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Episode #008 - Didi Ferrari - Nutrition coach specialising in Women's Hormones and Behavioural Therapy
159 Plays2 years ago
In the 8th instalment of "Perspectives", we are joined by Didi Ferrari, an evidence based nutrition coach specialising in Female Hormones and Behavioural Therapy.
Didi is the former head of nutrition at Marchon Athletic, now running her own business "Coached By Didi" having coached numerous clients to achieve their goals over the past 8 years. Women's health is not discussed enough, and making sense of what happens to your body during the Menstrual Cycle or Menopause, can leave you feeling confused and ashamed. Didi is helping to change the narrative by helping you discover the missing piece of the puzzle. Additionally, by utilising her Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), we dive into the common observations she has noted during her tenure as a coach, and how we can regain control of our own thoughts to start tipping the needle in the right direction.
In this episode, we discuss why aesthetics are not an indicator of health, why your issue with food may only be the tip of the iceberg, how your upbringing can influence the beliefs created for yourself around food, why women need more body fat than men, why women's health is so individualistic, and much more.
You can find more about the work Didi does via her instagram or on her website, where there are numerous free resources available.
Instagram: @didelsferrizle
Website: www.coachedbydidi.co.uk
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Transcript
Introducing Didi Ferrari: Nutrition Coach
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to perspectives. Today's guest is Didi Ferrari. She's a nutrition coach, specialising in women's health and behavioural psychology, having coached hundreds of people over the past eight years to improve their relationship with both themselves and food.
00:00:18
Speaker
Didi was the head nutrition coach at March at Athletic before launching her own business, coached by Didi, and in today's episode we discuss why aesthetics are not an indicator of health, why your issue with food may only be the tip of the iceberg, how your upbringing can influence the beliefs created for yourself around food, why women need more body fat than men, why women's health is so individualistic, and much more.
00:00:44
Speaker
Didi is a phenomenal source of knowledge, who presents complex information in an easily digestible format, and it is clear she is backing you all the way when it comes to bettering that relationship with yourself and food. Lots and lots to be gained from this episode for both men and women, so without further ado, Didi Ferrari.
Career Transition and Coaching Experience
00:01:29
Speaker
Didi, welcome, welcome to the show. It's good to have you on. Hello, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. So could you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
00:01:41
Speaker
Well, my name is Dee Dee. I'm a nutrition coach. I've been coaching for the last eight years which is sometimes alarming to sort of say because I feel like I've been here quite a while now. I got into the fitness space probably in my early 20s. I had a career change around 25 where I left
00:02:02
Speaker
previous job in veterinary nursing and yeah haven't looked back since I've been coaching people's nutrition. I don't even know how many I've probably worked with at this point over the last eight years but yeah it's been it's been a wild ride so far.
00:02:16
Speaker
Excellent. So you said you coach a lot of people, a lot of clients. I'd imagine all shapes and sizes, different walks of life, things like that. Is there sort of a common theme or an observation that you may have made that affects most of the people that you've coached in that time?
Specialization in Women's Health and Psychology
00:02:33
Speaker
Sure so I think over the eight years I now specialize in women's hormones and behavior psychology when it comes to relationship with food and a lot of the deeper elements of it. I also have a diploma in CBT so over the last kind of I'd say three years I've definitely niched down a lot from just entering the fitness industry at like
00:02:54
Speaker
23 when it was just very science, macros, calories, protein and I think over the time and just my own interests and preferences for coaching and the types of people that I work with it's just yeah filtered down into those categories of women's health, behavior psychology and just helping people rectify a lot of what's wrong with this industry so far.
00:03:18
Speaker
Yeah, I can imagine 100%.
Challenges in Diet Adherence
00:03:20
Speaker
So I had a friend of mine who was an evidence based nutritionist. And in one of the earlier episodes we did, we kind of went through the fundamentals of nutrition and things like that. So he said that one of the main reasons that people
00:03:36
Speaker
or diets fail mainly is due to the lack of adherence those diets. There's this constant vacillation between, yeah, I want to put on a bit of muscle or I want to lose a bit of weight, but then over restricting or overeating. And then you kind of end up with the other extreme where I'll cut the calories too low. Therefore you get really hungry and then you end up sort of firing back the other way and overeating. And then you kind of end up with this, this yo-yo dieting.
00:04:01
Speaker
Regardless of fat loss and muscle gain and things like that, which are kind of the most prevalent and probably widely discussed topics when it comes to nutrition, it seems like there's a lot more to nutrition than just those two elements. And what I really like about your approach and particularly your social media is that you kind of dive into those topics that aren't widely discussed and you do it in such a way that's, I want to use a terrible pun here, but easily digestible.
00:04:29
Speaker
Oh good, I'm glad you think so. So could you tell us about perhaps the lesser known areas that are affected by nutrition or at least suboptimal nutrition? Well if I'm completely honest a lot of people come to me just because nutrition is easier to talk about right and over the eight years of coaching I very quickly understood that
00:04:54
Speaker
People's issue very superficially is food and that's kind of what they see because that's the outcome, that's the physical manifestation and the behaviours that arise. And they're like, oh, I don't like this. I don't like the way I'm behaving. Maybe they've kind of got the self-awareness of, and now I don't like how I think about food as well. It's either controlling me to some degree or I'm operating where I can recognise now either it's been brought to my attention by people around me that my behaviours just aren't healthy.
00:05:21
Speaker
So it's kind of very much filtered into air.
00:05:27
Speaker
Let's talk about food and macros and yes you may come saying I just want fat loss but actually the deeper context of this is you feel like your life is actually quite overwhelming and you're all looking for a sense of control and that's why you feel like losing weight, focusing, having this as an extra addition to your life is going to get that for you. So it's kind of a bit of a detective work of that's what you say you want but kind of tell me a little bit more about what's going on in lifestyle wise for you so I can depict
00:05:53
Speaker
Is that true to what we're working towards or is it a lack of self-worth and like a confidence and how many sort of what's below the surface of the iceberg as such?
