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The Fitness Mindset
15 Plays4 months ago
Over eight years as a personal trainer Scott Friedman witnessed a lot of people struggle fulfil their fitness aspirations. They were putting the work in, but the results didn’t materialise.
Scott decided that this provided a great opportunity for him, so he set about finding out why his great workout programmes and diet did not work for some people.
His research identified that before attempting anything new you need to have the correct mindset.
In this episode of The Independent Minds Scott explains how he had turned the findings of his research into a new approach to health, well-being, and personal training.
You will hear Scott and host Michael Millward discuss the connections between mindset, and sustainable actions. The importance of developing gratitude, self-awareness, and building momentum.
In this episode, of The Independent Minds Scott mentions Malnati’s an Italian restaurant in Chicago and the nutritional value of a pizza. Scott has requested that we include a link to the nutritional information provided by Manati’s on their website
Fit For My Age is made on Zencastr.
Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform, on which you can create your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms like Spotify, Apple, and Google. It really does make creating content so easy.
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr visit zencastr.com/pricing and use our offer code ABECEDER.
Find out more about both Michael Millward and Cathy Nesbitt at Abeceder.
Visiting Chicago
Scott Is based in Chicago, Illinois, USA
If you would like to visit Toronto or Canada the best place to make your travel arrangements is The Ultimate Travel Club.
Visit the Ultimate Travel Club and use our offer code to receive a discount on your membership fee.
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Matchmaker.fm
Thank you to the team at Matchmaker.fm the introduction to Scott.
If you are a podcaster looking for interesting guests or if like Scott, you have something very interesting to say Matchmaker.fm is where matches of great hosts and great guests are made. Use our offer code for a discount on membership.
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Three the network
If you are listening to The Independent Minds on your smart phone in the UK, you may like to know that Three has the UK’s Fastest 5G Network with Unlimited Data, so listening on Three means you can wave goodbye to buffering.
There is a link in the description that will take you to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from Three and the special offers available when you quote my referral code.
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Being a Guest
If you would like to be a guest on Fit For My Age, please contact using the link at Abeceder.co.uk.
We recommend that potential guests take one of the podcasting guest training programmes available from Work Place Learning Centre.
We appreciate every like, download, and subscriber.
Thank you for listening.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Offer
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencaster. Hello and welcome to Fit for My Age, the health and wellbeing podcast from Abecedah. I'm your host, Michael Millward, the managing director of Abecedah. As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, Fit for My Age is made on Zencaster. Zencaster is the all-in-one podcasting platform on which you can make your podcast in one place and then distribute it to all the major platforms like Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google, YouTube Music, them all really.
00:00:42
Speaker
It really does make making podcasts so easy. If you would like to try podcasting using Zencaster, visit zencaster dot.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code ABACEDA. All the details are in the description. Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencaster is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
Purpose of the Podcast
00:01:12
Speaker
Very importantly, on fit for my age, we don't tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think.
Guest Introduction: Scott Friedman
00:01:19
Speaker
Today, my guest who I met on matchmaker.fm is Scott Friedman. Scott is a personal trainer in Chicago, Illinois, USA, the Windy City. I'll let Scott tell you what makes him a different type of personal trainer. But Scott is based in Chicago. I went there once it was a very a very quick visit if I go again I will be making my travel arrangements at the ultimate travel club It is where I get trade prices on flights and hotels and all sorts of other travel purchases You'll find a link and membership discount code in the description So now
00:01:58
Speaker
Hello, Scott. How you doing? I'm doing very well. Thank you very much. And I hope you can say the same. Absolutely. This is an honor to be here. I appreciate it. It's going to be very interesting. I just have to ask though, is Chicago a windy city? You know, ah we don't get the name from the wind, but it definitely is a very windy city nonetheless. So it's ah it's ah it's ah the name isn't exactly ah why it's called that. But yes, we are a very windy city, but the name is mostly based on our politics, the windy city, the windy politicians. Oh right, I was going to ask, so the pub quiz, if that o ever comes up in a pub quiz, we will know. It's not a windy, it is a windy city, but that's not how it got the name, it got its name because of politicians as a At the least of what I was taught. It has all sorts of negative connotations now, and I'm very much aware that this is 2024, and the United States is in the middle of an election campaign, and the United Kingdom is in the middle of the campaign.
