Speaker 1in today's episode i'm chatting to maggie about weight neutral coaching so maggie i know that you have a weight neutral coaching studio and so that makes you the ideal person to talk to about this i think the first place we probably need to start is is what is weight neutral coaching because i think it's quite easy sometimes to think well i don't do weight loss therefore i'm weight neutral and it's not as simple
Speaker 2as that right no and in actual fact i've written around seven and a half thousand words on this topic so it's definitely not as simple as that not for fun i might add although i did do it for fun that's probably a lie uh yeah it was my dissertation so um yeah something that i actually operate as a business but also something i've had a long-term interest in and when i was doing my psychology master's i was like right let's have a look at the psychological differences between these spaces so i suppose the answer to the question what is weight neutral because it is quite complex is we should probably actually start with a different question which is what is the opposite to that um and it's not really opposite we're not i've already started in binary oppositions and i'm going to start telling you like how we shouldn't use binary oppositions but we're humans and this is how we talk so if we were to an opposite in inverted commas then it would be classed as weight centric so um weight centric fitness and spaces are the the kind of spaces that we're all used to being in they tend to be presenters as spaces where there is an appearance driven norm and i'd say it's so normal that we probably talk in it a lot in fitness spaces without even realizing we say things like get in shape use fitness to get in shape that's a very weight centric phrase which we can dig into a little bit deeper as to why um you we talk about burning calories and we talk about getting lean and we talk about we talk about fitness in the way that it changes the appearance of one's body primarily for women to make them smaller and thinner to fit a beauty norm and primarily for men to make them bigger and stronger to fit a masculine norm all of which is rooted in systems of patriarchal norms essentially so weight neutral fitness spaces have developed um from research more than anything from particularly from researching what it feels like for people in larger bodies to begin with in these fitness spaces what happens if you don't meet the i'm gonna have to keep saying in inverted commas requirements of becoming smaller as a result of the fitness that you are doing um if you do how does that impact you anyway not just physically but psychologically uh what happens to those people who fail to sustain motivation in these spaces and why do they fail to sustain it there's been lots and lots of questions around this and particularly for women we know that they struggle although men and women's stats in gyms of sort of attendance are very similar um in terms of sustaining motivation in gym research seems to suggest that women struggle more and the research suggests that a lot of that is due to appearance driven concerns so weight neutral spaces have evolved out of the um the questions around why does that appearance driven culture cause particularly women to move away from these spaces rather than to use them to drive them forwards um why is it not the motivator we think it is and the answer to that don't ask me straight up because that's very complex claire that's where it all comes from i have seven and a half thousand words if you'd like to know the answer to that so um but i can't what we could do actually if anyone's interested in reading more about this there is growing research in this area though it's still underdeveloped we could put some links to some of the key research into the show notes couldn't we and then if people want to take a deeper dive they can do absolutely so weight neutral spaces are intentionally curated to avoid the aesthetic of any form whatsoever and instead they prioritize body function so what can my body do what can it do now that it couldn't do before but also to recognize the privilege in that that some bodies are already more able than other bodies for various reasons and so bodily function again doesn't have a requirement there's no like if you are this age and you are this gender then you should be able to do this it's like literally like going more into that interceptive awareness of how does it make me feel am i getting stronger what functionality am i gaining compared to like my starting point it kind of really prioritizes that prioritizes joy that's a really big thing about actually let's enjoy movement um and also autonomy which is a big one which came out of the research for sure because we've talked about this a lot when we talk about psychology but a core psychological human need is autonomy so again it's rejecting that idea that you go in and the reason you're there is to change the appearance of your body in any way shape or form and then instead you are there because you have personal reasons those reasons are fully acknowledged and you're supported in achieving those so again it's also in some ways a space which prioritizes the person and centers them rather than coaching what they think they should be doing so it creates spaces where people um are more likely to be working together than there being a kind of instructor client authority balance that makes sense it does yes it does indeed so in terms of like what makes it a weight neutral space specifically there is so much well there's no consistent definition in the literature so whenever you kind of look at a paper and how they explored a weight neutral approach um there's not