00:06:06
Speaker
And I've seen that things like cognition can be heavily impacted by nutrition and things like that.
Cognitive Impact of Diet and Upbringing
00:06:13
Speaker
One of the observations I made at uni, and this is kind of a sort of a hindsight observation, but during my time at uni, there was people from all walks of life that came in different backgrounds and they perhaps had maybe grew up on oven food or they didn't know how to cook for themselves. And so the sort of default would be go for something easy.
00:06:32
Speaker
Yeah, but you noticed aside from the drinking Let's leave that aside for a moment because I know people who just weren't really into that sort of thing as well But there was there were people that are just flatmates and things about that I had that just they couldn't concentrate They were so tired all the time and they went to bed early or they went to bed at a reasonable hour They weren't, you know partying all night long But just the one thing I kind of pin it down to is that they're just the diet wasn't I say it wasn't good, but it will they just were missing out on Perhaps the the micronutrients
00:07:02
Speaker
Well minimum is certain, yeah, you're spot on. When it comes to health, true health, you're not talking at a macro level, you are talking about micronutrients and the vitamins and minerals available to you in veg. It's crazy that I'm eight years into this game and I'm still having conversations around how much veg you're eating and the response not being kind of where they want to be at with that because
00:07:24
Speaker
Maybe there's some, like you mentioned, our upbringing plays a huge part in the beliefs we've created for ourselves and the way we consume food, whether that's your inability to leave food on the plate, the types of food you have, whether you did a lot of your own cooking or had quite a lot of responsibility, autonomy in that, your own cooking skills, maybe they aren't particularly great, but yeah, veg and micronutrients and the lack of it.
00:07:49
Speaker
I think that's where a large chunk of time in the fitness industry moved away from and it just became, if it fits your macros, cool. This is fun. Let's try and like use calories for, you know, a lot of processed food. And it just moved a little bit further away from the conversation of actual health.
Debunking Fad Diets and Misconceptions
00:08:06
Speaker
Yeah, I spoke with Lewis about this and we were talking about how nutrition is such a minefield really because there is just so much information out there and misinformation as well. And I think going back to the upbringing element, we perhaps parents of a part of that sort of generations, they tend to be part of the generations where there were a lot of like fad diets, there was things like Atkins and things like that coming through.
00:08:30
Speaker
So the default mechanism is normally, oh, I need to cut this out or eliminate this or that. And we spoke about this quite in depth about how eliminating this stuff you enjoy is just, it doesn't work at the long run because you're just making yourself miserable essentially. And that's nice to do short for that.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah, we're human beings. We live in extremes. We can understand it. It's black and white. We do very well with rules and regulations. But when it comes to nutrition and food, something that you consume every single day. And for a lot of people, food is like a religion. So if you're to restrict, it is the case of, well, yeah, cool. You might be able to do that for a week, three weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks, you know.
00:09:09
Speaker
Put yourself into that level of depth of restriction but the there's not enough talk around like the dark side of that really the dark side of dieting and the like you mentioned previously the mental impact that has on your brain and Your ability to perform every day
00:09:26
Speaker
Okay and you mentioned about this idea of the look and health and stuff as well so I've seen that you did a post about aesthetics versus health or how you look versus the actual health element as well and how being particularly low in body fat or lean which we often see on social media and that's kind of the people we tend to idolize, obviously generally speaking it's not the case for everyone but
00:09:50
Speaker
but that doesn't necessarily correlate to being healthy by any means and also in particular you mentioned about the women with women as well how this can actually be detrimental to women's health as well. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
00:10:05
Speaker
I guess there's two tangents. A bell-shaped curve of, at either end of the spectrum, obesity or complete, you know, underweight and very low body fat percentage is neither are conducive to health. It is more the middle, the middle section. And women, a separate side from that, our bodies just aren't designed to sustain very low body fats because at the end of the day, our bodies are designed for reproductive purposes and the body will perceive that as a threat. So a lot of the work I do for women's hormones and health is
00:10:35
Speaker
dealing with a lot of the women that have lost their cycles as a result of restriction because your body tries to prioritize what's valuable and at the end of the day if it doesn't think you're in a good position or safe enough to be able to sustain a pregnancy or have enough energy because you're very low body fat which we see really commonly in athletes and even just like CrossFit and the intensity nowadays it's so much more common than it used to be of that over training, under eating and
00:11:05
Speaker
the differences between men and women and kind of diet culture and what we've been exposed to, I think it's still an area that we struggle with a lot.
Holistic Health Approach Beyond Nutrition
00:11:13
Speaker
I just want to break down what we actually mean by health, really, because that's a term that I think gets thrown around a lot as well in terms of, oh, it's healthy and, oh, this is unhealthy for you. And we spoke with Lewis about good and bad foods and how there's no such thing as a good or a bad food, but more a good or a bad diet. But what has health been to you as someone who's been in the industry for an extended period of time?
00:11:39
Speaker
Well, in terms of the way I coach in a more holistic approach, health is not just food. Health is not just exercise. It is multifaceted. It is social health. It is economic health. There are so many different parts to it that as a coach back eight years ago for the first couple of years, it was very much like, I'm just focusing on one area. But as that's expanded, you can bring so much value to your client's lives by actually looking at different facets because
00:12:08
Speaker
there'll just be consultations or times where you're just not getting anywhere from habit and behaviour change but it's because their work life is completely out of whack or they're actually so isolated that social health has really declined so you're going to get nowhere if you're just focusing on more part of health and that's
00:12:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's a combined pie chart of different areas. And if it's neglectful, and to be honest with you, in my opinion, as a coach, just to focus on one, it's probably a bit idealistic of me to be like, I'm going to look at every facet, but at least you can get a gauge of where your clients are sat at on different areas.
