How To Get Lean For Your Summer Holiday

Chris Williamson 0:00 (wind blowing) So, hi. Hi, everybody.

Yusef 0:08 Hello.

Chris Williamson 0:09 Um, you may notice that there is about 105 kilos of missing Aryan perfection over the far side just there. And if you're just listening, you will notice that there is not the sound of a massive arse moving around.

Yusef 0:22 Just squeaking all over the leather sofa.

Chris Williamson 0:24 Yeah. That is because Johnny is away on holiday, so it's just me and Youssef today. And we are gonna be talking about how to get lean for your summer holidays.

Yusef 0:34 This is actually take two.

Chris Williamson 0:35 This is technically take two. We had a technical problem, but this time it's gonna-

Yusef 0:39 10 minutes in of pure gold. Pure-

Chris Williamson 0:41 Yeah.

Yusef 0:41 ... How To Get Shredded for Summer gold.

Chris Williamson 0:43 S- so if this is, if this is not as good, then it's not our fault. We already gave up our best. So-

Yusef 0:50 Sorry, guys.

Chris Williamson 0:52 ... how to get lean for your summer holidays. I did a little Instagram post about this yesterday and had an awful lot of messages coming back, not least of all because it's June and a lot of people will have realized, "Shit (claps hands) , I'm going away on holiday within the next eight weeks and I'm maybe not as lean or as muscular as I want to be, and I'm gonna have to take my top off on the beach (laughs) or I'm gonna wear a bikini," or whatever it might be. The point that I think struck a chord with a lot of people was what I said about the typical approach for getting lean for holidays. And if you have a look online, a lot of the resources that you will find about how to get lean will focus on potentially fitness competitions or long term slow deficit fat loss approaches. The crucial difference between stepping on stage and going on holiday to Ibiza or Marbella is that when you step on stage, all that you're going to do is flex and tense. When you go out (laughs) to Marbella or Ibiza, you're gonna be drinking Corona and having baguette all day, every day, for s-

Yusef 2:00 Forget.

Chris Williamson 2:00 Baguette.

Yusef 2:01 As in?

Chris Williamson 2:01 One baguette.

Yusef 2:02 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 2:02 One huge fuck off baguette, yeah.

Yusef 2:05 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 2:05 You take a baguette out, you're never taking a baguette out with you on holiday.

Yusef 2:07 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 2:08 Just a long baguette, and then-

Yusef 2:09 I think this is where the, the alcohol reference goes over. Is, th- there's some kind of drink called-

Chris Williamson 2:13 Baguette? No.

Yusef 2:14 No?

Chris Williamson 2:15 No.

Yusef 2:15 You, you do mean baguette?

Chris Williamson 2:17 Baguette, yeah, just-

Yusef 2:17 Le baguette.

Chris Williamson 2:18 Le baguette, yeah. So-

Yusef 2:19 Or is it le baguette? Don't know.

Chris Williamson 2:21 I'm not sure.

Yusef 2:22 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 2:22 It's-

Yusef 2:22 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 2:23 It's something ... You're gonna have a lot of carbs. And what happens is people will drill their diet into the ground, reduce, drop carbs out completely. Everyone's got that ex-bodybuilder, current bodybuilder friend in the gym, "Yeah, mate, well, what you need to do, yeah, is-"

Yusef 2:39 Uh-huh.

Chris Williamson 2:39 "... two scoops strawberry-" Yeah.

Yusef 2:41 "... on an ear."

Chris Williamson 2:41 "... seven in the morning and, um, and then fish and a rice cake at midday." And it's just like th- all that you're doing is creating an environment in which your body will absorb Corona like a fucking sponge. And so many times I went away on holiday, I'd drill mys- drill myself into the ground on like a 1,500 calorie per day, uh, allowance, got out on holiday, looked peeled to bits for one day, the next morning looked even better because I was dehydrated to hell, and then as soon as I had that first breakfast in the hotel, I just balloon out. There's no shape left. And any size that I did have eight weeks ago has been lost due to this catastrophic deficit that I'm in.

Yusef 3:26 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 3:27 So what I wanted to do was try and put together a little bit of a structure and some principles that you can take away if you've got between four and 10 weeks, something like that, until your holiday. So are we right in saying that if you've got less than four weeks until you go on holiday, it's gonna be very difficult to make a, a, a profound change?

Yusef 3:50 Honestly, if you've got less than four weeks, don't bother. Just-

Chris Williamson 3:53 (laughs)

Yusef 3:54 ... c- carry on as normal.

Chris Williamson 3:55 So don't train at all?

Yusef 3:56 'Cause you're just gonna be making yourself suffer f- needlessly. Like, you're not gonna elicit any change in your body visibly in four weeks' time. And I think th- what you said is, is interesting 'cause at right now, it's the 2nd of June, it's a common question that, that we get in terms of inquiries, I'm sure you've got some messages about this stuff as well, and it's endemic of the, the mindset that we have towards fitness which is, "Shit, I've got 28 days, I've got to drastically undo the last 35 years of my bad sedentary habits-"

Chris Williamson 4:30 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 4:30 "... and make a change in my body from now ad-" And it's like what's the rush? Like, people often, um, you know, th- there's no, there's no thought given to it until suddenly, "Oh, I've booked my flight. Shit, I need to make a change."

Chris Williamson 4:43 Yeah.

Yusef 4:43 And, you know, 2nd of June, it's cutting it fine, to be honest.

Chris Williamson 4:47 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 4:47 I'm not g- I'm, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna sugarcoat that. As you said, four to 10 weeks, so if you have, say, eight weeks-

Chris Williamson 4:53 Mm-hmm. So if you're going away on holiday after sort of the start of July, start to mid-July, up until the end of the summer, you're sweet.

Yusef 5:01 Well, y- yeah. You're not sweet, but you're-

Chris Williamson 5:03 (laughs)

Yusef 5:04 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 5:04 You're salvageable.

Yusef 5:05 You're definitely sal- salvageable by that point. And I think there's a lot of key principles here-

Chris Williamson 5:09 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 5:09 ... but the first thing is that muscle gain is a very slow process. And so all we can expect at this point is to lose fat.

Chris Williamson 5:17 Okay.

Yusef 5:17 And we were saying this, this on the first take-

Chris Williamson 5:20 (laughs) Mm-hmm.

Yusef 5:22 ... that, uh, my favorite thing when you're looking at a Facebook photo of someone's, like, summer holiday and it's like six lads, all 18, uh, five of them 18% body fat, one of them's, like, 6% body fat and huge and just shredded-

Chris Williamson 5:34 (laughs)

Yusef 5:34 And there's, like, odd one out there.

Chris Williamson 5:36 Yeah. That's the guy who has it-

Yusef 5:37 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 5:37 ... as part of his lifestyle as opposed to a crash diet-

Yusef 5:40 Exactly. Like that-

Chris Williamson 5:41 ... four weeks before you go away.

Yusef 5:41 ... that is the result of the 10 years of the previous training. So there's no point that if you're worried about how you're gonna look relative to your swole mate, that you're gonna be comparable.

Chris Williamson 5:50 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 5:50 So don't set that as your reference point. Like, realize that if you are ... And so the, the nu- numbers wise, eight weeks away, 80 kilo man, 18% body fat-You, diet-

Chris Williamson 6:04 Just to, just to interject there, am I right in saying that the principles are the same for men and women-

Yusef 6:08 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 6:09 ... that we're gonna be talking about here?

Yusef 6:09 For this time period, it's, it's the same, for sure.

Chris Williamson 6:12 Okay.

Yusef 6:12 Um-

Chris Williamson 6:12 So both, both genders can broadly take the same approach that we apply here?

Yusef 6:18 Yeah, exactly. So for, for women, 18% body fat will actually look quite lean.

Chris Williamson 6:21 18% body fat will be fucking beautiful. (laughs)

Yusef 6:24 (Laughs) . I mean, you're, yeah, you, as a woman you pretty much start to get abs at 15% body fat. So if you're not sure about these ranges, don't get hung up on the percentage. Uh, I, I use this as kind of a anchor point, but, um, don't try and get calipered or anything. Basically, if you're carrying a bit of extra fat and your abs are not visible, you've got no deltoid triceps separation-

Chris Williamson 6:45 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 6:46 ... you're probably around 18% body fat, and then, you know, linearly fatter as that goes up.

Chris Williamson 6:51 (laughs)

Yusef 6:51 So, um, (laughs) so if you're around that, let's say 80 kilo man, eight weeks time, aggressive diet would mean 1% of your body weight lost per week, assuming you hit your average calories without fail for that time.

Chris Williamson 7:06 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 7:06 And we have to hit the ground running. There's no time for fucking around when you've got eight weeks to go. You can't ease yourself into this program. This is like-

Chris Williamson 7:13 Yeah.

Yusef 7:13 ... you, the time is already constrained.

Chris Williamson 7:15 Well, that's, that's, that's definitely one of the things that I think people need to realize, that if you have left it as late, as you've only got eight weeks. And so y- the, one of the things that we need to state from the beginning is, eight weeks sounds like ages.

Yusef 7:28 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 7:29 But physiologically-

Yusef 7:30 Oh. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 7:30 ... in terms of fat loss, eight, eight weeks is a couple of seconds.

Yusef 7:34 (Laughs) .

Chris Williamson 7:34 Like, it's not a tremendously long amount of time.

Yusef 7:37 Exactly, so you-

Chris Williamson 7:37 And you have, you have less time than you think.

Yusef 7:39 You can't take liberties at this point, yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:41 No. So if you've got, if you're planning to go away this winter, beginning your cut now, six months in advance-

Yusef 7:47 It's le- it's too long, even, six months.

Chris Williamson 7:49 (Laughs) .

Yusef 7:49 Unless, well, it depends on how fat you are, I suppose.

