Men, Eating Disorders and Hormonal Health with Ayrton Taylor

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Eating Disorders and Hormonal Health in Men

Speaker 1  0:00 

Becky,

Speaker 2  0:04 

hello, and welcome back to the JenUp Podcast. It’s great to all have you here. So, if you’re struggling with an eating disorder and feeling lost, you’ve certainly come to the right place, because both myself and Becky Stone are former sufferers of eating disorders, and we understand the challenges that you’re facing. So, join us for inspiring educational and relatable content, whether you’re seeking support, guidance, or just someone who understands. We are here for you. So, today we have Ayrton Taylor, who is an online coach and qualified personal trainer with nearly a decade in the fitness industry. He’s a former Muay Thai fighter, now competitive runner. His mission is simple: be fitter than the lifters and stronger than the runners, having battled with eating disorders, hormonal damage, and now living on TRT, which is testosterone replacement therapy. As a consequence of his past, Ayrton coaches from lived experience, not theory. He stands for honesty, responsibility, and long-term health over shortcuts, and aims to be the role model he never had growing up. So, I found Ayrton on Instagram. Actually, I don’t spend a lot of time on Instagram. I try not to, but I came across one of his videos, and I thought it’d be really good to have him on the podcast, because I see I am seeing an increase in schools around boys struggling with things like muscle dysmorphia and gym culture, and when I saw him open up at his story, I thought, why not get him on. So, it’s great to have you on the podcast, but if you’d like to introduce yourself to everyone and what you do, that’ll be so amazing.

Speaker 3  1:50 

Yeah, no, absolutely. So, my name’s Ayrton. I’m an online coach, like you said, I’ve been doing this for almost 10 years, starting off in person, and then kind of having quite a lot of interaction with lots of different people from different walks of life, but coming from a past of making mistakes, like you say, with eating disorders and stuff, I find that in what I do now I can pick it out a bit easier in other people, you know, so when people aren’t necessarily going down the right line down the right path, but they don’t want to be necessarily dead honest about it. I can kind of call them out on stuff that I know I’ve been in that position for before, and even like you say on Instagram and stuff on social media, there’s lots of people that sell a certain way of doing it, and I know from experience that is either not what they’re doing, or if they are doing it, it’s going to be something that’s going to bite them in the ass in the long run, you know, with with the damage that they could potentially do through doing that way, but yeah, no, I’m an online coach, and I work with quite an array of people, from professional athletes to mums and dads to people in the mid mid 20s just wanting to be fitter, stronger, healthier, lean, and just be able to improve themselves. So it’s quite a mixture of people that I work with, but there are struggles and issues that kind of crop up with quite a lot of people in different areas that you wouldn’t necessarily always expect.

Speaker 2  3:24 

Okay, what’s what sort of issues do you see?

Speaker 3  3:28 

So, I see a lot of stuff in and around the relationship that people have with food, in terms of demonizing specific foods, you know, thinking that you can’t have something, something’s that’s people thinking that there’s good and bad foods, when in reality there’s less and more nutritious, but not necessarily anything that is bad, and I was one of those people as well, where I demonised, I thought carbs were going to make me fat, and I thought I’m going to just completely give them a miss, because it didn’t align with what I wanted, but that’s through lack of education. I think a lot of people don’t have a good amount of education surrounding nutrition, and I think it is something that is neglected being taught at schools, you know, to make sure that people can can look after themselves long term rather than falling into those kind of habits of thinking that certain things are good and certain things are bad, and they have to avoid that, and they have to starve themselves and eat dust to be able to have a good body composition that they’re comfortable and happy with, and then, like we mentioned before, having a bit of dysmorphia around what you see in the mirror, and what you see isn’t necessarily what you look like. It’s, I think, everyone’s a lot harsher on themselves than what a lot, a lot of other people are on them,

Speaker 1  4:49 

but it’s something

Speaker 4  4:49 

I do

Speaker 3  4:50 

see crossover quite a lot of the time.

Speaker 2  4:54 

Yeah, definitely. I mean, what I see, because I work a lot in schools, young people, that they get a lot of their information from these influence. Says, and they’re following these influencers, who you know, both male and female, male and female, who have just very lean, like bodies, and it’s kind of strive for, like, leanness, and also strive to be skinny as well. There’s both, there’s two ends of the spectrum.

Speaker 3  5:17 

Yeah. No, there absolutely is. And I think the issue with a lot of the stuff with the social media side of things is one, people don’t understand that the influences that they see that are shredded like you won’t believe, like really, really lean, typically speaking, those people are that lean for a very short amount of time, and they just take a lot of pictures that they then post throughout the year, so it’s not that person that you’re seeing throughout the year looking like that, and even if they are, it’s generally, generally speaking, they’re enhanced, and a lot of them do fib about like steroid use and what they’re taking to be able to maintain that that look,

Speaker 2  6:01 

yeah,

Speaker 3  6:02 

but then I mean, I did it, I was extremely lean, you get in there the wrong way for a long period of time, which resulted in my hormones being knackered, and it’s, it’s a bit of a double-edged sword, because you chase what you think’s a healthy aesthetic, good physique, but then on the way to achieve that, you end up making yourself very unhealthy, so it’s even though you think you’re looking good and looking healthy, you end up putting yourself in a worse position.

Speaker 5  6:41 

Do you end up making yourself more moody? Because I, years and years ago, I went out with a guy who was very much into his body building, very, very lean, but he was moody, snappy, miserable, and he wasn’t actually that pleasant to be around.