00:12:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And this idea of it being multifaceted, it does seem like it is oversimplified a lot of the time in terms of people are like, oh, just do this, then your life will be amazing. It's just sort of like that reality, does it? Yeah, you just do the perfect morning routine and you're sorted. That's it, yeah. Four hours of stretching and then you journal for an hour. That's normally the one that's going unlimited.
00:13:08
Speaker
So as a male I find it pretty fascinating how the female body and the sort of requirements for women are so different from men in terms of just general intake of calories and things like that and how there's so much stuff that I didn't really realise until I saw some of your posts and that even went on because I feel like there's some stigma around women's health if you're a bloke so
00:13:34
Speaker
I think there's a lot to be learned from understanding the impact of things like the mental cycle, PCOS and how it can affect the women in our lives as well. What are the sort of common misconceptions that you think are prevalent when it comes to things like women's health?
00:13:50
Speaker
Misconceptions. I think that we're still pretty terrible at understanding our own bodies and unfortunately it is our responsibility to really understand how our cycles affect us individually because we can't just blanket statement that. I can't tell one of my female clients that you need to be doing this in X part of your cycle
00:14:10
Speaker
because that's the way to do it because there's no science right then there's no research papers that state this is exactly what would be optimal at different parts of our cycle for x y and z and that's fat mass muscle growth whatever all we can do is draw upon the research to say do you know what actually you are a hotter temperature in
00:14:30
Speaker
from ovulation to the timing of your cycle day one, so therefore you're actually generally going to burn about towards 100 and 300 extra calories. So it's my job to kind of bridge that gap between when I have a female that says I'm just starving hungry all the time that week leading up in their PMS week towards the cycle. It's like you know the science is there like I want them to have comfort in knowing that
00:14:57
Speaker
They're not abnormal. They're not like, why do I always want so much sugar? And then internalizing that, because I think we can very much be like, it's a lack of willpower. It's a lack of motivation. Yet we don't correlate to where we're at in our cycle where it's like, well, yeah, of course you don't feel great there. That could be a contributing factor. So yes, I know it's a bit of a tangent, but when it comes to the menstrual cycle and knowing where you're at in that part and
00:15:23
Speaker
how that affects you individually, sure, we can make nutrition changes
Women's Cycles and Nutritional Needs
00:15:26
Speaker
to make that easy for you, but then, you know, we've got hormonal control, you've got the pill, you've got the coil, you've got all these things that could add an additional impact to you, then it's a minefield itself. So we don't even know where to start, so I can appreciate how men must be like, well, if you don't even know, then how do I even know?
00:15:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's always been that stereotype of periods of where men are just told to steer clear of your other half if she's on a period or at least make sure you're just keeping her sufficiently fed and watered for that period of time. But yeah, it's good to understand a bit more about it and how you can support in that way.
00:16:06
Speaker
And, you know, up until about three years ago, even I wasn't particularly well informed about the different phases of the cycle, because nobody gets taught this. We're not, at least I don't feel like in my education, we had enough discussion around estrogen, progesterone being the dominant sex hormones, what each of those contribute to you, just mentally and physically, because
00:16:27
Speaker
your hormones drive behavior. So once you look, all I have is a lot of people looking at behaviors and then being very like, why am I doing that? And then, well, when you look at a hormone level, you can very much understand that that's exactly the driver. It's, it's fertility to reproduction. So it makes sense when you can be a bit more logical in understanding that and you have
00:16:48
Speaker
Yeah, you just can look at yourself with compassion and be able to then make behavior changes in line with food and just be like, well, this isn't a case of me just overeating all the time. It's because I'm just not paying attention to my body.
00:17:02
Speaker
This idea of insufficient calorie intake, looking at one of your posts, well, you said about, there's about 1500 calories, I think was the number for most women that would probably be too low. Why would that be in terms of fertility?
00:17:19
Speaker
15. Did I say 15? In terms of the general consensus of the types of diets stereotypically put out, we would just use them like 1200 or whatever as a blanket number that my fitness pal or a computer generated
00:17:39
Speaker
calculator would give you, it is too low and I think we've been conditioned as women to sort of then have that trigger of all 1400s too much and then 1600s too little and it's a minefield and then that puts a barrier towards women fueling properly and then we're now in a state in the fitness industry where
00:18:00
Speaker
We are pushing ourselves. Women are more in endurance. We're more in crossfit. We're more explorative of our own body's abilities. Yet when you've got this barrier of, well, I can only eat 1,200 calories to lose weight and we're so consumed with the desire to be smaller.
00:18:17
Speaker
And the difference between how men feel versus women and what we're subjected to visually, men's drive to be muscular, women's drive to be smaller, we're still battling a lot of those stereotypes that have been generationally inherited down.
00:18:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And just drawing on what you said before about different hunger levels throughout the cycle and how that can affect your physiological sort of wellbeing and things. I really like what Tess is doing as well, Tessalynn Jones, in that she's created a program for women called the Female Training Program, I believe it's called, but it actually accounts for the fact that there are certain times during your cycle where you can't push the weights that you were pushing before and you need to kind of take it back a little bit.
00:19:03
Speaker
not because you suck at the jib, it's because your body is changing and it's going through that particular phase of the cycle where you need to actually de-load or take a step back a little bit, which I think a lot of people, again, it's not very widely researched from what I've seen and I think it answers a lot of questions that I think haven't been answered before.
00:19:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's a general consensus of women just feeling validated in the way that they show up in the gym and one minute they can, you know, be squatting an absolute max and then the next day they can't lift up a two kilo dumbbell. Like it's really the transition in our hormonal changes there.
