The Uneducated PT Podcast - Ep. 112 — From Self-Destruction to Self-Acceptance with Zack Kieran

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

In this episode, I sit down with online coach Zack Kieran, who opens up about his journey from people-pleasing and self-neglect to building a healthier relationship with his body and mind. Zack shares how changing his habits and lifestyle not only transformed his physique but also allowed him to finally accept himself—and in turn, help others do the same. We talk about:Why hate can be potent fuel, but not a lasting oneHow learning balance with food leads to real freedomThe shift from chasing low-calorie “fixes” to making cravings fit within your goalsThe decisions that changed his life’s directionWhat he wishes his younger self had understood soonerThe lessons that matter most and the people who influenced him along the wayThis conversation goes beyond fitness—it’s about building a stronger relationship with yourself, one that lasts long after the diet ends.

I would not be able to help the amount of people I do if I had not done the work myself. Explain that to the listeners. I think we're all in the game of trying to be as confident as we can. Some people place it on jobs, some people place it on family, purpose, and a lot of people place it on body. I think from a very young age, I decided to place a lot of my confidence on trying to get the perfect body. And I think a lot of reasons were behind that, but the main one was just I was insecure. And I put so much effort and focus into trying to feel confident within my body. But something was always missing, and I didn't know what it was.

And for me now, a strong belief that I'm starting to have more and more is that it's very hard for you to be able to feel confident within your body if you have not yet proven to yourself that you can respect it fully first. And I think in today's game of social media, a lot of people talk about body acceptance and body positivity and a lot of people don't know where to sit on on this on this spectrum. Do I just go flat out and fucking get into a calorie deficit and fucking progressive overload? Can I swear on this by the way? Yeah, quite. You swear. We swear a lot here. Don't you worry. Or it's like shit. Do I need to be able to learn how to feel good within my body first? For me, it became increasingly easier for me to learn how to feel good within my body when I started to prove to prove to myself that I could respect it as well. What does that look like?

Doing the basic fundamentals that your body is designed to do. Move, challenge it, create space for it to grow, try and feed it the things that are going to help it to grow. and then also doing some of those mental habits too which i'm sure we'll talk about in yeah because um i suppose i would imagine a lot of people fall into the trap especially what i love about your page so much is that you're so open about body image which is obviously a still a taboo topic to a sense even though it's very prevalent in society how much men are struggling with body image um i suppose the the trap that we fall into is like you know i want to get in shape because I have low self-worth or no confidence. I want to be seen. I want to be

loved. I want to be accepted. And so therefore we start training or we try to build muscle or we try to get as lean as possible. We starve ourselves, whatever it is. And it's like your intentions are there moving the body and, you know, focusing on your food. But then it turns into like control of I have to control every single thing and you know it's never enough and I have to go harder and I have to sacrifice more and I have to restrict more and have this kind of tight control over everything and I suppose it's like how do we how do we tread that line of you know obviously respecting ourselves by moving our body and doing what we say we're going to do but now it's gone the,

it's gone the extreme other end of it. I think in order for you to be able to build your habits and challenge yourself in your body, this stuff is hard, really hard. It's one of the hardest things that I've ever had to do. And because it's so hard, you need some kind of firepower to get you going. And there's no,

there's no more of a greater challenge, than a negative charge. And what I mean by that is guilt, pain, anger, frustration, fucking hell. The amount of people that have a glow-up after a breakup is insane. Yeah, yeah. So I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with starting off your journey with maybe just being completely fed up of the way that you've been treating yourself and your body and the way that you've been talking to yourself.

But the funny thing that we always tend to do is we then start a fitness journey. and then we continue to have that same narrative, the same self-talk, the same beating ourselves up kind of process. And if you have that, then you're very quickly going to attach a lot of your self-worth as to whether or not you're doing the process right. You're going to become obsessive over it, and then it's going to cause you to burn out really quickly. I don't think that's inherently too unhealthy because I just think that's the natural

process. Yeah. I just don't, I mean, I can only speak from personal experience. if I didn't have that level of hatred or just me being so fed up, I wouldn't have got it done. And I wouldn't have actually been able to access the next level, which is level two, which is once you're actually starting, okay, how can I now learn to get out of my own way a little bit in this journey too?

That makes sense because like, I totally agree with that. I think it's unrealistic to tell people that, oh, don't hate yourself, just love yourself. And, you know, when you do hate yourself or you hate how you look or you hate how you look, or you hate how you feel. And I think self-hatred or distaste for where you're at right now, like it's potent fuel. It's like sometimes you need to hit that rock bottom to, you know, bounce your way straight up.

And it's like this thing of like the stick and the carat, right? It's like, you know, you need to be beating with the stick because it makes you move. But then eventually it's like you want to chase the car and the carer is, I'm going to continue to do this because I feel good rather than because I hate how I feel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. Yeah, yeah. Another one from you is five years from now, you'll be glad you didn't give up.

It's not about the body you build. It's about the relationship you build with yourself along the way. The stronger your relationship with your body, the more control you feel with your food. Explain that one for me. No one ever make good decisions with food whilst feeling really shit. Yeah. And the best way for you to feel shit is tear down your body.