Chris Williamson 7:51 Yeah.

Yusef 7:51 But-

Chris Williamson 7:52 Okay, so beginning-

Yusef 7:53 But if you-

Chris Williamson 7:53 ... beginning a fitness regime that works towards that.

Yusef 7:55 Eh, but i- if you've got six months, you've got time to even gain a bit of muscle and then cut.

Chris Williamson 7:58 And then cut from there.

Yusef 7:59 And then cut, and then re- even reverse back up.

Chris Williamson 8:00 Yeah.

Yusef 8:00 But eight weeks, yeah, not long enough. And so 1% of your body weight per week for eight weeks, at 80 kilos body weight, is 800 grams of weight loss per week.

Chris Williamson 8:10 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 8:11 6.4 kilos of weight loss over eight weeks. So that is gonna make a visible difference in how you look, immediately.

Chris Williamson 8:15 It's gonna be an awful lot, yeah.

Yusef 8:16 It will, but that, I mean, that 1% of body weight loss per week is the top end of how much weight you should be losing each week. It's gonna impact on, as you said, like, how you feel, how, um, the potential rebound at the end.

Chris Williamson 8:29 Yeah.

Yusef 8:29 So obviously, the faster you lose fat, the higher the cost at the end. And, uh, so this is something we have to bear in mind. Anyway, the principles are the same, that we want to be lifting weights to retain as much muscle as possible, even if you're a woman. Something that the, the, the most common and the most heartbreaking fitness mistake I see with women, and I'm glad you said, "Are the principles the same for men and women?" Is that the woman who's like, "Oh, I want to drop a couple of dress sizes, I'm gonna pound the cardio and eat just a bit of cabbage every day."

Chris Williamson 8:59 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 8:59 Or some celery. And it's like, "You are only going to look like a smaller version of yourself, but just as shapeless." And yeah, your dress might be a smaller size, but you're not actually gonna have any, any shape.

Chris Williamson 9:13 Yeah.

Yusef 9:13 You're not gonna look any better than-

Chris Williamson 9:14 100%. And the other thing as well is that now, especially since Instagram fitness chicks-

Yusef 9:19 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 9:19 ... and stuff are a lot more prevalent, having a good set of legs as a woman, like a sort of a, you know, a shapely set of legs, is kind of cool now.

Yusef 9:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 9:29 Right? Like it's not, it's not obscene for CrossFitted, CrossFit girls to go out wearing dresses and stuff like that. Like it's, it's actually almost desirable.

Yusef 9:37 Definitely.

Chris Williamson 9:38 I think probably if you asked girls what-

Yusef 9:39 And people look more muscular on Instagram because the a- you know, you can't tell scale.

Chris Williamson 9:44 Yeah.

Yusef 9:44 But when you see some of these CrossFit girls in real life, they're absolute babes.

Chris Williamson 9:47 Yeah.

Yusef 9:47 And it's not, you know, you see them on a photo and you think, "Oh, she's a bit big." But actually, they've got small frames and-

Chris Williamson 9:52 Yeah.

Yusef 9:52 ... they just fit.

Chris Williamson 9:53 They're still very, very womanly. Um-

Yusef 9:55 Definitely. If you put them in a dress, then (imitates explosion) .

Chris Williamson 9:58 So yeah, y- what you're saying is that we need to hit the ground running. We don't have any time to lose. That lifting weights rather than pounding cardio is a good start. So for me, I'll, I'll put forward what my, um, proposal would be-

Yusef 10:17 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 10:18 ... for a pre-holiday routine and why. And then I'll let you critique it, and I'll let you put yours forward.

Yusef 10:23 Cool.

Chris Williamson 10:23 So I am the sort of person who is inherently very lazy, and I need to stack the deck in my favor. You may have noticed, due to the fact that we do endless episodes of life hacks, that shortcuts to an effective outcome is something that I value quite highly. For me, I need to try and make all of the right decisions as easy as possible. What that means is, I would get up on a morning, I would have a black coffee, I would go for a walk on a morning. Reason for that is, firstly, it allows me to clear my head. Secondly, it allows me to get a little bit of low intensity steady state cardio in. Now, the LISS versus high intensity debate I'm not really that bothered about. For me personally, I do CrossFit a lot. So my high-end, uh, power endurance output gets looked after by my training methodology.

Yusef 11:15 Should probably clarify that you do CrossFit not to burn calories. You do CrossFit because you enjoy CrossFit.

Chris Williamson 11:20 Yes. Yeah, it's not, it's not a, a, a goal-

Yusef 11:23 A strategy.

Chris Williamson 11:23 Yeah.

Yusef 11:24 It's fat loss.

Chris Williamson 11:24 It's, it just happens to be the methodology that I'm following. But on a morning, if you get up and you go for a walk, you've got some fresh air in you, you've had your coffee, you're set for the day. So that's a few, a few different-

Yusef 11:38 Big wins just in your bag.

Chris Williamson 11:39 Yeah, exactly, that you've put in the bag. And the, the low intensity steady state stuff's nice. Get back, prep your food for the day. Either pay someone to s- to, a meal prepping company. There's loads, especially in Newcastle, Aurora Kitchen, Spoonhead Nutrition. There's a load of different guys that do awesome food prepping in Newcastle, so check them out or look in your local area. If not, prep your food yourself on a morning.Get yourself out for the day. For me, personally, I would train around about midday or a little bit earlier. It means that my training is done for the day and I don't have to worry about it. Going on the diet and going onto my calories, I would tend to have between 200 and 300 grams on a training day, around about 200 grams on a recovery day, and about 100 grams on a rest day.

Yusef 12:29 Of what?

Chris Williamson 12:30 Carbs.

Yusef 12:30 Okay.

Chris Williamson 12:31 Sorry. Did I not say carbs?

Yusef 12:33 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 12:33 Did I just say grams? Did I just assume that everyone knew what I was talking about?

Yusef 12:36 You might've said carbs. I might've, but yeah.

Chris Williamson 12:38 Straight over. Um, yeah, of carbs. Protein and fat would generally stay the same. Uh, a little bit more fat on my r- on my rest days. Some of the strategies that I use for curbing hunger would be natural set yogurt on a nighttime, which is without a doubt the single best (laughs) approach for stopping yourself from trying to cheat on your diet. Firstly, if you don't want to cheat on your diet, do not have junk in the house. If you, like me, have got a sweet tooth and you do not have chocolate bars in the house, you will not eat them. You can't eat what isn't in your cupboard. And going to the shop, getting yourself up at ten o'clock at night because you've got a craving for a chocolate and walking all the way to the shop-

Yusef 13:20 At least you built up some steps that way.

Chris Williamson 13:22 Yeah, you've got, you've got, you've got some more low intensity cardio in. But, i- it's just, it's probably not gonna ... like, it's not gonna happen.

Yusef 13:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 13:29 You're gonna protect yourself. Um, so yeah, for me, I would ... natural set yogurt, scoop of protein powder, some mixed blueberries, and unless you're an absolute animal, that will satiate pretty much anyone's craving for something sweet. The macros on it are unbelievable. Like, it, it'll fit. You can probably add it on top of any diet, I think, and it'll ... in total, it'll be like, what, 120 calories? Something like that.

Yusef 13:58 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 13:58 For a big tub, bowl of protein-y, fruity niceness and then you sweet from there. So-

Yusef 14:07 Berries are like wizardry as well, like considering how low calorie density they are for what you get.

Chris Williamson 14:13 Yeah. The, there's a lot of volume, and, and they taste pretty good. So yes, my few little tips would be get up on a morning. If you want to do the high intensity stuff, then go and do some hill sprints, um, something like between 10 to 20 rounds with 30 seconds rest, run up a hill, then walk back down, wait for 30 seconds at the bottom and then go again. If you can do that 10 times up a moderately steep hill that it has output for about 30 seconds, something like that, so you're getting like two to one work to rest, something like that. Uh, sorry, two to one rest to work. Um, that's a good way to get some cardio in on a morning. Then if you can train later on in the evening or the afternoon, make sure that you're lifting weights. Don't get stuck or hung up on the toning from going to super high rep ranges. Still focus on the moneymaker sets, which are between sort of six to 14 reps at a weight which is moderately heavy, um, and still testing. It's unlikely that you're going, unless you're new to training, that you're going to PR during this particular period. But yeah, that's ... that would be broadly my approach. What are your thoughts?

Yusef 15:27 So I like that you split it out into a, a, a day, a day-

Chris Williamson 15:30 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 15:30 ... daily schedule and also the principle of make the good decisions as easy as possible and make the bad decisions as hard as possible is definitely the way to set up your environment for success 'cause if you have to consciously make the good decision and it's, you know, you have to jump through a bunch of hoops each time-

Chris Williamson 15:47 Yeah.

Yusef 15:48 ... then by 5:00 PM you've, you've ... the decision fatigue sets in, which is a real thing. Like, you, you're tired. You think, "Well, I'm just gonna," but yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:55 I'll miss training. I'll-

Yusef 15:56 Miss training, chocolate bars in the cupboard, any of that, definitely. The yogurt thing, there's, there's some evidence behind this as well, which is interesting.

Chris Williamson 16:03 Okay. (laughs)

Yusef 16:03 People have done studies looking at if you feed someone yogurt, the, with a little spoon, and then see how mu- how many calories they eat subsequently in the rest of the day, it's lower than if they were to eat other types of food and they-

Chris Williamson 16:16 That was an equivalent amount of calories.

Yusef 16:17 Yeah, so they, they compare calorie matched amounts of tuna, uh, carbs, crackers, milk, uh, whey, all those kind of things and whey-

Chris Williamson 16:27 And yogurt.

