what does it mean to live life to the fullest train to your potential and perform at your best, leave nothing on the table. That's a non negotiable is that I strive to be better every day because if I'm not on top of my game, how is anybody else gonna follow me down the road? Keep demanding more of yourself to live up to that potential and to stay hungry. Training is progress, you know, when I look at the word training, I think of steps, baby steps to get somewhere that you want to be, and that is basically your life journey. That's a mindset in itself, man, it's like, it's not just about, I know that for you, a lot of that's about the physical, but we're constantly in training, whether it's growing our skill sets, whether it's growing up physical bodies, whether it's growing our relationships, whatever and all of that is a training ground and that kind of goes back to the mindset that we just talked about, You underestimate yourself and you don't even start, but then once you start, you often surpass what you thought you could do, perform at your best mate. That's, that's sort of what life is all about. You don't have the knowledge and have the fitness, the healthy ambition and drive that no matter what comes along.

When that next phone call comes, I can just say yes, I don't have to worry, just go and do it. You know what is up guys, Welcome to this episode of the live transform podcast, I'm your host, Sean kobar joining me in this fourth installment of the coach's corner is john Latoc of Storm Force Fitness, Please note that this is an 80 minute conversation that we had prior to christmas, which I've dropped over the festive season in four parts. So if you haven't listened to the first three installments, please go back and listen to that to give you some context on what we're talking about in this episode because all of the episodes flow on from one to the other and there's things that we tie in together between every single one of those episodes, let's get this episode underway. That's one of the reasons you're not getting results because for six months a year you are literally treading water because you just, you completely sack off the plan. This goes back to what we're talking about earlier with the all or nothing mindset man, you know, most people like, oh well I can't do this and I can't do that, so everything's gone and it's like, no, like what can I fucking do to minimize the damage going back to what you said earlier when I went around Thailand right, like I wasn't training um I'm actually tore my hamstring playing rugby tournament, like the first weekend of that trip um you know, I was fucking driving around everywhere I was hiking, don't get me wrong, I took 100 and 10,000 steps over the course of a week, so that was recovery from my hamstring right, but I wasn't training man and I wasn't eating the way that I normally eat at home and I wasn't sleeping, I didn't have my sleep routine.

Um you know, I didn't have my structure, so that kind of threw everything out, but you know, I was still managing what I could, that didn't mean that I, I can't train today, so now I'm actually eat whatever the fuck I want. I was still managing things as I was going and, and I was in that mindset of, well, what can I do to manage this and minimize the damage? And that's the thing, that's going to be times where you're, I mean, fuck man, I'm in, I'm in a maintain stage or maintain phase for like 6 to 8 months of the year, Where I'm going, you know what, I enjoy training because training makes me feel good. Um but I still enjoy having a pizza on a Wednesday and a couple of beers on a Sunday and watch the rugby or whatever. So that's a maintain phase, right? I can give myself a little bit of leeway, I'm doing the right thing, 80% of the time then, you know, there's gonna be times where I've got a rugby tournament coming up where I'm like, all right, I'm gonna start tightening the screws, I'm gonna start dialing everything in now, I'm going to reduce, you know, my alcohol, I'm not gonna have pizza on a Wednesday night, my training is gonna be fucking dialed in.

I'm gonna be managing how many calories I'm eating and in what ratios and micronutrients and all that type of stuff. And I start tightening those screws, right? And I might only be in that face for like a month to three months of the year, right? My commitment levels at like an 89 or 10. So then, you know, my my um my screws are tightened, my nutrition on point, my sleeps on point in my, you know, everything is on point. But then it's gonna be other times where, you know, I'll go back to Australia for a month and I'll have ANZAC day with the boys knowing that I'm gonna be drinking beers and knowing I'm probably gonna be going out for burgers and um shit like that. So then it's like, all right, I'm going to minimize the damage. You know, I can be a little bit looser with things, but it's not fucking all or nothing like what can I do now? That's going to minimize that damage. I think that's an important point for a lot of people and you know, tying back into what you just said, man is like, you need to plan ahead if you know that december is going to be it's festive season every fucking year doesn't change right?

You know what, what december is going to bring. So plan ahead, man. Like if you know that you've got something coming up. You know, you've been dieting for six months, you go all right, cool, I'm going to lead into that, you know, going into christmas, New Years, I'm going to reverse diet for like 6 to 8 weeks so that you know when I do eat fucking 3.5 1,004,000 calories on christmas day, you know, it's not a massive excess and my body is going to be able to adapt to it, I'm not fucking blooming out, so prepare ahead man, like, are you gonna be eating tomorrow? Yes, everyone fucking knows that eating tomorrow, you know, it's not a surprise when you need to fucking eat plan ahead, it's not that hard. Yeah, what gets me is like when people say, oh yeah, I want to enjoy christmas, I'm like, you don't fucking enjoy christmas because you feel guilty about it, you're worrying about it, You get it's people like you and I that do enjoy christmas because we don't give a shit like, you know, even, you know, we want to watch the footy match, we have a few beers were not, we don't even think about it, we had a few beers, we got up the next day, we're training again, it's done, we're not getting up and going beyond the fact that it, you know, so to me it's a bit of a bit of a misdirection that people think is this, this is the idea of discipline is freedom, you know, it's like that little bit of discipline all of the time gives you the freedom to, you know, have a night out and not worry about it.