much on weight neutral spaces specifically when i was actually researching one reason why i chose to do spaces as my research but then as i was doing it i was like oh this is why this is quite challenging um they tend to be more controlled um experiments so people are put into groups and then they're given uh one kind of intervention against another type of intervention um so what i had to do was find a way to identify whether the people answering my questionnaire which is how i did my dissertation were in a weight neutral or weight centric environment i'm going to say as well there are a lot of issues with that because in some ways then that becomes leading and it's all around interpretation and and and but in terms of practicality of how to own a space deliver a space which is weight neutral i think it's a really important thing to do and i think it's probably more helpful than it was for my research so i said that you're in a weight neutral environment and i collected this from research and also from what i know spaces who are intentionally trying to be weight neutral do including us they said that your coaching advice and your goal setting are not weight loss or appearance focused um the session names the dialogue from the instructors and conversation that takes place with clients and between instructors and the marketing will all emphasize functional benefits like strength endurance mobility energy health self-care enjoyment any of those things but never something that's weight loss or appearance focused so you wouldn't have a class called burn for example um your marketing materials do not feature before or after appearance focused images we say this person hated the gym before and now look how much she's smiling because she loves it now but it won't actually emphasize a change in the appearance clients are not weighed or measured as part of programs or assessments there is just none of that goes on and it will encourage intuitive movement so it encourages reconnecting with your own body signals you prioritize your overall health which includes your psychological well-being um over the use of external tracking tools so what is quite normalized in fitness spaces now is you track the weight you're lifting or the speed you're running or the weight you're dropping or the measurements of your body um but you don't necessarily notice how you're feeling in your body alongside that and so it prioritizes that intuitive movement and reconnection to your body's interoceptive awareness over having those external goals and tracking tools brilliant
Speaker 1and so you've got as you've mentioned your own space that is set up in this way what was it that made you decide to to set it up in this way what got you into weight neutral coaching because that's not something that's been there from
Speaker 2the beginning right no not at all um so I think with all of these things there is an element of lived experience that comes into it and that's where it started with me two parts one part was recognizing that I was doing with food and exercise wasn't healthy and then the second part was trying to understand why my clients would seemingly be doing so well towards the goals they'd set themselves which were appearance focused and then would really suddenly just either plateau or like completely give up on them and and seemingly go backwards I don't like using that language anymore because I understand it now but that's what I was seeing at the time why have they got these goals that they care about so much and they're not achieving them and then it posed the question of why did I find it so easy to lose weight and keep it off not that I was ever in a larger body to begin with I've always been in a slim you know acceptable as far as society is concerned body but I lost like a stone and a half and kept it off why was other people struggle like what's going on with this whole calories in versus calories out that seems to work as a mantra for some people and doesn't for others and what it means is that it's not just about the weight that you're putting on your body it's about what you're doing with your body and what you're doing with your body and what you're doing with your body and what you're doing with your body and what you're doing with your body and what you're doing with your body and what you're doing with your body and what you're doing with your body and what you're doing with your body and what you're doing with your body and what you're doing with your body and what you're doing with your body and what you're doing with your body and what you're doing with your body and what you're doing with your body and what you're doing with your body and my curiosity leads me to want to know what is out there what tells us this stuff that what explains this to us um and actually what I found was really counter intuitive at the time I had to really assess everything I thought I knew because my course had taught me that the way we lose weight is to um eat eat less and move more and the Instagram and Facebook and all the social media tells me the same and the media tells me that and and that's what I was applying well we just need to cut our calories maybe we're going too aggressive so we'll just go less maybe we're not going aggressive enough some people say so we'll go more like all these things are just set around that idea that it's this simplistic like formula and of course what the research led me to find out is it's not so simplistic because essentially we are very complex beings and we live in environments we live socially we have psychological processes as well as physiological processes and so this idea that we can just simply adhere to a plan and then that will suddenly