Scott's Background and Philosophy
00:02:55
Speaker
France is, India's just finished one, the world is going voting in 2024. Of course, of course, of course.
00:03:06
Speaker
But could we start the serious part of this podcast, this episode of Fit For My Age with you answering that question. Give us a little bit of a potted history of how you became personal trainer involved in the fitness industry and what it is that sort of like makes you a little bit different. Yeah, for sure. So, you know, my background, I've been doing this for about a decade now, give or take I actually and before that I was in school for pre physical therapy at my mom is an occupational therapist and she was like, Hey, you should go be physical therapists. It's a good job, stable career, you're helping people. It's kind of fitness related. So I started doing that.
00:03:41
Speaker
And I realized very quickly that I did not like the classes, you know, you got to take things like bio organic chemistry and all that stuff. And I'm, I am not a, so you know, a science wizard, ah that most people might be in that kind of field. So i I ended up realizing that physical therapy wasn't for me, it was mostly just sitting behind a desk all day, and not really helping people. And a preventative side was always about rehab. And I was interested in preventative nature. So I looked up and there was something called kinesiology. I've never heard of it before, but I was someone who liked to work out. I started working out in high school. I was on track and field. I started lifting weights when I was like 16, 17 years old, fell in love with it. And I realized, oh my gosh, there's a degree that is called kinesiology. That's literally what I can do here.
00:04:23
Speaker
So I start doing the research on that, I switch my degree over, and I finally, you know, I finish college with that degree in kinesiology. And basically, I start training right away. and I'm a certified personal trainer. Over the course of the next couple of years, I get ah certifications in nutrition coaching, in behavior change coaching, and even more specialty coaching like corrective exercise, performance enhancement ah training, things of that nature. And I'm training athletes, I'm training 85-year-olds in retirement homes, 13-year-old kids for soccer camp. I'm going to work. I'm working five different jobs. I'm hustling, grinding like every trainer does in the US when they first get started. And it's a grind. And I realize, and this is where my shift happens, is I realize after training hundreds of people over the course of you know commercial facilities, private facilities, corporate facilities, warehouses, you know outdoor spaces on the beach where I train people randomly,
00:05:19
Speaker
I realized that there was a huge, huge missing link in the fitness industry is because I could guide someone to the the perfect customized plan where you know here's the diet plan we're going to do. Here's this. Here's all this different all these different workouts we can do. This is this is what should work for you. Not that I'm prescribing anything, but this is what should work for you. And some people would succeed with flying colors. And some would not. And it really would really, really I take it personally when someone doesn't succeed. And I've had clients where it's like, hey, well let's talk for three weeks. I'm i'm talking 12 weeks later, because I'm like, why is this not working for you? And I started to realize, okay, we're missing the entire industry is missing a very
Mindset and Fitness
00:06:05
Speaker
specific part. And that is the mindset aspect
00:06:08
Speaker
of the fitness training industry, you can give someone the best customized plan. But if their minds not right, if they're not understanding what they're supposed to do mentally, then a lot of the times they won't succeed. And so I shifted my focus on purely hustle and grind, just work hard, you'll see success, just push, push, push, push, push all the time to okay, maybe maybe there's another layer to another layer here. And I need to explore this layer to help more people see even better results. And that's kind of hey maybe how I made the shift and how I got to where I am right now and kind of why I'm doing what I'm doing i you know today. okay I'm so glad that you pronounced the name of that degree when I saw it um in the information that was sent to me by matchmaker.fm. I was like, how am I ever going to pronounce that?
00:06:56
Speaker
But that is that is like the science of movement is what you you did your degree in, how people move and that then was the starting block to everything else. Joking aside about pronouncing ologies, it's so interesting to sort of think like people going to the gym, getting involved in activity, But if their mindset isn't right about it, you can lift weights all day, any type of exercise. If your aim is to get fitter, lose weight, put on muscle, regardless of what your aim is, this idea that you've got to enter it with, and I'm tapping my head here, with the right mindset in order to get to success.
