
because I think some people who haven't had training online might think like,
920
00:51:41.180 --> 00:51:42.620
how does that work? How can a,
921
00:51:42.760 --> 00:51:46.620
how can someone help me with my movements when they're from such a, a distance?
922
00:51:47.450 --> 00:51:47.570
[Paul] I
923
00:51:47.570 --> 00:51:50.530
get that question all the time. So the first thing is, I actually do still,</v>
924
00:51:50.880 --> 00:51:53.970
only if you're in Spain, one-on-one personal training, like your classic,
925
00:51:54.430 --> 00:51:57.890
do some bicep curls. I still do that. I have two clients here in Malaga. But,
926
00:51:57.910 --> 00:52:02.290
um, overall, it's, it's, it's pretty, it's always, I'm all, pardon,
927
00:52:02.910 --> 00:52:06.090
let me not stumble over my own words. I'm always refining the service.
928
00:52:06.270 --> 00:52:06.810
So right now,
929
00:52:06.810 --> 00:52:11.580
essentially what I do is I ask people what they're struggling with and
930
00:52:11.580 --> 00:52:14.860
where they're trying to go. And we have a, an initial detailed call.
931
00:52:15.360 --> 00:52:16.780
And then generally speaking,
932
00:52:16.780 --> 00:52:20.020
we set some guidelines and the guidelines are to sustain them.
933
00:52:20.260 --> 00:52:23.860
And then we do a check-in call once a week every week,
934
00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:26.980
or as many weeks as they need. That's kind of my new service. It,
935
00:52:27.090 --> 00:52:29.180
it's always being refined. You used to be email check-in,
936
00:52:29.180 --> 00:52:30.580
then for a while it was WhatsApp voice note,
937
00:52:30.580 --> 00:52:33.540
and now it's kind of the video chats for those who acquire it,
938
00:52:33.540 --> 00:52:35.100
depending on when clients signed up.
939
00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:39.580
But a lot of my business goals,
940
00:52:39.920 --> 00:52:43.660
my personal training goals are centered around creating autonomy in the client.
941
00:52:44.340 --> 00:52:46.700
I don't want an eight week transformation.
942
00:52:47.020 --> 00:52:50.980
I don't want mini balls running around eating watermelon for breakfast.
943
00:52:51.040 --> 00:52:52.020
That's not my goal.
944
00:52:52.420 --> 00:52:54.540
I want people to feel autonomous to make their own decisions.
945
00:52:54.620 --> 00:52:56.340
I had a lady in Australia a few years ago,
946
00:52:56.600 --> 00:52:59.220
she told me that she'd been trying to lose 70 pounds for years.
947
00:52:59.680 --> 00:53:03.540
And it was that classic case of whilst the goal and the food preoccupation had
948
00:53:03.540 --> 00:53:07.220
been on her mind, like she hadn't actually been engaged with the goal,
949
00:53:07.280 --> 00:53:10.860
she would give up on a Tuesday and start the diet again next Monday. But,
950
00:53:10.880 --> 00:53:13.900
but she got all the food preoccupation. So if I came along and say,
951
00:53:13.900 --> 00:53:18.450
shamed her and thought, oh, you're not trying a, I, I, I don't believe that. I,
952
00:53:18.490 --> 00:53:20.850
I I really don't because I know what it's like to be in a black and white
953
00:53:20.850 --> 00:53:23.930
thought process. But unfortunately the truth is, b you,
954
00:53:24.030 --> 00:53:25.600
you are not dieting for fat loss.
955
00:53:25.600 --> 00:53:27.440
You're actually doing the opposite. By giving up,
956
00:53:27.440 --> 00:53:30.560
you're consuming far more calories than your body needs because you think you
957
00:53:30.560 --> 00:53:33.160
have failed. But I remember she, she lost about 20,
958
00:53:33.160 --> 00:53:36.040
30 pounds and she came back after a couple of months and she said,
959
00:53:36.040 --> 00:53:38.600
I hope you're not disappointed in me, but I don't want to lose 70 pounds.
960
00:53:38.880 --> 00:53:41.080
I spent my entire adult life thinking I wanted to lose 70.
961
00:53:41.460 --> 00:53:44.640
And if I've learned one thing from you, it's, I'm actually good now.
962
00:53:45.020 --> 00:53:48.640
If I can maintain my lifestyle whilst maintaining this current weight,
963
00:53:48.660 --> 00:53:51.880
that's a success for me. And I hope you're not disappointed. And I,
964
00:53:52.000 --> 00:53:56.300
I remember having a less succinctly strong feeling of this is amazing.
965
00:53:56.690 --> 00:53:59.740
This is amazing that you can actually tap into that wisdom and realize that the
966
00:53:59.740 --> 00:54:00.573
goal has changed.
967
00:54:00.920 --> 00:54:04.140
So I'm just trying to lead people to a better understanding of themselves,
968
00:54:04.640 --> 00:54:07.420
but through their own work, I'm kind of trying to facilitate change.
969
00:54:07.940 --> 00:54:11.020
I can't take responsibility for any positive change because it's always on them.