magically cut calories doesn't really work. And that's what led me to realize what I was doing wasn't particularly healthy um having to look at myself and really accept that I wasn't doing things that were psychologically good for me and potentially actually realizing that at times they weren't physiologically good for me and that's where some of the symptoms I had around certain things were coming from was quite a difficult thing to do um and I'd say that that's where the journey started and some of my clients who were with me at that time were like oh my god I'm not going to do this I'm not going to do this at that time which is just before COVID so it's not even been that long but they'll tell you like how funny it is to go from me measuring literally at one point their wrists don't even ask why uh through to um just going no I refuse to measure you and you shouldn't be standing on a scale um it's been quite a journey but what's been actually really interesting if they've come with me on it because what I found as I went on this journey was it helped them too and it helped them I shared what I was finding out with them I was upfront and honest all the time I was very much like if you want to carry on losing weight like that's absolutely fine if that's still your goal absolutely but I'm I'm not the person to help you with that anymore because I don't I don't one I don't enjoy it so I think there was a realization of that I didn't actually enjoy that process of supporting clients with weight loss I found it quite boring um I enjoy it much more now the way that I work with people for joy and and just you know to help them to to find a place um in the fitness world that is theirs and that they love and that they feel sustained and motivated with like I really enjoy that but I realized I didn't enjoy the you know have you eaten this have you eaten that what we're doing wrong you know that approach um and I've been really really rooted in it as well because I was a a Weight Watchers leader in my 20s too so this was really embedded there was a lot to unpick but the more I read about it I read books I read research I read a lot of books I read research I listened to podcasts I did so much reading um to a point where I ended up taking the master's because even that was still a part of it like I want to know more I want to know more and realizing that actually as I was bringing my clients with me on this journey we were all happier we were we had all much greater levels of well-being we were all much more balanced in the way we approached food and exercise in the way that we were able to do things that we uh were setting goals for ourselves and we were much kinder and compassionate to ourselves in the way that we addressed whether what we were doing was right or wrong or good or bad or whether we were achieving a goal or not do you know what I mean like it just it changed the way we approached everything and I feel like I went on that journey with them and they came with me um and as I read more of the literature around it around it I started to understand why that was as well and then and then it became impossible to go back because once I understood why that made us feel the way it did inevitably I wanted everyone to be able to have that experience and and the really big important thing is that I would never say to anybody who comes here you must not lose weight that is a bad thing what I will always caution them on is that any approach that I would have given them in the past for intentional weight loss would in some way potentially have to have them compromise in a way which might might impact their well-being some people don't have an issue with it at all but some people do and so our space is now for those people who do those people who've struggled for whatever reason whether it led them down a route of an eating disorder or disordered eating or whether it just frustrated them and made them avoid exercise like whatever reason it was that made him feel that they weren't good enough our space is weight neutral because it becomes a space that they can now be completely safe in they know there will be no triggering talk they know that no one's ever going to expect their body to change and they know that the way their body is now is absolutely imperfectly acceptable so then they can just focus on being fit and strong yeah which is great and as
Speaker 1you mentioned I mean there's a lot of challenges around making the change and I think some you know and certainly when I started uh teaching classes I know I all sorts of things comes out of your mouth right at times right when you're teaching classes and I distinctly remember sort of talking about burning off I know mince pies at Christmas and Easter eggs or hot cross buns around Easter or whatever it is as being a sort of a motivation to work harder or to um to to take up the weight or the resistance whatever it was depending on which class I was in and what we were doing and that kind of I think that's a really good point and I think that's a really good point and I think that's a really of of language and we hear it as well we see it all the time sort of like that sort of idea that if someone's been going for to the gym for a while but they've not changed physically they're doing something wrong um and and that judgment that then goes along with those those kind of statements I guess in terms of making those changes how easy did you find it did you find yourself saying stuff and having to sort of stop yourself because it was automatically out of your mouth and I'm sure if you put me in a spin class now because the last time I was doing it I probably was still saying those things I'd probably go to like stumbling over my words all the time because I'm naturally like work harder for such and such no no you can't say that oh my god what can I say that kind of thing was that one of the biggest challenges what were that what were the issues when you started trying to make those changes
