01 - Welcome To My Podcast - Real Fitness, Real Health with Tom Oakley

Welcome to Happiness, Health and Relationships podcast. If you're looking for inspiration on powerful healthy habits, you've come to the right place. I'm Angeline and I've been working with people for over 10 years in therapy and this podcast will cut through the myths and misinformation on healthy lifestyle.

I'll be interviewing experts in their field, providing top tips and motivation for six elements of living medicine. The six elements are reducing stress, exercise and fitness, nutrition, sleep, reducing addictive substances and how to master healthy relationships. Let's get started.

Before we dive into our fantastic podcast today with Tom Oakley, I wanted to introduce myself really and just let you know why I've created this brand new podcast. On the show, I'll be interviewing experts in their field and they'll be inspiring us all to live happier, healthier and more fulfilled lives. I've been working in mental health for over 10 years now and I just really love watching people grow as they begin to understand how they feel and how it impacts every aspect of their life.

It's just a huge privilege to witness that growth really of people developing their own resilience and finding out what's really important for them. So just to talk about my own personal journey to living medicine, you'll hear me talk about living medicine throughout the podcasts because a few years ago, I was quite ill myself. I was struggling with feeling stressed and going through the perimenopause and neglecting my own wellbeing really.

So when the pandemic hit and somebody said, you're going to have to spend this whole weekend on the sofa watching Netflix, I thought, awesome. I thought, that'll do me fine. So obviously that wasn't a good sign and I realised at the time that I needed to do something about this.

So I was just so desperate for rest. So I began researching the root cause of why I was feeling the way I was just physically exhausted. I literally couldn't really get off the sofa and I ended up having to take 10 weeks off work, which is really unusual for me because I usually do love my work.

I love what I do. So it was really hard for me to actually accept that I was ill because I wasn't getting any better after, even if I have got ill over the years, a week and that's it, I'm fine. But two weeks, three weeks were going by and I really wasn't feeling any better.

So this was a real worry. So I started to research what was going on. Why was I feeling the way that I was completely exhausted and just craving that rest in a way, but also feeling bored and frustrated that I couldn't work.

So the root cause, it turned out, was because I wasn't adopting these habits of living medicine. I wasn't taking care of myself with nutrition, exercise, any of those things, really. So after adopting healthier habits, which are aligned with this living medicine, over the past couple of years, I feel better now than I've felt for the best part of getting on for 20 years probably.

So the science behind living medicine is compelling and I'm living proof that it works. And through my work as a therapist, I started to think about how others are feeling, obviously, you know, I come across that on a daily basis and just thinking about how stressed people are and how exhausted people are. And I wanted to find a way to help others and share information of what I'd learned from my own personal journey.

Also from my own experiences in working with people and knowing how people are struggling. So that's what brought me to the idea of starting this podcast. So after about a year of planning, we're finally here.

And I'm so thrilled to introduce my first guest. I'm excited. I'm excited to talk to Tom Oakley here today from Oaty Fit, local gym owner in Sleaford.

Tom is a level three personal trainer and a level four coach. And he gets some amazing results. The six week transformation program that's become quite famous around Sleaford.

And lots of people getting some great results from that. So I'm really excited to hear some insights and helpful tips today on exercise, nutrition, and anything in between. So we're just going to be talking today, touching on a few things today, and then we're going to do some more podcasts, which are going to go more in depth into each of these subjects.

Yeah, I think we're having like a brief overview of the seven powerful pursuits today, aren't we? And then we'll break those down into a little bit more detail. That's it. So the seven powerful pursuits are stress, exercise, nutrition, sleep, reducing addictive substances, and healthy relationships.

These are the six pillars that science has told us are the secret to health and happiness. So let's get started then on exercise. What are the biggest misconceptions about exercise? I think the reality is a lot of people think when it comes to exercise, that one, weights are going to make you bulky.

And we were having a bit of a laugh about this earlier, and that's just not the case at all. I feel like some of the general public can get to the point now, maybe through the help of social media, where some of us are aware that that's not the case now. But it was only 10 years ago where most ladies were too scared to try weight training because they felt that it was going to make you bulky.

It's just not the case at all. There's so many different reasons that we say this. The first point of call when we do a Zoom consultation, when we discuss the six-week challenge, and whatever route a client wants to go down.

One of the first things that we're trying to explain to clients is that strength training is a massively fundamental part of any endeavor of life. It's not even just about fat loss. It's just about being a healthier, happier version of yourself.

And this is what it's all about. The seven powerful pursuits. Ultimately, what we're trying to do here is try to tick as many boxes as we can so that we can just be a happier, healthier version of ourselves.