Speaker 3  6:57 

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is another thing that I see a lot with people, and it’s, it’s the sustainability side of it. So, for a lot of people, the way that they get the results that they want, especially in and around bodybuilding, and that kind of look, it’s not enjoyable. And for most people, it’s not sustainable. So everyone else kind of cops the back end of that because they’re not particularly happy, and then what comes alongside with that. So, with bodybuilding in particular, you train and eat in a specific way to get a specific look that you then go and stand on a stage with your in your duds in front of a load of judges, and it’s very. it’s. it’s our judges, it’s another person’s opinion that either makes or breaks all of your hard work, so you can kind of get it in your head where you’re constantly thinking about what everyone’s thinking about with you. Not only that, when you restrict your food quite heavily, I don’t know if you’re, if your other ex was on any kind of enhanced performance enhancers,

Speaker 5  8:00 

so

Speaker 3  8:01 

yeah, so, so when people think you probably heard of Roy Rage and stuff like that before. Now, if you’re a bit of a knob, Roy taking steroids will make it worse, so it just enhances whatever you are. I think if you’re quite chilled out, then you don’t really have as much to worry about, but it will enhance whatever you are, and then if you’re also not dead chuffed with how you’re feeling, because you’re on such low food, and because you’re training so hard, and because you’re so fatigued, I think it can accumulate, and then people closest to you are the ones that usually get the short end of the stick.

Speaker 5  8:39 

This stuff doesn’t really ever really get spoken about either, which

Speaker 2  8:43 

I think everyone’s very much on their what your body looks like, but it’s really hard being around somebody who’s so self-absorbed around food, and it is a different type of an eating disorder.

Speaker 3  8:55 

Yeah, no, I’d agree with that. I’d agree with that. It definitely is. I mean, for bodybuilders that are competing, I think that is, if that’s their, if that’s their livelihood, their body is their, is their livelihood, and they’re competing, and they want to do that, and they understand the risks, then eating in a disordered way is what’s usually going to give them the best results, because they can with less option and less varied variables to adjust, is less likely for things, less of a likelihood for things to go wrong. So, if they keep what they eat quite simple and refined, then they don’t, but then again, like you say, it’s just another version of an eating disorder, because you demonise certain things. I think when it comes to food and eating disorders and addictions, especially, it’s not necessarily never eating that thing or never consuming that thing again, but it’s being able to have what you once thought was bad in a way. It’s been able to reintroduce. You know, like, when people are alcoholics, I think you, I mean, I’m not into booze anyway. I’ve never had a drink, but I think with alcoholics, even if they’re avoiding it, which is probably a good decision for a lot of people, it still kind of got a bit of power over them, because for it to not have any power over them, they’d be able to have our drink and not need all the drinks, and I think the same thing comes with food as well, and being able to not necessarily not eat any of it, but reintroduce it in a way that means you’re not going to eat all of it. If that makes sense,

Speaker 5  10:35 

balance isn’t it?

Speaker 3  10:37 

Yeah, I think balance is something that gets missed a lot, but that’s also because when you are going trying to be the best in something, balance does go out of the window a little bit for a period of time, but for long term, I think balance is kind of where you need to be.

Speaker 2  10:58 

Yeah, definitely, I’d say that I’d say that we struggle with that, or I was like to have that. Definitely, I think that what I wanted to touch on with the from that, what we just spoke about was the when young people see all these images and kind of these obviously bodybuilding, all the lean physiques and stuff. It’s the hormones I’m interested in, the damage it does to your hormones. I know one talks about that. My own personal story with it, and the damage that I did to my hormones, and I actively teach kids in school what that does to the hormones, like, and what that does, like, how restricted dieting, like long-term side effects of that, the damage that it can do to the hormonal system, because no one talks about that, right? Like, no one’s,

Speaker 1  11:42 

yeah,

Speaker 2  11:42 

no one’s talking about that on social media, like

Speaker 3  11:45 

no, they don’t, not at all. And then I think a lot of the time, what’s come, what’s quite popular at the minute, and I’ve been asked loads of questions about is peptides and things like Psalms, and people taking TRT, and now they are different. A lot of people have been asking me about peptides recently, and these are effectively they work in a way that’s different to steroids, but again, with stuff like that, because that’s becoming quite popular with a lot of influences. One, it’s really hard to get the actual proper stuff, so if you do get a hold of something and you think you’re going to use it, then you don’t actually know what you’re taking, for one, another thing is a lot of people get stuck into stuff like that very prematurely and without actually maxing out what their natural capabilities are, so taking something, taking an external source of hormones, or that something’s going to affect you long term before you’ve even got to the point where you cannot progress any more naturally, is a very silly thing to do. I mean, I won’t tell someone not to take something, but I’ll definitely make sure that they understand the pros and cons and the detrimental effects and what it means long term. Well, I can’t have kids naturally now because of the cock-ups that I’ve made, and I’ve always wanted a family, so that was a bit of a kick in the nuts, but I put things because I knew when I started messing up my hormones, when I was starting to look into the endocrinologist side of things and get it fixed, that I knew that it would be a possibility that I wouldn’t be able to have kids naturally, so I put steps in place to make sure that I could have them, but I think a lot of people, especially a lot of younger, younger lads, whether I don’t want kids anyway, so I’m not fussed, but if you ask most lads at 12, 1314, you know, through through the teens, if they want kids, they’ll probably say no, but it’s that what you want when you’re that age is completely different to what you want when you’re older, and it’s understanding how much you can actually damage yourself, because, like, you say, that doesn’t get discussed when people, when you see the peaks and troughs, and I mean, if you’ve been through it as well, you’ll understand how much of an effect hormones have on just how you feel day to day. I felt like when I got mine sorted because I went for so long with them being messed up. You don’t realise how messed up they actually are until you get it sorted, and then after I got mine levelled out, it felt like I’d been living like walking through syrup. Everything felt a lot easier once it was fixed, but you don’t see that it needs fixing until you’ve messed it up, and ideally just people wouldn’t mess it up in the first place, because your body’s quite good at doing what it does in a way that works really well on its own,

Speaker 5  14:55 

and it’s so, like, I mean, I’m perimenopausal, and so, like, hormones for me, I’ve. Gone from being like quite steady and quite normal to a complete raving lunatic, and then back to normal again. When you’ve, you’re not getting those hormones, you’re not balanced, it’s they can make you feel really suicidal, really low, really. I mean, I was getting anxiety in the gym that I’d been to going to for years, and it was a really weird feeling. I think we hormones are so important once you nourish those hormones and they’re balanced, your mental health is pretty spot on.