Yusef 16:27 Whey and yogurt were the, the highest satiating

Narrator 16:29 (coughs)

Chris Williamson 16:29 So in terms of s- satiety, you're gonna, you're gonna feel better from that. On a, uh, on a side point on the making sure that it's easy for you to, to, um, stack the deck in your favor, that includes prepping your food. So roll back the clock from the morning that you need to prep your food. If you've got chicken in the freezer and you haven't defrosted it, when you wake up the next morning, you can't cook the chicken that's still frozen.

Yusef 16:52 So you default to cocoa pops.

Chris Williamson 16:53 Exactly.

Yusef 16:54 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 16:54 So you think, "Oh, well fuck it, the diet's gone for today so I'll just order in some takeaway or I'll do whatever, I go to Gregg's, I get a pastry." Like-

Yusef 17:00 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 17:01 ... you know, it, it is all about making the good decisions as easy as possible and the bad decisions as hard as possible. Remembering that you are going to have a lower ... y- you're already using up an awful lot of willpower here. Dr. Roy Baumeister is, um, study that he did with turnips where he had two groups of people in a room. One group had cookies and turnips, and another group just had cookies. The group that just had cookies were allowed to eat them or not if they wanted. The group that had cookies and turnips were told they couldn't eat the cookies and could only eat the turnips. So they were then given-

Yusef 17:36 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 17:36 They were then given a cognitively demanding task to do afterwards. And the group that wasn't allowed to eat the cookies gave up 50% faster than the other one.

Yusef 17:43 Wow, so it's, it's a finite resource willpower.

Chris Williamson 17:46 Yes.

Yusef 17:46 And yeah, th- so that's, that's such an interesting (laughs) study, like do, do not trust the future version of yourself-

Chris Williamson 17:53 (laughs)

Yusef 17:54 ... to make the right decision. Treat yourself like a little child because-

Chris Williamson 17:57 You are.

Yusef 17:58 Well, that's it, like the, um, you know, another thing on decision fatigue, we know that juries and even judges, like fucking professionally trained senior people in the legal sector, industry, sector-

Chris Williamson 18:12 Yeah.

Yusef 18:12 ... um, w-... will judge people as guilty more often in the afternoons than in the mornings, just because they're like, "Oh, this girl is guilty," like that. You know? Can't be arsed to-

Chris Williamson 18:22 Is that s- statistically significant figure?

Yusef 18:24 Yeah, and- and-

Chris Williamson 18:25 That's incredible.

Yusef 18:25 ... it's also related to blood sugar levels as well.

Chris Williamson 18:27 Was it not, was it not something to do with biscuits? Did you not tell me? Was it whether-

Yusef 18:30 Uh-uh.

Chris Williamson 18:30 ... they'd been given biscuits or been given food or something like that?

Yusef 18:33 I've not seen that one, but-

Chris Williamson 18:34 Maybe, maybe I've run it along from the blood sugar thing (overlapping speech) .

Yusef 18:37 Oh, okay. Then there, there's, yeah, there's also correlations with blood sugar, so yeah. So basically-

Chris Williamson 18:41 So if you're in court, bribe the jury with biscuits and make sure that you get an AM.

Yusef 18:45 Get morning session biscuits.

Chris Williamson 18:46 Yeah.

Yusef 18:46 You sweet-

Chris Williamson 18:47 Laughing.

Yusef 18:48 Yeah, to be honest.

Chris Williamson 18:48 Kill someone.

Yusef 18:49 Stack it. Yeah, stack it in your favor.

Chris Williamson 18:51 Yeah.

Yusef 18:51 So yeah. The other thing you said about cardio, I love a good morning walk as well.

Chris Williamson 18:55 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 18:56 I agree it's not done to try and burn calories. And I, the getting into this chasing your tail of trying to do cardio so that you can earn the right to eat more calories and eat them back and all this, don't get into that cycle at all. Remember that the reason you are losing fat is 100% from your calorie intake. And just leave it there. So let the fat loss be driven by your diet.

Chris Williamson 19:21 So the, so-

Yusef 19:22 Let the muscle retention be driven by your training.

Chris Williamson 19:24 Okay. So you wouldn't say G flux theory, which-

Yusef 19:27 So to answer that, the, the, yeah, G, sorry.

Chris Williamson 19:31 Can you briefly explain what G flux theory is?

Yusef 19:32 Yeah. So, so G flux theory is that the effect on your body in terms of cellular turnover and body composition of eating a calorie deficit of 1,000 calories is different if that deficit is created from eating 2,000 and burning 3,000 compared to eating 4,000 and burning 5,000.

Chris Williamson 19:53 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 19:54 So there's still, the net deficit is the same at the end, but actually, the body's had to go through a lot more processing to-

Chris Williamson 19:59 Yeah.

Yusef 19:59 ... to achieve the same deficit, and that it would have a more favorable com- effect on your body composition to do the set, the latter rather than the former.

Chris Williamson 20:05 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 20:06 That is true, but again, telling someone to do that when they want the minimum effective dose, the risk is that they end up chasing their tail, and people always underestimate the number of calori- uh, sorry, they underestimate the number of calories that they eat back-

Chris Williamson 20:19 Yeah.

Yusef 20:20 ... from ca- from cardio, and they overestimate the number of calories that they think that they've burned from cardio.

Chris Williamson 20:25 Okay.

Yusef 20:25 I knew a guy who gained 20 kilos in two months, I think, and he just got really fat, and it was because on MyFitnessPal, he played basketball, and he was like, "Oh, well, I, I entered 90 minutes of basketball on here, and it says that it burns 5,000 calories, so I've been eating 6,600." I'm like-

Chris Williamson 20:42 Look at the scales. Look in the mirror.

Yusef 20:43 Yeah, exactly.

Chris Williamson 20:44 Obviously not burning that many calories.

Yusef 20:46 And it's, it, I don't know whoever entered that bit into the... 'Cause MyFitnessPal is just user-generated database.

Chris Williamson 20:50 It's a Wikipedia for-

Yusef 20:51 Ah, yeah. So anyone can-

Chris Williamson 20:53 ... exercise, isn't it?

Yusef 20:54 So maybe someone like Michael Jordan came along and was like, "Oh, well, you know."

Chris Williamson 20:57 5,000 calories, yeah.

Yusef 20:58 Just somebody who's like, okay, NBA-level-

Chris Williamson 20:59 So 19-

Yusef 20:59 ... basketball.

Chris Williamson 21:00 Yeah, exactly.

Yusef 21:00 Fine.

Chris Williamson 21:02 (laughs)

Yusef 21:02 (laughs) So, so yeah, basically, don't get into that game. As, as Chris said, walking, increasing your general NEAT, so your non-exercise activity, like, you know, taking the stairs, getting, getting off the bus at a dex- uh, stop earlier.

Chris Williamson 21:16 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 21:16 Um, just general moving around, not sitting like a fat turnip during the day, fine. But don't try and count the calories that you're burning when you're hoovering the house, and you know-

Chris Williamson 21:28 Yeah.

Yusef 21:28 ... just see the... And, and the other reason why we say lift weights, even if you are not trying to gain muscle, is that lifting weights and the effect that it has on your body is so much more biologically expensive than going for a walk or a run, because when you lift weights, you're tearing muscle. You're breaking down the tissue. Your body then has to marshal a lot of resources to build that back up again, which is very expensive in terms of calories, which is what you want. You also said don't fall into the trap of toning and doing-

Chris Williamson 22:00 High rep.

Yusef 22:01 ... high reps, 15 plus or whatever. Remember, when you're in a calorie deficit, you're never gonna be gaining muscle anyway. So if you're a woman and you're afraid of gaining too much muscle, common fear, just like I go to the library and I'm sometimes scared that I might get too clever so I have to leave early or-

Chris Williamson 22:17 (laughs)

Yusef 22:17 ... right? Um, I went, I went for a jog once and I was like, "No, no, 'cause I might win the 100-meter gold medal, so-"

Chris Williamson 22:22 (laughs)

Yusef 22:23 "... I, I better stop." Um-

Chris Williamson 22:25 (laughs) I think that's such a, it's such a good point, like-

Yusef 22:28 I leave work early as well 'cause I wanna make too much money.

Chris Williamson 22:30 Yeah. Like, girls, girls do have this fear of, "Oh, well, I'm not gonna lift too heavy because what if I start to get arms that I don't want or capped shoulders that I don't want?" Like, there are professional bodybuilders, female bodybuilders, who spend hours and hours and hours every single week in the gym desperately trying to gain the-

Yusef 22:48 On drugs as well.

Chris Williamson 22:49 Yeah, and, and they look like they lift. And your fear is that by moving from the eight-kilo to the 10-kilo dumbbells-

Yusef 22:57 Oh.

Chris Williamson 22:58 Yeah.

Yusef 22:58 It's, it's insulting to them actually, yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:00 Yeah. The, the, the-

Yusef 23:00 To the people who are busting their asses.

Chris Williamson 23:01 It is not the, it is not that easy to gain muscle. Trust me, I've been trying to do it for 10 years.

Yusef 23:06 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 23:06 Like, it's really quite hard. So okay, so we're, we're talking about when we get to training, someone's gonna go in. They're gonna be training how many days a week? Seven?

Yusef 23:17 So, so i- i- in a, in a deficit, three times a week is a- is all you need-

Chris Williamson 23:21 Okay.

Yusef 23:21 ... because all you're trying to do is hold onto the muscle that you already have.

Chris Williamson 23:25 Okay.

Yusef 23:25 When you're trying to gain muscle, yeah, you want to be training four or five days a week if you can.

Chris Williamson 23:30 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 23:31 Schedule permitting.

Chris Williamson 23:32 Is there a potential here? So uh, uh, your, um, criticism ab- about G flux theory aside, is there a potential here that if someone was to train, if they enjoy their training schedule-

Yusef 23:43 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 23:44 ... and they're able to train between sort of three to six times a week, if they're able to, to up that frequency-

Yusef 23:51 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 23:51 ... that that may afford them a little bit more on the calorie side?