So to be able to reverse that, you actually need to learn how to respect your body first in order to be able to get a better control of your food. And what funny people, well, the funny thing that we do is we think, no, no, no, let me get a control over my food so then I can lose weight so then I can feel good about my body. Yeah, that's the opposite way around. Yeah, yeah. And you're just trying to fucking control this thing, which is food. And food is such a complicated topic that it's never just as easy as I think we know now,

or at least maybe me and you, maybe other people don't, people listen. but if you don't, it's not as easy as a fucking calorie deficit, man. I wish it were. Don't get me wrong. Did you, was that an experience you had to go through yourself of trying to solve your problems with a calorie deficit? Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah, mate, there was a time where this was during lockdown at the start of lockdown where

I was literally weighing every single damn thing that I was eating. And the amount of caffeine, I went down a trip down memory lane for a post. to make a post and it was uh to look at the amount of calories that i put on myself that i put on during lockdown when i was really wanting to lose weight or tone up or just start feel more confident i got to a point where i was like 1200 calories and like that's as a male yeah and i just look at that now and i just think i struggled to remember what it is that was going through my mind when i was setting that up but it couldn't have been healthy You speak about, you know, respecting yourself.

And I suppose a big aspect of that is not giving up on yourself. Like you said, five years from now, you'll be glad you didn't give up. Do you think that's an issue that people have is that they start something, they try something that gets hard, they quit, and then it makes it easy for them to quit the next time. And then they're losing trust with themselves because they keep breaking promises to themselves. Yeah, never ending cycle. Yeah. When we just gets progressively harder.

Yeah. because now when you start your seventh journey after having quit six times you're not just starting fresh you're now the person who's quit seven times and that's so much harder to try and battle through than if you were to stick with it the first what uh what advice was let's say you there's someone listening to this who you know is on a little bit of a of a fat loss journey or just a just a health and fitness journey in general they want to you know start respecting their body they want to tone up they want to do what they say they're going to do they want to nourish them their body they want to focus on movement, but time and time again, they've quit on themselves and they don't know

if they can do it. There's, if someone's stopped and started for so long, there's a lot of anxious energy around their sixth or seven times starting again. And they have such little self-belief that they're almost looking for themselves to fail because it's the only thing that they know. And as soon as they do have a setback or they drop off, then the instant response is, I knew it, it's happened again. And that's just how our brains are wired.

We're designed to look for the danger around us. And the biggest danger when starting out of fitness journey is that we're going to drop off. It's the bigger fear. So if you want some practical advice for people listening is, why don't you, if you have failed five or six times, why don't you start your seventh journey, not being afraid of failing, but why don't you go and look for it? Why don't you go and look for it? Make it happen as quick as you can. And that's the thing that I actually say with the people who join on my program is if they are scared of that kind of thing, the first thing that we do for the first six weeks is, dude, you need to fail. I don't care. You need to go and fail. You need to drop off. You need to have a weekend where you drop off or you binge. And then the first thing I want you to do is just send me a message. And then the goal is for you to be able to build this muscle of being able to get back on track as quick as you can after you have fallen off. And when you get back on track so many times, falling. off becomes less overwhelming because you can actually prove prove to yourself you've built enough

evidence to know that you can get back on straight away. And eventually you realize that it's like it's not even being off track because it's part of the process. Like part of the process is you, you know, having that meal out or having, you know, missing that session because you're tired. But it doesn't define. I suppose this is when people get caught in the all or nothing mindset or just perfectionist mindset. That's what really, really trips. them up from being consistent over a long period of time. 100%. 100%.

I think everyone knows that it's part of the process, but they know that while still knowing that, or while still believing, that they won't be able to overcome that part of the process. And that's what they're scared of. I think that's why having a community or having someone like to keep you accountable is really, really vital for that kind of stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. I think both the coach, but also the community. because then you get to learn from other people who are in their shoes and you see so you know when when my group chat some of the people who've been in it for a longer time i try and get them to just talk to people who are just starting out as opposed to me directly talking to them sometimes because it just hits five times harder yeah yeah makes sense and it also they're also um uh reinforcing what they've learned throughout the the years with you because it's like okay they get to actually be the teacher now which is like that means they're reinforcing what they they learned i do that with my uh with my

classes as well like let's say i have someone who's been training with me the last year they know how to do a hinge they know how to do a squad they know how to work the hip abduction machine or whatever it is and like and i say oh go and go and show uh thingy who's he's only here this is their first day go and show them what to do and and they'll teach them the movement and like that reinforces their belief and their confidence in and what they're doing in the gym 100% yeah yeah 100% yeah and I was I was the king of self-destruction I spent all my young adulthood trying to get everyone to like me and completely neglected myself and my body in the process can you explain that and maybe talk a little bit about your experiences because I think a lot of people would resonate

with that sure I don't think people give up too easy so based on the last question that you ask me is how can people stop giving up so easy I don't think people give up too easy I think the people who give up on their fitness journey are people who are very hard working that have been work in a job for decades that sometimes have a family a full-time family that like they there are so many areas of their life that they do not give up and they refuse to give up so it's not giving up that's the problem is giving up on themselves that's the problem and for me it was so hard for me to make that differentiation but I was actually I had potent fuel when it came to trying to be there for other people when it came to trying to try

to prove to other people that I was a nice guy when it came to trying to prove to other people that I should or that I was confident but as soon as it became just me on my own behind closed doors that same fuel wasn't there so it got me to a point where the way that I handled my insecurities was to try and get other people to like me because I didn't know how to do it on my own it was quite hard it's quite hard like if you to just love you like the whole just love yourself thing is just I find it so fucking, fucking cringe. Like, what are you going to, what does that even fucking mean? Just love yourself, just, just accept yourself.