00:07:38
Speaker
the the connection between the psychology of it and the physiology of it, the exercise and the mindset, something that fascinates me because it's like, yes, you can turn up, but turning up with the right mindset will get you a better result. And I'm wondering from your experience, what would you say are the things that, well, can you tell when somebody comes into a session with you, whether they've got the right mindset or not, or whether they've switched on in the right way? Yeah, I can actually I think a lot of trainers can and we we know and the the bad part, there's a couple layers to the question that you're asking. And so I want to I want to clarify for the audience just a little bit. One is that in the fitness industry, at least in the US, if you're in at a commercial facility, it's a lot of it's based on sales. So a lot of trainers really just don't care. They just need the sale so they can make they can make rent.
00:08:28
Speaker
And so a lot of trainers in that industry, it's like, look, doesn't matter. Come train with me. You'll work out with me. We'll figure it out. And you will see some good results. The issue really comes when you're not working with a trainer all the time and you and you go off on your own. Can you sustain those results over and over again? Or are you doing things that you shouldn't be doing when you're not with a trainer or on your own that you shouldn't be doing? So a lot of things like that do tend to occur because the industry setup sort of set up to fail in specific instances ah in there. And then the second point on that And I'll get to a specific Oh, before you tell us the second point, I'm about to make a confession. Okay. I have to make this confession. Because as you're saying that, I'm sort of like, yes, he's talking to me because I know when I go to the gym that I use, which is, it's a group personal training session. So there'll be three people and a personal trainer, this sort of thing. And I know that I focus more on my technique when I think that the trainer is watching me.
00:09:21
Speaker
Yes. Right. Yes. And like, if I'm doing a a um ah squat, I will go down further if I think the trainer is watching me than if I know for a fact they're not. And I'm sort of feeling a little bit guilty. No, yeah no hearing you say that because I
Fitness as an Infinite Journey
00:09:39
Speaker
realized that I'm doing exactly what you're talking about. When the trainer is there, you focus much more on your technique because you want them to impress them. But actually, when they're not there, you you cut your corners and you you you do a little less than you're supposed to do. But the the second point that you have to make
00:09:56
Speaker
for sure. And also, you're not alone. A lot of people do that. That's also why you go to a trainer to help keep you accountable, ah you know, a lot of the times, too. So that's not that's definitely not an uncommon situation. Very familiar with that. um The second point is, it's more about your mindset and totality when it comes to performing the the routine itself than it is about the mindset of when you're doing the physical work. I believe fitness is something that if you do the work and you do it the right way, I think you're going to see results. Whether you're angry, you can use that. Whether you're sad, you can use that. Whether you're happy and joyous, you can use that. So I'm not saying someone has to be this
00:10:37
Speaker
ultimate gratitude person to see fitness results, you can be really angry and have a lot of things going wrong and see amazing results in fitness. And that is not necessarily a wrong or right mindset. The mindset component really plays a role with being able to continue long enough to actually get to those results. And so that's where we see people fall short most of the time. And so for example, I'll meet with the client, and they'll say, Hey, Scott, I'm again, you know, I want to lose 20 pounds in one month and I want to do you know this, this, and this real quick. And I can tell off the bat, okay, they're just looking for a quick fix. They just want to see these quick results. They're not really looking to make a big change in their life. They got a little bit of weight to shed. They want to shed it and once they're done with it, they're going to go back to what they're currently doing. What we find with a lot of people who do this, I just want to lose weight real quick. I just want to go with this. I want to get my summer body in two months and I have this wedding. It's okay, great. All these things are great. There's no problem with just trying to lose weight real quickly.
00:11:35
Speaker
But where the problem does occur is when that is the only goal that you have. A lot of the times, number one, if you're not working with someone specifically over and over and over again, three to four times a week, you tend not to get the results because you're not going to put the work in for it because you need that accountability all the time. And two, it's hard to do it on your own when you finish the goal. Because if that goal was the only thing you were shooting for, then what happens when you're done? What happens when you actually achieve the goal? Well, you tend to go, oh, I lost the 20 pounds. That cake is looking really good right now. Or I'm going to eat a little bit differently. Or I'm going to stop going to the gym as much because I did what I had to do. And things start to kind of dial back. And they return to the normal life that you originally built because you feel like I've i've accomplished this goal. And that's all I had to do when the reality is,
00:12:26
Speaker
fitness, health, nutrition, everything. It's not about accomplishing a goal. It's about creating a better lifestyle and living a higher quality life. And people tend to miss that when they're trying to talk about the goals they want. Because I'll be training someone and then three weeks into the session, it's, hey, Scott, I'm not seeing the results. I'm like, Well, ah it's only been three weeks. you know Your body takes some time to adapt. I guess, what you know what's your perception of what you should be looking for? And they'll say, oh, I thought I would lose 10 pounds by now. I'm like, OK, well, we have to write those perceptions. We have to change how you're thinking about this process. Because if the goal is, I want to work with you for two months and then be done, and I'm going to have all the success in the world, that's where a lot of people kind of fall short. And they don't realize that there is a lot of ownership you have to take in order to sustain any sort of results that you you plan on having. Yes. Yeah, again, I'm a so sitting here listening to you and thinking like he's talking about me again.