And this is what Oakley Fit has always been about. It's not about trying to be the fittest person in the room. It's about trying to be the happiest person in the room, essentially.

And there are certain things that we do on a regular basis. Strength training is very important. Strength training is a fundamental part of any goal.

That's why it's called strength and conditioning. The more strength training we do, the higher our metabolic rate is. A lot of the things that we're going to discuss today, again, subtly affect your metabolism.

The more strength training that you do, you're more equipped, essentially, to deal with calories from a fat loss perspective. The more strength training that we do, the less injury-prone that we are. And especially for women in their 40s and 50s, right, I've been hearing that strength training, because we lose muscle mass at a higher rate, don't we? So, in order to just keep mobile, to keep strong into our 70s and 80s, hopefully, and beyond, that strength training only... I've only been hearing that over the last year or so, how important it is to actually keep everything going, you know? I think as a blanket statement, I mean, a lot of this stuff is always going to be subjective to the person, but I think as a blanket statement, is you lose from around the age 35 to 40, you lose around 5% of muscle mass every single year.

And there should be something to obviously combat that, which obviously strength training is the key thing. Again, the less you have muscle mass that you have in your body, there's a much more high probability to injury and many other different things as well. Literally, just come here with you today, and we have just finished our Thursday morning over 60s session.

And again, the quality of life that we've seen from the demographic of clients that we've got in that training model, the quality of life is just mental. There's one guy in particular, he's Jim. When he first joined, he was actually chatting about this the other day.

He just thought it was a load of nonsense. He just didn't really get it, you know? Because he's never done it, never done it. And he was in his 70s, I think he's 72 if I remember rightly.

He spent his whole life not doing strength training. So for him to come into this world, he just doesn't think it's important. And many other people, it's not just guys, you know, ladies as well.

Until you start to see the benefits, it's like, why do I need to do this? It's really important. It can be intimidating as well, doesn't it? A lot of people stay away from the gym, because they think, you know, they're self-conscious, or they're not confident in what they're doing and using the equipment and all that kind of thing. Yeah.

And gyms can be intimidating. A lot of them are. There's a lot of people looking at me and all that kind of thing.

Some people can have bad experiences in the gym as well. But we totally get it. And that's something, you know, not trying to plug OpieFit or anything, but there's many other great facilities in Seaford as well, and obviously up and down the country.

But something we've always tried to push is the fact that a welcoming environment is the key environment. You know, that's what it's all about, really. But I think in addition to that, one misconception when it comes to exercise, because that was obviously the initial question that you asked me, a lot of people think more is better.

And there's obviously a fine line with that. If you're not doing anything, more is better. Context, okay? If you're somebody who is, and again, it's just an example, is already doing quite a lot of exercise and feels like doing more is going to get you to where you need to be, that might not be the case.

If you're already doing a lot of training and then you start ramping up and doing loads more, more training brings more stress and this is something we're going to come to. So there's misconceptions with that as well. Yeah, absolutely.

So there's a healthy balance where the body becomes stressed, that affects metabolism, doesn't it? Stress is a massive component of all areas of life. Again, stress is widely considered to just be stress. Stress all goes in the same box, I think.

It's widely considered to be the case. And obviously you've got physical stress and you've got mental stress, but I think the demands that it plays on your body all goes in the same box. There's some certain things you can do on a regular basis that can help that stress.

But if you're doing too much exercise and your nutrition isn't in line, obviously we've come to nutrition, this creates problems. If your recovery isn't there, cortisol spikes can occur. We were discussing this earlier, cortisol, it's not great.

Again, a lot of this is in context. We're just looking to be healthy, happy and balance is key. Because cortisol, again, especially women in their 40s and 50s, I've been doing some research on the menopause as well recently and how the cortisol can really affect our ability to lose weight.

So it's just that the stress hits us from every angle, doesn't it really? Yeah. I think this will be quite interesting. Hopefully, if this resonates with you, if you listen to this and this resonates with you, I urge you to speak to a coach and obviously have a conversation.

The percentage of ladies over the years that we have worked with where they have, and again, they've just got themselves into a really passionate routine where they're trying to lose weight. You're trying just to be healthy. It's not always just about losing weight.

Trying to lose weight, trying to make a difference. They're so motivated to make a change that they start doing more training. This is literally the reason for quite a lot of ladies as to why they're not getting results, because they're doing so much training.

Surely eating less is better, quote unquote, and it isn't always. We see a lot of ladies that are doing too much training, not eating enough calories and that recovery is not there. That stress is there and ultimately it damages the metabolism.

