Ep# 23 Empowering Women Through Fitness: Insights with Natalie Liu Roach

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Natalie is, I think the best trainer I've ever had. she's incredibly knowledgeable, amazing at making sure that I do things with the best possible form and also really great at pushing me. To lift heavier weights and really increase my strength, which I don't always want to do. so, so today, although this podcast is definitely aimed at women working in the law, we're not discussing careers or coaching today or the law.

but something that I think is just as important, which is how do we really look after ourselves to make sure that we're as fit and healthy and happy as possible, recognizing the incredible demands of the jobs that everyone does. So, so that's why I just wanted to, to spend some time really, thinking about general health and what are the basics to ensuring we can be as effective as possible.

But before I go any further, let me just welcome Natalie. So welcome Natalie. Thank you so much for coming on today. I was wondering. Could you just, why don't you tell us a bit about you, how you got into fitness? yeah, I'd love to, I'd love to hear a bit about your background.

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my fitness journey, I would say I've always participated in exercise ever since I was a kid. I was very lucky to have parents who encouraged me to kind of train, but like lots of sports, like netball. I did a little bit of volleyball, gymnastics, swimming, dance. So I had a lot of exposure from a young age, which was a real privilege.

but I kind of thought, I think the first time I wanted to get into fitness properly was when I was around 18. I was a lifeguard at a gym, and I injured myself quite badly when I was 16, and I remembered at the time I was doing a lot more dance, and the physio basically told me that to rehab my knee, I needed to start kind of doing basic things in the gym.

So I started doing a few like very basic cardio. bits and bobs just to get some blood flow, start moving again. And then I started to spend a bit more time there and, kind of started doing classes and I thought like, this is a really full spaced, and I really enjoyed it. And I think the interest in pursuing the career and personal training started when one of the trainers at the gym started to train with me and I really saw how much.

benefit I'd get from training through both the physical and the mental side of things. I'd always feel better after I trained. it encouraged me to, want to kind of develop healthier habits around eating. And the way I saw her with clients kind of inspired me to think that I could make a positive change on people's lives.

And hopefully I could give back in a way. that would sort of support people in a way that's not kind of through money or, gift, but giving someone an opportunity to develop their physical health as well as mental. And, I essentially joined, like started doing my degree in sports science afterwards, and my personal training qualification, because ultimately I thought this is something that I'm really passionate about and I think that it's a great opportunity to educate people and bring them into the gym or get them moving in a way that it doesn't really matter where you start or what your background is.

It's very accessible to everyone. and that's essentially where it started. It just came from, you know, Basically experimenting and it turned into something that became my career afterwards, really. So I've been in the business 10 years now, and yeah, like that's essentially where it started. It was just wanting to help people in a way that I could give back, and hopefully help them develop healthier lifestyles.

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We're becoming more knowledgeable about if you want, if you want to have good mental health, reduce stress, have great cognitive clarity, and just generally enjoy your days and your life. We know now there are sort of, I think it's around six basics, which are like the building blocks to Making us feel great.

And they are sleep. And I think, you know, when I was younger in my career, it was almost like it was a badge of honor to stay up all night and have very little sleep. Nowadays, you know, the tech bros who are all into their fitness and health. Now they're all sort of now competing on their sleep apps as to who can get most deep sleep.

So there's a real massive change there. I think increasingly we're beginning to learn how important sleep is. So, so sleep Exercise and diet, which we'll be talking about today. And again, we're just so much more knowledgeable about how important they are. And then the last three are time in nature, social connection, and that's incredibly important as well.

It's been shown to like increase people's lifespans if they maintain social connections, they get older. And then the last thing is around mindfulness based activities, whether it's yoga or meditation or meditative walking. and I will, I'll, I'll probably do another podcast. Based looking at things like sleep and time and social connection.

But for today, what we're going to focus on is exercise and diet because we have the amazing Natalie here. so I, yeah, I was wondering, why didn't you tell us a bit Natalie about like where you work? And the types of clients that come to you and what sort of goals they tend to be working on

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I have such a huge range of ages abilities And it just really varies, but I would say the most common goal and the things that people are looking for typically is wanting to change an aspect of their lifestyles, whether that's becoming stronger, more, more often than not, it's a fat loss goal or wanting to change parts of their appearance, like building more muscle, getting leaner.