00:13:22
Speaker
Because I did, started using a gym, lost a lot of weight, got a really nice shape, all this sort of stuff. And then the confidence kicked in, the negative. I can look back at it now and say, I became very confident that I could eat what I wanted to eat, regardless of what it was, and still maintain this shape. So I went through a period, quite a lengthy period of just, trying to eat really sensibly, like thinking about health, fitness, everything, and then when one day I realized, I've got down to this waist measurement, I've got this chest measurement, um I'll have that gato.
00:14:01
Speaker
You know, and somebody else doesn't want their gato, so I'll have their gato as well. And of course, then it's a slippery slope back to where you were. It's good to be confident about what it is you're doing and why you're doing it. But I can quite see that. Set yourself a target and then reach that target. What happens next? Should we be thinking about health and fitness in terms of a destination or as a journey? I think there are different things out there. You're on a constant journey. to making sure, like the title of the podcast says, that you're constantly fit for your age, whatever that is, rather than reaching a point and then saying, right, I'm done. It's not like that, is it? Not at all. And I think that's where a lot of people tend to falter on the journey is I call this the infinite versus the fin a finite paradox. So the infinite and finite paradox is pretty much people act
00:14:57
Speaker
as if achieving a fitness goal is this finite thing they have to do, like like a board game. You play Monopoly, you play chess, there's an ending, there's a winner, and there's a loser. Your body's not like that. Your life isn't like that. So why would working out be any anything similar to that? So if you're playing, okay, I'm gonna lose weight, I'm gonna play this, you know, board game for for two hours and I'll be done, and that's it. Once I lose the weight, I'm done, and that's it. Well, what happens three months later? What happens a year later? Are you still going to be doing all the things you were doing to get to that goal? well I would argue that most people won't because that catalyst to push them, that urgency to push them is gone versus if you're playing the game, not not to give the pun, the game of life.
00:15:40
Speaker
And it's an infinite model. You're not playing to win. You're playing to maintain. You're playing to sustain the best quality of life. The people I want to work with are the ones who want that longevity set. I want to be able to play with my kids in 10 years when they're playing sports. I want to be able to play with my grandkids. I want to be able to play with my dog. I want to have no knee pain. I want to have this, this, and this. It's not about you know losing 40 pounds. out and That might be part of the goal. right Part of the goal is to lose the 40 pounds. but That's not everything. It's not just to look good in the mirror. That's part of it. But the underlying tone, the underlying message is this is not just a game that you play for one or two years. The longer you play, the more patient you are, the longer your time horizon is for success, the more success and the more benefits you're going to see. So you have to get out of this board game mentality of I just have to win and all it takes is three months to win this and I'm done.
00:16:33
Speaker
versus, okay, I'm starting it. And yeah, look, there's no there's no simple way to put it. Some people hate it. So you know, obviously finding things that you want to do, whether it's playing sports, or, you know, maybe you hate doing cardio, okay, so don't do that, do something else. But finding something you can do along the way is so valuable. So you can maintain it. If you love playing pickleball, which is taken the US s by storm right now, you know, then do that. Go do that regularly because that is very good for your health. If you love lifting weights, go lift weights. If you love doing body weight work, go do that. And don't necessarily worry about the minutia of the specific goal. Obviously, that's important, but how do we craft something to make it last as long as humanly possible for 10, 20, 30 years so that we can maintain a higher quality of life? That's the infinite versus finite paradox. Yes. Yeah.