Speaker 3  15:27 

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s a big thing as well. I think people focus on physical health quite a lot, and physical health absolutely gives you more of a more mental health, I think you can’t have one without the other. Training and exercise and look after yourself definitely improves your mental well-being. But if you don’t actually put as much emphasis on your mental health as you do your physical, it’s like your physical fitness as well as your mental fitness, and if you do focus purely on one without the other, then you’ve messed up, and if you focus on the other one without the other, then you’ve also messed up, like we say, it’s that balance side of things, and it’s, it’s, it’s hard to do, you know, it’s hard to do well long term, but it’s not impossible to do as well, and like you say, with the perimenopause. My mum, she, she had, she had cancer a few years ago, and she got all of the bits chopped out, so she went from having all of the hormones to zero hormones, like overnight, and I saw how much of a difference that made in her, and I suppose it’s a bit of a funny one, because I’ve put, I’ve ended up putting myself through something quite similar in terms of the hormone mess up as what she did, but hers was required and mine definitely wasn’t. But yeah, this, I think it is my, like you say, is massively overlooked,

Speaker 5  16:59 

definitely not spoken about, and also, and please correct me if I’m over. It’s the shame that goes with it as well, because it’s.. I know, because I’ve had anorexia, and I know that what I put my body through, looking back on it, was like, why would I do that to myself? And some of the my behaviours I’m not proud of. I cringe, and my therapist actually said to me, Who’s looking after your children? And I can remember going, well, I am actually, I really wasn’t present, and I was really poorly, and I was all over the place, but for me, there’s a lot of like shame can keep you stuck for something that you’ve actually done yourself, and that’s hard as well, because we don’t get taught about this stuff. It’s like a control, it’s our coping mechanisms, it’s the things that what we think keeps us safe. And I’m ADHD as well, so our mind was a great hyper focus. It was absolutely brilliant at the time, but the damage that the knock-on effect can was all over the place.

Speaker 3  17:58 

Yeah, I find the same thing that I’m pretty, if my head’s in something, I give it my all. So I thought, when I was bulimic, I was really good at being bulimic. I was top notch at bulimia, but, like you say, it’s.. I think everything becomes revolves around it as well. You know, you become very food-oriented. For me, anyway, I would. I got into the habit as well, and it wasn’t even necessarily that I wanted to do it, but it was the habit that I was in that meant that I was going to do it anyway, and it was so.. I remember, I remember thinking, because, because I got to the point, because I’ve got a bit of OCD as well, so I had to do it in a certain way that meant my OCD was happy when I was sticking up my food, so I would purposely, I would avoid eating certain things because I knew it was harder to get up, but then I would also say to myself, I won’t eat as much of that because I want, because I don’t want to do it for as much, and then even so, it sounds weird, and you might, you might have seen it before, but I would eat certain colour things first, so I knew when I was done, type of thing, I saw that again, I knew that I was almost finished, but yeah, I mean, there’s so much stuff that goes into it as well, and I used to fib to my mum and dad, like if they saw me afterwards, I’d say, oh, I’ve got like hay fever, my eyes are itchy, because my eyes would be all swelled up and red and bloodshot and silly things, like I went to the dentist not too long ago, and I’ve got swap, I thought they were swollen glands, and I asked my dentist, I was, have I got, have I got swollen glands from being used to being bulimic, and she had a feeling she was like, well, you, what you’ve actually done is caused, is I was heaving and retching that much and that hard for that long, that I’ve grown extra muscle in my neck for doing that, and the. Not atrophied yet, so it’s even little things like that that change how you look, on you know, through doing silly things, but these are the again the little things that you can kind of pick out and see in other people, which means that you could probably do with giving them a bit of an extra nudge or help, or call, I think, calling them out on it in a not open way, you know, not in front of loads of people, but having that private talk with people goes a long way. I mean, I got caught, I stopped sticking up my food, and then I started it again, to be fair, but I stopped really doing it properly because my mum caught me doing it, and I was like, oh no, I knew that I’d messed up, but yeah, it’s not, it’s not good, it’s not good,

Speaker 5  20:47 

but also your mum’s there, like, as I call it with my guys, it’s your mum, mum did the right thing, even though it was the I don’t want to stop this in a way, but maybe there was some relief in the fact that you did get caught, and that it’s always the bit, like when I say to my guys it’s my job to put my mum hat on, you might not like me, but it’s my job to look after you, because that’s what I’m here for.

Speaker 3  21:09 

Yeah, and I think, as well, I think my mum knew a lot longer before she caught me that I was doing it, because I know now that she used to be bulimic as well.

Speaker 5  21:19 

Okay,

Speaker 3  21:20 

so I think she was picking up on it, but then waiting, because obviously she, she’d been caught back in the day as well, so it’s I think she was waiting to catch me mid act, so that then I couldn’t turn around and say no, I’m doing that, like what she did, so I think you know, coming from a place where you know what it’s about also adds to it, like you guys as well, knowing how it is and how it’s felt, and you can more accurately speak to other people about

Speaker 5  21:50 

it, but some people, I don’t know about you, Jen, but I think, because I’m, I’m very straight talking, so I won’t, I’m not the nodding dog therapist, I give you my love, I’ll give you my honesty and my nurture, but I’m not going to collude in the illness, because I think too many people around me colluded in my illness, and all I wanted somebody to do, and actually I did have one friend who called me right out on my crap, didn’t like her very much, but I absolute ultimate respect for a bit like Mum sort of catching you in the act, and I think that’s how I am as a therapist, because I think if you want to get better, you need somebody who’s not scared to walk around on eggshells around the illness as well.

