S1E9: Why The Weight You Lose Doesn't Stay Off

In this episode, I discuss some of the most common questions I’ve been getting. I talk about the concept of intrinsic to extrinsic changes, my typical meals throughout the week, counting calories, and so much more.

Tish  00:00

Welcome to strong bodies by Tish podcast. I am so excited that I finally have this podcast on this platform to share my experiences with you. 30 years of experience, I love to talk, I love to share my stories through this podcast. I hope we get inspired, motivated to live a happier, healthier life. Please enjoy. This podcast is sponsored by strong bodies by Tisch, you can find out more about my program on my website, train with tisch.com. Or you can check out the link below and try my seven days of training for free. Well, you'll get a better idea of my style, my concepts, and the way I love to train my clients. While we are here. Once again, thank you so much for tuning in. Just you and me today, no one joining me on this podcast, we're going to talk about nutrition today, I get a ton of people asking me what I eat, what I encourage my clients to eat, do I do meal plans. So this, hopefully 30 minutes is going to touch upon some of the questions that I get often. And remember, if you have any questions, please don't be shy underneath all these podcasts, there's an opportunity for you to ask anything. And I will check on those and do my best to answer them. I actually just finished day one of the 10 days of Christmas, charity boot camps. So much fun. Today we did like day and I thought I was going to die. I was watching the ladies doing the Zoom workout and all of them seemed to be ahead of me. And Harley had a breath and I was actually sweating out of breath could barely talk. So maybe this is a sign that I need to up my intensity. I was very impressed with the ladies this morning. So I really do enjoy this time of year. It's so fun to do. Charity events like this All proceeds that are going to this charity or going to the SPCA half going to Calgary half going to Kelowna, I have a huge love for animals, as most of you know. And I love that people register and then I can walk into the SPCA, and donate that money. So if for those of you who are listening and have participated registered and donated to that, cause thank you so much. It's awesome. So this is a really special time of year. And I think that this conversation about nutrition is timely. Just because I think we have two approaches over the holiday season, we have either the all or nothing, fuck it, it's Christmas, I'm going to eat and drink whatever I want. Group and then there's the group that really stresses over the holiday season, about all the hard work that they have put into the last several months they've been disciplined they've done their workouts and, and this holiday season often will stress a lot of those people out because they don't want to take any steps back. So I think that this conversation right now is timely. And I think that the 10 days leading into the holiday season is also helpful for a lot of people we were going to discuss how are mindset needs to be over the next 10 days. So I'm looking forward to helping and coaching the people who have registered. But for this podcast, I'm going to try to break it up into three sort of different topics. The third, the first one, I'm going to sort of discuss what I eat in a day, because people want to know that. The second one is why I'm so emphatically against diets, meal plans, etc. I have lots of reasons as to why. So I'm going to get into that. And then the third part of this podcast, I will touch upon what I recommend my clients and members to do to approach the nutrition and eating side of the wellness because it is a major, major part of wellness. It's huge. If we are training and working out and doing all the good habits, but our tuition isn't where it needs to be, then it is very hard for us to get results. And I'm not just talking physical, how you look results. Nutrition has a lot to do with how we feel and I think a lot of people focus on again, I said this a lot. Extrinsic, the things that we see versus the intrinsic. And those are the things that in my opinion should be the most important. And hopefully,


Tish  04:39

through more conversation about this, people will become more focused on that as well. And the extrinsic things come it just takes a little bit longer and people get frustrated and quit before those extrinsic exterior results show before the intrinsic ones. You don't necessarily focus on them. And if you did, you'd realize how much better Are you actually feel not just energy wise, but emotionally and spiritually as well. These things all make a good nutrition makes an improvement in your entire life. I cannot stress that enough. So, but in saying that I want people to understand that they can approach balance, or sorry, approach, nutrition in a balanced way, it doesn't need to be deprived approach at all. I'm all about Yes, having some discipline, but never deprivation, those that's sort of my whole thing. As soon as you feel deprived, then you are in big, big trouble and leading down that spiral of losing weight, then putting it back on eventually. So let's just quickly talk about what I typically do now, first thing I should mention before I tell people, my approach is my approach is my approach, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be good for you, we all our own own individuals with different time commitments, different schedules, different requirements, different goals. So it's very hard for you to, for someone to kind of compare what they're doing versus what I'm doing. But people do want to know, so I'm going to quickly touch upon it. Now fasting is something that I've started incorporating into my wellness since about end of June, July, not on purpose. And I did discuss a lot about fasting, which I'm not going to do again, and I think it was third episode with Dr. Sarah, my first and she's an expert in this and we have a great conversation. So if you want to know more about the fasting component of what I do, and what she recommends that podcast, which I will link underneath this podcast is a must read, or listen, I should say, we don't read, we listen on these podcasts. So I would really highly, highly recommend if you haven't listened to that conversation you do. So she goes through the different methods, why we do things, things, I've had received some feedback that people actually when they listened to that podcast, they literally could visualize what was happening inside of the body, which is very, very cool. And again, fasting isn't for everyone. And she mentioned that as well. I should probably just remind people that if you know if you're older week, have had some eating disorders in the, in the past, these things are pop or fasting is probably not something that I would would recommend. And she also touches upon that in the podcast. But fasting for me is something that I have done. And I love it. I love how I feel, I love how I sleep.


