What 2024 Taught Me About Life & Fitness

Hi guys, welcome back to the channel. Today we are doing a good old-fashioned YouTube Q&A. Look at this fancy setting as well. I'm gonna drink my coffee, I'm gonna eat this pastry. Like, I didn't ask for this, this was brought over to me and like, I'm not gonna say no, it's absolutely delicious. It's gonna be so good. And I'm gonna answer some questions that you guys asked me on Instagram. We're gonna do it on YouTube because I love YouTube and we're just gonna have a little chat, a little office chat. So we got like 50 questions here to get through, so let's have a good time. What's your go-to workout for days when you're low energy. So days— well, first of all, a lot of time this thing tells me I'm low on energy and I'm absolutely fine. So sometimes when you think you're low on energy, it's just all in your head. But when I'm actually feeling tired, maybe jet-lagged or just worn out in general, I do always try to make it to the gym regardless, and I'll just do something enjoyable and easy like arm day, or do some light cardio, or train some abs. So those, those things are usually my go-to, like they're small kind of vanity muscles that are still important to train, but I find if I train them, you know, I kind of get the blood flowing, it's easy to recover from, it doesn't affect my other workouts. And so that's what I do when I'm feeling low on energy or, or when I'm meant to take a rest day and I just want to go to the gym, I will just do some kind of isolation work, some pump movements, and have some fun in the gym. But there is also a set— but sometimes when you're low on energy, you just got to push through as well. How do you stay motivated to train when life gets busy? I don't. When life gets super busy, or even if I'm traveling, or if I'm on vacation, whatever it may be, I change my split to usually a 3-day full body split or a 4-day upper/lower split. Killer split regardless. You know, you can make gains on that even if you're not busy. So that's what I do. It keeps my training frequency high throughout the week and just less time spent in the gym. Like, 3 full body workouts a week, if you're training with intensity, That is like 3 hours per week, and that's all you need. But people still say, "Oh, I'm too busy. I can't get results." I'm not buying it. Your screen time says different. What's the biggest mistake you made when you first started training? Definitely just going into the gym and just doing a circuit off the machines. Just going through the motions and not looking to set PRs. I didn't really realize that if you want to change your physique, you need to change the amounts you lift. What if it's— you're doing the same thing, you're going to get the same result. Your body would have no reason to physiologically change, so you need to give it a reason to change. So you got to keep setting those PRs over time, keep increasing volume, got to do something different. So just going through the motions, really. All right, let's, let's try this bad boy. Oh my God. What are the top 3 supplements you recommend for beginners, slash, if you could only take 3 supplements, what would they be? Number 1 is creatine. If you watch recent podcasts I did with Louisa Nicola, Nicola, you would see that we went in on creatine and that it has just so much health benefits along with muscle gain benefits. So number 1 would be creatine. 2 would be pre-workout/caffeine. I just don't want to live life without it. And then lastly, although not really a supplement, it would be whey protein as I just love cooking with it, making my oats with it, and it's just very easy and versatile. But if I had to choose another, like, supplement that isn't, like, food-based, I would probably choose vitamin D if I lived in Ireland. But now I get enough of that. But vitamin D is a huge one. What's your favorite cheat meal and how often do you indulge? So, you know what I always say in this channel, you want to have a diet that doesn't force you to binge too often, or ideally ever, and that you should include pretty much your favorite foods every day in your diet so you don't feel too restricted. And so you don't feel like binging. But if I wanted like a proper like cheat meal that doesn't fit in my calories no matter what, it would probably be a Domino's. Like, I fucking love Domino's. I know like all the Italian and pizza connoisseurs are like, no, that's the worst pizza ever. I just, I just love it, you know. I just, I don't know what it is. It's probably the sugar in the sauce, some crap. I absolutely love it. There's so so high in calories. I don't think I've had one in well over a year. So I guess that's a good sign that, you know, I follow a nice flexible diet as I haven't found the need to go and get one. But out of all the cheaty stuff that just doesn't fit in my diet, probably a Domino's and like a Ben Jerry's. It's my go-to. How do you balance your personal life with being a fitness