Speaker 3  22:31 

Absolutely, I think it works both ways. So, I see a lot of people that are very overweight that come to me that want to lose the weight, and I think a lot of the time, it’s you first off have to admit to having an issue before you can start fixing it, because it’s not like so. For me, getting really, really thin, it didn’t creep up overnight, and for people that put on loads and loads of weight, it doesn’t creep up, but you don’t see it happening to yourself until you then when you take it a step back and then you realise what it is that you’re doing to yourself, I think that’s where, so I think what you do and what you’re saying, like not walking on eggshells and saying it how it is, is the best way I think to get through to people, because it does sometimes take that, like, whoa, actually, like, with overweight people, you kind of have sometimes it takes a health scare to fix it and to stop

Speaker 1  23:29 

it, and

Speaker 3  23:29 

I think, like, you say it’s it works better doing it your way,

Speaker 5  23:35 

I think, honestly, but trying to do it without shame as well, because I, I was in a larger body when I was a kid, and I was really big as a teenager, and I used to just cringe at my size, but then, because I was cringing at my size, I then ended up eating more food to soothe the cringe, so I went round in this massive circle and really went from one extreme to the other, and then I went into anorexia as I got older, so I think it’s about understanding the why, what’s going on behind the food issues as well, and the body dysmorphia. Mine’s definitely undiagnosed ADHD, like a lot of my, how I see things in the mirror, how I, my brain processes, how my behaviour is all this random stuff.

Speaker 3  24:24 

Yeah, no, no, I completely agree with that. And then, like you say, I was, I was a fat kid as well, so I’ve had all of the shapes I’ve gone through being the fat kid that wanted to not be fat, and then I went through the eating disorder side of things, and then I was the skinny kid that wanted to not be skinny, and then it’s kind of fine. So, so, like, for example, I know that I’ve not completely kicked the body dysmorphia side of things now, because I look at myself still, I think I look pretty rubbish. If I’ve got it from both sides now, so I think. It, if I look at myself sometimes in the mirror, I think I look fat on my tummy, and then I’ll look in a different angle, and I think, oh, my arms are skinny, so then it’s like you get it from both sides, and I think it is something that I mean, I’ve not, like, I say, I’ve not fully kicked that side of things, so I’m not sure it ever fully leaves you, but I’m definitely sure that it gets better, because I know the things I used to do, because I felt that way, that I don’t do anymore, because I’ve been educated in a way that makes me like understand that you don’t have to do that in order to be like that, which is why now, like I said to you before, I want to make sure if I, if one person extra watches this or listens to this and goes, I’m doing that, and I don’t want to do that, then it’s worked, doesn’t it, to kind to put them on back on the right path, like I wish that I’d had,

Speaker 5  25:58 

and also not feeling alone as well, because I think eating disorders, with it, whatever shape or form the eating disorder comes with, is very lonely, and having that courage just to even talk to somebody that you trust, or reach out, or get the information about it, it’s having that courage to reach out without feeling that, as I call it, the cringing at your shame that goes with it, and then being able to move forward at 1% each day. It’s not whipping away that disorder that keeps you safe, it’s just trying to make small changes moving forward, and so you’re not so overwhelmed.

Speaker 3  26:34 

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s a funny one, with I’m trying to think if I probably did when I was doing when I was being silly with it, then yeah, there was definitely that shame to make sure that I mean I would eat, I would binge eat, and then sick up at certain times of the day when I thought I would be less likely to get caught, so there is the shame involved in that, but having been through that, now I will, if anyone asks me about anything, I’ll be completely honest about it, because I think, like you said before, it doesn’t get spoken about. A lot of the people on social media will have disordered eating and will have body dysmorphia, but because they earn a quid through looking a certain way, and saying a certain thing, and selling a certain supplement, then that stuff kind of gets nudged into the background, and you don’t really hear about it. I know people that I used to work with, like coaching wise, and what I used to work.. there’s a spit.. there’s a particular lad in mind, and he’s quite young, and I used to coach his brother, and he, his this other lad has got another coach, and I see them on Instagram, and I see them posting transformations, and how far he’s come in this window of time, but I know the plethora of performance enhancers that this lad’s on at like 1718 and they claim natural, and I think that’s irresponsible. If you’re going to do something, you’re going to take performance enhancers to look a certain way, then it’s irresponsible for the person that’s doing it and the coach behind it to then say that that’s naturally attainable, because then you’ll get younger lads, younger girls looking at these things. A lot of people edit the pictures as well. I don’t think a lot of, a lot of people realise, but they’ll see these pictures and videos and all sorts of people saying that they’ve achieved this naturally, and they’ll look at themselves and think, why do I look so different to that, and it’s like, well, because you’re not taking the stuff that they’re on, it’s just they’re fibbing about it, so they get more clicks, and honestly, I think that’s properly irresponsible, which is why I’m, I’m completely honest about everything that I, I take, I’m prescribed it, I have blood work done quite often to check that my levels are right, and I think that that’s how it should be. If you’re going to, if you’re going to talk about it, then you should be accurate with how you’re talking about it.

Speaker 5  29:12 

Being authentic, isn’t it? And honest, it also comes down to values and morals.

Speaker 1  29:17 

Yeah.

Speaker 2  29:19 

No, I agree.

Speaker 3  29:20 

Yeah, I agree with that.

Speaker 2  29:22 

I think a lot of young people do think that health is related to their appearance as well.

Speaker 3  29:29 

Yeah, and you can have a very unhealthy, very good-looking body.

Speaker 2  29:33 

Exactly,

Speaker 5  29:38 

I was gonna say miserable mentally, though, because I have a bit of a say, and I think maybe just through my own journey I’ve got a saying of nourish your belly and nourish your soul, so it’s about if these two parts of you are not aligned together, like you’re having really good purpose and fun and good friendships and healthy, like a really healthy soul, and then but you’re not nourishing your belly with really good. Food, they’re not going to realise you’re not going to be authentic self.