Yusef 23:55 Sure, if, if they have the time and the freedom to do that, then why not? Like-

Chris Williamson 23:59 Okay.

Yusef 23:59 ... as long as you-

Chris Williamson 24:00 But again, if we're saying, I think personally, a lot of the people that'll be listening that have got the holiday that's coming up, I think especially for eight weeks, you can probably bin yourself. Like, you can put, you can go balls to the wall and go, right, okay, well, I, I can train for-... five, five days a week. And I-

Yusef 24:18 And for this time period, it would be helpful because yeah, as you said, you, you haven't got much time, so you may as well just do as much as you can.

Chris Williamson 24:23 Go for it. So, okay, so what's the split? What's-

Yusef 24:25 I mean, like the approach, the just meta speaking here, like big picture, the approach that I would prefer is to start six months earlier.

Chris Williamson 24:32 (laughs)

Yusef 24:32 Have a much easier time.

Chris Williamson 24:34 Yeah.

Yusef 24:34 And also bear in mind that the difference you're gonna make in the next eight weeks compared to if you... Like, yeah, you might look a bit better for this summer holiday, but next year's summer holiday, if you carry on the momentum-

Chris Williamson 24:44 Yeah.

Yusef 24:45 ... you're gonna look worlds better. So yeah.

Chris Williamson 24:47 Yeah, no, for sure. But again-

Yusef 24:48 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 24:48 ... we are creatures that like to lea- leave things until the last minute.

Yusef 24:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:52 So let's take into account the fact that as soon as people go away on holiday, they're going to be eating and drinking disproportionately higher than they were-

Yusef 25:03 Yep.

Chris Williamson 25:03 ... while they were do- while they were doing this diet to get themselves to look good and away.

Yusef 25:07 And you said yourself that you, you went on a 1,500-calorie diet and then you rebounded and looked, looked, fl- uh, watery for the rest of the (2:42) ?

Chris Williamson 25:15 Oh, yeah. You have, you have one day where you look awesome. You have a second day where you look even better. And then as soon as you have the hangover food, you just fill out.

Yusef 25:22 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:22 And anyone who's listening who's done a crash diet for a holiday knows that this is the case. And you get there on holiday and you're like, "Well, I don't understand. Like I was so lean all the way up until this point and I've got out here and now I'm not lean anymore."

Yusef 25:37 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:37 No more... You're no longer training. You're eating n- 80% of your diet is coming from alcohol. Uh, uh, 80% of your calories are coming from alcohol and carbohydrates.

Yusef 25:47 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 25:47 And you haven't had either of those for eight weeks. So again, for me-

Yusef 25:52 (laughs) True. Like expenditures suddenly dropped, intake suddenly gone up.

Chris Williamson 25:55 Yeah.

Yusef 25:55 Like you-

Chris Williamson 25:55 And you're wondering why, why you don't look as good as you did in the mirror two days ago.

Yusef 25:59 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 26:00 So for me, I think that trying to increase output and not drill calories super, super low, if you can get your calories closer during the prep phase to where they're going to be when you're away, you're going to be less sensitive.

Yusef 26:15 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 26:15 Can you explain about why, um, why having low calories in the build-up will make you more sensitive too than once you get out there?

Yusef 26:24 So I, I mean, I made this mistake myself on the meditation retreat, for example, as well, where I'd lost loads of weight, um, m- from being in hospital actually. I wasn't, I wasn't dieting per se, but-

Chris Williamson 26:34 (laughs)

Yusef 26:34 And then suddenly went for i-... And obviously when you're in hospital and you're ill, your expenditure's quite high because you, there's, there's so much stuff going on.

Chris Williamson 26:42 Immunity takes an awful lot of energy, right?

Yusef 26:45 And, and so then I went from that to having recovered and sit for twe- for ten days in silence with unlimited vegetarian food. So low protein food, no activity, no training, and I did regain a lot of fat.

Chris Williamson 27:00 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 27:02 Um, but yeah, it's, it's simply that there is an abundance of food and alcohol, as you said. Alcohol will stimulate your appetite further. You can create a reactive hypoglycemia, which will make you hungry and get the, the munchies afterwards. Plus, um, the general lack of restraint that you... Or the, the inhibition.

Chris Williamson 27:20 Yeah.

Yusef 27:20 The, the, the disinhibition that you get from drinking. So all of that will contribute just to overeating.

Chris Williamson 27:25 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 27:25 Plus as you said, you, it's hot weather.

Chris Williamson 27:26 Physio-

Yusef 27:26 You're in the sun.

Chris Williamson 27:27 Yeah. Physiologically as well, I'm gonna guess that your metabolism will have dropped during the prep phase.

Yusef 27:33 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 27:33 Because intake of food is going down and it-

Yusef 27:37 Intake's gone down and you've lost weight. So you're actually... Your maintenance calories have dropped even if there was no metabolic damage per se.

Chris Williamson 27:43 Yeah.

Yusef 27:43 You've still, you, you're-

Chris Williamson 27:45 And then that means that when you get out there that the, the danger is-

Yusef 27:49 Overshooting.

Chris Williamson 27:50 Yeah.

Yusef 27:50 Yeah, definitely.

Chris Williamson 27:51 And it's very difficult. I think another thing as well to consider is one of the most fun things about going away on holiday is the planning and the anticipation for it-

Yusef 28:04 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 28:04 ... as you build up to it. Now that anticipation, you can use the anticipatory energy to motivate you to go and train and that's good. That's a good use of that energy.

Yusef 28:15 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 28:15 But one thing that you don't want to do is absolutely hate your life-

Yusef 28:19 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 28:19 ... for 8 to 10 weeks. In the build-up to this holiday, I think people need to appreciate that if you are, if you're below 13% body fat, 13 to 12% body fat-

Yusef 28:33 So you're approaching outline of your abs.

Chris Williamson 28:35 Yeah.

Yusef 28:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:35 Outline of your abs with some visible vascularity maybe in bicep and forearm.

Yusef 28:40 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:40 Like, to 90% of the people on the beach, you're gonna look awesome. Like you look like you lift and you're probably shredded to e- ve- like a, a slightly lower proportion of those people.

Yusef 28:52 So yeah, Johnny mentioned this and, and I've definitely exper-... I'm sure you have as well, where like we i-... If you've been training for some time and you're, you're like trying to diet from, yeah, 13 to 11 or from 9% to 7% and you're like, "Oh, I've got to make these fine tunes. Oh, actually I've lost a bit of size in my delts and..." Actually, like these differences matter only to you.

Chris Williamson 29:14 Yeah. No one else cares.

Yusef 29:15 Like as far as anyone else concerned on the beach, you're either a, you're either a body builder or you're not a deadly dodgler. And so-

Chris Williamson 29:22 (laughs)

Yusef 29:23 ... (laughs) like as far... Yeah, like and people are easily... Someone who doesn't train, like the untrained eye will look at a guy who's 65 kilos and has abs-

Chris Williamson 29:31 Yeah.

Yusef 29:31 ... and be like, "Oh, he's huge."

Chris Williamson 29:33 Yeah.

Yusef 29:33 Because-

Chris Williamson 29:34 The illusion is there, right?

Yusef 29:35 That's it.

Chris Williamson 29:35 Yeah.

Yusef 29:36 So getting hung up on the small details compared to if you're just generally in shape, even if it's a few percentage points out of your own reference point-

Chris Williamson 29:44 Yeah.

Yusef 29:44 ... it's such a big source of insecurity.

Chris Williamson 29:46 Yeah. And I think as well, like you, especially if you've been lifting for a little while... I got a lot of friends who I know that, you know, they train consistently, but maybe they're not super strict with their diet.

Yusef 29:55 Oh, I'm looking shit at the minute, don't I need more?

Chris Williamson 29:57 Well, mate, it... Like it really, really... T- you shouldn't be obsessing over it. Like if you're walking around at 10%, allow yourself... Do you know what it is? Here's something to think about. We're talking about this rebound effect as soon as you get out there and you start having beer and all the rest of it.

Yusef 30:12 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 30:12 I bet that a significant proportion of people who are sat at about 10% body fat, let's say, which is probably fairly maintainable for people who train consistently-... if they went into a holiday on maintenance calories or just a little bit above-

Yusef 30:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 30:29 ... with a slightly increased training output, that after day three or four, they would look better than the same person that they were had they drilled themselves into the ground with the deficit and then got this rebound effect.

Yusef 30:41 So when you said that day two and three of the holiday you looked your best and then got worse, it's simply that, yeah? You've carbed up almost.

Chris Williamson 30:48 Yeah.

Yusef 30:48 And then, but then you keep carbing up more and more- (laughs)

Chris Williamson 30:50 (laughs)

Yusef 30:50 ... until it just-

Chris Williamson 30:51 Yeah. Yeah.

Yusef 30:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:51 And your body's just wholly unprepared to deal with it.

Yusef 30:54 So the solution that I would propose to, to the... This is the simplest way as well, meaning that you finished your diet, your aggressive approach that you've had to take because you're an idiot and you've left it until the last minute.

Chris Williamson 31:05 (laughs)

Yusef 31:05 Um, rather than trying to track your calories while you're away and stressing out over it, pick the, the shittest, most pointless meal of the day, usually breakfast, especially if you're in-

Chris Williamson 31:15 (laughs)

Yusef 31:15 ... Ibiza and you're in a hotel and you're getting boiled eggs and like-

Chris Williamson 31:18 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 31:18 ... what, croissant or something.

Chris Williamson 31:19 You've never been to Ibiza.

Yusef 31:21 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 31:21 It's, it's not, it's not boiled eggs and croissants for breakfast.

Yusef 31:25 Oh, okay.