It's like, how, how? How? That's like, okay, great. Okay, anxiety, you've got anxiety. Just don't worry about it, me. Yeah, depression, just be happier. Yeah, smile more. Yeah, fucking, yeah. And, um, I think for me,

it was a very, very long journey of me trying to prove to other people that I was a nice guy that I was confident because I couldn't do it on my own. But then that went down quite a dark place where I turned to alcohol, I turned to drugs for no other reason, but just to try and be the guy who was super confident and happy and always out and always smiling. I then started to have this really deep hit dude of just like just not feeling. good, just emptiness and just low self-confidence and I could just feel it. Whenever I still remember when I was in uni, I would, so I was a social sec and president

of some societies and the whole reason for me doing all of that and just was just purely because I wanted to get some validation. So I was the social sec and the president. I had a lot of people, you know, talking about me. I was a, well, they call it a big name on campus. But underlying that and the thing that was fueled by that was just complete instant. security. And I still remember there were times where I sat in my car and that was the only times where I felt like I could actually breathe and I just felt like just wanting to break down in tears

and cry because I was so drained from putting on this mask of trying to be happy for everyone else, trying to get them to like me to a point where this feeling of emptiness and I don't know what it was. I can't really put my, it was just sadness and emptiness and it just started to keep on growing and growing and growing. And what happened then, was I didn't know how to actually deal with that feeling soul. If I don't have alcohol to turn to anymore because I use that for a sense of validation. If I don't have drugs to turn to because I use that as a sense of validation,

where the fuck am I going to start feeling good again? And I turn to food. So then I would have dominoes every weekend just to try and make myself feel better. I'd get high so that the dominoes tasted better so that I could feel better. But I was so scared of gaining weight, man. I was so scared of gaining fat that

I had to come up with some way for me to be able to deal with it. So I would just starve myself. There were times where I'd go on like a 50-hour, 72-hour fast for the sake of quote-unquote help. And then that was when it started going down a really slippery slope. So when you were asking me, king of self-sabotage, the reason that I was the king of self-sabotage, because I didn't really give a shit as to how it is that I looked after myself.

I just gave complete shit as to how other people view it. me. There's like a bar of how much energy went towards getting other people to like me and how much energy towards actually getting me to like me. Zero to 100. And that caused me to get into a position where I started to binge eat. I lost complete control of my food. And I got to a point where during uni, I was so scared of gaining weight because I knew that when I would gain weight, I wouldn't get as much validation as I was getting them for being skinny. So then I started to try and take other measures. So I started throwing up the food that I was eating.

At that point, mate, when you're a guy in that space dealing with some like those kind of disordered eating patterns, it's very lonely. You don't know, you don't know, there's no help. There is no help. Like where, like at that stage. This was five years ago. Yeah, like I wouldn't imagine men are going to be very,

like even if you're going through that and then there's other men out there who have experienced them and come out. other side of it, I wouldn't imagine they're very vocal about it online compared to women. Definitely, definitely. And I think the reason that I've given myself permission to be more vocal about it is because I don't see that as a weakness or a default anymore. If I still did, it would be very hard for me to talk about this stuff. And yeah, I actually see it as one of my greatest strengths because it's the very thing that

got me to make relentless change yeah yeah would you so would you say that would be like people pleasing tendencies yeah I had in my bio two years ago I was trying to figure out who I wanted to work with and for like six months in my bio was like I help people pleases yeah yeah because it's the only thing that I could put it down to is people pleasing tendencies was the the core root of everything yeah yeah because that makes that that does make perfect sense and it's a reason why people probably struggle so much with their health and fitness goals is because again they're trying to please everyone else and they're saying yes to everyone else because you know they might be terrified then if they say no that they won't

be accepted yeah yeah one of the things that I actively had to do in my own fitness journey and I create it as a model in my own coaching now which is when you reach a certain level in your fitness journey the next thing has got fuckle to do with food it's got fuck all to do with the gym i actually want you to go and piss off a few people now is what i say i want you to go and say no to some of the people that you've been wanting to say no to for so long and i want to see how it is that you can handle that situation yeah because like that like that like if you're going to step up your whatever goal that is like the the further you get along and that goal the more sacrifice that needs to be made and if you find a hard to say no to to to

every single thing that comes your way. It's like, how are you going to have the time to focus on you and focus on your priorities? Difficult thing to do. Yeah. And once you've gone through that stubborn phase of telling yourself, oh, I can do it all, I can do it all. And once you get humbled enough times to know that maybe it's not about you doing it all,

maybe it's about you being able to be brave enough to pick and choose what's right for you. Yeah. And go of the rest. And that creates so much space, man. Yeah. It's crazy. And you know what? Like, I would imagine that's something that you still deal with, probably just on a lesser scale.

Because I know myself, like, I even find myself being like, oh, I've overbooked myself this month. I shouldn't have said. Like, like, I always have this conversation with a friend. It's like, I'm at a party that I wasn't, I don't want to beat her. I have to commit to some sort of an event that, like, I really just want to have the Saturday to myself. I'm like, fucking past Carl. He's at their fucking future, Carl, up because it's like, You know, if I said no, if I, like, you know, when someone asks you to do something and maybe it's like two months away, it's very easy to be like, yeah, yeah, sure, I'll do that.