So again, there's a sweet spot between nutrition. Let's touch on nutrition a little bit. So that healthy balance between exercise, nutrition, does things to the metabolism.

Tell us a little bit about what we should be thinking about then. So again, when it comes to nutrition, the biggest thing I think we ... There's a couple of things I'll probably mention here. Sugar must be inherently bad, surely.

Fatty foods must be inherently bad. Of course, they must be. There must be good and bad foods, because how could we possibly lose weight or be healthy if we're eating chocolate? Again, a lot of the time when it comes to the concept of trying to be healthier, a lot of people attach being healthier as losing lots of fat, that eating less is better.

This is not the case at all. First things first, when it comes to nutrition, if your goal is under any circumstances, body composition change or performance, and ultimately if we're trying to get the most out of life, performance is actually the key, you must be eating the right amount of calories for the goal. So if your goal is to gain weight, you've got to eat the right amount of calories.

If your goal is to lose weight, you've got to eat less. Obviously, you've got a deficit, and then you've got eating your maintenance calories. If that's not right, it's not going to happen.

In addition to that, you could argue there's subcategories to it, because if your goal is to lose weight and you're just under-eating calories, you don't really know how many calories, it's such a problem. It's such a problem. There's obviously really a sweet spot, and the way that we work out people's calories, and again, it's an industry standard, is it's a percentage below what your calorie needs are.

If you're not eating enough, it's not healthy, and it's not a good place to be, because again, it damages your metabolic rate. When it comes down to then people's perception of nutrition, what is good and what is bad, there are no inherently bad foods. That's period.

I'm thinking energy levels as well, because what we want to talk about today as well, because we just received these snippets of information where we're supposed to eat less, we're supposed to exercise more, then energy is so important, isn't it? We're going to touch on sleep as well, but if we're just trying to exercise and not eating very well, or if we're not eating well, then we're not going to have the energy levels, and then we're trying to keep going to the gym or some form of exercise, but if we're not eating right, we haven't got the energy, but it affects sleep as well, doesn't it? Each of these seven pillars, if you like, affect the other. If we're trying to do just one or two of them, it's really difficult to sustain any of them, really. This is the premise of the seven powerful foods that you've obviously brought us to say, well, that's bang on the money, because a lot of what we're trying to get people to do isn't be perfect with all of them or any of them.

It's just about trying to just be more mindful of a few things. This is why it's very cliche, but you hear all the time, small changes go a really long way. You can just do a little bit more exercise.

If you can just eat a little better within some realm of focus, drink more water, get a bit more sleep, funnily enough, you're going to feel 10 times better with not a lot of effort, and this is what it's all about. It's not about trying to be perfect. I just had a conversation with somebody earlier today, so I'm worried about nutrition.

I was like, well, one, you're moving in the right direction. All of the metrics are saying that you are, and your nutrition doesn't need to be perfect to get intensive results. It's just because there's so many misconceptions like that.

We've had conversations over the years. When we first started, and your own transformation is absolutely fantastic. I know you're not going to nod along to that, but it's done amazing.

But a lot of that is just teaching. It's teaching the fundamentals, and you've just held on to those fundamentals. I just keep turning up.

Keep turning up. Consistency is key, isn't it? Yeah, consistency is key. Again, I've probably said this a lot of times.

I had a conversation with somebody earlier. Consistency is the answer, and sometimes just going when you don't want to go is the right thing, and making the meal prep or whatever it may be. When you can't be arsed, that's what it's all about.

But I just want to touch on what we were saying before about fatty foods. There's no inherently bad food. It's just that... Fish and chips.

I've got to have fish and chips. Wait a minute. The Chinese is great.

You've got to have that. If you're on maintenance, then you can have fish and chips maybe once a week or once a fortnight, right? As long as you're within your calories. Mate, if you're at a calorie deficit and you're being mindful, let's say six days out of seven, you know exactly how many calories you're eating.

Again, that doesn't need to be overwhelming if you're not doing it. It just really isn't. There's just certain things that you can do on a regular basis that keep you that inside into how many calories you're eating.

Even if you're in a calorie deficit, you can still have a bad meal once a week. It doesn't need to be a problem, unless you're somebody who can consume 7,500 calories or whatever in a single meal, which is probably unlikely. Especially if you're five foot two, not like me.

Yeah. Calorie needs aren't going to be there, but... Yeah. Okay.

It's just balance, mate. It doesn't need to be overwhelming, but there's so many misconceptions around nutrition, and it all seems overwhelming. Social media is helpful, but it is a cesspit of misinformation and misconception.

Ultimately, people just don't know what they're doing. Let's talk about sleep. Let's do that, yeah.