Chris Williamson 31:25 No.

Yusef 31:25 What, so what, what would it be for breakfast?

Chris Williamson 31:26 Pills probably.

Yusef 31:27 Oh, okay. For... (laughs)

Chris Williamson 31:29 (laughs)

Yusef 31:31 Well, I mean, that's excellent.

Chris Williamson 31:32 Well, they're thermogenic, aren't they?

Yusef 31:34 Yeah, so fine.

Chris Williamson 31:34 If we're talking about caffeine -

Yusef 31:35 So stay on the, the, well... (laughs) I'm not gonna endorse having pills for breakfast, but yeah, like pick the meal which is the most pointless, doesn't provide a social purpose, doesn't really help with your hunger. Most people find that they just eat breakfast because they feel like they have to or they're-

Chris Williamson 31:49 Maybe a hangover.

Yusef 31:49 ... told that they should.

Chris Williamson 31:49 What about the hangover?

Yusef 31:51 Okay, if, if breakfast serves you hangover, great.

Chris Williamson 31:53 Okay, missing it.

Yusef 31:53 But what I'm saying is like, yeah, pick the meal that doesn't, doesn't really contribute to your day-

Chris Williamson 31:58 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 31:58 ... in that sense. Like I know a lot of people that are like, "Oh, well people always tell me breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so I eat it anyway, even though I'm never hungry in the morning."

Chris Williamson 32:05 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 32:05 It's like, "Well, don't eat it, like save it-

Chris Williamson 32:07 Just fucking mess it up.

Yusef 32:07 ... for the evenings." Yeah. So do that and then instantly you've freed up an extra 400 or 500 calories or more-

Chris Williamson 32:13 Yeah. Yeah.

Yusef 32:13 ... that you can dedicate to drinking, to an evening meal, whatever you want.

Chris Williamson 32:17 Yeah.

Yusef 32:17 Or restrict your eating window. That's another way of doing it.

Chris Williamson 32:20 Yeah.

Yusef 32:20 So start, pick eight hours-

Chris Williamson 32:21 I think, I think-

Yusef 32:21 ... in the day when you can eat.

Chris Williamson 32:22 Being, being, being frank, I think some of this is gonna be difficult to do when you're, when you're away. If you've got a five-day holiday-

Yusef 32:28 This is gonna be easier than tracking your calories and trying to-

Chris Williamson 32:30 Oh yeah.

Yusef 32:31 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:31 I think... (sighs) I just think that when you're hungover like-

Yusef 32:35 Things go out the window.

Chris Williamson 32:35 Your will, your willpower is, uh, uh, uh, the ebb is so low. Like it's-

Yusef 32:39 So in that case if it, if it's not an option to change how you're eating while you're on holiday-

Chris Williamson 32:43 Yeah.

Yusef 32:43 ... then you need to prep over a longer period.

Chris Williamson 32:46 Yeah.

Yusef 32:46 It's one or the other really. And I think, um, the, the weight re- rate, weight rebound (laughs) is related to slightly to the speed of weight loss, but more so to the amount of weight lost.

Chris Williamson 32:58 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 32:59 And the way that you can counteract that is every time you've lost a bit of weight, hold out there for a while, establish a new set point.

Chris Williamson 33:06 Yeah.

Yusef 33:06 And then do a stepwise diet. And people that do that hold onto their weight loss more than people who just drop and then-

Chris Williamson 33:15 Okay.

Yusef 33:15 ... throw a direct diet over and that's just rebound.

Chris Williamson 33:17 So we're talking about not trying to go super, super low on the calories before we go away on holiday because what that's going to end up doing is creating this, uh, environment for, uh, rebound effect which ruins the hard won leanness that you've just sacrificed eight weeks or 10 weeks for or whatever it might be. You're saying focus on muscular movements, focus on resistance training rather than relying on cardio.

Yusef 33:45 (clears throat)

Chris Williamson 33:45 If someone does want to add cardio in, how do they do it?

Yusef 33:48 So w- as long as we make those three days that you're lifting weights sacred.

Chris Williamson 33:54 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 33:55 So... And then up it to four if you want to. This is assuming that you've got more space in your schedule to do five or six training sessions a week.

Chris Williamson 34:02 Yeah.

Yusef 34:02 Then fine, you've got the resistance training covered. Once you're training three or four times a week, there's very limited benefit, especially in a deficit, to adding in an extra few days of lifting weights because you haven't got the fuel available to, to build the muscle. And so you may as well use your fifth and your sixth training day in a week-

Chris Williamson 34:21 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 34:21 ... to do some cardio.

Chris Williamson 34:22 Okay.

Yusef 34:22 In which case I would suggest do the cardio that you enjoy the most, so because then you're more likely to stick to it. So if you hate rowing but you're told that rowing is the best way to burn calories, then you're gonna stick to it for a couple of weeks and fall off the wagon.

Chris Williamson 34:37 Yeah.

Yusef 34:37 If you like hill sprints, uh, I mean, if you're a nutter and you like hill sprints-

Chris Williamson 34:40 (clears throat)

Yusef 34:41 ... then fine, do them. If, you know, CrossFit is... And I, I've come full circl- oh, not full circle. I've come 180 on this.

Chris Williamson 34:49 Yeah.

Yusef 34:49 Um, because I reali- having seen the results it's had on you because, so CrossFit really in a lot of ways, it's, it's given you the community environment-

Chris Williamson 34:57 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 34:58 ... the, the motivation to push yourself more than you would. There's a lot of volume that you're accumulating-

Chris Williamson 35:03 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 35:03 ... just from the amount of lifting in there.

Chris Williamson 35:06 Yeah.

Yusef 35:06 And it's very, it, it's very high cardio demand as well.

Chris Williamson 35:10 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 35:10 So it ticks all of those boxes. So f- so really as far as that goes...

Chris Williamson 35:15 Just do CrossFit for eight weeks.

Yusef 35:17 Well, you could do. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 35:19 (laughs)

Yusef 35:19 Yeah. I mean if you're, if you're not used to training...

Chris Williamson 35:22 Bad idea.

Yusef 35:23 Going balls, I mean...

Chris Williamson 35:25 Well, I think one of the problems-

Yusef 35:26 I mean, but...

Chris Williamson 35:26 One of the problems that you'd have with going and doing CrossFit for something like this is that technically it's very demanding. The barriers to entry for a lot of the movements are actually quite high.

Yusef 35:34 So this is it, you're not gonna be able to hit the ground running-

Chris Williamson 35:37 No, because you-

Yusef 35:37 ... in terms of intensity because you're gonna learn new stuff.

Chris Williamson 35:39 After eight weeks, you're not even gonna have learned all of the movements.

Yusef 35:41 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 35:42 I think maybe something like a boot camp might give you a little bit of external accountability. Might give you-

Yusef 35:47 Yeah, if you've got a trainer there that's able to adjust your technique and, and so on, yeah.

Chris Williamson 35:51 But for me, doing cardio on your own is, it's pretty miserable, especially if you want to push yourself quite hard.

Yusef 35:57 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 35:57 Um, but, you know, you can find almost everywhere, you can find a good boot camp class for a tenner a session. And if you're paying 10 pounds once a week or twice a week, you know, for... If that's what it takes to get you to get that cardio in, then cool.

Yusef 36:17 Yeah. And they, you know, boot camp-... runners, the, the, the boot camp organizers want you to come back so they're gonna make it as fun as they can make it.

Chris Williamson 36:26 Yeah.

Yusef 36:26 They'll have partner exercises and-

Chris Williamson 36:28 Yeah.

Yusef 36:28 ... all that stuff, so yeah, you'll find-

Chris Williamson 36:29 Yeah, you get, you get, um, you get kidded into thinking that it's fun.

Yusef 36:32 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 36:32 But it's actually, by the end of the session, you actually look at what you've done to yourself.

Yusef 36:36 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 36:36 And you think, "Oh, fuck, this really hurt."

Yusef 36:38 And that's a big advantage and it's the same advantage for CrossFit, that there is no way that I would have ev- Like, when I, I came to CrossFit once.

Chris Williamson 36:44 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 36:44 Or a couple of times, and it was, it was grim, but there's no way that I would put myself through that on my own.

Chris Williamson 36:49 Yeah.

Yusef 36:50 But it's because if, if you, when you're with a group and if you just start to be like, "Oh, I'm leaving," then you look a dickhead, so-

Chris Williamson 36:56 So would you, would you say that potentially during the prep to go away on holiday, getting another one of the guys who's also going away to be a training partner would be a good idea?

Yusef 37:05 Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:06 Okay. So you-

Yusef 37:07 As long as you, as long as you don't mind that you'll both look better. If you just want to look better than your mate, then-

Chris Williamson 37:12 Ah, this is the Highlander thing, like there can only be one.

Yusef 37:15 Yeah, it's a z- If it's a, if you think it's a zero sum game of like, you've got the group of people that you're going with and there's only a certain amount of-

Chris Williamson 37:22 So sabotage them with, like cake.

Yusef 37:24 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 37:24 Leave cake on their desk as much as possible.

Yusef 37:27 (laughs) Fine. So buy a load of cake. So basically, 50 quid, either spend it on boot camp for your mate or spend it on cake for your mates.

Chris Williamson 37:34 Yeah.

Yusef 37:35 Depending on how Machiavellian you are.

Chris Williamson 37:37 (laughs)

Yusef 37:37 And then-

Chris Williamson 37:38 Relatively, I haven't lost any weight, but everyone else in my friend, friend circle has gained fucking loads.

Yusef 37:43 Still achieves the same obje- Bloody hell, right. So actually sla- sack everything we've said so far.

Chris Williamson 37:47 (laughs)

Yusef 37:47 Get all of your mates to gain 6.4 kilos over the eight weeks.