Or yeah, I'll be there. Because you're not thinking about, you know, future you two months later. Whereas like, it's, it is actually very, very hard. And it takes discipline to be able to be like, you know what? This is my schedule. And if I say yes to all these things, I'm saying no to the other things that are really important to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I get that. I think it's when I'm I don't I don't say yes to anything anymore dude.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've gone you've gone the opposite way now. You've mastered it too. You've mastered the heart. I mean like I don't say yes to anything ahead of time just because it has been too many times where I've gotten to the position where it it comes to the thing and I don't want to fucking do the thing. But I'm going to do the thing. Yeah. that now if I'm doing anything, it's on the whim. So even this podcast. Like this podcast exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Fully. Which I loved. Yeah. Yeah. And I even find out when I'm booking podcasts, like I've booked a guest in like a month in advance and now I want to go and do, I want to go and train. I'm like,

oh shit, I can't have this fucking podcast. I won. Not that I love doing the podcast. Like it's one of my favorite things. It's one of the things that I'll say no to other things to do this. But even then, it's like when you,

sometimes you book things in advance where it's, nice to like just be like I'm just going to see what the day holds and do me. Yeah. Yeah. I just think structure and product, like structure can give you, can give you,

can give your confidence to move forward until you start planning and structuring too much to a point where it just makes you feel stuck. And like we as human beings were never meant to know how the fuck, what the fuck was going to happen next week. We're meant to know what the fuck's going to happen today right now. Am I going to be,

by bear or am I okay that's literally it and like when we have this whole plan of action in the next three months it's like yeah I don't I it feels like I'm going against the human the human desire I just wanted to be here it's it seems like it's like a lost art of living because everyone now wants to know what your five year plan is and then they want to break that up and they want to reverse engineer that and this is what I'm going to be in a year's time and this is what I have to do every single day in order to get that and I understand where the I understand that that does make sense like like the compounding effect of like small habits done regularly as well but also like you said it's like you know just decide and uh this is what i'm going to do today because i feel

like the owner is also probably something that a lot of us could probably benefit from yeah yeah 100% and uh you also spoke about like i think i think it's important when when when you touched on there's like you and you and i both know and some people known some people don't know that like it's you know it's not as as simple and straightforward as a calorie deficit because there you are trying to use dominoes and smoking weed to enhance this feeling that you know you're you're missing something in your life so you're using that as a coping mechanism so and and then you're you're you're ending up starving yourself off the back of that so you can because you're terrified of of gaining body fat and and I think that

that's a really good representation of how like yeah you can focus on calories and calories matter but like if it's not a mathematical problem and it's a psychological problem it's an emotional problem like someone giving you a calorie goal is never going to fix that yeah yeah it actually just takes you further away from the problem because you keep get you keep getting given a calorie goal to deal with or to fix something that isn't going to be fixed by a calorie goal and then every time that you try because you are actively now investing energy and time into trying. And when you quote unquote fail,

you then feel worse about yourself, worse about your fitness journey, you feel more deflated. And then that just guess what causes you to eat more. A vicious cycle. And you also said very rarely do I go for a low calorie option to what I'm actually craving now. It didn't work then and it won't work now.

Instead, I tried to find a way to make it fit within my calories. What's your opinion on low? calorie options. I think you've got to start it and do it. You've got to try it at the start. It's like we as humans like if we if we want to get something the goal we want the path of least resistance, right? So we're trying to straight away. We're trying to find the thing that tastes as good as the real thing with no calories so that we can eat a lot of it. Right. And that's that's basically what goes on in our head when we're trying to start losing weight. is like, okay, how can I lose weight,

but how can I still eat the way that I'm eating, enjoy my food the way that I'm enjoying it, as much as I can. And so, oh, mate, do you know that skinny food, skinny food syrups? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the ones that you can order that on, like, my protein and stuff like that, I'm not beating on brands on this, but like, like, I had a fat bag of those things, mate, and they rinse me of my money because I spent like hundreds of pounds on that

thinking this is going to be the real. deal and I hated every single bit of it but I thought that I somehow tricked myself into believing that that's what I needed to do so every time so I'm a then if you have a look on my page I talk about a lot which is I love sweet chili I'm addicted to sweet chili when I was nine years old I used to be picky eater when I was a kid but my mom took me to a Thai restaurant when I was nine and I now put that shit on everything but I started to try and find a low calorie alternative to that and I just started to immediately hate my fitness journey very quickly because then fitness now became a place where I just started to hate food again, didn't know what to eat, felt so confused.

And then that's when I started to cheat on my diet because it just felt so hard. That's why everyone feels like they're cheating is because this thing that you're trying to do is so fucking hard, but you have now put the pressure on yourself to still do it. Okay, this is hard, but I'm still asking myself to do it. And if I don't do it, I'm a fucking failure. that's why people cheat is because they actually feel guilty for not being able to stick to this ridiculously rigid approach that they put themselves on and that was what i did too continuously falling off track running away from the fact that i'd failed from this crazy crazy restrictive diet that i put myself onto at one point everyone is going to have to start asking themselves is it themselves or is it the fucking diet yeah and no one does no no no one's no no no one's said that diet failed me they say I failed that diet I fit yeah yeah yeah I'm I completely agree as well because it's like I to be to be honest personally