Tish  07:34

I love the disciplined feeling discipline makes people feel happy, when you are in control of your life. And that is that has. And that's not just about wellness, that is how you keep your home, how you keep your car, how you keep your closet, all of these things are discipline, discipline habits, they are what creates your confidence and your purpose. And if you have discipline in your life, in all aspects, you are much happier person. And I know this because I have seen it hundreds and hundreds of times with clients but also I live in the moments in my life that I am not disciplined completely out of out of you know, my house is disaster. I'm not making my bed, little things like that, which is discipline. I just don't feel as happy. So I personally have also experienced periods of my life where I've been less disciplined, and completely appreciate it when I'm more disciplined. And I think that goes for most of you. So yeah, discipline, when it comes to fasting is a little bit required. It does take some discipline is what I'm trying to say. But it doesn't need to be that difficult. I personally love just to eat dinner early in the early in the afternoon. So four o'clock, five o'clock, it is not always doable because Neil isn't as into fasting as I am. And I don't want him to have to eat dinner that early every single day. But he's certainly open to eating earlier on. Now that he's at home working, we can have dinner at five 530. And it works in both of our schedules before when he used to work at eight till eight or nine o'clock at night. Or even seven for that matter. We wouldn't be eating till 730 and eight fasting in the next day, I found to be very, very difficult. And that's probably why it's so much easier now is because we literally work in the house together in our house together. And so we can kind of coordinate our meals a little bit easier that way the kitchen is right here. It's a lot easier and I can appreciate that not everyone has this luxury. And fasting has to work for your schedule and it doesn't work for everyone's schedule. For us it does we eat early. And then we tried to do about a 15 to 16 hour fast. And then there's a 667 hour window eating, sometimes it is not that long of a fast, sometimes I wake up, and I need to have something right away. Not that often your body does become very comfortable you and used to then this new way of eating, you just have to give it some patience, I usually recommend people give it three real weeks to try. There's progressive ways to do it as well. You know, you can start with three days, then four days, or you can do every day, but do only 12 hour fasts and then each day you increase the length of your fasting, there's many different approaches. And again, you're going to have to kind of practice and see what works for you. A lot of people either last meal late at night, and then they can fast the next day until 112 or three o'clock in the afternoon. That does not mean I love my coffee in the morning with my chocolate and my fun cream. And I can only wait so long to have that and there's no way I'm waiting till one o'clock in the afternoon. So, early dinner, no snacking really honestly, that is the biggest thing that I have recommended to my clients since day one, it always felt right for me to say to people to stop eating at night. Now there's a lot of trainers that will completely disagree with me saying energy in versus energy out. And I used to say that it literally is just what you're eating versus what you're expending. But I have done way more research with regards to this lately. And the reading that I'm doing is that it actually does make a difference. Your body works better in a proper circadian rhythm. So basically eating when it's daylight, not eating, when it's dark, the body likes that it also really likes, patterns, regular routines, and works better for you. If you do try to plan your meals at the same time and day each day, that's very important. And again, I'm I know that I'm more more sort of in into this than a lot of people and if you're just sort of dabbing your feet into this type of lifestyle, you don't need to be as intense as I am. But you have to remember that fitness and wellness is my life. It is my passion. It has been part of my life for over 30 years. So I'm always learning more experiencing more it is in my mind it is in my thoughts, unlike most of you who it is not. So you have to find your own balance and I'm just sharing my stories because people would like to hear them. So fasting Yeah, is a big thing. So we have dinner very, very early, no snacks. I love my warm water with lemon at night or my hot tea. Obviously herbal tea without any milk in it is also considered fasting. And then when I get up in the morning, I