Speaker 2so I think the reason that the changes started was because I was already on a route my own mind to getting rid of that idea um even when I so I'd started women's running group about 10 years ago I was already on a route to getting rid of that idea um even when I so I'd started years ago in my local town with my friend and even with that we decided it would be more inclusive if we didn't um talk about shape or size or calories or anything like that so I'd already kind of stepped into a world where I understood that that could be exclusive to some people and so it already kind of started getting rid of some of that language so I think that was probably helpful what I found challenging was being in groups of people who still use that language and I think that's what I found challenging was being in groups of people and because as well someone recently so a really good example is one of our coaches has only ever been here in a fitness space um she um when she started coming to classes here um that was really the first time she'd been to a gym of any kind or anything like that um and then when we were looking for an instructor she was interested we trained her up from the inside and she's just moved house and gone over to a different part of um greater Manchester and joined a new gym where she's coaching classes there and she was absolutely surprised beyond belief she like she never expected it the diet talk that happened amongst the clients in her class because it doesn't happen here and of course it doesn't happen here because you gradually create a culture full of people who don't talk like that but initially that wasn't the case and so people would say oh how many calories am i burning have i burned those mince pies off yet and then you'd have to have a really nice way of kind of saying like not like saying oh no bad person don't say things like that but kind of change in the conversation in the right direction to then move it into what it was actually doing that was beneficial for them and like trying to move them away from this idea of of conflating food and exercise and with with one with the other that when you exercise you're burning off the mince pies that you ate earlier that kind of thing why am i talking about christmas food it's easter anyway um easter eggs you ate earlier um but um yeah i think that was probably the biggest challenge for me i think i'd lost that language um before which was why i'd started on that journey in the first place um but for my clients and for the people who were coming into group spaces that required a gradual shift over time um and part of that that's why when i wrote my dissertation i was like it's in your marketing materials as much as it's in the way you talk to people in a room because if you're still using that language in the way you talk outside of the space to get people in then they're going to come in and they are going to use that language and expect also for that to be the culture that exists so it's a change of culture and that takes time
Speaker 1and there must still be people who anyone that comes in new to it for example that kind of has to go through that potential learning curve because i suspect that even unless you've been in a space or you've already gone through that awareness there's still a difference between the idea in principle and the realities and not saying those things and thinking about people who you know are quick with the self-deprecation around um something to do with their size or that kind of stuff and how easy it is after i know weekend or web to come in and be like oh i was really bad i had such and such or you know those kind of things that that people just say as without even thinking about it it's just something that naturally falls off of people's tongues in sort of as small talk really bizarrely as well because it's kind of like why do you would you talk to random strangers or perhaps people you don't know particularly well about what you've eaten why does that come up but it does and you put it in any kind of um exercise environment i mean certainly the dance um thing i do on a on a wednesday night quite regularly somebody will make a throwaway comment that references something about what they've eaten or the fact they need to work it off or there's something around that kind of narrative the the they'll kind of throw out without without a thought and without the fact that they don't know any of us they just literally turned up for a dance class yeah and there's got to be a sort of training period of kind of getting people to first awareness and then to change their language and and that kind of stuff very much so