00:19:43
Speaker
affect performance. That doesn't mean to say that everyone experiences the same because like I said there's so much variables but being given the option like test is amazingly done and giving you the knowledge of okay so you're here in your cycle this is how you may feel this is how you might not feel here's a training program that could suit you and here's options and it just gives you the ability to tailor
00:20:05
Speaker
that because I might feel differently the day before I ovulate, which is like day 13 or 14, whereas somebody may feel completely different. And, you know, that surge of testosterone before you ovulate can be an absolute game changer for a PB or a PR in the gym versus actually it could absolutely make me feel completely wiped out. So again, it's that whole personalization.
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah. This goes best as one size fits all, which I think is applied to a lot of the general sort of health and fitness industry where you get stuff that may be good for one person and then they sell it or they peddle it online as this amazing methodology or diet or whatever it may be process. But it's in reality, we don't have a one size fits all.
The Value of Personalized Coaching
00:20:54
Speaker
It's all individual differences are so prevalent in everyone. Everyone's so different that.
00:20:59
Speaker
what works for one may not work for another. Million percent and at one size fits all if I'm completely honest I think that's just lazy coaching and I think it takes a lot of guts like myself Tess or anybody that's trying to change the game a little bit within the space of fitness to be like this is what you've all been doing the meal plans the generic templates
00:21:21
Speaker
And from a marketing and a sales perspective, sure, like it's uncomfortable because that stuff sells. Like it's easy. It's textbook. It's very, you know, um, volume can be done at large, but when you actually take a step back and be like, you know what, you need something different or let me try and take to this for you or let me educate you first. That's the difficult part. And see more people do that and respect that we are all individuals and we need different things.
00:21:50
Speaker
And you just stop, you know, the same person being given the same template of chicken, broccoli, and rice beer, six meals a week. Brown, brown rice, remember, brown rice. Brown, yeah, exactly. And like 100, like only a hundred grams of broccoli, like not 101, not 99, like a hundred.
00:22:08
Speaker
It's crazy. It is, it is. So what would you say to women who are perhaps going through some changes that may be struggling with things like PCOS or even
Guidance for Menopausal Women
00:22:18
Speaker
menopause? Their bodies are changing, they're in sort of unfamiliar territory. How can they cut through the BS that's fed online or in magazines and where would you recommend going to just making sense of it all really?
00:22:33
Speaker
I would probably just start by filtering out any white noise that you've got. I think social media is incredibly hard. So either stop looking at apps or things that are very generic blueprint-y. There can be a lot of noise in that space of like, here's a specific, anybody that's absolutist, right? Anybody that comes on social media is like, this is exactly what you need to be doing. It's just bullshitting because they can't. It'll feel like they're talking to you and it'll be like,
00:22:57
Speaker
that's empowering like they're confident but at the end of the day we all know fitness influencers that are just talking out their arse half the time because they have a great body and they're just using images of their you know bikinis or you know six packs to sell things and you know
00:23:12
Speaker
That's not necessarily the problem. The problem is the vulnerability that these people are under. It's emotional, right? You're going through menopause. It's a huge transition. We spend half of our life in menopause. So it needs to be a level of compassion. First of all, self-acceptance is the first part to anybody changing any behavior or
00:23:33
Speaker
starting any change in their life, it needs to be this is where I'm at, taking an external view and not taking the emotion out of it, but being like, I'm not the problem. Let's look at what I need to do to facilitate my life to make this easy for me and let's become educated by somebody who is more specialized, that they've, you know, there's evidence based as such. And but I really sympathize, it's not, it's very hard.
00:23:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, 100%. And that the evidence-based, even in the evidence-based space, there's still, I think, areas where I discussed with Lewis, and he said, default to skepticism a lot of the time. Oh, yeah. And a lot of the studies that even seem good with evidence, things like that, but when you actually look at the studies, which not everyone's going to do, no one's going to
00:24:22
Speaker
Now, everyone's going to have the ability to be able to look at papers and understand if they're actually good papers or if they are just, again, another version of BS that's sort of masquerading as this evidence-based bit of knowledge, especially when they're done on like rats and non-human subjects.
00:24:38
Speaker
Exactly yeah and a lot of that will be filtered down especially in papers so you need to have people like you know Ben Carpenter's amazing to follow like people that really put so much time into dissecting those papers for us because they're the types of coaches that I watch I very much limit my social media exposure and then every now and then I'll get clients and people sending me things I'm like
00:25:01
Speaker
gosh I can't imagine what just the general public are like watching or being exposed to because I filter that. I don't spend a lot of time looking but in one podcast you can have AG1 Green, Zoe, like the the marketing budgets for these things are huge. Like these are billion-dollar companies I'm sure so it makes sense that it's extremely loud but just because it's loud and they're
00:25:27
Speaker
coming out of the voices of people that you respect in some of the best podcasts in the world doesn't mean they actually have any evidential proof. Just a lot of smoke and mirrors. It is difficult, especially when you have people that you idolise and aspire to be like.
00:25:46
Speaker
I wanted to talk about the CBT element next.
The Role of CBT in Understanding Clients
00:25:51
Speaker
So this year, you said you received your diploma in cognitive behavioral therapy, not CBT is in the motorbike test you have to do to be able to ride a motorbike. That's not... No. That would have been cool. It could have been. You could have got a two for one deal on that one. The name is strict there.
00:26:09
Speaker
Exactly. So what have been the key takeaways or learning points that you've gleaned from that course that have been really stand out and maybe made something click in what you've observed over the years?