and I know like low calorie alternatives can have their place I've just never well I've not never I've I've gone through my phase of kind of being hyper obsessed with how I look and I'm trying to be as lean as possible but I've I just never I I always think like the best way to get rid of your cravings is to give into them in a sense that it's like you know what I mean I want chocolate so I'm just going to have some fucking chocolate or I want crisps I'm just going to have some crisps and try to to do that in moderation um versus going for the low calorie shit option that no I've had the low calorie thing and also I still want the real thing as well because it never

actually satisfied me because it's not physical hunger that I'm craving it's like emotional hunger and there's a difference right yeah yeah I agree I created a real like three years ago and I'm still pissed off to this day that it didn't go viral because I thought it was the best rule that I've ever made. That's always the case. And it was, I just had a thought in my head which is how the hell do we tackle cravings by fucking giving into it as soon as it comes up. And I suddenly got this image of, you know that game in the arcade game where you have

like this fucking mole that pops out of this hole? Yeah, whack a mole. Wack a mole. Wack a mole. And then you have to whack it every single time it pops up. I came up with this real where it was like, okay, your cravings, the mole popping up everywhere.

And then, like, each hole was like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And then it's just fucking spamming it, every single one. I like that. I like that. And yeah, that's literally it. If you can do that, then you can... It's one of the biggest steps to feeling like you're in control of food, I think. But I suppose people will be listening to this podcast

if they haven't gone through, like, let's say, the work or whatever you want to call it and they'll be listening to you and me and they'll be saying oh but but jack if i give into my cravings then i'm gonna you know i'm i'll just let loose and i'll go crazy and i won't be able to stop eating and you know i'll never be able to get the result that i want i suppose that's what's probably going through people's heads now as we speak the longer you leave the craving the harder it is to control so the responsibility to someone just starting out is to get really fucking good at knowing when that craving is about to come up because then it's easier for you to control. And when you have proved to yourself that you can control your food intake by being

able to listen to your craving like that as soon as, then you'll build confidence to be able to know, hey, okay, maybe I do have control over my food. And then you can actually start creating a bit more space with the craving. Allow that craving to maybe sit there for a little bit longer, knowing that when you do attack that craving, it's still going to be in a controlled way. Yeah. I suppose giving yourself permission to have that craving because if we're going to put that food on a pedestal and say you can't have that and yet your physiological response is that you want it and then you eat it and now you have this guilt and shame around something that you shouldn't have guilt and shame around well then you're just in a in the cycle now of of restricting overeating guilt shame repeat. 100%. Yeah. I don't think it's in the because it makes sense. And I think the reason why people are so reluctant to let go of the fact that these foods are bad, quote unquote bad, is because people know that these foods have higher calories in them. And they know that if they were to indulge in that, it's going to be worse off for their body turning goals than if they were to indulge in like a salad.

So I don't think it's actually, I don't think it's the food that's like the goal is for everyone to be able to eat as healthy and as unproach. as possible, right? Because at the end of the day, all of these new processed foods are the things that are actually going to cause us more struggles later down the line. What is it, 80% of illnesses come from the, from the gut, and you've got microbiome. So people are aware of that, and they want to be able to have healthy unprocessed foods as much as they can. So I don't think that's the unhealthy thing. It's like when people have like a fucking salad, or, you know, if they take a photo, if you see an influencer putting a photo or a video of what what they eat in a day or what they have what they're having right there a lot of people will be quick to say that that's disorder eating because

they're trying to be too healthy they're trying to do this yeah flips that they over correct oh yeah yeah and what if they're just wanting to eat that food because they want to fuel their body and they want to be healthy yeah is that disorder no like i i put i put i go to the salad bar every week and it's absolutely delicious and i take a picture of it every week and i'm like like this this is what I want like this is what I'm craving yeah yeah yeah yeah like you know am I one of that like but then also I'll put up a a picture of the big dirty fry that I had maybe on the on the Sunday or the Monday as well and it's like but I want bow yeah you know and I think that that that

that ties in really well with the video you did which was really great about the McDonald's and the salad yeah it's not what you eat it's the connotations behind what you eat that counts Yeah. The way that you're speaking to yourself behind what you eat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Your perception around the food matters more than the food itself. 100%. Yeah. Talking a little bit more about kind of body dissatisfaction and disorderly and in males as well. I was just pulling up some research for this podcast as well. So up to 95% of American males are dissatisfied with their appearance, often from as young as age six. can you relate to that? Yeah.

Yeah. I think it's, I think people would be very shocked to, to know or to be aware of how many young male adults are actually, uh, struggling with body image or struggling with, how they look and picking themselves apart. And obviously, you know, you've muscled this morphie on the rise and everything else.

It's like, um, like it's, it's as close to women if not surpassing women. I think it's because the pressures now lie on both parties to be able to look a certain way in order to be able to be accepted into society. And I also think it's because there's less of a dependency on men to have to be big and strong enough to go and fucking fight off bears and collect the firewood and do all of these things now in today's society that there's a new expectation on males.

And where do you place that expectation? How can men prove to themselves that they're, the strongest and best version of themselves, then okay, well, let's start with the body. It's the easiest thing that we can see. Or, okay, how much money you've got. And with the rise of social media as well, mate, when you have a look at every single influencer, when you have a look at everyone, and just the way that they portray their bodies and, I mean, I've just come back from Bali, mate.

Half the people there only show one side of the coin. Yeah. I'm very honest with you. Like, even when I look around, some of the people that are, showing some parts of their life. And I'm like, okay, but we just, we literally went to the dessert bar yesterday last night. Why was that not going on there? What are you trying to prove?