Speaker 2and a lot of the time what you've said there is people don't even realize they're doing that um and they want to fully embrace that idea of moving away from aesthetics and calories and all the rest of it but they don't realize and and often because it is done in that self-deprecating way but because it's also a socially acceptable way for women to connect with one another i'm not sure how many men do it as often as women do in group spaces like that i don't know because i've never been in an all-male group space but in the research it's very female driven it's called fat talk and diet talk and it's female driven and the diet talk is all about burning calories off and eating bad food and being bad and um and having gotten it wrong and all the rest of it and the fat talk and inverted commas it's what researchers call it it's all about going oh i've got big arms oh your arms are gorgeous look at my legs oh if i could only get rid of this stomach and it goes on from there and it's a way in which we bond so actually um one in a weight neutral space if you really want it to be absolutely honest to goodness straight down the line weight neutral you have to challenge that but you have to do it gently obviously it's not something that's wrong and it's understandable why we all do it but the reason that my space is weight neutral is because i believe in the psychological benefits that i've read about in the research that we get from weight neutral spaces and one of the most damaging psychological things we can do as women in group spaces is diet talk and fat talk it is really psychologically damaging for us so actually i don't want it in the space and i don't want them to feel like they have to do it either i'd love them to connect in other ways and so i gently redirect there's always a gentle redirect you can do from it or a little joke that you can make but even some of my longer term clients you know she rolls her eyes at me but one of mine came in on monday and i said how was your weekend she was like oh these oh you know what i told you about last week about pastry monday and i was like yes pastry monday by the way sounded amazing it was at work and she said well it only got worse from there and i was like do you mean more fun she's like oh she rolled her eyes at me but it will always be a gentle bat away a gentle redirect reminding people that they don't need to use that language in this space um and we don't use that language in this space and what's interesting as well is the number of people that do then maybe sometimes end up in other spaces every now and then that are weight centric and they'll come back in and go i don't think i'd realize quite how different we talking here and how normal it is to talk like about bodies being wrong and food being wrong on the outside you know our conversations if somebody does bring up something to do with crisps and eating the wrong things or like whatever it is my gentle redirect is usually oh what's your favorite flavor and then we go from there we just direct it into actually talking about it in a normal way that doesn't cause shame or suggest that anything is wrong about any of the food that we eat and certainly doesn't connect using exercise to burn off the food that we eat so if
Speaker 1somebody was looking to make this kind of change to their own business where would they start good question um
Speaker 2i think it's a tough question to where you start because i suppose it's very individual and very unique to that person and what they're doing at the moment um i would say that the first thing would be to remove have a look at your materials start there do you have any language in there that just automatically connects your space with weight loss and appearance driven goals if anything in is in there and you're not sure what to do with it that suggests that the reason to come to you is to change aesthetically then that would be the place to start and then when you are talking to people you can start gently introducing the idea to them that you know this is you know what about focusing on the the the weight that you're lifting do you have a particular goal a lot of the time people aren't coming to this out of the blue they're generally not coaching people on weight loss absolutely loving it finding their clients are getting extreme results putting before and after pictures up and down and they're not everywhere and then going oh i don't want to do that anymore generally people are coming to this because there's something that's gone i don't feel quite right i'm not sure this is for me i've done some research i feel like i want to move in this direction and create this space at which point you might lose some clients but you probably won't lose all of them if any i actually didn't lose any clients at all when i shifted to a weight neutral focus i didn't lose any of them and i think part of that was because i'd always they knew me by then and i'd always kind of taken an approach in my training that was let's see how strong we can get what goals have you got what we working towards rather than it only ever being about weight and appearance with them so i i think like a lot of people are coming from that point so think about make yourself a plan think about what does my marketing look like at the moment what language do i use what does it look like my website what are my classes called then the first thing is probably to stop talking about those things and like not actually have those general conversations as though they're normal in your classes start talking about things from a functional or joyful perspective um and and then you can start moving it from there but it'll be a gradual process and you i said your mind wanted to come with me maybe not everybody's word but generally i think it's going to be a gradual process and i think it's going to be a gradual process you would already know before you know you're going to approach them say if you've got someone who's really solid weight loss and the only way reason they're there is because they want to lose weight with you they're probably going to go somewhere else when you say i'm not going to weigh them as you anymore sorry um not going to give you a diet plan i'm not going to get you tracking your macros i they're gonna you're probably already not doing that so i'd say the the key thing is as well like if if you are starting out and you're thinking because i think i only started doing weight loss and i'm not going to give you a diet