00:26:21
Speaker
I think for me personally, understanding how you've talked to yourself, that narrative you run in your own mind about what are the beliefs you've adopted from either your upbringing or the things around you. What are you telling yourself every single day? And it's important because the way you talk to yourself is massive. So CBT very much, it's cognitive and behavioral therapy. So you're looking at thoughts and you're looking at behaviours. And to understand both of them,
00:26:51
Speaker
the emotion so my diploma is in CBT but more also in REBT which is rational emotive behaviour therapy which is a little bit of an umbrella to CBT but it teaches
00:27:06
Speaker
I guess therapists and people that trained in it to look at the emotion underlying. So that's been really key for me is to understand when I'm when I'm consulting with clients, I can hear all of their describe their behaviors, but then I can focus on what emotion is it you're feeling here and why because that will
00:27:23
Speaker
If it's anger, if it's a negative emotion, then I can understand the belief they've got for themselves. Like, I'm not worthy enough and, you know, really get to the crooks of the core of that onion. For me as a behavioural change, you know, facilitator, what am I really dealing with that's not just the smoke and mirrors of?
00:27:43
Speaker
what protein content do I need to be eating yet I've been yo-yo dieting for 16 years kind of thing. I can imagine there's a lot of again smoke and mirrors and what you've said as well with people trying to put on this persona to come across in a certain way with you as well and I think
00:28:01
Speaker
that might be something that I'd find particularly interesting if I was a coach and doing things along those lines. Do you find that's true or do you think it's a case of once you crack the nut then actually you can get to the real crux of what they're getting at and where those negative connotations and beliefs come from?
00:28:22
Speaker
it's when you tackle a conversation from a place of motivational interview and curiosity from a question of why is it you feel that way or what is it what thoughts are going through your head or like even something simple as asking in my check-in form it'll be like what's what emotion have you felt most this week and then I'll ask them more about that because everything plays a part in in how they view themselves and food is just a reflection of how you treat yourself how you think about yourself and view yourself so
00:28:52
Speaker
that will allow, like if I'm if I'm struck with somebody that has a very processed diet, a very hectic life and isn't prioritizing themself, the question isn't for me superficially to be like okay let's just get a bit more veggie in and change this and that, like that's part one but part two is okay so why do you not feel like you're worthy enough of making those changes in the first place, like that's the real problem.
00:29:18
Speaker
I really like the concept of locus of control as well. Are you familiar with the locus of control? Can't say I am, but you can educate me on it.
00:29:27
Speaker
so the the locus of control is you either have an internal or an external locus of control and someone who has a high internal locus of control is of the belief that they have the power to change their their environment how they are basically so what they do how they do it
00:29:48
Speaker
It's all within their control. They have high agency over the decisions they make in their life and things like that. Compare that to someone with a high external locus of control. They're very much a product of their circumstance. The reason I like this is because of how I was brought up or because of the environment I'm in. I'm always surrounded by people who bring donuts into the office so therefore I have to smash five donuts in with my morning coffee.
00:30:14
Speaker
So the locus is essentially the circle, so your circle of control if you want to put it in better terms rather than using the big fancy words. It makes me sound smarter anyway, so I like the big words. No, it makes sense, yeah. It is what beliefs you have about yourself and you can very quickly ascertain the longevity of somebody's results, whether it's externally or internally motivated.
Locus of Control in Lifestyle Changes
00:30:38
Speaker
So the external category of especially when it comes to bodies and gym and fitness is it can be fear, it can be shame, it can be very guilt driven, it can be a I need to prove my worth to somebody because I've had comments about my body or they said you know an all kind comment but that as a recipe for long-term success is
00:30:59
Speaker
I mean, there's no question, it won't last. Fear can be a very strong motivator at first, but if you can't look at yourself with, this is for me, like not for anybody else and this is my journey and it's not to prove somebody wrong or to try and meet somebody else's expectation of me that, yeah, I guess it's a question of where is your motivation or in a drive? Because people come to me saying I want to lose fat and I'm like, okay, why?
00:31:25
Speaker
Well, what do you mean? Why? Like, I just just want to feel better in my clothes. Why do you want to feel better in your clothes? Because I don't fit. Okay. But what's the problem with that? So because if it wasn't, you just go out and buy a bigger size and you wouldn't be bothered by that. But why are you bothered by that? So it's kind of going down the thread of what they come to you with saying is their motivation and actually understanding is that really internal? Is it external? And kind of where do they sit in that? I guess that circle is such like you mentioned.
00:31:55
Speaker
And the idea of buying the bigger clothes and things like that, I think there's been a cultural shift towards this. Obviously, there's been that body positivity movement. And so we've seen now, obviously, historically, models have tended to be very, very skinny and sometimes, again, going back to this idea of aesthetics versus health.
00:32:18
Speaker
not necessarily in the best health but looking very slim very lean not much body fat on them and things like that but now we've kind of gone this cultural shift and we've got the other end of the the sort of other extremity where you have people that are perhaps want to put this delicately because I don't want to
00:32:36
Speaker
don't want to offend anyone but yeah they're obese or overweight but it's getting peddled like pushed in the industry is this kind of under this blanket term of body positivity and i know there have been some people who have been spoken about this i think dr mike the second did a post on this the other day about
00:32:54
Speaker
He is a doctor and his focus is not on how you look, it's your general health and things like that. Yeah. Where do you see, do you see there being a limit to this, this body sort of positivity thing, not to detract from the, obviously the positives that have come out this movement, because I know there's been a real shift in mindset and things like that, but just, I'm worried that it may be taken too far at times.
00:33:16
Speaker
I fully appreciate it. I think even as a coach in this space, it's kind of hard to get your head around a lot of what is right versus wrong and how much is too far with that. But from my end, when I'm coaching, especially women that come to me and they detest their bodies, they will be so internally negative about the way they view themselves that for me as a coach, be like, don't worry, have you heard about this thing called body positivity? They're going to just like,
00:33:43
Speaker
you need to meet people where they're at. So it's very kind of, I guess, unrealistic or I guess it just wouldn't be great coaching if I had this demographic of the types of clients I work with to be like, forget all that, just fake it to your maker and just talk really positively about yourself. It doesn't match. So
00:34:01
Speaker
I'm more focused on like food neutrality, probably more body acceptance, other than like being positive. I'm not necessarily like, oh, let's just be super positive about something, whether it's your body or food, because I feel like to some degree that invalidates truly how people mentally feel negatively about things. It discredits that, like just don't feel negative. Well, it's like telling a depressed person not to be depressed. Yeah.