Tish  13:08

drink warm water with lemon again and then as soon as it's time to, for me to break my fast it's sometimes 1415 or 16 hours it really does depend how I feel. And it also depends on my schedule. I will then have my vitamin water for those of you who are watching this is the end of the vitamin water. It's it's just a scoop of all the vitamins that I feel that I require plus I take other vitamins, maybe I'll talk about vitamins and another podcast. Drink that let it digest let it do its job in my body. And then I love my first thing in the morning is my favorite almost my favorite thing in the world is my little piece of chocolate in my coffee with some cream fun cream is like you know, it's got the sugar, it's got dairy, it's just I call it the fun cream. And I put as much as I want in there and I enjoy it. The top couple SIPs are good because the chocolate melts to the top. It's It's really such an incredible treat and I always look forward to that coffee and then I typically will do a workout. If I feel like I need something to eat I'll eat obviously I've already broken my fast so that doesn't matter but I do typically like to do my lifts on a more of an empty stomach and because my body is now accustomed and used to it, it is an easy thing for me to do not everyone will be able to do that they'll need like a banana or an apple with a couple of almonds or whatever or half a smoothie to get you through the workout. But a lot of that is also going to be your mindset and what your body's used to. It doesn't really matter if you work out on a more of an empty stomach or not. I just prefer it if I start the session, feeling a little peckish and 20 minutes in I realize I do need some more fuel. I'll come upstairs grab something, but typically after 1520 minutes I'm good to go. And but my body really does welcome the feeling of not having all that food in my belly when I eat when I'm training. And then after we do smoothies, and I've posted my smoothie, a ton on social media, it's very simple scoop of protein powder, frozen berries, banana, I have to add a fat in there, otherwise it doesn't stick with me. So either oodles oil, which is a mega three, six and nines or, which is typically what I do peanut butter, natural peanut butter, there's just peanuts in it. Adams is my favorite. It's delicious. It's got the salt in there, which is also very important to your overall health. And then all milk or coconut milk or regular milk, I drink dairy, I eat gluten, I'm very, unless you have an allergy to certain types of foods, I'm very pro, eating all the foods. As soon as you decide that you no longer or feel like you shouldn't have a certain type of food because someone has told you it's not healthy, or you're going to gain weight or whatever. You're instinctually going to want it more and secondly, your body will get accustomed to that not having that food. So this is very common amongst bodybuilders. They go 567 months without certain types of foods. I think now it's not as intense as it used to be when I competed. It was crazy intense, no dairy, no red meat. No fruit. No, I mean, it was insane. And it did take months, if not a year to fully adjust to not eating those things, and then slowly incorporating the back end because your body does get used to not digesting certain types of foods. So highly not not recommended at all. I'm here to tell you that dairy and gluten are not bad for you. They are fine. They're not going to be the reason why you're gaining weight. So if you're injured if you enjoy rice, and bagels, and I mean, are they the healthiest choices? No. But everything in smaller portions is highly recommended. Of course, they're going to not be as beneficial for your overall health and are not going to give you the energy that you would get if you avoided some types of those foods, but in small dosages, it's not going to make a difference and if it makes you happy, in my opinion, that is what is most important.


Tish  17:36

Okay, so after the smoothie, we usually go for our walk one of our walks, I again, encourage 10 Step, 10,000 steps a day so we get at least 567 of those steps in after that. And then it's lunchtime. We have a couple of options. Not a lot. But there's a couple of coffee shops that make incredible sandwiches and soups with veggies and like real good protein not processed crap. They make it roast it in the kitchen which is incredible. So we often will go there I'll have typically another Americano with not fun cream this time i No chocolate I just do like normal cream for if I have a second cup of coffee, we do need to be somewhat disciplined. And those pieces of chocolate do add up. So one, one piece a day. And then a couple more pieces maybe on the weekend or if I'm PMS thing, though, so that's how I kind of cut myself a break. But if I'm you know, having one piece of chocolate every day to me, I sit there mindfully enjoy it and know that that is part of my treat one of my treats for the day. Sometimes we just come home I scrambled eggs or hard boiled eggs. I'm a big have vegetables with that. Oh, that was one thing I forgot we add spinach to our smoothie. So I'm a big proponent or push pusher of vegetables with each meal. I like vitamins and minerals. I like to know that I'm getting them. It's easy for me to put spinach in my smoothie. I don't even taste it. I'm really into just breaking off some broccoli that we always have in the fridge cleaning it up but some hummus on the side of the plate, a couple eggs, and that's typically a lunch for me. Portion size hummus, obviously those things are higher in fat and calories. So you do need to be mindful of your portions even healthier foods need to be you need to be mindful of them. I typically eat three or four eggs at lunch. Sometimes I'll give a yoke or two to the dogs. Actually, every time I do I can't say no to them. They're all looking at me. But yolks are not unhealthy. Of course if you have some cholesterol issues, you might need to be mindful of those bye I typically have all the jokes. Again, I like to approach nutrition. As a general day instead of counting macros and being obsessive about it, I typically like to just be mindful. So if I'm eating a bunch of peanut butter in a smoothie, and for yolk yolks in, I'm talking fat Makro in my lunch along with two tablespoons of hummus, I know that in my day, so far, I've had a lot of fat. So I just, I'm mindful about my dinner fat portion, right, instead of counting the eye, I don't want people to become too obsessed about counting macros, because I think the most important thing is our protein intake. And as long and I'm going to get into this later, so maybe I'll just not get into that because I want to talk about that in the in the third topic of this podcast, but you do have to be mindful of them. So for dinner is typically a protein of some sort. Neil and I are very regimented, not because we were regimented, because we're regimented, we're meant regimented, because I we hate the conversation, what do you want to have for dinner tonight, we just have the same dinner Monday, every Monday, every Tuesday, not the same meal, but they're the same on Mondays, they're the same on Tuesdays. And the reason why we do that is to take the conversation out. And also it's a balanced week. So for example, Mondays we have salmon with rice, I portion size, the rice, I would I literally would put to two cups of rice, two huge cups of rice, probably three on my plate, I tried to portion them, he plates, my food. And I was like, that's good. Because you know, I don't need the same amount of rice as my 220 pound husband. Although I can eat the exact same amount of food is him, it's frightening. And then we have always a vegetable. So steamed broccoli, or asparagus on the barbecue, roasted peppers on the barbecue.