And some people it's just for general health being able to keep up with their children. some people it's just like being able to age gracefully. It just really varies and that's the beautiful thing about it is I just literally have such an array. but the reoccurring theme I would say is people want to learn how to move better and feel better and the philosophy or I would say like the, what's the word?

The third space motto is training for life. So the majority of clients that we have there are training for more of a purpose of longevity, doing it in a way that's more sustainable, and it's going to keep people going for the longterm. so I would say the initial goal might be for a lot of people fat loss, wanting additional support, in terms of building more muscle mass, building strength.

but it does tend to go on this lovely continuum where people, as they start to get into it more, they want to try and explore different ways of movements. They may want to try and lift heavier. They'll have different goals, that are more performance related as opposed to just purely aesthetic.

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I'd say people used to be very focused on weight loss and shape and not so much on strength and you know a lot of women used to be really worried about oh If I do too much weightlifting, then I'm going to get really muscly but have you have you noticed a change?

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I didn't want to lift too heavy because I was afraid of looking bulky or manly, but I think the way the social media and the fitness industry has now progressed, we've kind of seen that weight training or resistance training doesn't necessarily make you bulkier. And, you know, it's a way of being able to build and increase your muscle mass.

I would say there's also been a shift away from doing a lot of sort of HIIT based training. and sort of people going in for like a quick fix. People are way more consistent now and I've noticed that with a lot of my clients. Previously in other workplaces, I've had a lot more sort of people coming in for like a 12 week transformation and things like that.

So they're looking very short term. and I would say that's very sort of classic. When I was growing up people would be going to the gym and Dieting really hard and training really hard for short periods of time and then going away going on holiday Regaining weight and then coming back. So it's almost like a loop of yo yo dieting and training intensively and then having these It's long breaks and coming back, but people are training in a way now where they want to be consistent throughout the year and for a number of years.

So it's less of a short term fix, which is really positive. And it shows them that we've been able to, within the industry, as much as there's a lot of noise and differing opinions, the ultimate sort of. Transformation and that or what I see in third spaces people actually see it as part of their lifestyle Yeah, and they it becomes habitual.

So it doesn't become sort of a short term thing. That's short lived. It's way more long term based, which is really, really great.

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I mean, I know you've told me. It's quite, it's actually quite hard to get muscly arms, isn't it? You'd have to do a lot to make your arms really muscly.

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So, I've tried that for a number of years, or like having more definition, but the way your muscles grow is not necessarily that if you just, if you train really, really heavy all the time that you're going to grow more muscles. because if that was the case, then if you were training and you got training heavier and heavier and heavier, you'd be getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

And it's just not, not what we see. and I think the other thing that people need to bear in mind with that is sometimes when you see sort of female bodybuilders in particular who have a lot of muscle mass, there's a chance that they're also enhanced as well. So what you can achieve naturally. may not be the same.

It's, it's not equal, if that makes

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so say you wanted to build more, leg muscle or like in your legs. it might be that you train your legs more frequently. and you still do upper body training, but you may just not do as much, but the benefits you get from training whole body or not just focusing on one area is that you build total body strength.

and that doesn't necessarily equate more and more muscle mass. because, it's, it's not as easy for women as well, because typically we don't build muscle as quickly as Men, in the upper body as well. Okay. and that's just a genetic, advantage. Men, men have .

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Thank you. So, so, so if I, let's talk generally and, and for women if, if a woman's coming in to see you and. It's for general health, strength and fitness. What would you recommend that she does? And we'll talk about difference in age groups and periods in women's lives, but generally what exercise would you recommend that a woman is doing in a week?

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So you can do banded work, free weights, which is sort of dumbbells, barbells. kettlebells, any sort of form of weights or machines. so there's a benefit to using all of them.the progression route for them can vary, of course. So for example, you might get to, if you're doing bodyweight squats, it's like over time you might be able to do more and more and more but it will become easier over time so as your body begins to adapt you may need additional loads so that might be like you know adding a dumbbell or kettlebell to the squat so you're increasing that over time as your strength improves or you know if you're using bands to do sort of certain exercises like a hinge or a deadlift maybe you go for a heavier band, so you can manipulate the resistance based on where you are and where you're starting from.

and in addition to that, I would typically say doing two cardiovascular sessions a week as well. so steady state zone two, you're typically looking to do about two hours in total, maybe.