YouTuber? So a lot of times you see people, it's usually on a video where people are like recording a DJ set or they're in Santorini recording the sunset and people are like, "Just live in the moment." It's, of course, obviously, like you can record a few minutes of your day and the other 23 hours and 55 minutes are for yourself, you know. So that's it, you know, I have a life outside the camera. I dedicate certain times for filming or even certain days and then apart from that, you know, I'm just living life normally. And so yeah, it's pretty chilled and it's not as invasive, uh, working in social media as some people may think. How do you track your progress in the gym? So this kind of goes back to like the first question, uh, back in my day— so old— back in my day when we didn't have so many fitness apps and just ways to track, I would just use a pen and a paper. But nowadays we have amazing fitness apps like Gameplan, linked in the description box, that track your weights for you. And there's something about seeing it in front of you on screen that, and you track your previous weeks and everything, and you can see that chart, the progression going up. It's something about visually that makes it easier. Like, even if you're just adding 2.5 kg every week, it kind of makes you set a PR. And it's, it's a mindset thing in my opinion. Like, you see, like, okay, I'm just, you know, I did it last week, I can do this week, I just have to hit this extra rep. I use Gameplan now, but back in the day, some good old pen and paper. If you could only do one exercise for the rest of your life, what would it be? So this isn't an exercise that I particularly like. I just, well, the feeling when it's over is nice, but I think this, if you wanted a, but if you wanted to be healthy and maintain a good physique and I could only do one, it would be the barbell back squat. And the reason for that is, and I saw someone make this point and I really agreed with it. The reason for that is like, it's essentially a full body movement. Like you load up the bar on your back, on your traps, you engage your core, your— all your legs are obviously engaged as well, all your leg muscles. Even your grip, you have to grab it so tight. It's like a full body movement. And so if you just said, you can— I can only do one exercise for the rest of my life and I just got super good at squatting, I think I'd stay pretty jacked. And also for health benefits, squatting in general is just good, especially as you get older. The main form of death in the elderly in America— this crazy fact— is falls. So if you have strong muscles, you're healthy, strong bone density, especially in your lower body, you're going to live longer. How has your approach to fitness changed over the years? So I used to be like— I don't want to say more enthusiastic, but I used to be like all or nothing. I think if you missed a session or you missed a meal or your macros weren't perfect, that like your whole week would be ruined. And I think that's kind of normal, especially as a young lad. Like, you get a little bit obsessed with it and the whole gym culture. I was afraid to like eat out or drink alcohol or any of that. And yeah, now I'm definitely more relaxed, more flexible, and my results are better. So just being more relaxed, less obsessed, and kind of, you know, don't let it impact any other areas of my life. Like, instead of fitness being my entire life, fitness is a part of my life that improves it. What's your opinion on intermittent fasting for fat loss? I love it. I'd say I do it 4 days out of 7 in a week. And just when you wake up, you get a load of work done in the morning, black coffee or maybe like a Ghost Nootropic Formula, energy drink, you just feel so sharp. If I have a huge breakfast in the morning, I'm so sluggish, I feel like I've just had, you know, a Christmas dinner. I feel like going to sleep and I'm less productive, and I also take less photos, I take less content as I'm not as sharp. So I like it for productivity reasons. You also do get to enjoy a massive lunch and dinner if you have a small or no breakfast. So I think it's great, but I don't think there's any magic to it. It's all down to your total daily calories. I don't believe any of the autophagy, autophagy, whatever effects. It doesn't boost your growth hormone significantly enough to have an impact. I just do it for convenience and productivity. How do you deal with injuries or setbacks in training? So this is so important to not just quit the gym entirely and quit your entire fitness routine. My most recent injury was actually a hamstring injury. That is all resolved now. But I just, of course, continue to train upper body as usual. And with legs, I train my quads, and I just did what I can. And one of the most common misconceptions that if you have an injured body part, you should just leave it alone completely, and that's not true. First of all, there's actually science that shows that if you