Chris Williamson 37:50 Which is probably a lot easier.

Yusef 37:52 Gain one percent of their body weight per-

Chris Williamson 37:54 Per week, yeah.

Yusef 37:54 ... week, fine.

Chris Williamson 37:55 800, yeah.

Yusef 37:56 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 37:56 Easi- well, we've, we've, we've come to a s- we've come to a solution there. Okay, so find yourself a training partner, probably one, preferably one who you're going away with.

Yusef 38:04 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 38:04 Because it means that you're both working towards the same schedule. You're looking at resistance training three to four times a week.

Yusef 38:10 Yep.

Chris Williamson 38:10 If you want to add some more training in, then another one to two sessions of-

Yusef 38:14 Of enjoyable cardio.

Chris Williamson 38:15 ... of cardio in whatever it is. We're talking between 30 minutes to an hour.

Yusef 38:20 Yeah, if you can spare it.

Chris Williamson 38:21 Yeah, I think-

Yusef 38:23 Um...

Chris Williamson 38:23 I, I do think that a lot of people's... I think your schedule is unrepresentatively busy.

Yusef 38:27 (laughs) Unreasonably tight.

Chris Williamson 38:28 Yes.

Yusef 38:28 Um, yeah, and, and that's one of the reasons that... So I don't do cardio because one, I'm lazy.

Chris Williamson 38:34 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 38:34 Two, my schedule is so tight and I have to go for the highest yield, the lowest hanging fruit first.

Chris Williamson 38:38 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 38:39 Um, but yeah, the the other thing outside of cardio is the, the non-exercise activity that we talked about.

Chris Williamson 38:46 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 38:46 So...

Chris Williamson 38:46 I'm terrible with this.

Yusef 38:47 Yeah, me, me too. You know, if you work at a desk a lot, then try and push the daily activities, just fit it in so you... It's not formal cardio, it's walking to the shop, walking to work, taking the stairs.

Chris Williamson 38:58 Have a walk-in lunch maybe, something like that.

Yusef 39:00 Exactly. Anything that involves movement but isn't formalized, like you don't have to put on your shorts and-

Chris Williamson 39:05 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 39:05 ... go and do something for.

Chris Williamson 39:07 All of this will help to not let your metabolism drop too far through the floor as well.

Yusef 39:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 39:12 Which will also mitigate this rebound effect once we get out there. So, okay, so we've got the three to four sessions in terms of muscular training, um, are w- for that push, pull, legs, something similar?

Yusef 39:24 Yeah. So i- the, the, the simplest way, and I, I like... This was from Spencer Nadolsky who, he's a family physician and talks to... This is the kind of standard exercise advice he gives to patients which I think is great 'cause you can't get it wrong, is go to the gym three times a week, do some kind of pushing, some kind of pulling, and some kind of legs in each session for three, four, six sessions.

Chris Williamson 39:45 Oh, okay, so do that in every session.

Yusef 39:47 Well that, I mean that, yeah, or, or as you said, you can do a push session, a push session, and a leg session.

Chris Williamson 39:52 Yeah.

Yusef 39:53 Did I say push-push?

Chris Williamson 39:54 You said push-push.

Yusef 39:54 (laughs) Push.

Chris Williamson 39:55 Yeah.

Yusef 39:55 Yeah, push, pull, legs on each of the days.

Chris Williamson 39:58 Okay. I think for some people that may be a m- a more easy to, to work out split. So have the listeners, have you got any resources on propanefitness.com that the guys can have a little bit of a look at?

Yusef 40:10 Yeah, we have. So (laughs) who, if you go to propanefitness.com and search for the Propane Protocol infographic, there is a full training program laid out for you. It's four days a week. It covers all of the bases. It's structured in a way that you will avoid injury and maintain structural balance and it's all laid out in there, and there's a diet framework in there as well.

Chris Williamson 40:32 Yeah, it's just a big-

Yusef 40:33 So if you follow that for eight weeks.

Chris Williamson 40:33 ... it's a big long image, right? It's a-

Yusef 40:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:36 ... sort of a big a- not animated, it's like a big, um, illustration.

Yusef 40:39 Full, yeah, full infographic guide.

Chris Williamson 40:41 You scroll, you scroll for a little while, but everything's in there.

Yusef 40:43 Exactly. Everything that... The, the only thing I would change about that is because we're talking about a short timeframe, you're gonna be, need to be more aggressive with the calories.

Chris Williamson 40:51 Uh-huh.

Yusef 40:51 And if you want to really take things up a notch and guarantee that you will lose, um... So we, we have a, we have a program called the 28 Day Shred.

Chris Williamson 41:00 Yeah.

Yusef 41:00 Which typically people lose five percent of their body weight within 24, 28 days.

Chris Williamson 41:05 Wow.

Yusef 41:06 So that is done and it's relatively easy as far as losing five percent of your... The, this, it's the easiest way that we know of-

Chris Williamson 41:12 Yeah, yeah, it is.

Yusef 41:12 ... to lose that much of body weight. So, um, yeah, you can get in touch with us.

Chris Williamson 41:15 So this is, this is push the red panic button-

Yusef 41:17 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:17 ... stations, right? This is four weeks 'til I go away, I need to do it. And how much is that?

Yusef 41:22 That's 67 pounds.

Chris Williamson 41:23 Okay. So-

Yusef 41:24 And you'll get lifetime access to that. You get support weekly, weekly calls, um, two, one-on-one calls with your, with your coach and it's basically everything that you need just-

Chris Williamson 41:33 That's cool.

Yusef 41:34 ... you know, done for you basically.

Chris Williamson 41:35 So if people want to step it up a notch, then they've got that as a, as a resource. If they want the free resource, then they've got propanefitness.com and search for the Propane Protocol, and if they are too, uh, headstrong or lazy or anything else (laughs) to, uh, not want to do either of those things, then we've got it laid out for them here. Train, resistance training three to four times a week, couple of sessions of cardio, make sure that you get someone who you can train with, get some external accountability. In terms of diet,

Chris Williamson 42:06 typically for the typical sized man, so 5'11", 80 kilos, you need to be looking at what, about 2000 to sort of 1800 calories, something like that?

Yusef 42:16 Yeah, I mean, start at, start at 2000. Take your daily body weight every morning.... post-poo, pre-breakfast-

Chris Williamson 42:25 (laughs)

Yusef 42:25 ... naked at the same time.

Chris Williamson 42:27 Yeah. Um-

Yusef 42:28 Weigh yourself every morning.

Chris Williamson 42:28 I'll put a link, I'll put a link to the set of, uh, Sandler scales that I've got, which were six pounds.

Yusef 42:35 Great.

Chris Williamson 42:36 And th- they're perfectly accurate. And use MyFitnessPal to track your weight. So MyFitnessPal is also free. Create an account, download the app on your phone, put your weight in every single day and it'll track it over time. It'll make sure that you know-

Yusef 42:47 It's why it's important to get it every day. And yeah, if you're using th- the, the Sandler digital scales, then that's gonna give you a more accurate reading.

Chris Williamson 42:53 Yeah.

Yusef 42:53 Take that daily body weight every morning over the week, calculate the average. So if you... MyFitnessPal might do this. Our-

Chris Williamson 43:00 It does. It does it week on week.

Yusef 43:01 Fine. Our, our propane spreadsheets will do this as well. Um, or if you use a Withings or Withings...

Chris Williamson 43:06 Yeah.

Yusef 43:07 ... uh, wifi scale.

Chris Williamson 43:08 Yeah.

Yusef 43:09 That will...

Chris Williamson 43:09 That's super fast as well.

Yusef 43:10 That will like link with your-

Chris Williamson 43:10 Johnny, Johnny-

Yusef 43:11 ... wifi and go to the-

Chris Williamson 43:11 ... would, Johnny would be jizzing in his pants if he was here right now.

Yusef 43:13 Oh, got it. It goes to the grid and then like some guy comes out with an envelope and-

Chris Williamson 43:16 Yeah.

Yusef 43:16 ... and they cut your watermelon for you and it's amazing. But no, I think, um, yeah, once you've got that, then you can start to see whether the 2,000 calories is producing the expected return on weight.

Chris Williamson 43:26 If someone doesn't know, if someone doesn't know what 2,000 calories is, how can they roughly eat 2,000 calories a day? So we're talking man, 80 kilos, 2,000 calories. Female, maybe 1,600, typically between 50 and 60 kilos, something like that?

Yusef 43:42 Yeah. Uh, maybe go slightly lower if you've got a short timeframe, maybe 15 or 1,400.

Chris Williamson 43:47 Okay.

Yusef 43:48 Um, but it has to... The, the thing is, the starting point is just a starting point to see how your weight's responding.

Chris Williamson 43:53 Yeah.

Yusef 43:53 And then you need to-

Chris Williamson 43:53 'Cause you may-

Yusef 43:54 ... adjust based on-

Chris Williamson 43:54 ... you might, in that first week, you might drop two kilos.

Yusef 43:57 Oh, yeah. In which case your calories are too low.

Chris Williamson 43:59 Yeah.

Yusef 43:59 Or if you don't, if your weight doesn't change, then your calories are too high.

Chris Williamson 44:01 Yeah.

Yusef 44:01 So the adjustments have to be made week on week, and that's where the magic happens really.

Chris Williamson 44:06 Yeah.

Yusef 44:06 So, um, and again, try and keep your average weight change between 0.5 and 1% of your body weight. If it goes too far above that, you start to step into, um, cutting into your recovery too much.

Chris Williamson 44:19 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 44:20 And drop in testosterone, increase in cortisol-

Chris Williamson 44:22 Yeah.

Yusef 44:22 ... depression symptoms, all of that.