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zone two is typically 60 to 70 percent of your max heart rate. So. You should still be able to talk while doing zone 2 cardio. it's a moderate effort. So, even if you don't want to do something like sitting on a bike and you split it into like 30 minute sessions throughout the week, you can do things like brisk walking outside.

Or I tend to sometimes say to my clients having a goal of Achieving a certain number of steps each day. So, 10, 000 steps is approximately like 90 minutes of walking. which say like you're walking part of the way to work and then you get on the tube and you're walking the other end. Those little bursts of exercise will add up over time, those little bits of movement.

okay. Because when you said it's

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I presume walking up, I'm a bit obsessed about walking up the escalators at the Tube. I do not understand why everyone is standing there. So that would count towards my target as well. Yeah,

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Because That is an actual challenge in itself. And if someone isn't able to do it That's the Northern

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Okay. So things like that, I think the government guidelines are actually 150 minutes of moderate cardiovascular work a week. So again, it's like, it's basically two and a half hours. But I think if you're adding resistance training into that as well, and obviously depending on what your lifestyle is like, it's doing what you can with the time you have.

but typically if I give a step goal to people, it's a little bit more attainable. They are still getting movement. They're still getting blood flow. and it is still deliberate, like you're still actively going for walks, but you're not. I stress to think like, like you said, I've got to go and sit on a bike for an hour twice a week and then come in and do another like 30 minutes on the bike outside of that.

It just really depends on like how active you are in general as well. Yeah. if you cycle to work, that's also a form of cardiovascular exercise. It just, it all adds up. Yeah. so yeah, I do tend to just vary it depending on who's in front of me.

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And the resistance training, so you can do squats, you can do, I guess, anything you see, like pushups, you can, does bar, does bar class count as resistance training?

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So we call this the eccentric phase of the lift. for example, in a squat, as you go down, you want to control that phase. So that you're not dropping into the squat and bouncing out. but on the way up, you're producing force, so you're pushing, and that's when the muscles are shortening or contracting.

So those sort of elements, and that happens in barre as well, like if you're doing, squats in there, you're doing hip extension work, pull work. I think you guys do things like planks, yeah, glute bridges, things like that. I do. Yes.

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And I know, yeah, and actually on, on women in particular, like why is resistance and strength training so important for women as we, as we get older?

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So as you age, if your bone density is lower, your risk of osteoporosis, having more brittle basically increases if you're not doing any forms of exercise and resistance training. So resistance training essentially strengthens your bones, if I want to shorten it. so in terms of increasing your lifespan, increasing longevity, reducing your risk of having fatal injuries or falls that could cause fractures or breakages, you basically mitigate against that through resistance training because you're strengthening the bones as well as the muscles, to allow your body to become more resilient.

So it's imperative. And I always say to my clients that you want to be resistance training for as long as you can. Yeah. yeah, essentially. and I think unfortunately due to how weight training has been perceived in the past, women have been afraid to sort of do it. And they've kind of thought like, you know, I want to do more like cardiovascular work, but they miss that element of,utilizing ways for being able to resist and produce force through, resistance training.

so incorporating that into your routine is very important.

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It becomes this thing, but we know it's like, it's a real indicator of how soon you're going to die. So this thing about maintaining strength in your body, maintaining good balance. I mean, one of my little tips is I always try and do something. when I'm brushing my teeth, because it's like dead time, it takes, you know, two minutes or whatever, and you could be doing some squats, or I sometimes do, rises on my feet, or, you know, something.

It's, it's, it's just, or you can just stand on one leg, that's what the government, I think, is, the NHS is recommending.

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So it's very generic advice, but you can literally apply it to any exercise. I think that they just emphasize the importance of doing a form of resistance training. but I don't think that was advice that was really given in the past. Most people, people were unaware of it. So it's great that we are now seeing it as an important part of, aging really, and like being able to protect yourself and

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And just, I mean, on going back to weight training, like if you are lifting weights, should you always, is it right to do three sets? And then how heavy should, you know, how tired should you, how, how close to exhaustion should you get in each set?