Tish  22:15

That's typically it just a big pile of veggies. So our plate looks like a pom, maybe five, six ounces of protein, a portion size of rice be smart, or whatever carbohydrate you wish. And then as many colorful vegetables on your plate as you possibly can. Don't think about taking food off of your plate, think about adding more good food to your plate, you know, you can eat a big huge bowl of salad, because it's very low in calories and it's high in the, it's high. It's nutrient dense food. So and people really like to eat. And so instead of thinking taking things out, think about adding better, more colorful food to your plate and then you're still eating more. I think that mindset really will help you as well as think good food, more good food on your plate. And I also want to talk about good food versus bad food. Even though I just said good food for good put good food on your plate. This is such a touchy situation because it's it's hard to get people thinking about nutrition, it's hard to get people on board. And it's also hard because so many people have had eating issues in the past I do feel a little bit anxious about talking about nutrition because I really don't want people to go down a rabbit hole of bad thinking or negative thoughts. I want nutrition to be something that causes people more freedom, more happiness, more energy, those sorts of things. And and that's my approach here. So I really, really hope that that is what's happening. Okay, so that's dinner, and on Tuesdays we have a big, big huge salad, all the colors, everything that you can imagine putting in it. We do like avocado, we do like fetta cheese and our dressing has all of the oil in it. And so that is a very high fat macro meal. So on Tuesdays I want my fat macros at lunch. It's really that easy. Just if you plan and look at your entire day and are mindful of it. It's really that easy because I do know that that salad even though is healthy because it's full of vegetables. It has a shit ton of fat in it good fat, but still high fat. And I love my avocado and they're good for you. They give you a ton of healthy energy and that imbalance are not balanced. They give you a ton of health benefits. That's what I was trying to say. So


Tish  25:01

You just need to be more mindful Wednesdays I'll just tell you it's halibut or some type of like sablefish. It really depends on what's available at the fish market. And then another usually rice. And then again, vegetables. Thursday is an option ish option is an optional day, sometimes we order sushi in, or Neil will roast another chicken. Or we'll have burgers, red meat burgers, and he puts black beans in them. And we have the best beef from this incredible butcher here in Kelowna. And I cannot even tell you how incredible these these burgers taste the flavor in them is amazing. You You barely have to even season them. And or put things into the meat is just absolutely delicious. And the burger bun. And so that would be another thing to consider. If you're if you know on Thursday night you're having the burger, possibly maybe with the bun on for lunch, you wouldn't have a sandwich you would have, you would take less of the carbohydrate macro out because you know, you're going to be eating the bread in the evening. Again, just putting some thoughts in there. So you consider consider when you're eating and thinking about your eating, you think about the entire day. And then you don't feel guilty about eating certain things. When you're when you're planning your meals. Friday is steak, we have really actually increased our red meat intake by quite a bit. So we're typically eating steak, or red meat two times a week, we were doing it three, or sorry, once but now we're typically doing it twice a week. And I feel great. So I think that that extra red meat a week is is helping us again, just for me not sure if it will be something you would like to be open to or want to try. But I'm just talking in reference to my experiences right now. And then on Saturday is the night that we kind of enjoy, we typically will do you know different breakfast, which is not as healthy. Or sometimes we know we're going to go out for dinner or make pizzas or something more unhealthy. You know, unhealthy, I hate using that word, but less healthy, I should probably say. And so sometimes if we know we're going to do that we stay on track during the day on Saturday, or we fast for longer. And the meal on Saturdays more like you know, and also that's when we have our cocktail. So we like to have a glass of champagne or sparkling wine or I love beer. And then we share a bottle of wine. Sometimes we have two poles of wine, Sunday morning sometimes are not that much fun. But it's only one day I get up get a sweat in and then Sunday typically again, we have more grease for breakfast bacon and eggs and toast because of Saturday night. And then by midday Sunday, we get back on track. And so you know typically it's maybe the 8020 rule 80% of the time we feel very in control and disciplined. And then of course Saturdays, Sunday mornings are a little less off track. And I'm going to get into why that works in a few in the next part of this podcast. So good and bad foods, there's no such thing. There are foods that are going to give you more energy. definitely help you look better are going to give you more clarity, a fresher mind more clarity, clarity of mind help you sleep better, there are going to be foods that contribute to your overall wellness. The bad foods that people refer to like sugar, processed foods, some carbohydrates. You know, we all know them