00:34:26
Speaker
in my opinion, but yeah, I'm not I can't say I'm like a huge advocate of not that I'm not an advocate. I just don't work really in the body like kind of positivity space as such.
00:34:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there when you said body acceptance. And I think the language that's used has got such an impact on the way we perceive things. So I am going to start referring it to it now as body acceptance rather than body positivity because I feel like that's a much better way to frame it rather than this whole, oh, don't worry about it.
00:35:00
Speaker
it's you know you're beautiful even though you're you're actually probably not you're maybe taking years off your life or you may be looking not even looking but just the general sort of health and longevity aspect as well so yeah i like that body acceptance
00:35:17
Speaker
I have seen, there's a quote I like from Seneca surrounding goals and goals have been something that have been quite a common theme on this podcast with a number of the guests I've spoken to.
Evolving Goals and Holistic Progress
00:35:29
Speaker
So we've got triathletes we've had, rugby coaches, professional rugby players, we've had people who are running businesses and it's this idea of goal setting.
00:35:39
Speaker
And the quote from Seneca is, and my interpretation of that is, if you don't have an end goal in mind, you're never going to be able to tell if you're going in the right direction.
00:35:55
Speaker
nice and i think that kind of links quite back back quite nicely to this whole idea of the yo-yo dieting and goals and you with your why questions of why you're drilling down why do you want to fit into the clothes and so so how important is goal setting in your experience
00:36:10
Speaker
i think it is it is super important you need to have some at least vision or direction and it's also okay to change that and for for goals to not just be so set in stone because a client may start working with me the focus of fat loss and very quickly we realize that their relationship with food is something that they want more or actually it's more performance so goals can change but you want a million percent yeah you need to know where you're heading and whether that's like i think
00:36:38
Speaker
With nutrition, it can be very like metric space. It's like weights, numbers, and my fitness pal. But when you're working subjectively and it's more on feelings or holistic coaching, it's tricky for people to be like, how do I measure that? How do I measure progress? I don't know what the goal is when it's body acceptance.
00:36:59
Speaker
that can just be more sense of feeling, like a less thoughtful occupation with food, your body, maybe you actually just forgot about, you know, the pack of cookies you had in the fridge, like in the cupboard, whereas previously you'd be obsessed with it and you'd eat the whole packet, kind of just little things like that. So yes, goal setting at the beginning of a stage, but also, you know, at certain points in the journey is important to identify, but for them to dictate not really you as the coach.
00:37:29
Speaker
You wrote an article about comparison as being the thief of joy and it's one of my favorite quotes really because it resonates a lot with a lot of people in the current climate where you have social media. We're talking about idolizing people and pedestalizing people based on
00:37:48
Speaker
you know what they have posting so they've got the nice house they've got the fast car and they are seemingly doing best than you i use the word seemingly like there because obviously that's very subjective yeah and i listened to the jimmy car episode of modern wisdom yesterday and they were just so good right so good i like i didn't realize how much jimmy car
00:38:10
Speaker
was in terms of how much of a deep thinker he was and just yes such a such a smart guy um really really enjoyed that episode that was probably one of my favorites that he's done recently but they were they were talking about
00:38:25
Speaker
well, one of the standout points for me, they were talking about that quote of comparison being the thief of joy. And Jimmy Carr said at one point how you can't just cherry pick the nice bits of the people you're idolizing. You have to, if you want to be like that person, you've got to have the whole package. So when you really start to drill down in the people you're idolizing, how much of that stands true in that you want to have their life and lead their lifestyle. When you start thinking about
00:38:52
Speaker
Or can they leave the house without a security detail because they're so famous? Or can they go and get like pop to the shops and get a loaf of bread without being recognized and having to queue for 50 photos with different people? It becomes a question of do you really want that? And I actually saw Romesh Ranganathan
00:39:12
Speaker
yeah yeah yeah the comedian oh great yeah i saw him in a pub once and he went to the bar after being sat with his group of friends in the corner and he literally went to get maybe i think he came back with maybe two pints so one for him and a friend uh 20 minutes later he came back with his pint after being sort of bombarded with
00:39:35
Speaker
people once they started recognizing him you get one person taking a photo and then all of a sudden he's got a crowd around him there were people that were kind of drunk they were hanging around hugging him hanging around his neck sort of thing and then eventually he returned to his table and then people started coming up to him at his table and sitting next to him and and you got to remember this guy's he's human right so
00:39:57
Speaker
When you start to think about that aspect, and this is the bit you don't see, not the famous aspect of things you see on social media or him on the telly, this is his day-to-day life. He just wants to go for a pint with his friends, and he's got all this.
00:40:11
Speaker
Would you really want to deal with that? I'm not sure I would. I'd like to be as funny as him, but in terms of that aspect of it, I'm not sure I would. No, a million percent. The whole cherry picking nature of it is insane. You wouldn't spend 24 hours in those people's shoes. If you can imagine people's, I don't know, whatever idol or fitness person or social media influence that they may come to me with.