train other parts of your body, the injured part will recover faster. So if you have even a right shoulder injury, and you will also retain more muscle all over. So if you have an injured right arm and you're training the left arm, you will actually retain more muscle in the right arm. It's crazy. And then you will also recover much faster if you just do what you can on the injured body part. So with my hamstring, I just slowly— I did some extremely light lying hamstring curl movements, just what I could. And over time I just built that up and now it feels back to full strength. So if you want to recover faster from your injury, don't just ignore it and hope for the best. What's the most common fitness myth that you'd like to debunk? Kind of goes back to what I was talking about with intermittent fasting, and that is timing. People place magic emphasis on certain timing protocols and certain times to eat, the post-workout anabolic window, fasting in the morning. People are even saying now 24, 48-hour fasts. Timing is just so debated and it's so overemphasized, and really the only thing. The main thing that you need to be focusing on is personal preference and your total daily intake. So worrying about, oh, I need to have 25 grams of protein every 2.5 hours, it all needs to be perfectly spaced across, it's honestly going to make little to no difference. And the main thing is your total daily intake. If I could just hammer that home with everyone, their life would be a lot easier. They'd get better results, they wouldn't get burnt out, and their nutrition would be a lot easier to manage. So timing. We will be back in the studio in just one moment, but first, a word from our sponsors. Even if you think it's a bit overhyped, AI is suddenly everywhere, from self-driving cars to molecular medicine to business efficiency. If it's not in your industry yet, it's coming fast. But AI needs a lot of speed and computing power. So how do you compete with that cost spiraling out of control? It's time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI. OCI is a blazing fast and secure platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, plus all your AI and machine learning workloads. OCI costs 50% less for compute and 80% less for networking, so you're saving a pile of money. Thousands of businesses have already upgraded to OCI, including MGM Resorts, Specialized Bikes, and Fireworks AI. Right now, Oracle is offering to cut your current cloud bill in half if you move to OCI. For new US customers with minimal financial commitment, the offer ends 12/31/24. See if your company qualifies for this special offer at oracle.com/gameplan. That's oracle.com/gameplan. What are your thoughts on the current state of the fitness industry? So the only thing that I've noticed that is like changed a lot from when I entered the fitness industry to now is that there's a lot more short-form content. Like, vertical content didn't exist 10 years ago. And so with that, it's a lot more about like sound clips and like sensationalism and trying to get the viewer's attention by saying outrageous stuff and saying more extreme things to capture attention. And this does not help the viewer at all, you know. You— how can you talk about any topic in fitness Like, how can you go deep on any topic in fitness in like 8 seconds? So that's the only real change I've seen. People a lot talk a lot more about their steroid use. This can be good and bad, of course, but I think I've— I don't think I've ever seen younger people taking more steroids ever. Like, that's, that's one thing I've also noticed as well. That's one difference, as it's now almost like glorified. People put it in their usernames. It's kind of encouraged now. I'm not sure if that honesty is good or bad. Crazy time to have people like injecting themselves and talking about it on camera and everything. So yeah, that's just the main changes that I've seen. But overall, you know, I think there's still just so many amazing people to follow online, like me. How important is sleep for building muscle and losing fat? It's— I was actually saying this to a client yesterday. It is literally just everything, that it's almost like Without sleep, there is no training nutrition. You will not be able to train nearly half as hard as you could compared to if you're getting a good deep sleep regularly. You will not be able to stick to your diet. Your cravings will be higher as your overall energy is lower. It is literally the foundation of everything. And that there's almost— and without a proper sleeping routine, you are just fighting an uphill battle with your training and nutrition. What's your opinion on tracking macros versus intuitive eating? Personally, I don't think you can have one without the other. How— it's like asking someone how long is a piece of string. How much calories do you eat per day? There's no way to know. Like, you can have a good guess, but there's no accurate way to know unless