What are you trying to say that you're not, that, yeah. But then that's also, that puts that extra pressure on, I suppose, men to, to keep trying to work hard on their, on their body because of it. Because that's where they feel like they should place their energy in order to feel stronger. What, what do we do about it, So in terms of like, I mean, what is it? Like up to 60% of boys in the US manipulate dietary practices to increase muscularity.

So there is this pressure. They obviously, they look on social media and they have this like 0.0001% of the population who are not only like genetically gifted, but also, you know, can train seven days a week. It's their job to look a certain way. They're probably enhanced. They're probably using folks,

professional photographers to make them look as as big as possible and then that is the first thing that you see if you go online and you're looking at that and like that's the standard that's what I have to look like and you know there's this warped reality of what the male body should look like like did you see that there was this trade it was a couple of months ago there was this trend going around and it was like a man it was a man and he and he took off his kit and he goes this is my physique after like 10 years training and he does a front side back and like he's in good nick he's in like pretty decent nick like uh but like he's not you know that 0.001% of the gym shack model like he's just a he's just a normal lad in in good nick like and then the comments

are like teenage boys being like oh you you really should be doing this or this to be able get in shape and all. Are you sure you've been training for the last 10 years? You're really not that big and stuff like that. So do you have like this warped reality of what someone should look like after 10 years of resistance training? And I presume like them same kids who are criticising that person's body are probably equally criticizing their own body because that's what we do, isn't it?

Like it's like we're usually just mirroring our own reality of life. What you actually feel about yourself. Exactly. Yeah. so like I'm thinking to myself like if these kids think that that person's not in good shape when like if you looked at like a seven uh the 1970s action figure and they would look exactly like that and now it's it's completely different and everyone's just bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger um it's I don't know how you can you know combat that I've been thinking about

this for a for a little while and I've been asking myself If I was at my darkest of time with the way that I viewed my body, which is about five, six years ago, and if I was as exposed to some of the stuff that is, that people are being exposed to today, what the fuck would I do? And with the amount of pain that I had then, dude, I wouldn't put it past me to get on a cycle.

I wouldn't put it past me to try and find any kind of relief from the actual pain that I had of not being able to be happy within my body. So it makes sense. It makes sense why there's such a high demand for everyone going. Like, there's like, what's his, he's a YouTuber, but he went around, um, Will Tenney, I think it was Will Tennyson. He went around US gyms and he started asking like teenagers,

18, 19 year olds, whether or not they're starting trend. It was like a fucking crazy, crazy, crazy amount of them. It was like 50%. Yeah. And you're still undeveloped in your brain at that point. So it's like you don't really know what you are doing. and having a society where you are so easily able to get these things on hand, I just think is, yeah, to be honest, mate, I'm still figuring that one out.

The only thing that I could actually say is if you want the goal of, because I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting the goal of wanting to look better and feel better about the way that you look. But I think there's everything wrong with wanting to look better, feel better about the way that you look without realizing or giving yourself, the understanding of how long it's going to fucking take. Yeah. And if you want the goal, then be real with yourself as to what is required of that goal.

And I suppose like, you know, it's like we even just spoke about there in regards to the field around. It's the perception of the field rather than the field itself. I suppose it's the exact same thing with getting in shape. It's like you can be in great shape or feel absolutely terrible about yourself mentally. And you can be in great shape, probably the same shape and feel like. absolutely amazing because of your perception around the thing that you're pursuing. And I think it's like we spoke about at the start, like self-hatred is a potent fuel that can really get you

started. But if that consumes you and you never learn to give yourself any grace, I suppose, you know, that's when, you know, the mental health issues can probably become severe. It was when I looked my leanest that I felt my worst. Yeah. And I think it was at that point where I knew that confidence was actually as much of an inside battle as it is as an outside one. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to look better to get a bit of acceptance and validation from society. Because if that's where society's at, you've got to play the game. You've got to challenge society, but then you've got to find a way to fit into it as well at the same time. Yeah.

But just being able to create room for yourself to try and find a way to not beat yourself up so much about the way that you look is probably a good place to start in that process. Looking back at your own journey, what do you wish your younger self had have understood sooner? The way that you show up in everyday life

is just as important as the way that you show up in your fitness journey. I was completely oblivious to how I was trying to gain validation from people, how, how negative I was actually being around myself. And then also other people, I was so critical around other people. I was judgmental. And the reasons for that is because you're actually, again, you're just projecting. You're judgmental on yourself. You wouldn't accept this of yourself.

So why the fuck would you accept that of someone else? And all of these things I was when I was in union. me. I had a lot of lucky, you know, you have fights with your friends and you fucking block them and then you unblock them and then you, all of these things. And what I didn't realize is that was actually playing a part in my fitness journey too. Because who you are in your fitness journey or who you are in the outside world is who you are in your fitness. There's no, there's no difference. Your personality is what creates a personal reality. And that's in your job. That's in your relationships. And that is most importantly in your fitness. So it's not what

you do that's important it's how the fuck you show up when you're doing it yeah I suppose that it's it's a fully one because people walk in the door to you and ask you for help and they think they're asking for help in regards to

weight loss and what they quickly figure out true your coaching is probably that oh actually you have a lot of deep underlying issues that you need to fucking deal with it I didn't sound up for that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because if you fucking deal with them, then everything else will start to, there will be a ripple effect in every other area of your life, like your fitness journey, like your maybe your career, like your relationships,

everything else improves because you've done the work in terms of what you need to do, whether that's, you know, deal with your people, please and tendencies, whether that's, you know, rejecting the need

for constant validation from the outside world, whether that's, you know, whatever it is. It's like, oh, you have to, you have to work. You have to work on them things. And then maybe we can talk about a calorie deficit. Yeah. This is why I fucking love my job, actually, is because I tell people about weight loss and body toning.