Tish  28:55

are normally labeled bad and they're not bad. I want people to feel less guilty about incorporating some of those treats into your day. They're just think they're just foods that are have higher calories in them. So it's fine if you know that you're going to be treating yourself with higher calorie foods, not bad foods, just higher calorie foods, then help bounce that day off with better quality foods. And then you won't actually even probably feel that crappy if you do enjoy a couple of unhealthier bad foods and I'm doing this in air quotes if you're just listening and that will also help your mindset and make you feel less guilty. It's all about guilt people have black and white approach to to nutrition. They're either 100% on board or they're 100% off board and just saying fuck it. I'm going to get back on schedule next month and that really is a bad approach. If you kind of look at things as like day to day and and each meal, then it's going to be much easier for you to have some treats. Be off your nutrition plan A lot easier, and then you won't feel so guilty and then you won't quit. That's the problem is people have one bad meal or two bad days of eating, and they go, Oh, I may as well just forget it. Now I've had two bad days. I'll start next month. And that's why we never get to where we wanted to get to. There's going, we're all human beings, there's going to be good meals, bad days. Be okay with it. And just make sure that you get on track when you can. And that mindset will help you immensely to sticking with a healthy nutrition plan. Now, I want to talk about why diets don't work. I, I cannot stand meal plans. I cannot. And if and the reason why I feel so strongly about this is because 99% of the people out there who are providing you with diets, nutrition plans are making a lot of money from those things. There's nothing wrong with that. We all have ways of making money. But the problem is, is that no one can normally stick with them, and they don't teach you how to eat. So for example, when Neil and I got married, there was a couple who were going to be at our wedding and they were wanting to lose weight for the wedding was a big, big deal for them. So they decided to go on a diet. I'm not going to name the diet. But it sounded ridiculous. It's so restrictive. I just thought, Okay, well, how fun five 600 calories a day for some days. I just couldn't believe how unhealthy it sounded. It really didn't sound like anything that was going to be sustainable for more than a couple of weeks. But actually, they did. And they came to our house. They didn't live in Calgary at the time that came to our house a couple of weeks before the wedding. And they looked incredible. They could tell they they looked incredible, they could see how much happier they were was quite proud of them actually, to be that disciplined for for quite a few months. And they had lost quite a bit of weight. I couldn't believe it. And the man came up to me one morning and said to me, you should get Neil on this diet. So you know, I know people.


Tish  32:14

I don't want to, like Neil is very comfortable with how he looks, and very comfortable with how he feels. He is a big dude. And he loves a suit and he loves his wine. And he doesn't really care if he carries a little bit of belly fat. Now, is he unhealthy from a little bit of that belly fat? No, I'm definitely not going to want him to put on more belly fat because the belly fat is what's going to cause his unhealthy it'll cause him some health issues. But he's very comfortable with how he looks. And so mine. I mean, he looks very strong. He's got very muscular. In fact, he's transformed his body over the last five years through heavier like, we went through a period of not as much heavy lifting. And the last five years we've got right right back into it and his body has transformed. It's still six years younger than me. He's a he's a guy, they just, they have it easier than us ladies. And he I can't believe how much his body has changed. He just looks stronger. He looks more muscular. But he's always gonna carry a little bit around his belly. Because his portions are way too big. Although we eat good 80% of the time. He just puts more food on his plate than he probably should. We are super active. And of course, is the drinking. I mean, it's not like we drink at all during the week. It's just sometimes on the weekend, it adds up to a few more cocktails then is probably recommended. But he's happy. He loves it. It doesn't affect his days, he gets up at first thing in the morning. It doesn't affect him at all. But that little that small portion of his lifestyle that he doesn't feel like tweaking would make a big difference. But he's not I always say God. Remember, think about if you quit drinking, what? And he goes, Yeah, but why would I do that? So again, men versus women. I think a lot of it has to do with that we would we it would bother us not for a six foot almost for man. You know, that carries a little bit around his belly. But anyways, he said to me, you should get Neil on this diet. It really isn't credible. And I said no. Just like that. And he said, No. I said no. Because these kinds of diets get you to where you need to be. But you are never going to be able to sustain this weight loss. And he just looked at me and like and he's like, you know, I can predict it. If you're doing something that is not sustainable for more than a couple of months. Please stop doing it. It literally is the worst thing that you can do? Is it slowing your metabolism down? I know, a lot of people go you, you go on these drastic diets and you lose all this weight right away, and it wrecks your metabolism, maybe. But really what it's doing is just messing more with your head. So those restrictive diets, yes, absolutely get you to where you need to be. But they're never sustainable because we're all human beings. And it doesn't matter how disciplined you are over a two month period, you're not you cannot live your life. That way, for more than six to eight months, you just cannot it is holidays come into play, dinners come into play, social life comes into play, you start dating someone, or your partner decides this is ridiculous, it is just not sustainable. So my number one tip for you would be if you if what you're doing is not going to be something you can do for the rest of your life, then please stop, stop doing it. Figure out what's going to work for you get the discipline that you need. But also