you weigh your food out and track it and do that for at least a couple days or a week or even a month. So that's how I always work things. I tell the client to track for a couple days just to get an idea of where they're currently at. It's very eye-opening for a lot of people. And then over time, you can transition into intuitive eating. Maybe just track once a week, or maybe track one week out of every month so it's not taking over your life and you're not constantly logging stuff on your phone. But I think you can't have one without the other, and I think you just gotta track first for a little bit. And it's not that big a deal. You're spending hours on your phone anyways. Instagram ain't helping your physique, but tracking your macros on your phone can. What's one habit outside the gym that has improved your fitness? Daily walks for sure. Good for the brain, burns calories, good for your NEAT. Just overall so many benefits to it. There's health benefits, you'll live longer. I know it doesn't sound hardcore, but just going for a little walk every day, getting out in the sunlight, getting sun in your eyes in the morning if you can, it's a game changer that'll have a huge knock-on effect into every area of your life. What's the best advice you've received in your fitness career, I'm sure if I receive this advice, but you know, maybe I'll just give you this advice, is be really careful about what you say. Don't be one of those guys online giving out bad information and drop your ego. If you don't know about a certain topic, it's more impressive if you just put your hands up and say, oh, I actually don't know about this. So, you know, I'm not going to go into it. I'm not going to answer it. Because if you do try to answer something you're not knowledgeable about, you're just going to come out with some BS. Drop the ego. And if you don't know about a certain topic, you know, don't go into it and just do your best to really double-check the information. And make sure there's evidence to support what you're saying. Sounds like common sense, but it's not. What's the most rewarding part about doing what you do? This sounds corny, cliché, probably people won't believe me, but it's actually just the comments, the emails, the DMs that I get just talking about how the content that I've put up over the last decade has helped them out. I swear to God, it literally makes me so happy. And what makes me even happier, it makes me question life. I'm like, how is this happening? This is surreal. When people come up to me in person, be it in Dublin or Marbella, it's always in the gym or even just when I'm walking down the street, people will always stop me and say, hey, what's up? And just have a nice conversation. And I just can't believe it. Like, it restores my faith in humanity. Like, I just think it's the nicest thing ever. And I think it's because I've said that a few times on this channel that people do approach me and that I am approachable and that people come up and just start chatting. And so I really like that. And it makes me feel amazing. And people are always like, "Oh, I don't want to bother you. I don't want to bother you during your workout." I'm like, "No, this motivates the fuck out of me. Seriously, I love it." "What's your opinion on fasted cardio?" So I actually did a tweet the other day and I said, "You wake up in the morning, fast, just consume caffeine, water, go do some cardio and hit some abs, you'll feel amazing." And there's obviously no special fat loss benefits to that, You'll be able to contract your abs better just because you have less food in your stomach. It's just easier to crunch and you'll feel lighter and more energetic and more fit. But it's just kind of like, you know, a feeling. Like there's no beneficial fat loss to it. It just kind of feels— you feel light and sharp, especially if you've had like a weekend of overindulging. It can be nice just to kind of like feel light. It's hard to explain. So I like it for like the feeling it gives you. But I don't expect any extra fat loss results from it. How important is having a coach or a mentor in fitness? So having a coach in terms of like actual fitness, like body composition, I hired a coach last year when I was competing and just having someone, an extra pair of eyes, having someone to check in with is priceless. Like it actually makes all the difference. I actually didn't realize personally how much of a difference it would make to me. And it's fantastic. And it kind of makes the whole experience a lot more enjoyable and fun. Having something to go through with and having someone just to bounce ideas off. So from a fitness perspective, it's great. If you want to be coached by me, just shoot me a DM on Instagram, we can talk. And then in terms of business, that is hugely helpful as well. Just having someone— like, we all know what to do, but having someone to just make sure that you take the guesswork out of things, they have you