Because that's what I do. That's the end goal. The end goal is weight loss and toning up. Creating a more aesthetic figure. But the process is completely different. And so it is fucking overwhelming when you want to lose weight and you want to feel confident in your body to now have to start looking at all of these other things. It's like, where the hell do I start? And that's why I love what I do because it's just more meaningful than just sticking to a structured calorie deficit to a point where I would already, if I was doing that, I would already fucking know that this guy isn't going to make it or this girl isn't going to make it.

Because there's something underlying, that's the problem. And no matter how many times you try, no matter how many times you try, no matter how much. how hard you try, no matter how many coaches you go through, no matter how many processes you go through, if you keep trying to overstep the fact that you need to learn how to get more control in other areas of your life first, you're forever going to feel stuck. So what I love about what I do is to be able to give someone the platform or the freedom to go, look, it's fucking hard, but it's okay because we're going to do this together. And that's also why you asked me the first thing is, me being able to do that journey on my

own has given me so much more confidence in myself and my body and my ability to be able to navigate through life it's because I just take from lived experiences and if I have full trust in me being able to do it myself then I already have more trust than being able to do it for someone else yeah 100% um what else is life what what has life taught you about what really matters and what doesn't matter what really matters is listening to yourself what doesn't matter is is listening to others. Difficult thing to do. Very difficult thing to do.

I've only really gotten a grasp of that really in the last year, year and a half. And even that, everything that I'm, everything that we're speaking about today, mate, like everything that we're speaking about on this call for people, for your viewers and for everyone, like I still struggle with a lot of those things today. And it's not like I don't struggle with them. I just have more proof and more evidence to know that I can deal with it stronger and better. And I think the greatest sense of relief that I've had has been,

or at least recently, has been in the last six months to six to eight months where I've just started to give less of a shit as to what it is that people think about me. And I think the only way that I've done that is social media has been a great help because I now show up as who it is that I am completely on social media. And my thing is, if I'm doing that, then how can I not do that in everyday life? Like everyone will know who I am now on social media. They already have preconceived. I don't need to hide something right now, right?

They know. Everyone knows. They know my problems. They know my struggles. They know my battles. So that just gives me full freedom to just be myself. Yeah. It's liberating to be completely honest and be yourself.

And you don't have to, it's not half as much work as trying to be someone else. Yeah. That's a full-time job, man. Yeah. I was really struggling to do anything in terms of fitness, business, when I was trying so hard to be this perfect image of myself. And so I think with regards to your question, that's the best thing that I've been able to do for myself is that.

It's scary because you don't want to be yourself because you're scared of being rejected for that self. But the only way that you can actually overcome that is to first be yourself and see whether or not you're going to be rejected in the first place. And you then have to go out in the outside world and actually show everyone your deepest and darkest of insecurities to see whether or not they're going to reject you for it. It's the only way.

I remember I was talking to, I think it was Rachel Henley on the podcast as well. And, you know, one thing she spoke about, which it reminded me of you speaking there was like, when you're showing up as yourself on social media, yeah, it's a lot easier. first of all because you don't have to pretend to be someone else but then also when they when them people who follow you end up going into your coaching um it's like they don't get any surprises because you're exactly who you are in your coaching as you are in your content so it's like the transition

is very smooth and it also means that the right people that the right people for you are in your coaching process now because you're the person that they expect to me from following your account Sure, sure. And here's a really, really good one from, I suppose, from us coaches. When you're not too confident in your business, as in when you don't have as many clients, you feel scared of being yourself because you feel like it's not what people want. So then you will fall back into the trap and the habit of trying to show that you can get quick results. And you will show your three or four favorite transformations that have taken six, 12,

six, eight, 12 weeks, and you will keep cycling them again and again and again until you feel confident in your business. Every single person that I have brought on to my own coaching has this unrealistic belief that you should be reaching all of your goals in 12 weeks. And that's because they keep listening to these insecure coaches that don't actually have confidence in their business, keep trying to publicly advertise that results can be and should be achieved in this amount of time just so that they can get people in. I just think when I have a look at people online and if I have a look and if I see people

trying to guarantee results in a quicker time frame, it makes me instantaneously believe that they're not confident in the way that they coach. Because they're not that true. Well, no one will believe that. They're not believing that because they know themselves. The coaches themselves haven't taken 12 weeks to reach these goals. So why advertise that? you've been trying in your whole life

to look the way that you look right right and now you believe that you can now send it in a package deal for 12 weeks so I think a good one for people to watch out for is if you see quick easy 12 week programs or if it's advertised that way don't get excited

feel sorry for the damn coach who's publicly announcing that yeah if something sounds too good to be true it's probably because of this yeah what decision have you made that has changed the course of your life, do you think? I have a very obsessive personality.