Impact of Modern Lifestyles on Health
00:17:19
Speaker
And I'm thinking that part of the problem is that, well, at some point we develop habits which are going to be detrimental to our health. And what we've got to do is almost unlearn those negative habits, which are about the type of food that we eat, the quantity of food that we eat, the lack of exercise.
00:17:41
Speaker
the fact that a lot of us will spend our working days sitting down. We are, I suppose, trying to live a 21st century lifestyle in a body that was designed to be hunter-gatherer farmer type. And when we ate food, we were eating it for energy. and now we don't need to eat the same quantity of food that our ancestors will have needed to eat and we our ancestors wouldn't have had all the refined sugars and processed food and ultra processed food that we now have.
00:18:15
Speaker
And it is almost like a case of working out what it is that we need to do for ourselves as individuals to be healthy rather than just, it's a convenient food. It's a convenient, I'll do this little bit of exercise, but it's not really enough. I'm not getting enough sleep. we need to readdress all those negative habits and actually to construct not just an exercise regime, you're saying construct a lifestyle which is going to enable us to do the things that we want to do, a healthy lifestyle that enable us to do all those things like play with our children, play with our grandchildren and do it without having to worry about our health.
00:18:56
Speaker
And I think on that, the idea of removing bad habits and adding good ones, I think that's extraordinarily important because we're taught, at least I was taught when I was younger, you you know on TV, there's all these commercials and all these amazing, good-looking foods. It's like, oh my gosh, I got to have it. And then the concept now is if I can't eat this food whenever I want, wherever I want, I am being deprived. And the reality is almost the opposite. You're actually depriving your body when you do eat those foods and you're making your life worse overall, again, on a spectrum of things than you would if you actually maintain 80, 20, 80% healthy, 20% crap. And so we we we convenience has really created this
00:19:38
Speaker
sedentary lifestyle of, well, it's just convenient. I'll go grab some fast food. It's easy. It's no big deal. And we tend not to see the tangible consequences of that until 2030 years later. I feel like maybe a bad example here, but most smokers, for example, probably don't see the consequences, the major consequences of smoking for probably 20 years after until they started doing it. And then the issues arise as our bodies can no longer compensate. for the damage that we're doing to it. I think food's a very similar concept. You can do a lot of things to your body. It will adapt. It will compensate for you. But over the course of time, we tend to go, ah, man, my foot really hurts. My my back's been hurting. ah i'm not I can't move as good. And we kind of just throw that into the wind, and we and that make that becomes part of our bad habits. We don't realize that we're living such a low-quality life, and we're just compensating over and over and over again until eventually,
00:20:30
Speaker
The medical bills start coming up, our health starts to decline, our body isn't as strong because our cells are getting weaker as we get older. And we're going into our golden years, your more so decrepit than ever, because the convenience of not treating our body well is at an all time high. You can you could don't have to go to the grocery store tomorrow, you can order online and just do Instacart in most places or the marketing companies are so great at making food look so good or using buzzwords to make us think that we're eating healthy when the reality is we're eating like crap. And so I think it's almost not even a habit. I mean, obviously, building the habits and changing them is super important, but also just the education of, okay, hey, this isn't actually good for you. Like, the way it's cooked isn't good for you. Oh, I can have this. like go Well, no, I mean, you can. I'm not saying, by the way, I'm not someone who's saying I eat healthy all the time, i'm you know, hand in the air. I love donuts. I love cookies. I'll i'll have a pizza. I'll have a burger. I don't. and That's totally fine.
00:21:24
Speaker
when it's in moderation, when it's, you know, the experience of enjoying life, but not when it's trying to just live a daily life, I'm going to have this every single day, all this, all the single time, every single time. yeah That's not the key of it. The key is in moderation. Yes, enjoy the food you want to enjoy. But when it's appropriate to do so, not every single time. So I think it's reanalyzing what your beliefs are in the foods that you're eating, and then really understanding, hey, like this you know this is what the goal is, this is what I'm doing. And I think it's also a lack of clarity on the goal. It's if you don't have clarity on what you're trying to do, it's going to be very difficult to change that habit. And so I help people break down, what is it that you're actually trying to do?