on the right path, they can even give opposing views, you have a little bit back and forth, or having someone that has done exactly what you want to do and is where you want to be is priceless. What's your favorite memory from a fitness expo or collaboration or something like that? My favorite fitness event would be the Alphalete World Tour in 2017. So we went to Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Chicago, San Diego, and Toronto. Like, what the hell? The footage and the memories I have from that and just the amount of people we met, that is, that is like a memory, a core memory that I will take to my grave. Like, just what a feeling. And we're actually talking about doing another one because of course, like, you know, a year or two later, the world shut down for like 3 years essentially. So like events, big crowded public events was just an extreme no. So I'd love to do something like that again. And hey, maybe if this podcast gets big enough, I could do some podcast tours as well and just be chatting in the audience like this. That'd be awesome. What's your opinion on calorie cycling or refeed days? I hate them. No, okay, that's, that's, that's a lie. So calorie cycling is when you change your calories pretty much like every day. You might have like a low, medium, and high day. I think this is really confusing. It's unnecessary. And the biggest thing is what you eat one day often affects you the next day. Like, your body just doesn't digest things that quickly, especially if you've got a mix of protein, carbs, fats, and fiber. Big leafy green vegetables, broccoli, you know, corn, that takes ages to digest. A lot of things that you eat is going to hit you the next day. So trying to cycle these low, medium, and high days, it's just inaccurate. Having a refeed day I think is good if you're really lean and if your muscles— you've are actually depleted, I think they're great. But for the majority of people, life often throws a refeed your way. Like, you'll have a social event where you'll just eat more. So unless you're like a competitive bodybuilder or you're just really on point, then I, you know, refeed days aren't too important. But in terms of calorie cycling, I think it's just completely inaccurate if your goal is body composition. What's your favorite type of cardio for fat loss? The best type of cardio for fat loss is the one that you will do consistently. Doesn't matter what it is, hit, list, whatever. If you're not doing consistently, if you're dreading doing it, it's no good. So what I like doing, and what just literally flies by for me, is I'll just go on an incline treadmill and I will just bash out some replies, some emails, watch a YouTube video, whatever. And that 30-40 minutes is just done like that. So for me, incline treadmill, because with the stepper, because you're going, you're moving up and down, even though the StairMaster is great, if you're moving up and down like it's pretty much impossible to like type accurately. So the treadmill's a little smoother. What's your view on meal prep? Essential or overhyped? I think overhyped for the most part. Like, I eat like 2 massive meals a day and then just like a snack on a protein bar or shake, whatever. So like, I've— despite what you believe, I know I work remotely, online business completely, but I've got a busy day. Like, I'm not doing nothing. Like, this life I live isn't— I don't just get it for free. I gotta work as well. And it takes me like, you know, 15 minutes less to prepare a meal and then like I spend like what, 10, 15 minutes eating it. Like it's just not very time consuming. So unless like I think, and also when you see those people with like massive tables of meal prep, you know, it's visually cool. Maybe I'll do a video one day preparing a load of meals. Like, you know, I think there's a big difference between meal prep and just packing a lunch for work. Like I don't think you need to be carrying around 6 meals per day with you. But look, with that said, if it helps you, stick to your goals, helps you hit your macros, then by all means do it. But, uh, personally, I just, I just make a meal in 5 minutes and I just eat that. So yeah, and even when I was in college or when I was working a 9-to-5, yeah, I just would just prep a meal, like just prep one meal. Like let's say you're on like 2,500 calories per day, for example, you can just have a 1,000-calorie meal, if not more. You can have a 1,200-calorie meal. That's nearly half your calories knocked out for the day. Like, there's no need to have these big— like, remember there was like this, this backpack, I'm not sure if they're still in business, they're called like Six Pack Backpack, and there would be 6 slots for each container of your meal. There's just no need for that. It's so unnecessary. There goes that sponsorship. Just like, eat bread, eat a big breakfast, prep a meal for the day, and then have dinner. Like, that, that's as far as you really need to go.