970
00:54:12.040 --> 00:54:14.860
Um, I can't pull wisdom out of people that isn't in there.
971
00:54:15.060 --> 00:54:18.220
I might be able to shine some kind of light on it or maybe probe with an
972
00:54:18.420 --> 00:54:22.700
interesting question perhaps, but that's how it works. I,
973
00:54:22.700 --> 00:54:25.060
it's a monthly service, monthly payments,
974
00:54:25.440 --> 00:54:28.460
and then generally weekly or biweekly calls depending.
975
00:54:28.820 --> 00:54:31.580
I also offer once off calls, like just once off deep dive calls,
976
00:54:31.580 --> 00:54:34.140
which some clients take me up on when they don't want to commit to full-time
977
00:54:34.380 --> 00:54:37.340
coaching. And, um, yeah, I'm just, I I love it, man.
978
00:54:37.380 --> 00:54:39.980
I just love helping people become more strategic,
979
00:54:40.210 --> 00:54:42.580
more observant of their own thought patterns.
980
00:54:43.220 --> 00:54:46.180
I love the idea of helping people become a little bit more calm.
981
00:54:46.700 --> 00:54:51.220
I also really enjoy reminding people that like the insecurities that you're
982
00:54:51.220 --> 00:54:53.220
feeling, they don't make you defective. They make you alive.
983
00:54:53.760 --> 00:54:56.660
So if you think you're going to diet your way from insecurity,
984
00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:01.700
the deficit of calories won't diet you out of that deficit of love.
985
00:55:01.800 --> 00:55:05.100
So just keep that in mind too. I mean, that doesn't always land,
986
00:55:05.160 --> 00:55:08.060
but sometimes it can be reassuring for people to know that they're not some kind
987
00:55:08.060 --> 00:55:12.060
of freak because they don't just love their body and find nutrition easy. So it,
988
00:55:12.060 --> 00:55:13.980
it's complicated, man. But that's, again,
989
00:55:13.980 --> 00:55:16.700
it's the kind of thing I could talk about all day long and feel like I've said
990
00:55:16.940 --> 00:55:19.100
nothing in a way, but I love it.
991
00:55:19.260 --> 00:55:23.620
[Nolan] I can tell I [Laughter] Paul. Well, we're coming up on an hour here.</v>
992
00:55:24.360 --> 00:55:27.820
Um, so I think all, all that advice, all your words of wisdom,
993
00:55:27.820 --> 00:55:32.060
there were just so many lines in there that I want to expand on, but we just,
994
00:55:32.060 --> 00:55:34.340
as you said, we just don't have time for it, but it's,
995
00:55:34.600 --> 00:55:39.340
you just have so many of these one-liners that have so much insight into them
996
00:55:39.340 --> 00:55:43.580
that even just unpacking them could take another episode. Um,
997
00:55:44.570 --> 00:55:46.180
yeah, here we are. Paul is, yeah.
998
00:55:46.580 --> 00:55:50.940
[Paul] I really, I really appreciate that man. And it's very kind of you to say that I,</v>
999
00:55:50.960 --> 00:55:53.550
the balls, one of the things that has helped me,
1000
00:55:53.550 --> 00:55:57.870
just in case it does help anybody else, is I've held opinions in the past.
1001
00:55:58.460 --> 00:56:00.270
When I was younger, I was a sarcastic trainer,
1002
00:56:00.850 --> 00:56:05.350
as in my content was quite sarcastic and all of it because
1003
00:56:05.650 --> 00:56:07.830
my girlfriend jokes, you know, that that's just who I am.
1004
00:56:07.850 --> 00:56:11.150
And I've tried to put more flavors of my personality on Instagram really
1005
00:56:11.390 --> 00:56:12.050
recently.
1006
00:56:12.050 --> 00:56:16.470
But misplaced and wayward sarcasm can look a lot like a lack of compassion.
1007
00:56:16.890 --> 00:56:21.510
So I think not being afraid to upgrade your thought process and
1008
00:56:21.510 --> 00:56:25.880
upgrade your belief system in pursuit of more wisdom is a really important
1009
00:56:25.880 --> 00:56:27.960
thing. So I've been wrong about so many things in the past.
1010
00:56:27.960 --> 00:56:31.320
I've definitely used inflammatory language that I'm now not proud of. Uh,
1011
00:56:31.320 --> 00:56:33.760
one of my clients actually made me aware of something I said once.
1012
00:56:33.900 --> 00:56:37.640
And whilst I didn't agree with her initially, I did have to think, well,
1013
00:56:37.640 --> 00:56:40.980
she's my demographic of clients. Like if, uh,
1014
00:56:41.040 --> 00:56:43.980
if I felt really strongly about this, I'd stay firm, but she,
1015
00:56:44.000 --> 00:56:45.100
she might have a point here.
1016
00:56:45.360 --> 00:56:48.180
And so I listen to her and I'll always be willing to upgrade my stance if
1017
00:56:48.180 --> 00:56:51.340
someone can provide me with a useful insight. But also one other thing, man,
1018
00:56:51.510 --> 00:56:53.300
sorry, I could, one other thing.