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and the loading modality as well. So for example, if I was to take a barbell squat,

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The demands that places on the body are higher. So I may not be able to do as many repetitions of it. if I was going for maybe like a strength range is potentially between one and maybe six as a max max but one to five reps is typically where they say the strength component exists. if I'm going quite heavy, which is potentially like 80 to 90 percent of the maximal amount that I can lift, I'm not going to be able to do as many reps as if I was doing a lighter load or if I had like a goblet squat, which is like when you have a kettlebell or dumbbell and you hold it at the center of your chest.

The positional demands and the loading demands are different. so you would expect that I would fatigue quicker, with a bar on my back with more load. So because of that, I might do more sets. So I might do anywhere from three to five sets. but the total number of repetitions might be 20. Say I did four sets of five, that's 20 repetitions at a higher weight.

But if I did a goblet squat and I did three sets at a lower load, I might be able to hold 20 kilos at my chest or 16 or however it is, but I can do more because. I can manage the load better.

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Okay.

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Yeah. So you can, there's a fatigue component that we have to factor in, whereas say you had a machine and you're doing a leg press where your spine is supported, and you're just moving like your, your legs through that range of motion, you probably could do more sets because the spinal and pelvic stability is being managed by something external.

So it really varies depending on the exercise you're doing. so what we call is a compound movement, which involves, multiple joints and multiple parts of the body, whereas An isolation or like an, yeah, an isolation movement might be sort of like a knee extension where you're just Utilizing like one joint like your knee joint, for example, because your knee is only going through flexion and extension Which is like bending and straightening the leg.

Yeah, so that way You know, like you're not moving multiple joints. You don't have to organize and arrange your skeleton in lots of different ways So it's it's easier to perform.

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So you did like one set of like 20 reps. And think about it as more like the total number of repetitions that you're doing. You could do one big set of 20, but it probably wouldn't feel very pleasant. No, no, you want to do something that means you're

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Okay. and I know we've both listened to Andrew Hooperman's podcast with Stacy Sims, with Dr. Stacy Sims. And I'll, I'll, for everyone, I'll put a link to this podcast in, the notes. Because it was, it was really interesting, because, and if you don't know the Hooperman Lab, Andrew Hooperman's a, a doctor and has lots of, It's almost like you feel like you're in medical school when you listen to his podcast and they do go on for a long time, often two to three hours, but they are amazing.

But he, so he talks a lot about exercise and health, generally mental health, physical health. but he, he had this Dr. Stacey Simms on specifically to talk about women's health and what's different for women. And it was so interesting to hear her talk about that. about like what is different and what we should be doing that's different.

But one of the things she said, which I thought was really interesting was particularly as you get older, as a woman, you lose lean muscle mass. And she's like, don't go for long, long, long, long runs or long, long periods of cardio, at quite a high level, including things like. Barry's bootcamp, unless you're doing it for your mental health.

Cause she says how she describes HIT, which she says you should do one to three times a week is she means literally 90 seconds of really tough pushing. No, not even 90 seconds. I think it's like it's shorter than that. Isn't it? Like it's like 30, but very short bursts of extreme activity. She's saying do that like three times.

twice or three times a week.

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Then a full recovery and you repeat it three times.

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So it's just a maximal effort. Out of exercise, essentially.

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So you might, you know, have a go at that. You can do it on a treadmill, you can do it on a rowing machine, you can run outside. so maybe think about, can you incorporate that into your week? And then, and the other thing that I know she mentions is jumping and we sometimes do jumping. So tell me a bit about that.

What's that about and what do you do and why is it good?

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What do you call it? What work? Medicine ball or med ball.

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So the more power you have, the higher your ability to contract muscles. if you're doing things like jumping, which Stacey Sims is talking about, fly a metric work in particular, which is basically having a very short ground contact time. So the amount of time that your feet are on the ground. and doing.

Like either continuous repetitions, or like a single jump, which is like a box jump, like jumping onto a box, or like hopping and bounding and skipping that people might do. Like having a short ground contact time of less than 0. 25 metres, or, yeah, metres per, not metres per second, yeah. Shorter than 0.

25 metres per second, so it's a very short amount of time on the ground. But you're reacting quicker. And what that essentially does is it strengthens your ligaments and tendons, which work on a stretch shortening cycle, or they basically are like an elastic band. So they lengthen quickly and they rapidly contract as well.