Speaker 3  30:04 

Yeah, no, absolutely. And then there’s a lot of.. there’s the biology behind it as well, so a lot of stress, which is what a lot of kids have, being they’ve got social media 24/7 and then the, you know, stuff around school, changes in hormones, they are.. they do have higher levels of cortisol, now higher levels of cortisol, and typically speaking, less sleep as well, because they’re up all night scrolling, and then not sleeping as well as they could be. So higher cortisol then affects, I mean, it can affect so much stuff, it makes everything so much more difficult in terms of what you crave, food wise, but it also affects your gut and your gut bacteria, and then you can end up with, I’m not sure if you know already, but you can end up with something called leaky gut, which then it breaks your blood, it effectively leaks crap out of your gut into your bloodstream, and then that can break your blood brain barrier and affect how you think and how your brain works, because of the extra stress that you’re adding, so it does become a cycle, which is where your behaviours affect your physiology, and then your physiology further affect your behaviours, and then it carries on going and going, and it can work in your favour if you switch it to work in your favour, but it can also be very detrimental if you don’t understand it, and like we said earlier, it’s not something that gets taught, and it should be.

Speaker 2  31:25 

No, that’s the leaky gut thing. I haven’t, I haven’t really spoken about that in my own talks that I do, because it’s quite sort of technical, but that’s something that I suffered with. I’ve reversed it. It was awful, because it caused major depression, because

Speaker 3  31:43 

obviously than you think.

Speaker 2  31:45 

Yeah, it’s very common, actually, with depression is a big sort of thing, and kind of inflammation stuff. Mine was linked to kind of the exercise addiction, and the anorexia, and the low weight, and stuff, and the hormones, and the stress, and the high cortisol, the undiagnosed ADHD. Like, I have to be very careful now with cortisol. Like, I’m very sensitive to it now. So, if I, I have to be so careful, like, if I don’t get my nutrition right or do something wrong, or like get too stressed, I get like a big flare up. Like, especially, it makes my hormones worse now, so I have to be very careful.

Speaker 3  32:25 

There’s also a bit of a discussion as well surrounding, like, your gut bacteria, as well as your cravings.

Speaker 2  32:31 

Yeah,

Speaker 3  32:34 

this, because, because the bacteria, I mean, everything’s everything’s fasting anyway, and I think that’s something that a lot of people overlook again, which is where you’re not just an arm day or a leg day, and then you’re not just what you eat, like your body is one thing, and it’s lots of different systems that work together, and you’ll probably already know, but a lot of people don’t, which is where the bacteria in your gut can send signals to your brain to tell you that you want certain foods, so there’s a bit of a, there’s a bit of a discussion in, like, which one controls what, is it the bacteria in your tummy that says I want that chocolate, and then your brain says, oh, I want that chocolate, and then you eat it, and you feed the bacteria, or is it you wanting that, it just so happens to feed the bacteria, so there’s.. it’s.. it’s dead interesting when you look actually into how your body works.

Speaker 2  33:29 

Yeah,

Speaker 3  33:30 

you shouldn’t really start messing about with it until you have a good understanding of how it works already.

Speaker 2  33:37 

Yeah, the eating disorders can harm the gut. Oh, sorry, Becky, it can create that kind of dysbiosis in the gut between the good and the bad bacteria, and then restrictive diets can deplete your good bacteria in your gut, basically. And then you create that bad environment for the bad bacteria to grow, and then you feed that, and it can lead to loads of different things.

Speaker 3  33:59 

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 5  34:00 

The body knows it’s like I did a 10k run yesterday, and honestly, I’ve sat on the sofa for the rest of the day, I was knackered, looked like Santa, and I was just up as a mouth, but I literally, I think, as I was in fight and flight, didn’t eat enough, like I’d eaten enough, but not what my body had burnt off, but I just wasn’t hungry, but then today all I’ve done is crave sugar, but soon as that starts going, and I’m, I get those little signals, my body knows that it needs more carbohydrate, so it’s literally just filling up on more food, which I just like eating loads today, just to replace it all up, but I think your body, it’s listening to what you’re needing and listening to the attunement of what, and feeding it what you need as well, and understanding like what your body is craving.

Speaker 3  34:48 

Yeah, no, definitely. And then this is this is something else that I see a lot of the time, actually, and it’s it’s people being almost married to the scale weight that they see, and your, your weight. It can fluctuate so massively on a day-to-day basis, from things like stress, your hormones, what time of the month it is for you, how much exercise you did the day before, how much, how many carbs you ate the day before, how much salt you had, what time you ate it. So, for every gram of carbs you eat, you hold around three to four grams of water, so when you get married to the scale weight, and that’s all that you focus on if you go out for food, and you eat slightly later, slightly more carbs. Typically speaking, when you go out, it’s higher in salt. And then you look at the scales that they’re after, and you’re up a kilo, and you go flipping out. I best starve myself now for the rest of the week. It’s like, no, no, no, that’s just a physiological effect that your body has as a result of eating what you’ve eaten, but yeah, like you’ll have depleted your muscle glycogen doing that 10k so your body knows that it needs to replenish it.

Speaker 6  35:51 

Yep,

Speaker 3  35:52 

for you to feel, which 10k did you do?

Speaker 5  35:54 

I did the home base centre run.

Speaker 3  35:57 

Alright, no, I did one in it. I did one at Ain Tree. I do. I did a half marathon at Ain Tree yesterday, so I didn’t know food on the same

Speaker 5  36:03 

one. Now you would have noticed me. I honestly, I look like a wally, and I’ve got another one coming up, the Bets Hanger Christmas Christmas run as well. And so it’s just making sure that I know on the days that I’m running I’m less hungry because I think my body’s more in fight and flight, but I know the day I after I could eat a scabby dog, and I like, I will eat, but I think also for people who are listening, especially over Christmas, and like the foods that they’re eating, they are gonna look like they’re gaining weight, but they’re not actually,