plan and i'm not going to give you a weight loss when i started to the pt as much as i was dead into it in my 20s and thought it was the best thing to eat sliced bread and all the rest of it everyone should be losing weight as much as i thought that then i think when in my 30s when i started doing pt and i quit my teaching job i think i thought i had to i think it was just a part of it i even had in my own mind and this is the most ridiculous thing because i look back at photos of myself then and go my god you were the teeniest tiniest thing ever it was ridiculous but there was a part of me that even said when someone suggested to me that i was going to lose weight i was like oh my god i'm going to lose weight one of my friends why don't you try personal training because i'm really into fitness and obviously like i was already coaching as a teacher I said, oh God, I don't look like a PT. So there's always something there. Do you know what I mean? And I think that I started out almost thinking I had to do weight loss, never really got fully into it, which is why I didn't really enjoy it. And then when I realized the reason I probably started down the line of research and looking into it further was because there was a bit of me that already knew I wasn't comfortable with this. There probably was another way. And I wanted to find out more about it. So I think a lot of people are probably hovering around that space who are thinking about it. And if you are just starting out as a PT, don't even think twice about it. People will tell you, you have to sell fat loss, weight loss, whatever it is. You do not. We do not. And we are doing great with it. So don't feel like that is a route you have to go down just because you're entering the fitness industry. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1For anyone that is looking to change, I always think that one of things when you're. When you're trying to make those changes, I mean, one is definitely it always starts with awareness, right? But when you're looking to do this kind of stuff, spending some time thinking about what language you can use is really, really helpful because it's always in those moments when all you can think of is the things that you can't say. And I'm sure when you make those changes, literally everything that you can think of is going to be weight-centric in some way. My brain would be completely fried and I'd be like, uh, no. Can't say that. Can't say that. Can't say. Oh my God, I can't say anything now. Whereas if you've spent a bit of time in advance kind of thinking about, well, these are the sort of things I could say, this would be all right. So like you've already said, if it's food-related, the sort of fun thing about the food, but also from an exercise point of view, those, as you say, sort of functional things, the fun things about the exercise, the elements that people enjoy in terms of. of movement. So having that, that sort of go-to phrases, as it were, that you've thought about in advance, which can feel a bit artificial, but I think otherwise you do just fall back into those old patterns of just what you would have said before, because it's out of your mouth before you've had a chance for your brain to process it.
Speaker 2Yes. And that's it. Yeah. And because we're so well socialized in it, you know, we've been in this world for a very long time, whether that is because we've been in the fitness industry or just because we are women or men who've been around fitness. And it is the norm. It is the norm to be appearance driven. And so, yeah, I say think about it, but also put yourself in spaces that are weight neutral. So not necessarily actual spaces. They don't have to be physical spaces. It could be online. You could be listening to podcasts. It could be curating your Instagram or your TikTok or however old you are feed. Too old for TikTok. I know I'm supposed to go. I know I'm supposed to go there, but I'm holding it off as long as possible. But like curating those feeds, actually watching videos, reading books, listening to audio that is all about that. So you hear the way other people talk about it and then listen to your clients when they do talk about things that are functional and joyful. It's wonderful just to stand and listen to people sometimes in, particularly in our small group personal training. They're like, oh, I love that feeling of pressing a bar overhead. Doesn't it? It's so powerful. You know, you're picking stuff up all the time then about, you know, how it feels to do something, what you can talk about, the benefits of a movement, because your clients will actually tell you. And the more and more you talk to them about that, the more they're going to kind of connect with that feeling. And again, like I said before, at the beginning, like that intuitive movement, their body signals and what it feels like to be doing stuff. And we know from the research that that actually. is more of a sustainable motivator to actually have that interceptive awareness and that holistic connection to what you're doing rather than an external goal is a much more longer term motivator. So amazing. Perfect. I know you've mentioned
Speaker 1that you didn't lose anyone when you made the changes, but you have subsequently had to turn people away or point out that you're not the person for them. Because as you mentioned, people come to gyms kind of almost expecting sometimes that it's going to be weight related. And it doesn't matter sometimes however much you put out to say, this is what we do and what we don't do. There will be people that just go, oh, gym down the road. Right. Yeah, I'll join that with the expectation of weight loss. How does that sort of conversation go?