Because there are lots of people that are really stressed these days. They've got children, they're trying to get the kids to school, then they've got to go to work and deal with the boss who's a pain. People are going through real stuff, aren't they? Sleep is one of the things that is quite common that's often impacted.

Yeah. Sleep affects everything, mate. Massively, yeah.

I'm just going to make this and let it be known, I'm not a sleep expert, but I feel like with my own level of experimentation and experience and research I've done over the years, I've seen in myself such a dramatic improvement with quality of life since I've made these changes. I have done a lot of research, so I'm not going to say I'm an expert. I'm not Matthew Walker, who, if you don't know who that is, is a sleep scientist, as it were, I think he went to Harvard.

Joe Rogan, we've been podcasting each other, it's unbelievable. Massively opened my eyes since I've done no end of research. Basically, if you ain't getting enough sleep, you are just shooting yourself in the foot.

It doesn't make any difference what your focus is with life, it might not even be anything to do with body composition change or nutrition, fat loss or building muscle. If you're just trying to run a successful business, if you're just trying to be the best parent you can be, obviously being a parent brings a demand of lack of sleep anyway, but if you're purposely not getting enough sleep, mate, you're making your life hard for yourself. I think drinking water affects my sleep.

It does, mate. This is something I say all the time. Does it? The reason being is because if you're not consuming enough water, your body will prevent you from going into a deep sleep because it's like, oi, mate, we ain't had enough to drink, pal.

I'm not going to sleep, I need to get some water. So it can disrupt the sleep quality that you get, and so can calories. Again, if you recognize somebody out there, as you listen to this and you think to yourself, sleep's not great, I'm not losing any weight either, I do all this bloody exercise.

If you're not eating enough calories in relation to the training that you're doing, or water, you're not going to be able to get good sleep because your body's going to be saying, oi, mate, we need to go and make calories. We need to go get food, it affects everything. Just for some context, do some research on it, but seven hours sleep is deemed the absolute minimum amount of sleep that you can get before there is massive disruption with fatigue and hormone imbalance.

If you think you've been asleep for seven hours, i.e. you went to bed at 10, you fell asleep at 10, and then you woke up at 5, you've actually been asleep for about six hours, because you accumulate about an hour's amount of awake time through a night. So if you think you've been asleep for seven hours, you've been asleep for six, so that's not the minimum. You actually need to be asleep for eight hours to get that minimum of seven.

And I think, again, consider that somewhere around eight to nine is just the sweet spot. Most people are like, what are you on about, mate? Like, I get six hours sleep and I'll function fine. You're functioning on what is less than optimal, you've probably just been doing it for a really long period of time, and I know this from experience.

Before COVID, I just wasn't getting any sleep. I was just doing every class, I was there all the time, I'd get here late and I'd be up early. And I was knackered, and I'm not really as shy as to say, mental health wasn't great before COVID.

I wasn't in exactly the best place. And to be honest, I know COVID was difficult for some people, but for me, it was a bit of an eye-opener. I was forced to get sleep because I had nothing else.

Well, I'd sort of had nothing else to do, I was still really motivated, as you can remember. But I was getting more sleep, and it does make a massive difference. I'd held on to that.

Important to say, I think, this is my attitude, anyway, for the people that I work with. I always find this, that when people start to just be a bit easier on themselves, in a way, because when we take ourselves too seriously, really, when we're trying to just perform in every aspect of life, we're trying to smash it at the gym, be the best at work or whatever. Some people are quite afraid not to do that, because they think that that's going to mean that they're a failure in some way.

So, I think an attitude of just keep turning up, do what you can do, a little bit of something, especially to get started, because like we were earlier, to start focusing on these areas, these seven pillars, or seven habits, I suppose you could call them, to do a little bit of all of them to start with, and it's all small steps, isn't it, really? It's what we're always trying to say. I think we'll both agree that there's a hierarchy of importance when it comes to the seven pillars. I think the first three of trying to do a little bit more exercise, and for some that can just rely on walking, going out and just proving your steps.

10,000 steps isn't a golden number where you're cool if you get it, if you don't, just do more. More steps is better than nothing, and more exercise is better. The next one is nutrition.

Again, you don't need to be really dialing in with your nutrition. Three meals a day is important, not completely necessary, but three meals a day is widely considered to be just a better place to be. Eating more protein, people, is absolutely fundamental to health markers and fat loss, and then just try to drink more water.

If you don't get those first three things, your sleep will probably be better, and you'll feel better as a result of doing those first three things. This is what it's all about, mate, just making small changes, and small changes really, really do accumulate as you're wet. You have your own transformation, and a lot of these things, a long time ago now, will lead to your constipation, but these are the things that are supposed to be you, mate, and you're still doing, and you've managed to maintain.