Tish  36:06

make sure that you find something that you're going to be able to be happy in your life with. If you're miserable, and you feel like you can't socialize, or you can't go out and hang out with your friends. Because you're living to have much of a restrictive diet because you're desperately trying to lose weight, or you desperately are trying to feel like you have need more energy in your life, you need to stop that you need to figure out what's going to work forever. More importantly, for your for your own mental wellness. And like I said, there is no one size fits all. That's why meal plans is there also they don't work. Because, again, if I write down for someone, what they need to eat in a, you know, over a five month period, say and they sit down and they follow it. And it's good, they get the results. But again, it's not teaching anyone anything. People need to learn what works a what works for them, but also what's going to be sustainable forever for them. And what's sustainable, is going to work forever, for me is not going to be sustainable and work for everyone. It doesn't work for Neil, right? Like he works. He's definitely as the years go by moving more into more fasting, more portion size control, less drinking, it just naturally organically happens when you live with someone like me. But it's slowly it's I mean, I've been with him for almost 16 years. So he does it when he's ready. And that is the the most important thing is you need to figure out what works for you. And you have to learn through practice, providing someone with a meal plan, there's no teaching there. And then what happens when you go away on a holiday. And you don't, you can't bring the meals with you. And you're out for dinner most of the time. And all of a sudden, you're stressed out. And you're not even going to enjoy your time away. Because that nutrition component is something that you have no control of all of a sudden. Whereas if you learn a different approach, which I'm going to get into next, it is much more sustainable, you can do it anywhere, it's free, so you don't have to pay for a meal plan. You don't have to pay for special protein powders. It's free. And it gets you long term achievable results. And this is what I so this is what I encourage all my clients to do. And again, it's a lot of practice, it's a lot of figuring out what's working, what isn't working and adjusting as you go. So this is sort of the direction that I lead my clients to do. But then we kind of adjust as we go because again, everyone's very different. Someone, some people don't walk 10,000 steps a day. So they're not going to require the amount of calories that someone who does, although everyone should be getting a lot of movement throughout the day. But I'll talk about this in another podcast. This is the last thing I want to quickly go over. I do recommend calorie counting. And the reason why I recommend that is because again, it teaches you how what you're eating throughout the day. Now, do you have to calorie count for the rest of your life? No way I calorie count or track when I'm feeling like I've gotten off track and need to get on track. Or if I travel, I sometimes calorie count for a couple of days just to get a sense of where I am in a different environment. And I also do it when I'm feeling that other things in my life are a little out of out of control. So this you know is is like for example, when Casey passed away, I was so so Sad. And I felt like I didn't have my emotions in complete control. And so I tracked, it was a good kind of thing for me to stop focusing on the fact that I just lost my best friend. Casey is my dog. And it gave me more of like, focus on something else. It sounds trivial, but it worked for me. So there's many reasons why I start tracking. And when I stop, I know exactly now, because of my tracking experiences, what my calories are in each day, I don't recommend you eating the same things every day, that's boring, not healthy. It's important to incorporate different types of foods and meals into your day to day plan that's healthy, and normal.