00:22:04
Speaker
because that's going to ah help us identify the actions you have to take. And if people can get clarity on the specific actions they should or should not do, which is where I think a lot of people struggle, I think they would make significantly better choices. But a lot of people don't have clarity. They're not sure on the exact action. And so they kind of flounder about tread water in this ocean and not making any distance towards any of the islands you can see ah on the horizon. They're just kind of sitting there. I'm not sure what they're doing. They kind of just float around. Yeah, versus hey, just go this way. Yes, there'll be pitfalls, there'll be issues, but just go this way. I think people would be a lot better off if they understood why and how to do it. Yes. I think one of the things that is quite interesting from what you said is that our bodies compensate for the health and fitness, the diet decisions that our brain makes.
00:22:52
Speaker
Our brain succumbs to the the advertising, the special offer, the supersize your whatever meal and the images. Our brain so swallows that image and so it says, I want that, I want that. And for a period of our lives, our body is capable of compensating for those negative decisions that our brain makes. But ah come there comes a point when our body's ability to compensate starts to decline. And that's when we're needing to put in place the habits that compensate for what we may have done, what we may have eaten 10, 20 years ago. Although we've given up smoking, I've never been a smoker, but if you are a smoker and you've given it up,
00:23:39
Speaker
still going to rely upon your body's ability to compensate for the cigarettes that you smoked 20 years ago, or the alcohol that you drank 20 years ago. And the sooner I suppose that you start to think, okay, maybe if I have a drink, I have to have a quality drink rather than have lots of drinks and think about what it is that you are doing, then you then you're more likely to have a positive result and be fit for them fit for my age and be able to do all those things like playing with your children, playing with your grandchildren. go to the Go to the store and actually put your own shopping in your own trolley and put it in your own car, carry it into the house yourself.
00:24:26
Speaker
Because as you were describing that, I was thinking about people having their shopping, order it online, have it delivered. The guy brings it into your kitchen, puts it on the counter, and that removes so many different opportunities to actually just do a bit of exercise. Yeah, I mean, think about all the steps, you know, that you're not taking. and And one of the things that I think is underrated or I just maybe just not thought about is daily physical movement is one of the greatest things that you can do in order to improve your health, just bar none.
00:24:58
Speaker
because it's it's all the time. it's all day That's why there's like this whole step thing about, oh, hit 10,000 steps, which ah that number is more of an arbitrary number. But the more you can move in a day, the better off you're going to be overall. I think it's a pretty good analogy there. I think that taking those things out of the equation are much more detrimental than we even realize. So i imagine it takes me, I mean, okay, so I'm, I'm a little weird, I can actually walk to my grocery store takes about 500 steps, 500, whatever it might be to get to my grocery store. Well, if I'm there and back, that's 1000 plus the walk around in there, that can be 2000 steps I don't get, because I ah ordered in. And so that right there could just be, you know, if you do that every week, you know, talk about 8000 steps a week, and you add that up over the course of years and years and years, that's a lot of exercise you're not getting. And that's just a minor example, just to kind of put some numbers in there. It is. It's surprising how many steps we actually do take. and Just as it's like a summary of what we've been talking about, we started off with talking about how why almost people fail and in their bid, their attempts to be fitter, to be healthier, to lose weight, to be get the summer body and a large part of it.
00:26:08
Speaker
is is the mindset. If you you go to the gym, spend an hour in the gym, and that justifies the fact that you can then have a chocolate bar because you've been in the gym for an hour, that is not the approach to take. right That's the sort of thing. he's like Instead of thinking in individual elements of a fit, healthy lifestyle, You've got to think in much more macro, much bigger and think about the horizon and getting to the horizon rather than just the small element of once you did some exercise, why have you not seen results? And then think it doesn't work. I'm not going to do it anymore.
Long-term Fitness and Common Pitfalls
00:26:48
Speaker
It's that you're playing the long game.
00:26:50
Speaker
100%. Absolutely. I would say you know to give the audience three specific takeaways. One is people the reason people fail. I think in mindset, all all this encompassing on our mindset is one is, you know, you got to be specific in what you want to do. What is it that you want specifically and in detail it out? And then how do you get there? What are the actions you have to take to get there? Number two is that perception part of it. It's, if I work out for 30 minutes so I can eat the Snickers bar, well, I would argue you're it's probably not going to go well over the course of time because at some point you're going to eat something that's a lot more calorically dense than a Snickers bar. For example, there's a deep dish pizza in Chicago that we're famous for called Lumo Nattis, not to give them a shout out, but Lumo Nattis, and each individual slice
00:27:33
Speaker
kid you not have a large pizza is 750 calories. So you know, tell me how long that takes to sit in the gym for and to you know, to be on the treadmill or Stairmaster or whatever it is to burn off that one piece of pizza. And I'm pretty sure I can down three of those, you know, no problem. So it's one of those things where to think that We're going to get competitive now.