Not only have you lost weight, but you have maintained a great shape now for two years, about two years now, isn't it? Couple of years, yeah, nearly two years now. Yeah, and the other thing I think that's going to really help, it helped me, and I know that some of the guys that I know at the gym now, is community. Doing anything on your own is a bit boring.

Can be. So, if you can find somebody to go with, or whatever form of exercise that you find that you can do, try and find a group, or at least somebody else to do it with, because the community at Oakley Fit, it is really good, and you're a lot to do with that, and the other personal trainers there, it makes a massive difference, that the people are just friendly there. That helps a lot, it helps me to keep going, because you get to know different people there.

It's still a lot. You have relationships with people, don't you? Yeah, you do, yeah. And it's something to be said for pushing yourself with other people, like the fitness retreat I've done, and stuff like that, over the time, it's just a lot to be said for that.

But I think what you were saying before, about being kind to yourself, I honestly say that to quite a lot of clients, when they first start, and they're like, oh, I don't know if I've done very well. Of course you've done very well, but here, there's no standard that needs to be met. As long as you're enjoying the workouts, that's all that matters, as long as you're enjoying them, just be kind to yourself.

Like your small changes, it does feel a bit, it can feel a bit overwhelming if it does, just be kind to yourself. And that's kind of what we've always tried to do, is just create an environment for people to feel quite comfortable in. I've said this on another video, but if you think about a sports team, they will always encourage each other.

Sometimes the way that we talk to ourselves, we beat ourselves up. We do. You know, because we haven't done perfectly well at something, or we think, oh, you know, can't do that, or whatever.

But if you think about it, like if you watch a football game, the lads will all, or the girls will be encouraging each other, because they understand that if you're mentoring somebody or managing somebody, you're going to be encouraging them, because you know that that breeds success. Whereas when it comes to ourselves, sometimes it's like, oh God, you know, I can't. We've got to talk to ourselves better, haven't we? Absolutely, yeah.

And again, I'm not perfect, I'm not saying that, I'm not saying that by any stretch of the means, but I have got quite good at being nicer to myself, because I know I used to be like that. When I, for the first few years of opening the gym, I was probably just riddled with self-doubt, even though I knew that the business was doing really well, and as soon as we opened, I thought it was doing really well, and it always did, and it's going to continue to grow. But for the first couple of years, man, again, I could have been down to sleep, what was I just saying before? You know, I was massively under sleeping, and your mental health immediately takes a dip, man, you're not getting enough sleep.

So yeah, be kind to yourself. It's probably up there as one of the more important things you can do. Massive stress reducer that is in it, when you start to just say, hang on, we're okay, we're going to be okay.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's all right, it's not, these things aren't the end of the world, just keep turning up. Yeah, I think as well, like, I know we said this before, but literally the only goal here is to be a happier, healthier version of myself.

Like, you know, almost whatever it is you're trying to do as far as your career, as far as, you know, whatever it is that you're stressing about today, fundamentally, you're just trying to be a happier, healthier version of yourself. True. Well, like, right at the core of that, if you were just telling yourself you're a knobhead, and that's not the case at all, you need, you have to come from within.

True. And this is, you know, not to sound like a preacher or anything, but something I have kind of worked out myself, you've got to be nice to yourself. Absolutely.

It is, it's the key. Pillar number seven is full, isn't it? And which is what you've just been touching on. We've got to, you know, be a bit more lighthearted about these things and just, like you said, as you know, my motto is just keep turning up.

Let's touch on relationships then, or before we finish off. So, I know that, you know, we've had this conversation before that our relationships make a huge difference to our well-being in every aspect, you know, and it is often the decider whether we are successful. Yeah.

In different aspects of life. You've got your lovely family now, Charlotte and Max. Yeah.

He's so smiley, and the three of you together are just beaming. You just, the three of you won the lottery, you know, so that's lovely to see. But I know that you've said before, you know, that that wasn't always the case, and how, you know, the relationships that you've got now make a massive difference to you and your overall well-being, really.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, obviously, like, yeah, the last thing I want to do is, I don't know, is talk negatively about, you know, things in the past or anything like that. You know, as I've gone through my early adolescence, there's a lot of people that, you know, I just, I'm not, I don't see anymore, whatever it may be, or whatever.

And it's just because I've kind of worked out what's important for me, and whatnot. And ultimately, what I'm trying to say is, relationships are just massively important. They make a difference to everything.

If you're trying to better your life, but you're surrounding yourself with, you know, whether it's a spouse or friend, they're just, there is just...