Tish  40:46

But if you track for a couple of months, you learn what certain types of foods are and how many calories are in. So it's not something you have to do forever. A lot of people say to me, it's tedious, it's too much work. And that's fair. But I taught my 73 year old father to do it a few years ago, literally on his little cell phone with his glasses pushing in the data into and I just use my fitness pal, it's a free app. It's nothing fancy. And then again, we we adjust accordingly. As we go, it doesn't have to be a fancy app, it's a free app, you can pay for the advanced version. But again, it doesn't really cost very much. But if he can do it, he lost a significant amount of weight. I had to buy him a new belt a few months later for Christmas, because there's three loops in his belt that he had to tighten it in. And his belt was just not fitting him anymore. So my argument to that is if he can do this barely looking, seeing what he's doing, and his phone, we all can do it for a little while. And I just think the awareness of what we're putting into our body is very, very important. If you have no idea, the calories and the energy that you're putting in your body each day, how do you know what you need to adjust, for example, with one of my clients, we needed to get him to lose, we needed him to lose some weight. We were training five days a week, I knew it was his nutrition. we inputted his food into my fitness pal, he was shocked to see that he was eating four to 5000 calories a day. And then we just tweaked it a little bit. And lo and behold, after a month or two of tracking, he no longer had to track he was successful on losing the weight and he was able to maintain it because he knew what calories he was putting in. So yeah, it is a lot of calories in versus calories out. Circadian rhythm does make a big difference, the types of food does make a small difference. But really, if you want if I want to be as simple and straightforward, possibly as I can, calories in versus calories out, really is the easiest way to look at it. If you want to take it to the next level, think about fasting, and think about the time that you're eating and think about the type of macros throughout the day. So there's different levels that you can look at this. But really, if you're just starting, evaluate how much calories in a day you're consuming, input them. But the greatest income or the greatest thing that I'm going to tell you today, this is great news is that once you figure out your calories for the week, over a seven day period, then you can shift and have bad like higher calorie days and lower calorie days. So the way you figure out how many calories that you're sort of allowed to have each day as you figure out a goal weight. So for example, say you're 150 pounds, and you would love to lose 20 pounds. So your goal weight would be 130 pounds, instead of doing 130 pounds, I want you to only take out five to eight pounds per goal. So let me just explain that a little bit more clearly. If you put in my fitness pal that you want to lose 20 pounds, that your calories are going to be way too low. So if you're used to eating 3000 calories a day, because you're 150 pounds, and then you put your goal weight at 130 You're going your calories are going to be way too low and you're going to be hungry, and you're going to feel deprived and you're not going to stick with it. So instead of thinking end goal weight, think of your goal weight after a five to eight week period. So the most that you typically should lose healthily is one pound a week. Sometimes there's going to be weeks where you lose none and that's okay to your body's still really adjusting and you're going to feel better when you eat a little bit less and higher quality foods. So there's other things happening as you're doing this process. So the most you're inputting is five to eight pounds because again, the calories are going to go down as you get leaner. So keep that in mind if you are Feeling way too restricted at the beginning, you're at the weights gonna come off too fast, you're not going to stick with it. And it's just not going to be sustainable. So this has to happen over a period of time, you have to be patient with anything.


Tish  45:18

Anything that is worth having, and this is what I have in the back of my tank tops is worth time, and patience. So nothing comes like this. That's why diets, they work, but you never can keep the weight off. Because it's too quick, it's too rapid that that's what we want, right? We want results tomorrow. That doesn't happen in wellness. And in fact, I don't think it happens in life at all, we all have to learn to be patient, and embrace the process. And with nutrition, if you do not show patients and embrace a process of learning, and getting you to where you need to be over an extended amount of time, you will never sustained the weight loss that you've achieved. And I know this, and I guarantee you that most of you have lost a shit ton of weight and and are sitting here now going yeah, she's right, the weights back on, I need to figure out a new way of doing this. So you just input instead of 130 pounds, you didn't put 142 pounds or 145, five pound weight loss, what five to eight. So eight would be the most I actually recommend five, we're going to adjust this as you go, maybe this is too much food for you. Maybe it's not enough food, you have to listen to your body. Really listen to it, though, be honest with yourself, and see how you're feeling and adjust accordingly. If you're not sure how to do this, make sure that you hire someone to help you. I'm not a dietitian, nor nutritionist. But I have been doing this for 30 years, I know what works. And okay, I definitely cannot give you the nutrition content, the minerals, and the how many vitamins you're getting into certain foods, that is not something I am able to do. But I do know that without patients and without an extended amount of time to practice the new way of you approaching your nutrition plan, you will not achieve long term success ever. So it needs that is that is so important. And you have to just embrace the process and let it happen in time, the longer it takes for you to get to where you need to be, the longer you will sustain wherever you've achieved, whatever you've achieved. And that is a that is to do with nutrition, but obviously in life as well. So stop expecting things to happen tomorrow, right, the weight didn't come on, or you didn't feel like shit in a day. Nor are you going to look better and feel better in a day as well. So take a seat back, take a step back and just embrace the process. Once you start incorporating the food, you're going to be able to see what your calories are, you're going to adjust it, it's going to give you how many calories that you're allowed to have. I put this in air quotes. If you're not if you're just listening, because I hate to say out loud, but it's just a guy. It's we're just guiding you, right? And I want you to stick with that number that they recommend it write notes down journal, because when you go back to your coach, she's going to want to know how you're feeling. Was it too much food, etc, etc. So you're going to need to be able to give your coach that information, you're not going to remember it. So make sure you're documenting it. Also, it's also important for you to go back to your journal to refer to your notes when and if you go back to logging, you're not going to log your food forever. I just want people to learn what they're putting in their bodies. And is it helping them? Or is it hindering their process, and this is the best way to do it. You're also going to be encouraged to eat healthier, lower calorie foods when you start documenting what you're eating. Because if you know you're allowed to have 1516 1700 calories a day you like to eat, you're going to pick things like fruits and vegetables and lean meats, because they're lower in calories. Therefore, you're still going to be able to eat the similar volumes that you're used to. It's the only way that you're going to learn to eat healthier, to learn better portions. And then it's over a seven day period. That's the best news about this. So for example, if you're allowed to have 1500 calories a day over a seven day period, that's 10,000 calories over seven days, as long as you over the seven days are under 10,000 calories in that deficit. Guess what, you're going to lean out you're going to lose weight.