Speaker 2Very direct, very upfront, gentle. So someone will say, oh, I was looking at your classes and I'd like to lose some weight and X, Y, and Z. And I'll come straight in with, so I'm going to be really upfront with you. We wouldn't support you directly with weight loss. If you lost weight whilst you were doing this, then obviously, that's something that would be seen as a bonus for you, but we would not be supporting you with that. We don't coach weight loss, capital letters. If that is your sole goal and what you're looking for, then I would. And I would recommend a couple of other personal trainers in the area that I know are good. This is a female one, this is a male one. And I know their qualifications are great. One of them used to be an athlete. I trust them as personal trainers to send people to them. So I'd be like, you can go there and that would help you achieve your goal. However, if you're more focused on, because usually if they are, if it isn't weight loss, but they feel like they should tell someone it's weight loss, because that's what society tells us we go to a personal trainer for. They won't just say, I want to lose weight. They'll say, I want to lose weight and feel like myself again. And like, however, what we can very much do is help you feel like yourself again. And if that really is more of what your goal is all about, then we'd love to have you here. Why don't you come down and have a bit of a longer chat with us? And then I can get them in that way. So yeah, if they just mentioned weight loss, I tend to go, we don't do weight loss. You're more than welcome to come down. You might lose weight when you're here. We will not be coaching it or talking about it or a weight neutral studio. Um, here's some examples of people you might want to go to instead. Um, and if they have the other bit, I try to get them in on the other bit, not, not hard sell because if it really is weight loss, I don't want them to come here. Cause I'm not going to help them achieve their goals. It's pointless. Other people will. And I'm very much of the opinion of most of the fitness industry. It's called weight centric is the norm for a reason. Most of the fitness industry offers weight loss or aesthetics. We don't, we are the ones that are offering something that is different. So I can a hundred percent happily recommend you to somewhere else. But also I know that the people who don't want that are going to come here because there is less of it available. So I don't worry that we don't, we're not going to get customers. We're not going to get anybody here because everybody in the world wants weight loss because they don't. There is a group, a core group of people who aren't being served currently by the norms of the fitness industry and they will come here. So I feel totally confident in sending people away when they're not right for us. It's okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1And that's absolutely something that I think all personal trainers should do. Whatever the reason, if you, then you don't have to appeal to everybody. You don't have to work with everybody and having that confidence to say, yeah, we're not, we're not right is, is massive. And it's so much nicer as well that you don't find yourself sort of stuck with somebody that you hate working with and all of that kind of thing. But I mean, particularly when you have something like this, it's not the kind of stuff where you can kind of be partially neutral. As you mentioned before, you can't sort of in one place be, be making comments that are weight centric. And then in another sort of being weight neutral, it doesn't work like that. It has to be something where this is what we do. And this is what we don't do and not have a space for muddying the waters at all, really. Yes. And it doesn't mean
Speaker 2I will shut people down when they bring up their weight. I've had a few conversations even recently with members who are worried about their weight or worried that they should be losing weight or aren't losing weight and they've mentioned it. And then we'll have a conversation that gets curious with them about their thoughts and feelings around that and things like that. But it's just what we don't do is go, oh, well, what you need to do is, and then give them a plan to deal with it. And the conversation we have with them around it is very much centered more psychologically than anything else. And it gives them the facts. So what are you struggling with? Oh, well, actually, one thing we know about heavy restriction is that it causes binge cycles. So maybe the reason that you're eating loads at the weekend is because you are heavily restricting. So, you know, like, why don't you go and have a read of this or a listen to this? We've got resources that are really accessible for members as well. So if they are struggling, they want to know more, then actually they can go and listen to