Chris Williamson 44:24 (coughs) I think another one of the, the things that we need to mention we haven't mentioned so far is that like there are other costs. There are other things going on in your life outside of how good you're going to look for your holiday. And I alluded to this earlier on, like you don't want to absolutely bin your life just to look a little bit leaner while you go away. Especially seen as presumably this summer holiday is something that you're supposed to be looking forward to.

Yusef 44:48 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:48 You don't want, you don't want to go out of there-

Yusef 44:49 Be the whole period miserable.

Chris Williamson 44:50 Yeah. You've got... You, you, you know-

Yusef 44:52 Which is why I'm saying start as early as possible.

Chris Williamson 44:54 Yeah.

Yusef 44:54 You know? Or like at least... Yeah, fine. Follow the advice in this podcast. Get shredded for the next eight weeks or as much as you can, but keep up the momentum-

Chris Williamson 45:04 Yeah.

Yusef 45:04 ... and focus on next year's holiday.

Chris Williamson 45:06 And it's definitely, definitely as well, like a lot of people will lean out for eight weeks, go away, maybe have a little bit of this rebound that we've discussed here. But within seven days of coming back, you could get back to the set point that you were at beforehand quite easily.

Yusef 45:21 Oh, exactly. Don't think, "Holiday's over. Back to the-"

Chris Williamson 45:23 Yeah. "Oh, I've ruined it, I've ruined it. I'm never gonna be lean again."

Yusef 45:26 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 45:26 You're like, "Well, no, that's the exact opposite." So a, a structured and consistent training program is sort of number one. That's the zenith.

Yusef 45:34 So what you and I have done is a proper, proper diet, get lean once and for all. I got... Last time I dieted was 2013.

Chris Williamson 45:44 (laughs)

Yusef 45:45 I spent five or six months getting bone shredded, like pancreas lean.

Chris Williamson 45:49 Dick skin lean.

Yusef 45:50 Dick skin lean, and then gradually reversed, reversed dieted, which is systematically increasing the calories up to a point where body weight isn't, isn't influenced by it.

Chris Williamson 45:59 Yeah.

Yusef 46:00 And then if it starts to spill over, then you pull calories back. Painstaking pro- process, but what it's meant is that I've now topped out my calories.

Chris Williamson 46:09 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 46:10 It supports your training. You're eating as much food as you, as you want really. You're, you're very happy with the amount of food that you're eating, maintaining your post-diet condition, and I'm still reaping the benefits of that five years later.

Chris Williamson 46:22 Yeah. You're still abs-

Yusef 46:23 So-

Chris Williamson 46:23 You're still abs lean.

Yusef 46:24 Still abs lean thanks to that diet. So-

Chris Williamson 46:26 Yeah.

Yusef 46:26 ... the short and fun-

Chris Williamson 46:26 You only need to get lean once.

Yusef 46:28 Exactly. Get lean once properly.

Chris Williamson 46:30 Yeah.

Yusef 46:30 Do it gradually and then systematically reverse back.

Chris Williamson 46:32 Okay. So-

Yusef 46:33 And then you'll set yourself for five years or-

Chris Williamson 46:34 So... (laughs) Yeah.

Yusef 46:35 ... for life really. So-

Chris Williamson 46:35 So someone's, someone's gone away, they've managed to hold on to the training protocol. They've kept controlled with their diet up until then.

Yusef 46:44 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 46:44 If you've only got eight weeks, are you allowing someone to have a refeed day? Or are they just on this... Are they just in the deficit every day?

Yusef 46:49 Yeah, you can do a refeed day.

Chris Williamson 46:50 Okay.

Yusef 46:51 Um-

Chris Williamson 46:51 So you could have one day where you would maybe bump up your calories to two and a half thousand to 3,000 cals?

Yusef 46:56 Yeah. And I think that (laughs) I'm, I'm glad you said that 'cause a refeed can mean, can be quite a flexible meaning in something

Chris Williamson 47:01 Yeah, you can undo all of the deficit for an entire week in one day of eating 10,000 calories.

Yusef 47:06 Oh. Yeah, easily. (laughs) So-

Chris Williamson 47:08 So, so-

Yusef 47:08 And it's... And when, when you're dieted, eating 10,000 calories is not beyond the-

Chris Williamson 47:12 No. No, no.

Yusef 47:13 ... realm of possibility.

Chris Williamson 47:14 So when we're talking about doing a refeed day, one day a week, um, or I, I would be more tempted to say one day every fortnight, especially given that you've got this short a timeframe.

Yusef 47:23 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 47:24 What-

Yusef 47:24 And calories are just 30% higher, for example. It's not, it's not like an absolute-

Chris Williamson 47:28 No.

Yusef 47:29 ... huge dip.

Chris Williamson 47:29 I, it's... But I think it's important. Uh, it, it... I know that it's important for me to work towards a day where I have a little bit more leniency, I can feel a little bit more satiated. Also, choose to do your refeed day on a day where you're training a muscle part that you really want to go for it on.

Yusef 47:45 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 47:45 If you are used to eating, uh, training in a deficit where your training quality maybe isn't quite where you're used to it or where you'd want it to be, if you have this day where you've eaten a little bit more, your training output's going to be so much better. You're gonna go in, pump's gonna be more im- im- improved, your level of strength's gonna be more improved, energy levels, feeling of satiety, like...

Yusef 48:05 Yeah, absolutely. Everything's gonna be fueled by that refeed day.

Chris Williamson 48:09 You said feeling of society there. Feeling society, feeling of satiety. Um, so final thing. Someone's gone away on holiday and they've come back.

Yusef 48:19 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 48:20 How do they then slowly-... recomp themselves back up? How do they do this re-diet that you've said so that they can maximize the return on all of the sacrifices they've made in the couple of months leading up to this?

Yusef 48:33 So someone's come back from holiday.

Chris Williamson 48:35 Yeah. They've gone away, they've maybe done their thing, they've-

Yusef 48:38 Have they gained any weight-

Chris Williamson 48:39 Yeah.

Yusef 48:39 ... while they're away?

Chris Williamson 48:40 Yeah, I think it's, I think it's very, very, um, prudent to assume-

Yusef 48:43 Okay.

Chris Williamson 48:43 ... that that's gonna happen.

Yusef 48:44 So rather than get into the self-flagellation, self-punishment cycle straightaway, come home, restore your momentum with training.

Chris Williamson 48:53 Yeah, I think that's-

Yusef 48:53 Just get back on the training again.

Chris Williamson 48:54 ... that's number one.

Yusef 48:55 Yeah. Just eat normally for a while. Don't, don't try and go into a big crazy cycle. Do that for a couple of weeks, set yourself a baseline.

Chris Williamson 49:03 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 49:03 Then decide, has the weight, has the excess weight come off? It may have come off naturally just having returned from, you know, even flying. Traveling somewhere will increase your weight, and I, it might be-

Chris Williamson 49:14 Why is that?

Yusef 49:15 Probably 'cause it disrupts your, your blood salts and, and water retention and that kind of thing.

Chris Williamson 49:19 Is that a significant-

Yusef 49:20 Yeah. It's a-

Chris Williamson 49:21 Really?

Yusef 49:21 ... c- at least with our clients, like, it, I mean, it's, it's not a-

Chris Williamson 49:25 Huge proportion.

Yusef 49:26 Well, it, it, it's also the, I mean, it'll affect your scale weight, but it won't, but it doesn't mean that you've got fatter. It just, yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:31 Yeah, okay.

Yusef 49:31 It's just that it's, it disrupts the data that you're seeing on the-

Chris Williamson 49:34 Okay. That's interesting.

Yusef 49:35 ... on the sheet, yeah. So, um, w- wait till you've established a new baseline, and then you can say, "Look, actually, I'm lean enough, I could go, I could do with gaining some muscle, so I'm gonna spend the next year gaining muscle."

Chris Williamson 49:46 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 49:46 "And then by the time I'm up for my next holiday, I can do five or six weeks before, before the holiday-"

Chris Williamson 49:52 Yeah.

Yusef 49:52 "... and just cut a bit of fat."

Chris Williamson 49:53 I think, I think definitely for me, um, getting back into training as fast as possible is a really big deal. A few things to remember is that if you've just been away on a party holiday and you've filled yourself with all kinds of substances, that first training session, it's-

Yusef 50:08 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:08 ... it's gonna be pretty uncomfortable.

Yusef 50:10 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:10 Your sweat's gonna be viscous and multi-colored-

Yusef 50:12 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:13 ... and you're gonna be really un- it's gonna be an unenjoyable experience.

Yusef 50:17 So-

Chris Williamson 50:17 However-

Yusef 50:18 ... I heard about a, I don't know whether this is true, but someone said that LSD is stored in your fat cells-

Chris Williamson 50:24 Fat cells, yeah.

Yusef 50:24 ... and so-

Chris Williamson 50:24 There were all of these people who lost weight-

Yusef 50:26 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:26 ... who'd been part of the summer of love in the '60s-

Yusef 50:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:29 ... and then lost weight, uh, during a mid-life diet, sort of maybe in the '90s, and were driving along the road, and their adipose cells would've, um-

Yusef 50:38 Just released a bunch of toilets (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 50:38 ... dumped, dumped a, a load of, uh, psychedelics back into their bloodstream and there were people tripping while they were driving.

Yusef 50:44 Oh, man. Um, I mean-

Chris Williamson 50:46 I'm not sure that the same is true for-

Yusef 50:47 ... if that's true.

Chris Williamson 50:48 I'm not sure that the same is true for, um, speed masquerading as cocaine in Zante, but-

Yusef 50:53 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:54 ... um, yeah. There's, there's definitely, you're gonna come back, you're gonna feel like shit, your training's not gonna be tremendously good, but you will feel better if you can get yourself back into that routine.

Yusef 51:02 So another benefit to getting a baseline, I suppose, is if you'd had a bunch of substances, just a couple of weeks where you just-

Chris Williamson 51:08 Yeah. Don't, don't obsess over it too much.