Tish  49:47

And so that's the best news about that is if you have a couple bad days where you're at 2000 calories and you're only allowed 1500 That's okay. You just make sure that the other two days or another three days in that seven day period In your deficit, and balancing out at 10,000 calories, you're still going to get the results. So you can still go out and have those dinners, you can still have your wine, you can still have your desserts, as long as you're staying within your calories over the seven day period. So instead of having a bad day or a bad weekend, and you feel guilty about it, don't feel guilty about it, just make sure that on Monday morning, or the remainder of those seven days that you've been tracking, is within your 10,000 calories, or whatever it's calculated for you, you will still get results. And therefore, you won't say shit, I just wrecked my five days of good eating. No, you didn't wreck it, maybe the other days are going to have to be lower in calories to get into that deficit of losing weight is one of your goals. Yeah. So basically, if you just stay within those calories, that My Fitness Pal or whatever app you decide to use, or your coaches decided you will get results. So you can see that the types of foods is not as important as the portions, we in North America are obsessed with what we put in our bodies. And we need to be more focused on how much and I spoke about that in one of my earlier podcasts. And I learned that when I lived in Europe, you can enjoy your pastries, and all of that good stuff, if it's in smaller portions, and guess what if there's smaller portions, the calories are still low. That's the whole premise. I want people this is the last thing I'm going to say. I want people to approach wellness and nutrition and eating food is something that gives you energy that gives you the discipline that makes you happy. Let's stop focusing on what we look like all the time. Because if that is going to be your number one focus, you are going to quit, because those are the things that happen later. And they're the ones that those results are the ones that typically aren't as achievable, the things that you're doing, when you're eating healthy. When you're not when you're not overeating, because I think a lot of us eat way too much food. Your your body is sluggish, right? You feel undisciplined, you feel discouraged, your mind goes more in that negative pattern negative mind pattern. So it is so much it has so much more to do with your energy. And your confidence. Because you're in control, you're demonstrating discipline, which is huge. When you wake up in the morning from a prior day of eating healthy, getting in your water, getting in your steps, you wake up that morning, knowing that the day before was something that added to your health, instead of taking away from it. And that feeling a no one can take away from you. And it is the most positive, enriched feeling that you can have. And I guarantee that if you go a couple of days feeling that you wake up and go yesterday, I really killed it I'm going to do again today, the more days you have like that, the happier you're going to be my goal in all of this podcast, training my clients is, yes, I want them to be healthy, I want them to look good, but I also want them to be happy. And when you feel your body with discipline. And when you're on track, and you're nurturing yourself through eating good foods, you're just going to be that much happier. So I hope that I've touched upon I think I've given you actually way more information than I possibly could. And I also noticed that I'm at 53 minutes. So I better end this podcast, I will definitely be talking more about nutrition in the upcoming podcast because it is something becoming more obsessed with the whole aging process. As most of you know, I'm 47 years old now. And nutrition becomes even more, in my opinion, more important as you get older. And so I'm doing so much more educating and learning myself on this. So the more I learned, the more I'm going to share with you. So stay tuned for future podcasts on this topic. Check out the links underneath for any information that I have maybe talked about here. The Sarah podcast about fasting will also be in this link. So make sure that if you have not watched that one, and you are open, open to learning more about fasting, she is amazing and gives us a ton of insight. So make sure you listen to that one too. In the meantime, have an awesome day. Thank you so much for listening. Tell the people in your life that you love them. And we will talk to you very very


Tish  54:39

soon. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I hope that it leaves you feeling inspired and motivated and ultimately happier. Don't forget to check out my website, train with Tish calm to learn more about me and the services that I provide. I also train you for free. If you just check out the link underneath this podcast. Look forward to the next episode until then live happy be well and tell someone today that you love them


Misbah Haque