that, find out more about it. And I think a lot of us have gone on that, a lot of them, sorry, have gone on that journey since coming here. Like, they knew that what they were doing wasn't working for them, but they didn't really understand why. And I think that's why it's also important if you are going to be a weight neutral space, that you do do the work yourself to understand the research and the evidence that sits behind it. Because there will always be people that counter it because there is counter evidence out there. Absolutely. Because it's science. There are two sides to a story. But I take it from the point of view, like I just said, that we are doing what is not the norm. There is a place for us to exist. I'm not saying everyone should be it. But what I am saying is don't be afraid to do what we're doing offer that service and keep it that very safe space where all the norms of the weight-centric fitness industry don't enter into it and then you do have a space where people can come and be free from that and instead just focus on the function and the joy and the autonomy of being in your fitness space
Speaker 1yeah because there are so many benefits to physical activity that all get marginalized because the only reason you exercise is to lose lose weight and burn calories and or to gain muscle and put on bulk that way and and everything else gets overlooked until there is a health condition that means you have to you get osteoporosis or there's something that all of a sudden means that oh oh you mean there's other reasons i should exercise it's not not just relating to weight and appearance and then that's when a lot of people suddenly become aware of of these reasons why it is good to do these things and that's it
Speaker 2like for me and i i honestly feel like the biggest shame of our fitness industry as it is to this point is that it prioritizes weight loss and aesthetics over everything else that so many people think that the only reason to move their bodies is to lose weight or change their appearance and and we have so many women here who've just never engaged in fitness their entire lives and they're in their 40s and 50s now and they've done exactly what you've just said they've gone oh bone density oh cholesterol oh like all these issues and not they're not in larger bodies at all it's not like that overweight in inverted commas or whatever i keep doing in inverted commas or whatever it is they are in um they're in thin bodies but they are now concerned they haven't moved and they're not physically fit and healthy and they've never really been able to experience the benefits and the joy of moving their bodies because of that and what a shame that it took them even to come in with a health condition to feel like they had to start moving whereas all along if someone had just said to them did you know it's so much fun and you feel so powerful when you lift this weight above your head or you deadlift twice your body weight have you ever tried it's phenomenal that's all they needed they might have given it a try whereas actually it's just all about whether or not we get smaller or not and i just think that's a shame there's so much but yes it should be one of the things it can offer people potentially but not the be all and end all so yeah for me certainly i'd love to see a change in the industry as a whole where it recognizes all the other benefits of exercise of fitness of strength training of all those things that we gain that isn't losing weight or looking smaller or more muscular absolutely maybe one day we'll
Speaker 1keep we'll keep going on that um anybody that wants to learn more i know we said we'll put sort of some of the papers and links and things into the show notes but in terms of any sort of key resources that you recommend obviously as well as the ltb course that you did for us called weight neutral coaching which is on our site for members and highly recommended is there anything else that you would
Speaker 2recommend well i would definitely recommend um following dr kat schneider on instagram um she's one of the key researchers in this area um and um she has some really useful things on her instagram she has a blog and things like that also michelle carroll who we did a podcast with um she has substack which is really worth a good follow it's quite amusing as well she's funny uh and her instagram um the maintenance phase the early podcasts on there go back to the beginning there's all sorts of evidence-based excellence in the maintenance phase um as a podcast i always recommend it um and then also um laura thomas phd um she's got a couple of books um and an instagram which is worth a follow as well they're really good places to start
Speaker 1excellent well thank you very much as always it's been brilliant chatting to you about this and we'll chat about something else soon i'm sure
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