So being able to react to the ground well, being able to both produce and absorb force, will allow you to develop more resilience. So it's protective against things like falls. So power work, as we do, doesn't take a huge amount of time to do, because the whole idea is you're moving as quickly as possible.

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and the whole idea is you're trying not to like collapse into the ground when you do them. You're trying to be as explosive and as quick as you can. and the benefits to that is your muscles contract more rapidly. Again, you can react to things better. And so if you do unfortunately have a fall or something, you're probably less likely to have as Yeah.

Because your body is more resilient. So that's why we do power because that's the first thing that decreases as we age. so it's very important, to do it like it decreases by, I think, 10%. every decade after 40. So that's something that we do need to pay attention to.

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Like,

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So it's like incorporating all together, but, it does build a lot of resilience. And I think since I transitioned from more bodybuilding machine based work and some free weights to power work, I'm not only stronger, but I'm, I get less, and I'm just, like, I feel a lot healthier. Like, my joints

and I can withstand a lot more, like my capacity is increased. So I think if you can start it earlier, and especially if you start it earlier, your ability to adapt and, progress is, it's a lot easier. Yeah. Because your body is in more of like an anabolic state as you're, when you're younger. So, What does

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which as we'll talk about in a bit, I'm sure is, like adequate nutrition, rest, and being able to support your body to

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there's a lot of people on YouTube as well. they might show you some quite complex things. Like if you're seeing people do like Olympic lifts, like barbell snatches and cleans and things, but that's something that you could probably work up to as opposed to doing it off the get go. so you've got power jumping,

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Yes.

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So starting like with maybe some box jumps, which is basically jumping onto a box or like a small platform, initially might be a great place to start or just doing some. Going from seated and then jumping up as high as you can. Things like that initially to get started with, build up some tolerance to it, resilience, allow your joints to recover and your muscles too.

And then you can start to progress to more advanced modalities. But again, you've got a lot of the things you might see are complex variations, but we can manipulate like the load, the direction, whether you're going from. Two legs to one legs, one leg, and like the complexity of what you're doing with throws also increases as well.

So take your time with it, and yeah, just have fun.

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Not just, it's not just, well, for me, it's not just the money. It's also the fact you're paying someone. And so you're like, I better go because I'm paying. It's also letting your trainer down. Although maybe you're delighted if we don't turn up. but it does, I mean, I find it a really useful tool. Number one, because it gets me there.

And then number two, because you make me work much harder. There's a real risk that I would be like, I'm not going to do another set of those. Or I don't think I'll do. Quite such a heavy, heavy lift today. but I guess you don't have to go to the gym. There's a lot that you can find online. There's a lot of stuff you can do at home, even with cans and, you know, or, or buy some basic dumbbells.

Yeah,

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It's like, you know, your home space, your workspace and your third space. And I think for me, I w I would be able to train from home. Like I did it in lockdown, but there's something about just going to the gym and being surrounded by people who are also like. Working hard, and there's a really lovely community you get from it as well.

So as much as people might be daunted by the gym, and if you are one of those people, like just knowing that there is support there, like there's more often than not like trainers walking the gym floor, offering advice, but really glad to help you. and at home, as much as you can do these things and you can get phenomenal results just being at home, but having the accountability side of things, at a gym, having a trainer there or.

Having a program that you can follow, and do on the gym for an execute is a really nice thing to do and a lot of online coaches do this as well, like they'll write a program for their client. The client will record their weights and they might have a call once every two weeks to check in and see how things are going.

yeah, it's just, I think the gym for a lot of people does offer that additional space and. environment which will encourage you to, and a lot of the time, motivate you to want to be there and to want to work on yourself. I don't think I've ever seen anyone or many people leave a gym, like, miserable.

They normally come out like, yeah, you might be a little bit tired, but they're normally quite happy that they've trained and they feel better. Sometimes knowing it's over, sometimes like, just happy that they got the opportunity to train. or like they may have. Hit a new PB, which is like lifting a new maximum and it's just really nice Yeah, yeah, and it becomes a really cool part of your routine if you integrate it.

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What should you eat before? What would be good to eat after?

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So pre exercise nutrition, I would typically say like some people that could be like a Like rice with some chicken, or it could just be like a shake with a banana or something. So you're getting some protein and carbohydrates before.