Speaker 3  36:38 

yeah, this, I mean, there’s loads of, so typically everyone pretty much knows now that you need a calorie deficit in order to lose weight, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to be in a calorie deficit every single day. So there’s different ways that you can approach if you want to have a bit more of an indulgent Christmas, and realistically you should. I don’t think anybody should track their Christmas dinner, I think. Just enjoy it. It’s one day it will not ruin your hard work. It will not undo. One day will not cock things up for you the same way that one good day won’t fix everything for you. And I think making sure that, so like I said, if it’s wanting to maintain a good body composition that you want, you don’t have to be in a deficit every single day. So, say your body needs 2000 calories every single day to maintain your weight, you could have 1500 calories for the week, and then you’ve saved up an extra two and a half 1000 for the weekend, so you know you can have a bit more of an indulgent weekend, and again it comes down to understanding and knowing that even if you do have a day where you cock up a bit and you eat more and you go slip back into those habits that you would have otherwise purged it out or punished yourself with extreme exercise or not eating for the next week, which happens a lot as well, people think that exercise is for fat loss, and like cardio, especially everyone thinks cardio is for fat loss, and it’s not. Cardio is for health. Doing weights is to give you shape, so you don’t want like a soggy bag of porridge. And then our nutrition is what results in your body composition, so how you feel and how much fat you’re holding or not holding comes down to the food that you eat. Everything else is for how you feel and look. It’s not. It doesn’t work the way that it’s, you know, it’s kind of always been pushed on people saying, yeah, go for a run if you need to lose fat. It’s like, no, that’s backwards. You don’t do it like that. You don’t have to punish yourself. You have to earn your food with exercise, but if you do want to eat more, then looking after yourself, having more muscle, being stronger, being fitter works in your favour, and you look better and fitter and stronger, and you feel better as a result of

Speaker 5  38:58 

it changing the mindset, both me and Jen, I can see that little look of a smile. It’s earning your food. It’s that’s where a lot of the disordered behaviours come from, because the belief system that we’ve got, some reason it’s been drilled into us, as like mine has been for kicks since I was a kid.

Speaker 2  39:16 

Yeah,

Speaker 5  39:16 

like people around me as well. I listen to people’s stuff, and I’m like, oh, I’ve had even when I was doing that 10k run yesterday, oh, I can have some extra mince pies now, and I’m looking at them thinking, we want to mince pie, just eat it, you ain’t got to run

Speaker 3  39:32 

it, yeah, you see all over social media, don’t you? It’s like, oh, here’s how far I ran to burn 500 calories, it’s like, yeah, you did run that far to burn on 500 calories, but the thing is, there’s a thing that happens with your body called your BMR, which is your basal metabolic rate and how many calories you burn at rest. So, if you were to sit on your ass and not move a muscle all day, you would still burn calories, yeah, if you, if you wanted to eat 500 calories. Then that would get burned in about seven or eight hours of just sitting on your bum, that’s not to say that you need that, you should be over indulging every single day and just eating, so I think another thing that gets a bit misconstrued is when people talk about intuitive eating, and for some people, yes, it works, but those are the people that have an understanding around their nutrition and what foods contain and what their body requires. A lot of the time, people that I see that say they’re intuitive eaters are actually emotional eaters that pop a different word in front of it to make themselves feel better, and I think it all comes down to having an understanding and a knowledge, and the knowledge behind it, and having a little bit more discipline while you’re learning it gives you more freedom in the future, but you can’t have that without understanding it, and I mean, I did the same thing, I used to, I used to wear a Nike fuel band, and I used to get to the end of the day, and if I hadn’t hit my number that I’d given myself, number of fuel points, I would just get back on the treadmill and go for another hour run, because I thought I have to earn that. I went through, I went through a phase where, for a full year, no, it was, it was over a year, like it was nearly two years, I would wake up at two in the morning before college, run 13 miles, train with weights, have a protein shake, then not eat anything all day throughout college, come home and then eat a full chicken, including the bones, because I’m a bit of a weirdo, and do, and just repeat that, and I would do that every day, and then go training for fighting afterwards, and I do that every day, cosmeticism and the OCD side of things, and it’s like you don’t need to do that, it’s not, it’s not required to have to be that way, and it probably did me up more harm than good in the long run,

Speaker 5  42:00 

must have been exhausted, so have you got autism there?

Speaker 3  42:03 

I’ve not diagnosed anything, but every single person that I know says you’ve got a bit of autism going on.

Speaker 2  42:09 

Interesting,

Speaker 3  42:12 

but I’d be interested to find out. I mean, I’ve been a bit in the past, I’ve like, I don’t necessarily feel like it wouldn’t change anything for me. I don’t think if I knew for like yes or no, I think I’d still be kind of what I am, but I think it would be interesting just to get a perspective from someone else that understands that stuff in more detail than I do.

Speaker 5  42:34 

Link of something that one of my clients had given me, they’re like little screenings, and they’re really good, just to sort of get if there’s something going on, because I think, like, I’ll just sort of talk for you as well, Jen. I think for both of me and Jen being diagnosed, it’s been a game changer, because you really can, I mean, my brain is like a party half the times, like, so busy, it’s like firework that just doesn’t shut up, like little rave going on up there, but I think now I understand it, I can understand the patterns of why I ended up with an eating disorder in the first place, and if I had a bit more knowledge around it, my self-esteem would have been higher, which most probably I wouldn’t have had the eating disorder, but I wouldn’t be who I am today without it helping other people, so I wouldn’t change it, because I’ve learned it like I learned it the hard way.

Speaker 3  43:32 

Yeah, yeah, and I think I think that’s the good, that’s the good side of it as well, though, knowing that I mean I saw a picture the other day and it was, it was like it was quite a weathered looking rat holding the hand of it, not weathered like a younger version of it, and it was saying the importance of a good role model is kind of having someone that’s made all the cock ups and done everything wrong, so you don’t have to. Some things I think are worth messing up on your own to learn from, but I think other things are definitely not worth doing that, and this is one of those things.

Speaker 2  44:06 

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 5  44:09 

I was just gonna say, just, and I think that’s the work that, like, we all three of us are doing, is the from our own story and our own journey, it’s being able to not stop somebody making those mistake mistakes, but educating, which is the bits that somewhere we didn’t have.

Speaker 3  44:28 

Yeah, and I think that’s the same with everything, like even with my coaching side of things, I can give you the entire toolbox that you need, I can give you everything, all the all of my experience of making the mistakes instead of you going for the next few years and learning for yourself and making those mistakes. I can give you dogs in the background, I can give you all of the information and required toolbox, but you, you still have to put the work in, but I can’t do it for you. And I think people need to understand that you can get given the help, but you still have to put the work in yourself.