Everything that I do is very obsessive. Even to this day, I was obsessed with sports when I was a kid that led to injuries. I was obsessed with food. I was obsessed with people-pleasing. I was obsessed with alcohol. But there's one thing that I've been obsessed with

that has absolutely completely changed the way that I view myself and my life in a positive. And that's people take the piss out of morning routines and going monk mode and trying to look after yours, like all of these things. But they take the piss out of it because it's either because they feel like it's too much and too overwhelming for them to do in their current life,

which is absolutely fair. If you're a mum of like three kids, and if you don't have that much time, you're not going to be listening to these guys who say, just shut everything off and just focus on yourself for the next eight to 12 weeks. It's not realistic. But that doesn't mean that you should try and bring in more and more of these habits into your current routine and your current life.

I think the best thing that I became obsessed with was myself and my own personal growth. And I did the meditation every single day, every morning. I did the books and I did the reading and I did the podcasts and because it completely rewired the way that I viewed myself in my life. So just because everyone's talking about it in such an obsessive all or nothing way on social media doesn't mean that you shouldn't take bits from it. if you can't do six hours a day, then do 60 minutes. Or do if you can't do 60 minutes, then do 30. Because it's the thing that your body needs. Yeah, I completely agree.

I think it is like everything. It's like we'll have some sort of great advice and then people will take it to the extremes and portray it on social media. And then that's unrealistic. And then that gets pushed back. And then the pushback is like, I don't mind this.

This is irrelevant, but actually parts of our are relevant, are relevant. Um, you know, whether that is like you're like your morning routine, it doesn't have to be doing 100 different things. It could be, I'm just going to go out for a walk by myself before I answer emails or, you know, uh, get the kids ready for school or whatever it is because that's not just, it's not just a morning routine. It's also, uh, I'm taking time from myself as well before I start today.

So I'm making myself the priority. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I think sometimes. you have to prove to yourself that you're as important through your daily actions before believing it. And that's an amazing way is to wake up

and actually make yourself the first priority in some way. Last question I'll have for you and I think it's an important one as well. Who do you think is being influential in your life? Oh, I've had very, I've had many influential people, both good and bad. It can be either. The most influential person in my life.

Jeez, okay. Okay, I'll give you one. The reason that I do all of my acting skits on social media is because I wanted to be an actor when I was a kid. Really? And I didn't really have a dad growing up. So I needed to find a role model somewhere and I found it through TV and found it through an actor. And regardless of what people say about him now, because there's some stuff that's come out in the press. Oh, go on.

Go on. Go on guess. Who do you think it is? he was uh what's his name again i know it came straight he was also in that really famous uh uh politics a drama i uh in the u s was it no i think you know this guy he's very he's very great um andrew tech no i'm just kidding um will smith oh okay yeah yeah yeah yeah and everything that i do on my acting is just the representation of of him and i just think the way that he showed up in just his acting, the way that he showed up in his films and just everything, to

be honest, because even in his films, he would cry. Even in his films, he'd get emotional. Will Smith was phenomenal. He's lost it now. He's lost his mind over a relationship like most of us still, but like he, he was phenomenal and like one of the most successful, you know, people there was. Like, he was absolutely killing it. Yeah. He was my epitome of an idol when I was growing up. I would just try and reverse engineer who he was to who it is that I would do. The fresh prince of Bel Air, there's that famous scene about his dad coming in and his dad leaves. And Will's like to his uncle,

he's like, why doesn't he want me? Why doesn't he love me? I don't need him. I don't need him. And then he cries into his uncle's arms. And I'm like, oh,

like that was that like, because it's supposed to be a comedy drama or a comedy program. And then like you have a scene like that. And you're like phenomenal work. Honestly. Honestly. I can't even begin to think the amount of times I've cried watching that scene. It's brilliant.

It's so good, man. It's so good. But I would say him. But I'd say him because, and just the way that he shows everything of what it means to be a man, which is the vulnerable side too. He's got the expectations of what I feel like a man should have, but he's also got the other side too.

Why did you end up not pursuing acting and went this through? It was one of two, man. I really wanted to be an actor. And even when I was starting my business, I was like, there's going to be a time where I want to pack this in and just be an actor. It was always something that I wanted to do. But now that I look into it, I'm really happy doing what I'm doing now,

doing the acting skits now. and well it's funny isn't it the way sometimes like the thing that you want always ends up falling into places as well in ways that you didn't imagine it would yeah and it just came from me looking at acting skits

and like you said I had a look at some people doing acting skits and I was like my god I can do that somewhat of better yeah yeah some of them are honestly terrible but I will have to say that yours are phenomenal and it like it does it just you feel like you're actually watching something do you know I mean I really love it Zach, where can people go if they want to follow the work that you do or reach out for

coaching or ask any questions? Zach underscore Kieran on my Instagram. You should just, if you're finding it hard to find, find the Instagram handle, just look at the twat with, who was talking to himself across the whole screen. There will be hints. There will be two of them usually. There are two of them. And essentially that, the content is literally just me and then my younger self.

Yeah. So me who I am now and then my younger self. And I'm just taking the piss out of my younger self. And it makes it easier digestible for people because it doesn't feel like it's being directed towards them. It's directed towards me who I used to be. So that and then Zach Kieran on YouTube, I will be releasing my first YouTube episode because I'm doing long-formed content now to next week. So I'll be doing that every week too.

All right. Well, listen, that has been Zach. I very much recommend you go and follow his work. he's brilliant than what he does and this has been the uneducated PT podcast with your host carlo rourke. Thank you for listening and as always if you enjoy these episodes share them subscribe follow on Spotify and we will see on the next one.