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And then the banana's

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So you could go for that option. if you suffer with blood glucose regulation, but you would probably want to space it a little bit before that. So that's it. It's actually like two hours before a workout just to allow it to digest properly and to get into your system.and then post workout again having protein as well.

So typically having 30 grams of actual protein, which is approximately like one scoop of protein powder, palm sized piece of chicken breast, like three eggs, anything that's going to have,Like high protein digestibility as well. So certain proteins, particularly plant based, a lot of them will have a lower digestibility gradient, which is your ability to absorb that protein is not as high.

So you either need to consume more of it, or you need to combine it with other sources, so you absorb more.

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So like you can essentially get all of the amino acids you need and the protein to help facilitate a better recovery, from a lot of plant based powders now. So I wouldn't, I would say it's a lot easier for vegans now than it probably was in the past because you've got such great options. soy based protein is, or soy isolate is.

Has a very high digestibility gradient, which means it's you basically absorb as much as you put in whey protein and Like basically animal based is in a way a lot easier to do But yeah for the majority of people like who are not vegan like it's a very very easy thing to Moderate and I think people do struggle to eat more protein Initially, but once you get into the habit, it's a lot easier to do.

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Whereas men it's like longer. So, so that's also interesting. This idea of nourishing ourselves before exercise and nourishing ourselves afterwards that I wasn't really aware of. Yes.

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Okay, so something else is caffeine Okay, because it produces, it provides cognitive benefits. It reduces your perceived like exertion like how difficult a task is and carbohydrates essentially give you like an energy boost. Okay. So your output in that session might be even better or you'll perform better if you're well fueled.

Okay. so you will get more out of the session.

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I am very sensitive to caffeine, so I will not particularly go for a pre workout shot, but I will have things like coffee, I love tensings, as well because they contain, L theanine, which is an amino acid, which can help.

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I think they do powders as well now, where they've got, like, they're made of green coffee. Okay. Have electrolytes, theanine, and some of 'em have amino acids now as well. they're kind of, a lot of people start using them as pre-workout because they don't have as much caffeine in them as say, like a pre-workout, but the type of caffeine in them, I feel like is a lot less of like a Oh wow.

It's like it's hit me immediately. Right. Like some of them, like the caffeine is. It's very concentrated and if it's from, like a very, like a concentrated source, like it kind of, you'd feel it immediately and I tend to get a little bit more angsty. I can't, like, it feels like I go over the edge and like some people do find that with caffeine as well.

So I think it depends on how sensitive you are. Oh, but it does have an

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And, and why is that good to have in a drink? Yes.

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So you have to ingest, otherwise you won't essentially have adequate protein balance or amino acid intake. some people do take, branched chain amino acids as like in their pre workouts or during training. And I think the idea behind that is they think it's going to mitigate. muscle or protein loss because you're giving your body exogenous amino acids.

But I think the literature is very varied in whether that actually happens, or whether the exogenous amino acids do have a potent effect. I mean, I haven't read enough on it to know the details, but the idea behind it is like, if you're not ingesting enough protein, or you're trying to, it. mitigate that muscle loss, amino acids might be beneficial, but I also think that there's just a benefit to eating enough or adequate dietary protein as well in a day,

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so if you're trying to build muscle, you want to perform better. just day to day creating is a phenomenal supplement and you don't need to take heaps and heaps of it. You can literally have five grams a day, which is basically like a teaspoon.You don't need to cycle on and off it, just taking it regularly.

it helps people recover better, perform better. So essentially you get a lot of benefits to taking it. And it is probably the most researched. sport supplement and supplement on the market. So it has a lot of evidence to say what, what's beneficial about it. you can find it in, animal based proteins like beef, shellfish.

I think salmon as well, like a lot of fish and meat basically. And, the only issue is the quantity that's inside them, like, or in red meats is not as much as you would get from taking a. Creatine supplement. So if you can supplement with creatine additionally, it's a great thing to do.

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I've, we, you can, it doesn't really taste of anything, so you can stick it in anything and drink it. You can, yeah, exactly,

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So CreaPure is water based and creatine, which if it doesn't say it is like monohydrate, it's acid based. So like, I'm someone who's quite sensitive to creatine, so I tend to typically have more CreaPure, and I found that doesn't upset my stomach as much.