Speaker 5  45:08 

Yeah, 100% because a lot of clients come through and they think that I’ve got a magic wand to fix them and I don’t.

Speaker 3  45:17 

Yeah, I think I get that as well. Sometimes people sign up when they think, right now I’ve got a coach, that means that I’m pretty much, I’ve got the results, I’ll help you, I’ll make, I’ll simplify it, I’ll do it, I’ll give you the blueprint, but I can’t physically do it for you. If I could, I probably would. I had this conversation the other week, probably quite good, that if you could rent out someone’s body for a year, fix it, and then give it back, but you don’t learn, then do you? You don’t learn how to keep it long term.

Speaker 5  45:47 

No, they most probably unravel as well, and go back to how the behaviours work, because they haven’t learned to manage them. Because I always say I’m like a bit like Nanny McPhee, when you need me, I am here, and when you don’t, I disappear, and I think that’s a good way of doing sort of therapy, because you, I don’t want people to be dependent on me. I want you to fly, I want you to go away and be the best version of yourself, and that’s what you’re doing,

Speaker 3  46:12 

exactly. I, I think, unlike a lot of other cultures that I see, because I do see a lot of rubbish ones, and the way that they do it is because I know that I’m not the only person that can get you in good condition, I can, you know, I know there’s other people that can do it as well, but what I see them do is they’ll get you in good nick, and then say, “Right, you don’t off you pop, and not having taught you how, because the process to get you to where you want to be is a different process to how to stay there, and they get you to where you want to be, don’t teach you how to stay there. Send you on your way six months later, you’ve unravelled it because you’ve not sussed out how to stay there, and then you’re back spending more money the way that I want to do it differently, which this is on a lot of people’s chips, of being honest, which is teaching everybody that I work with. I mean, it is a little bit selfish from my standpoint, slightly, but I want to teach every single person that I work with how to coach someone else, because I think if I can teach a mum or a dad how to coach someone else, then they can help their kids, friends, families do the same, then I know that if they can teach someone, I know probably same with you guys. If someone that you work with can teach and help someone else, then they’re definitely understanding what it is that you’re teaching them, because the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else. And then, as a, on the back, on the selfish side of it is, I want to be known for what I do, and helping people, and eventually I think I might have to expand and bring on coaches, but if I can teach every single person that I work with how to do it themselves, then I’ve selfishly got a load of inbuilt coaches that know exactly what to do, because they’ve been through it, but I suppose it’s kind of the same as what you guys have done in your teaching through experience, and then people that you work with might be able to turn around to their mates that are seen, you know, that they’re seeing them make mistakes and be like, right, actually have a go at doing this, and this might be a better way. So, it’s, it’s that snowball effect, isn’t

Speaker 5  48:18 

it? It’s being ethical.

Speaker 3  48:20 

Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think that’s, that’s a bit missed as well at the minute.

Speaker 5  48:24 

Yeah, it’s been ethical, and it’s been, it’s working like I have to work under a framework, but like the BACP or the like the ethical framework, so whichever organization you go with, but it is about making sure you’re being responsible.

Speaker 3  48:42 

Yeah,

Speaker 5  48:43 

that’s what you’re doing. You’re not doing it because, don’t get me wrong, we will have to – all three of us have to earn a living, but we do it because we genuinely care, and we want you to be the best versions of yourself, but without manipulating the system.

Speaker 3  48:57 

Yeah, yeah, I don’t know if you guys will do the same, but I won’t. I won’t bring anyone on that I don’t think we’re a good fit for

Speaker 7  49:08 

had the conversation of this this morning.

Speaker 2  49:12 

Interesting. Yeah,

Speaker 3  49:15 

because not everyone’s the right fit, are you? You know, like some people, you’re not that, you’re not the right person. I’m not the right person for everyone. I suppose you guys aren’t the right person for everyone either. And I think unethical people will just take your money and say, “Right, yeah, join up, knowing that it’s not for them.

Speaker 2  49:32 

No

Speaker 5  49:32 

points that.. sorry, Jen, I didn’t mean to talk over you.

Speaker 2  49:37 

That’s all right. No, no, I’m just saying that we know that, and we do that, like, you know, if we’re not right for someone, we won’t, we won’t take them on, like it’s not, it’s being, you know, we’re just trying to be ethical, working the best way for that person, like, and that’s okay.

Speaker 5  49:51 

And also, I’m like Marmite, I’m not for everybody,

Speaker 2  49:54 

that is true, you got a lovely way, to be honest.

Speaker 1  50:00 

Because I’m

Speaker 8  50:01 

okay with that. Go, sorry,

Speaker 2  50:04 

it’s all good.

Speaker 3  50:06 

I can say, though, do you not think, though, that if you’re for everybody, then you’re for nobody?

Speaker 5  50:12 

Yep, 100% Because I think, like, I, I want the clients who really want to work at it, and they, they don’t have all the answers, but they want to start somewhere where, if the clients are coming through and they want me to do it for them, they’re not going to be the right type of clients for me, because I don’t have a magic wand, because Harry Potter one’s broken, and they didn’t give me a refund, and there’s none left in stock, so I can’t do anything with it, so the clients who actually genuinely want to get on the roller coaster with me, I will ride that roller coaster right out and get you where you need to be, but when people come and meet me for, like, I don’t know if you do like what they called, like, I do a 20 minute call just to make sure that we’re a good fit, discovery call,

Speaker 3  50:59 

yeah,

Speaker 5  51:00 

and I always say to them, you’ve got to save yourself, and the ones that go to me, I want you to do it for me. I go, I don’t think this is going to work.

Speaker 3  51:11 

Yeah, I think because I do that, every single person that I bring on, I have a call with them first to make sure that we are a good fit, and you, I feel like you can tell quite quickly if you are or you aren’t a good fit for each other, and it’s, it’s sometimes it’s them not liking you, you know, it’s not always us, not like not thinking right, we’re not a good fit. Sometimes they’ll turn around, saying, I don’t need the right person for me.