Yusef 51:09 ... sleeping normally and-

Chris Williamson 51:10 Yeah. Get yourself-

Yusef 51:11 ... no drugs.

Chris Williamson 51:11 Get your sleep, get your sleep back, stop taking drugs, stop drinking all the time, and get back into some training and enjoy it. Make yourself feel a little bit more healthy. Remember that y- and try and fall back in love with training 'cause it (sighs) the thing, the thing that's so impressive to everybody about someone who is lean, that understands what it takes to get lean, is that they appreciate the sacrifice that person's made to get there, because it, it is a miserable process-

Yusef 51:39 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 51:40 ... to, to not eat as much food as your body wants, and to then try and get your body to exert physical-

Yusef 51:45 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 51:46 ... uh, uh, pr- exercises on top of that. Like, it's, it just sucks.

Yusef 51:51 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 51:51 So allow yourself to fall back in love with your training. If you've always liked walking, rowing, running, hill sprints, jogging, CrossFit, martial arts, whatever it is, do the training that is going to allow you to remain physically active as easily as possible, and then make sure that you keep on top of your resistance training, make sure that you're not letting your weights drop too much. Keep tracking your weight when you get home, and then, yeah, take it from there.

Yusef 52:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:15 I think we've covered it, we've covered most of the bits there.

Yusef 52:17 Solid advice. I think that's, that's the, that's the complete picture. So to be honest, everything that we discussed in this podcast, if you just do this now until the, your holiday in eight weeks' time, you're gonna-

Chris Williamson 52:29 I think, I think-

Yusef 52:29 ... you're gonna make the most progress that you can in that time (whistles)

Chris Williamson 52:31 I think you'll be laughing. So let's break it down again, going from the top. Find your training partner, someone who you're going away with.

Yusef 52:38 Yeah. Or if you can't find one, accountability partner. Some, there's an app, I think, where you can-

Chris Williamson 52:44 (laughs)

Yusef 52:45 ... you put 500 pounds into, or 1,000 pounds or whatever into a-

Chris Williamson 52:49 (laughs)

Yusef 52:49 ... a, what, what's it called?

Chris Williamson 52:50 Like an escrow account or something.

Yusef 52:51 Escrow, yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:51 And then it gets released if you don't do the thing you said-

Yusef 52:53 Yep.

Chris Williamson 52:53 ... you were going to do. That's, yeah, that's one way to motivate yourself.

Yusef 52:56 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:56 Um, but try and find a training partner-

Yusef 52:58 We, we have a client that gave 1,000 pounds to his mum-

Chris Williamson 53:00 Oh, no.

Yusef 53:00 ... and was like, "Mum, if I drink before Friday, then-"

Chris Williamson 53:04 Oh my god.

Yusef 53:05 "... you've got 1,000 pounds."

Chris Williamson 53:06 Imagine if your mum just went and spent 1,000 pounds.

Yusef 53:08 Ah, yeah. Or if your mum just kept leaving shots all around-

Chris Williamson 53:12 (laughs)

Yusef 53:12 ... (laughs) all around your room.

Chris Williamson 53:12 Desperately wanting you to give her 1,000 pounds. Um, training three to four times a week resistance, a couple of times of, um, of cardio. Maybe on a morning, try and get a 10 to 15, 20 minute walk in, fasted, black coffee before you go.

Yusef 53:28 I also like what you said about just get training done in the morning and then-

Chris Williamson 53:31 Yes.

Yusef 53:31 ... it's like that's the win for the day.

Chris Williamson 53:33 Yeah. You know that you've taken it off the list and you don't need to worry about it.

Yusef 53:35 You're also more likely to stick to your diet because then you, you've not had a, a, a stumbly shit day where, like, you know, oh, I haven't been to the gym and diet's gone out the window, whatever, but whereas if you've started it as you mean to go on-

Chris Williamson 53:45 Yeah.

Yusef 53:46 ... then-

Chris Williamson 53:46 Get some, get some easy wins under your belt, and if the session's one of them, then so be it. Um, push-pull legs, we think, for a, for a session.

Yusef 53:56 Yep.

Chris Williamson 53:56 Uh, a, a split. Um, you can get a good breakdown of that at propainfitness.com, have a look at the Propain protocol. (inhales sharply) Diet, you're gonna be looking at around about 2,000 calories a day for men and about 16, 15 to 1,600 for women.

Yusef 54:12 To start with, yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:13 To begin with, and then-

Yusef 54:14 And then adjust based on how your weight's moving.

Chris Williamson 54:15 Yep. Tracking your weight on a morning after you have been for wee and poo, but before you've had food, naked.

Yusef 54:21 Yep. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:21 Set of scales will be linked in the show notes, which you can get. They're like s- five or six pounds and they'll do for the rest of time as well. (inhales sharply) Um, MyFitnessPal, use that to track your weight and see how your weight's getting on throughout the day. Um, don't get caught up with...Too much meal timing, BCAAs before and after training.

Yusef 54:41 Sack all of that stuff.

Chris Williamson 54:43 (laughs)

Yusef 54:43 Yeah. You- your only goal during the next eight weeks is hit your average weekly calorie intake-

Chris Williamson 54:50 Yeah.

Yusef 54:50 ... and your minimum training volume. Like, don't, don't get hung up on ... D- Don't buy any supplements. Don't ... Yeah. Any of that is distraction-

Chris Williamson 54:59 Yeah.

Yusef 54:59 ... and masturbation.

Chris Williamson 55:00 (laughs) So grass-fed, pre-digested MCT oil in your coffee before you train and Thermopure and, you know, all of the, the-

Yusef 55:11 Only if it's the one that costs $100 for the, the little tub and it's grass-fed then-

Chris Williamson 55:15 Right. Okay.

Yusef 55:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 55:16 Then in that case it's gonna make a, a big difference. Um, and then when you get out there, maybe don't go completely crazy on the baguettes.

Yusef 55:24 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 55:24 If you've got the option of having vodka Diet Coke on a night or if you're drinking during the day-

Yusef 55:30 Oh. So that was another thing I was gonna mention actually, yeah. I forgot about this, which was when you are going out drinking, consider what is your intention. Is your intention, "I really like the taste of beer so I'm gonna drink lots of beers," or is it, "I want to get as drunk as I can without gaining fat"? If that's the case, then treat alcohol like any other drug. Like, you want to have the highest concentration-

Chris Williamson 55:53 (laughs)

Yusef 55:53 ... and to get as drunk as possible for the least amount of money and least amount of calories. So-

Chris Williamson 55:58 This is such a use of-

Yusef 56:00 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 56:00 ... like, approach. I've heard you, I've heard you made this, make this argument-

Yusef 56:03 Ah, so-

Chris Williamson 56:03 ... like, 20 times.

Yusef 56:04 So ten beers is gonna ... Let's say a beer is two to 300 calories. Then you've instantly-

Chris Williamson 56:11 Had your whole ... Your, your day's caloric, caloric intake, yeah.

Yusef 56:13 Like, completely ... Oh, you've completely fucked it. So whereas if, if you say, "Right, I'm not gonna eat three, four hours before I start drinking to sensitize myself to being drunk as much as possible-

Chris Williamson 56:22 (laughs)

Yusef 56:22 ... then I'm gonna have spirits or some, you know, some high density form of alcohol."

Chris Williamson 56:28 This is the most Muslim approach-

Yusef 56:29 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 56:29 ... to trying to get drunk. (laughs)

Yusef 56:31 (laughs) Front load it, so drink as much early as possible in the night so that you then by the time you end up going home, it's starting to wear off. You sleep better. You haven't, um, blown your calories too much. You've got the most of the alcohol for the least amount of effort, calories, and time.

Chris Williamson 56:50 (laughs) I think i- if anyone implements this-

Yusef 56:53 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 56:53 ... on their holiday, anyone goes, "Right, lads, um, you know-"

Yusef 56:56 It's probably what people are doing anyway-

Chris Williamson 56:57 "... you know that, you know that even in-"

Yusef 56:58 ... just, it's getting as smashed as possible, I'm sure.

Chris Williamson 56:58 "You know that evening meal, right?"

Yusef 57:00 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 57:00 "Uh, well, I'm, I'm just gonna have neat vodka."

Yusef 57:04 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 57:04 "Another neat vodka over here please, darling." And, uh, the-

Yusef 57:08 You wouldn't just have one. You'd be like, "I'll have 10, just laid out on the table please."

Chris Williamson 57:11 Right now, immediately.

Yusef 57:12 "And I'll just bash them all down," yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:13 So you know that maximum recoverable volume?

Yusef 57:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:16 Is this, like, maximum consumable alcohol-

Yusef 57:18 Yeah, exactly.

Chris Williamson 57:18 ... without throwing up? But-

Yusef 57:19 Hitting all of your maximum ... Or you do wanna throw up 'cause then you've wasted the money, so-

Chris Williamson 57:22 Wasted the money, yeah, exactly.

Yusef 57:23 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:23 Although you may have got rid of some more calories.

Yusef 57:25 Thing is, I, I know people that naturally drink like that, but it, that's more just like a ... It's kind of a novelty thing, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 57:32 Yeah.

Yusef 57:32 "Oh, let's get the Jagerbombs out," and it's just like ...

Chris Williamson 57:34 Yeah.

Yusef 57:34 Yeah, so-

Chris Williamson 57:35 Okay, so we've got that. When you come back, start back into training, try and find something that you like, and begin tracking your weight again. And plan for summer 2019 now. (laughs)

Yusef 57:47 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:47 As opposed to eight weeks later.

Yusef 57:49 Don't be naughty.

Chris Williamson 57:50 Don't be naughty. Right. Okay. Bye then.

Narrator 58:00 (music)