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Okay.

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yeah, yeah. It's, I've, I see huge differences in, my performance, my cognitive capabilities when I take creatine versus when I stop. I'm even seeing it now, like,yeah, I'm still. So I think any age, and if you're trying to get stronger in the gym, it's an amazing way to just support

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Can I, can I just ask one more thing I should have asked earlier? Which is like, is it true that if you build muscle, like you're doing resistance training, you build muscle, it, it burns more calories and therefore you can eat more and be thinner. Is that true?

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also I think when like muscle is more dense than fat. So if you weigh more, you look leaner.yeah, like your, like your, the amount of calories you can consume is more often. dictated by your basal metabolic rate, which is in relation to your height, weight and body mass and your composition as well.

If you do have a higher percentage of muscle mass, yes, you do expend more calories, but I don't think it's a huge amount to offset How much you can eat? Yeah, I think it also depends on how much you're exercising in The demands of your day to day living that has more of an impact on yeah How many calories you can consume?

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So the last thing I just want to cover is like, is, is motivation. Like, how do you, say you, say it's January, everyone's really keen, the gyms are full. and it carries on for a couple of weeks and then people stop. Like what's your advice to people about how to maintain it? And I'll, I'll talk about a couple of things that I find helpful.

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So if you've gone in purely for a weight loss aesthetic goal and you've given yourself a very harsh deadline with a very set weight goal of like a five to ten kilo weight loss.and say like within the first four weeks, you see results. no changes in your weight, not being disheartened by it and truly reflecting on everything that's going on.

And just not giving up, is a huge part of it. And the not giving up is just generally just continuing and reinforcing that habit and the behaviors, over time, I think is the best way to do it because over like after 12 weeks, You will feel significantly better than if you kind of gave up after four weeks.

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You're gonna feel like Moving is a little bit tougher. It might be daunting. Things might feel difficult, but I promise it does get easier over time. It's just consistency and not comparing yourself to other people and where they're at. It's an individual thing that you're working towards.

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So I've even heard about some people keeping their clothes, their gym kit, so they can go on a run or go to the gym, but like packing your bag the night before is like setting your intention the night before can be really good. I definitely not giving yourself a hard time. when you, when you fall off the wagon and stop for a while, but just going, no, I'm going to start again.

It doesn't, it doesn't have to be perfect. I think that's the other thing. And then the big, the thing that it's a bit like what I said about the Stacey Sims going on the air bike for 20 seconds. It's like, I, I sometimes stand when I get outside the gym, I'll, I'll literally take a snapshot. I'll stand and think, okay.

Take just remember this feeling take a photo of what this feels like because it feels really good that I've done it and so when I'm at home and I'm like I don't want to go to the gym now it's raining and it's outside I'm like I go back to that little feeling that I had and that really helps and then the other thing I do is So a lot of habits are like, there's a, there's a trigger or a cue, a routine and then a reward.

So my reward is I have a protein shake in the, in the cup. So I'm like, even in the middle of Natalie's sessions when she's making me some. single leg, horrible thing. I'm like, I can have a protein shake soon.

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Yeah. You're coming, like, or we're going to go to this class together every week for the next few weeks. Like, you've got someone keeping you accountable. Yeah, that's a really good idea. Not thinking like, oh, I'm not going to go today because I'm not, like, are you really sick or do you just not feel like it because, you know, it's just like, I think the more you do it, the more you expose yourself to those sort of uncomfortable feelings and thoughts of self doubt, the more you realize, like, they're just voices at the end of the day.

and you're so much more capable of achieving more than you imagine. Your body has so much more in it because that's what we're designed to do. We are very resilient beings. And yeah, just Just like, yeah, enjoying the journey, enjoying the process, regardless of where you're starting.

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Cool. Well, look, thank you so much for your time today, Natalie. So, so, so we are, I don't know when you're listening to this, but we're recording it, in time for January. So you can start the new year afresh. And yeah, I couldn't recommend like particularly this. I mean, now I focus much more on strength.

As I'm getting older and not having a fall. I mean, it makes it just much easier to, you know, that for me as a motivation, rather than anything to do with how I look or what my weight is. So go out there, exercise, have fun. And thank you so much, Natalie.

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