00:40:37
Speaker
you can guarantee that their life is you know they select what they want to show you and I think that's it's been a learning curve for all of us is to be more vulnerable and open about the the realities of our day-to-day life like everything isn't roses and and all
00:40:54
Speaker
like amazing things so when you've got those people that are a little bit more open you can be like oh yeah their life isn't that great but when you don't and you're following people that are like here's my you know getting out a bit of 4am and here's my amazing life and my routine and you're like
00:41:12
Speaker
How are they functioning? But, you know, they're crippled with anxiety and they can't sleep at night and their relationships are down the toilet and they haven't seen their kids in two weeks really because they've been flying here, there and everywhere. You wouldn't want it for two seconds. So, what do you want? You want a body but you're not prepared to take everything else around it? Well, okay.
00:41:34
Speaker
then you can quickly be like, yeah, do you know what? Maybe that isn't the goal I want because I don't want to have to sacrifice the other facets of my health to get that.
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah, the sacrifices are the element that you don't see, right? In any of the people that you sort of idolize with talking about body image here, you know, he's got the Mr. Olympias, there was that episode he did with Chris Bumstead as well, the current, well, Mr. Olympia world champion, and how he was talking about one day he just kind of was crying on the bathroom floor because it was just so much, like, it was just so overwhelmed by it, but
00:42:09
Speaker
he's kind of got the best body in the world according to, you know, obviously the criteria of that competition. So yeah, it's very interesting. Do you think comparison can be a useful tool as well? Can it be useful?
00:42:26
Speaker
I guess from a business perspective, it can be nice.
Impact of Comparison and Body Image
00:42:30
Speaker
It depends on how you view it, right? To one person, you might look at an influence and be like, oh, that's motivating. But if we're talking bodies, then no, I don't ever, to be honest, feel like that's nobody. Like I said, it's fear, it's shame, it's guilt. It's like, I want what they have. It's fear-driven.
00:42:47
Speaker
So the longevity of you getting to that and wanting that is never going to be sustainable. So I think for me personally, for business and things like that, sometimes it's nice to see. Like I love seeing entrepreneurs or business or understanding psychology things a little bit more, but I don't try to internalize that and make it something about me or a failure on my part.
00:43:08
Speaker
I think people can be quite susceptible if they struggle with those areas to just internalize it about their own losses or their lack of ability. So everything they see is like I'm a failure, I'm not doing that, I should be better, I'm not enough kind of thing.
00:43:23
Speaker
I like that there's another quote. I'm firing out the quotes today, but there's one from Jordan Peterson. We need to have a quote. Yeah. For anyone who's not familiar with Jordan Peterson, he's a clinical psychologist. He's pretty popular now from Canada. And he's written a book called 50 Rules for Life. And one of the quotes that have come out of it that kind of resonated with me quite a lot was, compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not who someone else is today.
00:43:52
Speaker
And I think I really like that quote. It's a wonderful quote because so often I feel like we don't take time to reflect on actually how far we've come in terms of the achievements we've made. And it doesn't even have to be like a big win. It can just be small wins as well. Like, did you maybe you didn't want to go to the gym and you got to the gym today or
00:44:12
Speaker
Maybe you just didn't want to get out of bed and you got out of bed and you got dressed. They're wins. Talking to someone, having the difficult conversation, speaking to your manager if you wanted to have that conversation but you've been putting it off. Andrew Desch talked about this quite a lot in terms of enjoying the reward and enjoying the
00:44:31
Speaker
taking time to enjoy the reward of the F put in. And I think it's so easy to overlook when you're constantly looking to the next thing and you're sort of running towards that horizon where you're running towards it, but it's getting further and further away. So yeah, I really like this idea of enjoying the reward.
00:44:51
Speaker
I guess it's being present, right? It's mindfulness, it's conscious awareness of your day to day and your senses and where your feet are now. And I think as a society, we are so forward conscious that we lose sight of that and it strips a lot of the joy of your life.
00:45:09
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I will do check-ins with clients where they're like, okay, so how was your week been? And they're like, well, yeah, I got promotion. I got this, this, this, this, this amazing thing happened. And they just can't even, like, they don't recognize how incredible it is some of the things they're saying to me. I'm like, okay, you've just literally reeled off like the most incredible week yet. Because they probably weren't present. They didn't absorb it. They didn't take a stop to think, do you know what? Yeah, I deserve that. And maybe it's a,
00:45:38
Speaker
I'm still not good enough. I mean, we're just so busy. We're human beings, not doings. And I think we lose sight of that. And we are very good at intellectualizing and trying to just moving forward because our fear of constantly growing. And it's like, in this space in fitness, it's very like,
00:45:59
Speaker
efficiency, productivity. Like if you're not up at 4am, like you haven't built business by 12pm and you're not like making millions in this industry or conquering the world by like midday, then you've somehow like not, you're not winning in this game. But winning is enjoying your coffee and like spending time with your kids and being more effective on like what you value as opposed to what other people value.
00:46:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's very true in terms of the whole being present element. There is, I'm reading a book at the moment called Stolen Focus by Johan Hari. Johan Hari? Yeah. Yeah, amazing. I'm really enjoying it and it's kind of, my screen time's terrible and I know it has been for a while. I'm just starting to, it's taken me reading a book to be able to go actually, I've always had this niggle in the back of my mind like, okay, I need to sort this out, it's not good, it's not good, it's not good.
00:46:52
Speaker
It's taken me reading a book to go, actually, there's so much I'm probably missing out on because I'm too engulfed in trying to find out the next thing or learn a new bit of information instead of actually taking stock of taking the podcast, for example, listening to a podcast.
00:47:12
Speaker
taking time to actually reflect and digest on what's been said and some of the lessons that you can take away from things like that. And same with each day, how you can take the lessons from the day rather than going, okay, did that nice next, like, what's the next podcast? Oh, that's a good one. Cause I found myself earlier, I was trying to recall some of the information from that podcast yesterday and it was like,
00:47:36
Speaker
I can't even remember what they said. I know I really enjoyed it and I know there were some really interesting elements, some good lessons there. I just couldn't remember it. So yeah, it's definitely a work in progress, but I think it's probably one that affects not just me and it's probably quite a common commonality with a lot of people really.