1019
00:56:54.220 --> 00:56:57.980
I used language before on a particular post and my sister, who I loved to bits,
1020
00:56:58.000 --> 00:56:58.690
one of my best friends,
1021
00:56:58.690 --> 00:57:03.670
told me that I should change the wording and I did against my better judgment.
1022
00:57:03.730 --> 00:57:05.150
And then I got called out on the post.
1023
00:57:05.610 --> 00:57:08.870
So I remember getting called out thinking I'm getting called out on something
1024
00:57:08.870 --> 00:57:11.390
that I don't fully mean. This is a watered down version of me.
1025
00:57:11.790 --> 00:57:14.350
I should have stayed true. At least when you get challenged on something,
1026
00:57:14.350 --> 00:57:18.790
you truly believe it's a little bit easier. Um, and, and I guess what,
1027
00:57:19.030 --> 00:57:20.230
I'm going back it all tied back.
1028
00:57:20.230 --> 00:57:22.990
If you continue to have a growth mindset and you're willing to
1029
00:57:24.740 --> 00:57:28.200
evolve your perspective in line with new information, um,
1030
00:57:28.520 --> 00:57:31.800
I think if I was walking around in a body that had a hundred pounds of adiposity on
1031
00:57:31.800 --> 00:57:33.560
top of me, I'd probably see it very different too.
1032
00:57:33.820 --> 00:57:36.560
I'd probably relate to it a very different way and I'd probably relate to
1033
00:57:36.720 --> 00:57:40.520
personal trainers a very different way. And one client told me that I wasn't,
1034
00:57:40.520 --> 00:57:45.280
this jumped up motivational speech testicle with a protein shake
1035
00:57:45.630 --> 00:57:47.600
that he feared me to be when he came to the gym,
1036
00:57:47.600 --> 00:57:50.880
that I was just a normal great jumper with a, with a bottle of Diet Coke.
1037
00:57:51.180 --> 00:57:54.080
And that was such a cool feeling to hear that man. I remember thinking, Ooh,
1038
00:57:54.240 --> 00:57:57.480
I wanted something. And I think these are my demographic of people. So,
1039
00:57:57.660 --> 00:57:58.800
you know, there's an element of,
1040
00:57:58.800 --> 00:58:01.200
there's an element of like presenters you wish to be seen,
1041
00:58:01.500 --> 00:58:05.240
but there's also an element of cop the hell on and be a nice person to people as
1042
00:58:05.240 --> 00:58:08.320
well. Make everybody feel welcome, be, be the reason people stay in fitness,
1043
00:58:08.420 --> 00:58:09.480
be the reason people continue,
1044
00:58:09.540 --> 00:58:12.000
be the reason someone fosters a good relationship to their eating.
1045
00:58:12.270 --> 00:58:16.080
Like there was dudes down at the workout park the other day doing muscle ups and
1046
00:58:16.080 --> 00:58:18.760
you know, even I look at them and I'm like half intimidated by them.
1047
00:58:18.780 --> 00:58:21.240
And then there's a dude on the other side of the park struggling to get his
1048
00:58:21.240 --> 00:58:22.960
first chin up and they go over and help him.
1049
00:58:23.180 --> 00:58:25.960
And I wish everybody finds that kind of thing,
1050
00:58:25.990 --> 00:58:29.120
that instead of feeling ashamed of what they can do or what they can't do,
1051
00:58:29.510 --> 00:58:34.410
that the most jacked girl or guy at the gym comes over and is like, come on,
1052
00:58:34.530 --> 00:58:35.770
you get your first rep. You know,
1053
00:58:35.770 --> 00:58:38.370
it's a nice feeling to have and I think we all have the power to be that for
1054
00:58:38.530 --> 00:58:39.363
somebody else.
1055
00:58:39.960 --> 00:58:44.350
[Nolan] Definitely. Paul, thank you for all that advice and I hope the listeners take,</v>
1056
00:58:44.490 --> 00:58:48.470
uh, think about it seriously. Um, everything that Paul said today,
1057
00:58:48.470 --> 00:58:51.750
whether it was about fitness, travel, you can see that it all connects.
1058
00:58:51.910 --> 00:58:54.990
I think this holistic approach to life is very important,
1059
00:58:55.320 --> 00:58:58.470
especially with my goal here at Without Borders.
1060
00:58:58.810 --> 00:59:01.950
My goal is always to break down the borders between peoples,
1061
00:59:01.950 --> 00:59:04.710
between cultures so that we can help each other.
1062
00:59:04.930 --> 00:59:08.510
And I think Paul shed a lot of wisdom on that today. So Paul,
1063
00:59:08.510 --> 00:59:11.390
thanks again for coming on the show. And listeners,
1064
00:59:11.770 --> 00:59:14.270
please support the show by sharing,
1065
00:59:14.680 --> 00:59:19.510
check out my Substack that's bornwithoutborders.substack.com.
1066
00:59:19.850 --> 00:59:23.750
You can also find my writing there. And there's a new episode every Tuesday.
Member discussion