Speaker 6  51:38 

Yeah,

Speaker 3  51:38 

I’ve, I’ve never really had to, I mean, I’ve had a couple of nightmare clients that have slipped through the clock, the cracks, but that was earlier on, so I don’t feel like I would make those same mistakes, and it is a learning curve again, isn’t it?

Speaker 5  51:56 

100% yeah, and I think knowing, knowing how you work as, as yourself, being very secure in yourself and how you work, you’ll work with the clients that you attract as well, the right type, and I think some clients have turned around to me, like, especially when I first started out, said you’re not the right person, I was like, oh, I’m wounded, this really hurts, like TCPs coming out and trying to fix my ego, but now somebody says to me, like, “You’re not the right person for me. I just go, “I completely respect that. I hope you find the right person, and here’s a few more people you could have a look for.

Speaker 3  52:35 

Yeah, no, I get you with that. I think, luckily, because I’m because I post on social media quite a lot, I think. Luckily, people that get in touch with me will have usually already watched a fair bit of my stuff, and they’ll, they’ll almost, because I try and be me, I don’t like that thing where I know everyone’s a different person to everyone that they know, but I don’t like being someone that’s different, you know. If people that knew me in real life would look at my Instagram or my social media and say that’s not it, that’s not what he’s like, I would, I wouldn’t like that. I want, but I think because I try my best to just be who I am and put it out there, then again, people don’t like you, they don’t have to look at it, and if they do like you, then they feel like they know you as well, so they feel more comfortable and confident bringing their baggage to you,

Speaker 1  53:32 

because,

Speaker 3  53:32 

because they’ve seen how you kind of approach things, and I think that’s a good side of social media, even there’s quite a lot of bad sides to it, I think that’s a good side,

Speaker 5  53:41 

yeah, being authentic,

Speaker 3  53:44 

yeah, yeah, because I think, I mean, honestly, I wasn’t, I didn’t, you, when I was an in-person PT, and I was just getting going, I would put my game face on, and I would be the person that I knew each one of my clients wanted me to be, but then when you’ve got like 12 or 14 clients back to back throughout the day, and you’re putting on 12 to 14 different masks of different people that they want you to be, it just knackers you out, it’s it’s hard to maintain that, and from going online and from doing it for longer, I just thought, you know, what I’m.. I would be happy losing clients that don’t like me and carrying on pretending to be someone that they want me to be. I think, like you say, that authenticity works in your favour.

Speaker 2  54:41 

I think,

Speaker 3  54:42 

which doesn’t happen a lot with younger kids, does it? Because they all want to, they’re all trying to put that face on.

Speaker 2  54:49 

Yeah, well, definitely they are. And I think actually that goes nicely into, like, if anyone obviously know wants to, what’s wants to work with you, like, or. Kind of wants to lick you up. What’s your Instagram kind of, what’s all your handles? You want to share them, so people can look for you.

Speaker 3  55:07 

Everything’s Ayrton Taylor Fitness. It’s a bit of a funny A Y R T O N, but fitness across everything.

Speaker 2  55:15 

Okay, cool.

Speaker 3  55:16 

You’ll probably know if anyone did want to work with me off the back of this, you’ll probably know in the first couple of videos if I’m for you or not.

Speaker 2  55:23 

No, we really appreciate this. Has been so amazing for you to come on and share your story, like we really appreciate, and I think it’d be nice to sort of like end it with sort of, you know, with any sort of like advice, maybe for like a young, you know, student boy in school, struggling with, like, you know, this sort of gym culture that’s going on, like, any sort of advice for them, like, what, how to deal with that

Speaker 3  55:51 

in terms of purely the gym culture side of things? I would say people, so you’re always more, more focused on you than what everyone else is. No one else looks at you as much as what you look at yourself. Don’t be doing whatever it is that you’re doing for other people. You should do it for you and not worry about other people. Dog shout in the bottom. Yeah, I think you should do it for you and understand your why behind it, and actually be honest with yourself as to whether or not what it is you’re doing is beneficial for you, or if it’s going to, you know, come and bite you in the ass, because, like, for me, for example, it did bite me in the ass, and it sounds like I know people in person that say, “Oh, I’ve been meant to have, you know, be on TRT, because you just get your testosterone sorted forever. I’m like, well, actually, it’s not me. I would rather my body have carried on doing it, you know how it wanted to do it, but I think, yeah, lean into your weirdness as well. I think everyone tries to be a certain person, don’t they? And that’s that person that everyone tries to be is a very similar person to everyone else, and no one really wants to be different. Be different, whatever your weird weirdness is, that’s kind of your superpower. So lean into your oddness, or whatever it is that you enjoy doing, and because, again, it’s the authenticity side of it, isn’t it? You want, you want to be you, and if people don’t like it, doesn’t matter,

Speaker 1  57:29 

there’ll

Speaker 3  57:30 

be people that do.

Speaker 2  57:34 

Oh, yeah, we’re just a good advice. I think that’s something Becca, Becky always says something similar, actually. So,

Speaker 9  57:39 

yeah, be your authentic self, and I always say I’m a weirdo.

Speaker 3  57:44 

Yeah, I’m a weirdo. I don’t want people to think that I’m aware. I want to know, I’m a weirdo.

Speaker 2  57:50 

No, honestly, such great advice. And this has been such an amazing chat. And thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 3  57:57 

Oh it’s my pleasure. Enjoyed it.

Speaker 5  58:00 

Thanks so much for listening to the JenUp Podcast. Please subscribe and share this podcast, so others can benefit. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram at Arch JenUp, and on Jenny’s website at jenup.com If you visit the website, you’ll find lots of different resources available there. Please like, subscribe, and share.

How to get help?

Jenny Tomei is a Nutritional Therapist and Eating Disorder coach. See all her credentials on her About Jen page and then should you need help then make contact with her today. Your road to recovery can start now!