00:47:54
Speaker
Yeah, and social media does, it's everything's curated to steal your time. I think Geran in that book does an amazing job of making you be more consciously aware of your behaviours around what is taking your time and what you're spending it on. Yeah, we can be very absorbed in just thinking we're doing the work but not actually doing it. Like it's the procrastination, it's the reading of the 20th self-help book this month, but actually if you're to reflect and be like,
00:48:19
Speaker
Did you do anything with that information and how how helpful was it? So i'm guilty that like I I sometimes even struggle to read fiction now versus non-fiction. I'm like, I need a new book. I need a new like i've Yeah, like yourself. I've probably read quite a lot of them at this point and yet we're still here with the four hour screen time on tiktok or instagram being like well Johan we are not serving you well
00:48:46
Speaker
Yeah, I don't have time to do anything else, and you're like, well, if I'm spending four hours on my phone, I probably can find some time somewhere. But it's just having that conversation with yourself and just... I'm trying not to, again, just not going back to what you said about the not punishing yourself for it, because we are human beings at the end of the day.
00:49:08
Speaker
I'm trying not to punish myself about it, but just again, seeing what I can do, make small changes and a bit more moving, just tipping the balance the other way so we can start getting a bit more control back over what I'm doing and things like that. And I think this again, the small goes back to the small wins, not trying to not trying to fly to the moon straight away, but just take those small, small wins and everyday changes that can can add up the death, death of a thousand cuts, as they call it, but reversed.
00:49:37
Speaker
Yeah. And it's in this instant gratification society where we want everything now, we are extreme. We want to go, right. I'm cutting every social media wrap out now. Zero screen time. Like it's exciting. It's like a cool, I could like, you know, go from zero screen time for the four hours and back and forth. And yes, I think.
00:49:57
Speaker
It's important to be realistic about what is achievable and that all or nothing gets in everything in us. It's in food, it's in careers, it's in day-to-day habits. We're very all or nothing German species.
00:50:11
Speaker
Definitely. So taking what you have learned then from the CBT, your years of coaching, do you have any maybe strategies or practices or perhaps any recommendations for how people can distill that and be a bit more present,
Self-Talk and Beliefs in Personal Change
00:50:27
Speaker
as we say? Is there anything you'd recommend or anything you think would be useful to implement?
00:50:32
Speaker
I guess if you have a goal or a focus and if you keep understanding about how you speak to yourself is really important. So if you recognize that that's really negative, I think it's super important to be proactive in understanding maybe where that narrative has come from. Is that you talking? Is that a teacher from your past? A parent talking and understanding the beliefs that you feel are operating around you, especially about food and fitness. What your values are and stripping it back to like the why.
00:51:01
Speaker
could read some, is it Simon Sinek's The Wine or whatever that book is. To get a bit more clarity. Yeah, start with wine in terms of clarity on, are you doing this for you or is this because you think that you should? Because it's a cultural movement towards it and because it's like summer and you're going on a holiday. So therefore you almost, you're so automatic in your thinking that you haven't stopped to be like,
00:51:26
Speaker
Why do I constantly need to go through the motions of beating myself up because I've gained a few pounds or I need to get on it or back on it and that yo-yo cycling, it's like, take yourself off the hamster wheel. You're the answer, right? We're all the problem. We're the whole Taylor Swift song. It's like, it's me. Hi, I'm the problem.
00:51:47
Speaker
When you sit in acceptance of that and you're like, oh yeah, that mirror, that person's me. I'm the one standing in the way of anything I want in life. And we're not disturbed by things, we're disturbed by the views we take of them, as I think it's a bit teeter said. So yeah, be more philosophical, understanding why,
00:52:07
Speaker
I could tell you to go and try meditating for a lot of people that works. I think it's definitely a positive, but kind of just need to know how you work, how you operate. And like you said, just leave the needle in the right direction.
00:52:20
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I mean, meditation for me, I think just going out for like a walk helps me quite a lot, but just, I can't sit still. So this idea of sitting quietly for half an hour, I'm like, no way. But my other half gets absolutely shakes ahead of me because she's able to relax and she enjoys her relaxation. She knows what that is. I don't, I mind very much
00:52:47
Speaker
I have to be busy all the time. So it's very, it's definitely a learning process for me as well. Just how I can be a bit more present, but take the time to just slow down a little bit. And again, it's that element of taking the time to just be a bit more aware of what's going on around you and your surroundings rather than rushing from one thing to the next. I think that really helps.
00:53:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's the first part, right? It's conscious awareness of where you're at. And yeah, you've done well to even note that that's probably the balance is a bit off in that and to make sense towards correcting that. You didn't listen to podcasts, taking walks. Nature's an amazing way to get more acquainted or starting in that process.
00:53:27
Speaker
Definitely. Except when you live in England, it's always the most ideal weather. Yeah, today's not the best one for that, but hey, how? I suppose we don't melt. We're not going to melt. Exactly. Didi, thank you very much indeed. If anyone wants to find out maybe a bit more about your coaching and what you do, where might they find some more information?
00:53:48
Speaker
Well, I guess I'm pretty active on social media and probably need to work on that. As you've identified, screen time is in gray, but I am a chronic people pleased with my DMs. I will respond to anyone and everything because I like to help people. So yes, if you've got any questions, you can always DM me. My handle is stiddles for rizzle, which I do slightly regret committing to 10 years ago.
00:54:12
Speaker
We're going with it. It's still there. So Diddles for Izzel. And then I have a website, which is coached by Didi, which has a lot of free resources and like a menopause course that you can sort of start that journey with whatever you've identified as your goal. That last performance muscle growth, whatever. Amazing. Diddles for Izzel. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Cheers.
00:54:58
Speaker
you