00:27:59
Speaker
Not to brag. a So, but it's one of those things where you can't out eat, you know, you can't out work a bad diet overall. Obviously, there's things you can do to mitigate it. But it has it can't be this one for one ratio. It has to be a different mindset of going into it than, Oh, I won worked out so now I can eat like crap. It's like that really shouldn't be how you do, because I don't think you're going to see sustainable results. I'm happy you're at the gym. Honestly, I think that's actually like a great part that you're at the gym, because a lot of people can't even get to that next step of going to the gym consistently. And that's kind of where that you know the first part comes in, that you're not specific enough on the goal that you want. And I think one thing that we didn't hit that might just intrigue people a little bit is another reason I think people fail a lot is this overwhelming tribal fear of public failure.
00:28:47
Speaker
Whereas people are terrified of judgment and and they won't even try something, they think they will fail because they don't want to be mocked or quote unquote kicked out of the tribe. And so people fear ah public judgment a lot and it will stop them in their tracks from doing something if they're unsure about doing it. And to give you like a very specific example of just like a a metaphor, if you're doing pull ups in your garage and you fall, No big deal, right? You get back up, you take a break, get some water, your tailbone hurts a little bit, and you you know, whatever. But if you doing pull ups at a public setting like a gym, and you fall, everyone's looking at you, it's a lot more embarrassing. And that could cause you to never want to go to that gym again. Maybe you think people are laughing, even though they're probably not, they're probably worried about you. But
00:29:36
Speaker
People are laughing, they're mocking you, whatever it might be, everything, all the fears in your head come to life and that fear of public judgment is very much real and I think it stops a lot of people in their tracks as well. That again goes towards the mindset aspect of really thinking through how we can overcome the mental barriers that we placed on ourselves because of how we lived our life or because how we grew up or whatever reason, those are all very strong pieces of the puzzle that no one's, not no one, but a lot of people don't take into consideration when they're starting this journey.
Episode Wrap-up and Future Topics
00:30:04
Speaker
yeah you well You may have just earned yourself an invitation to a second episode of Fit for My Age, where we can discuss exactly those sorts of issues of the the exercising in public and the reasons why people do, why people don't, and how people get around that sort of element of embarrassment. um I'm exercising, that yeah don't look at me, don't look at me. Nobody's looking at all this stuff. But that would be very interesting.
00:30:29
Speaker
But for the moment, you know, this has been very interesting. And I must say, Scott, thank you very much for explaining, you know, starting to explain, because it is a very big topic, this idea of getting the right mindset for your exercise and and lifestyle change. It's been very interesting. Thank you very much. Do appreciate it. I appreciate you having me. Thank you. Been great. I am Michael Millward, the managing director of Abecedah. And in this episode of Fit For My Age, I have been having a conversation with Scott Friedman. You can find out more about both of us at abecedah.co.uk. There is a link in the description. And Scott is just going to tell us what his Instagram account is because he's just changed the name for it. So what's your Instagram account, Scott? Yes. Instagram is ah Scott Speaks Fitness. Great. Thank you. All on word. Yep. Brilliant. I must remember to thank the team at matchmaker.fm for introducing me to Scott. If you are a podcaster looking for interesting guests, or if like Scott, you have something very interesting to say, matchmaker dot.fm is where matches of great hosts and great guests are made.
00:31:36
Speaker
There is a link to matchmaker.fm and an offer code in the description. If you are listening to Fit For My Age on your smartphone in the UK, you may like to know that 3 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data. So listening on 3 means you can wave goodbye to buffering. There is a link in the description that will take you to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from three and the special offers available when you use my referral code. That description is well worth reading. Scott may also give us a link to that pizza restaurant in Chicago as well.
00:32:16
Speaker
If you'd like, if you have liked this episode of Fit For My Age, please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abecedah is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think. All that remains for me to say to today is until the next episode of Fit For My Age. Thank you for listening and goodbye.