And that's why to be honest, I don't like things. I don't know if you guys do in Australia, we have things like stock Tober where you don't drink for the whole of october. I don't really understand what that does like if you, because a lot of people are almost counting down the days to november the first when they go out and get tweeted again. So what do you think? Like, it's the same with food? Like you can't just diet for a month and kind of bank the results. This is, it's not like money where I can put money in the bank and it will hopefully still be there when I go back. It doesn't work like that with muscle building and fat loss. It's like as soon as you stop doing what you were doing, those results start to disappear and unfortunately they disappear faster than they came on. So yeah, I don't think there's, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with setting New Year's resolutions or um, you know, I don't do them myself because I don't need a fucking New Year to set myself some goals and to reflect on where I'm at right now.

The decisions that I've made to put me in the position that I'm in to then go all right, Well, this is where I am, that's where I want to be. How do I close that gap? Like, I don't need a fucking new year for that. I don't need, you know, I don't need a monday for that. You know, the next decision you make is the most important one. So uh the problem is that things like New Year, it's often what we forget is our bodies have evolved over thousands and thousands of thousands of years. Our brain as well, how the brain reacts, that sort of thing. That hormones don't understand that it's new Year. They don't understand that it's your birthday. They don't understand it's science is science, Certain things work and certain things don't and you know, the stresses that you or I have um come back from childhood and things like that. And you know, if you have a a fear of letting other people down because you're always having to impress your mom and dad. If that if that fear exist in november, it's still gonna exist in january. So if you don't want to let people down, you're still gonna work too hard and you're gonna not go to the gym because you don't want to let your boss down and you're gonna do more overtime and all of these things, it sounds quite deep, but that's because it is like we said earlier, if you don't take that time to understand values and things like that.

It's not going to be any different in january just because the calendar has tipped over, it doesn't literally doesn't make any difference. Uh That's why I don't have anything inherently against the New Year's resolution. I just think it's so misdirected. Even people going, I can't wait till 2021 because 2020 has been shit because of COVID. So where do you think the viruses going on january the first? You know, we're still gonna be in the same situation. The virus is still multiplying, certain things still need to be done. The vaccine is still required. It's not going to be different because it's 2021 that's not, some people say that as a negative. It's like, oh you're just being negative. I'm really going to make an effort on january the first, so it's not being negative, it's me trying to give you a positive life for the other 11 months. Yeah, man, that's that's that's fucking awesome point. Uh Yeah. Yeah, no, that's an awesome point, man. Is is you know, you don't need something to start something to do something. You don't need a fucking a catalyst, right?

You said it earlier, man. Like most people when they want to make a change, they like look in the mirror and they're like, oh fuck, how do I end up 30 kg overweight like what happened, you know it or you don't need your doctor to be like, hey, if you don't fucking lose 30 kg, you're going to be you know dead in the next 20 years or whatever? Like people shouldn't need that, but people wait for that to happen. I mean here's the advice that I can give man. Like I did want to go into some advice, some tips and guidance and um you know, some strategies but I mean fuck ultimately take ownership of your own fucking life. Don't look. I mean if there's one piece of advice that I can give is like take fucking ownership, be accountable for your own shit and you know, have that conversation with the man in the mirror because if you're not fucking having that conversation and no one else is going to have those conversations with you except for someone like myself or J. L. T. But if you're not paying us, then who else is going to have that conversation with you. Yeah. These kind of podcasts always intrigued because I could literally sit here for four hours talking about this stuff.

And I always I want to give those those tactics and strategies. But I think the problem is that we don't know what battles if there's even if there's only five people listening to this, I guarantee those five people are they have different lifestyles. They have different battles. They have different experiences with food and training and so on. Um And it is, you know, we can certainly check out some some strategies, but again, you personally listening to this need to go away and ask yourself will this strategy work, is it implemented ble is it something I can do in february and March and april as well, because if it's not honestly we're wasting your time and you're wasting your time, it's like, it always sounds like a bit of a downer, it sounds like a bit of a negative, but that's just what I've discovered along the way. Unless I can get to know you as a person, you know, your struggles. I've had some Okay without wishing to take this on a bit of a downer.

You know, I've had people, there was a lady wants us came in for a consultation and again, to cut a long story short after 45 minutes. She tells me that I'm the first person she's ever told that her when she was younger, her parents used to invite other couples around to sexually abuse her. Fuck, I literally just sat there. I just rare that I'm kind of lost for words, but I'm like, this is not the answer to, this is not the ketogenic diet. The answer is not kettlebells or barbells, you know, it's yeah, there's something a lot more fucking deep sea that the point is everybody has been through something like that, you know, maybe they then found food as a comfort. Exactly. Maybe even training, you know, a lot of people, something like here regularly is I don't like group fitness because, you know, I was bullied at school during PE class because I was fat, so, again, me saying to you, I'll come and join my fitness camp or oh yeah, just go in the weight area, lift weights, that person's brain as soon as they're moving into that space there, threat levels are going through the roof.

Yeah. And for me to come back to that stress management, 10 squats, that's gonna that's gonna help Christmas because it's higher volume, is it? Yeah, Yeah. And then yeah man. Fuck dude, like that's that's that's a brilliant point. Um you know, as you said, I would love to give people some tips and strategies and tricks and shit to get through the festive season. But you know, at the end of the day, like that's the biggest piece of advice that I can give is be accountable for your own fucking shit, playing ahead prepare. And you know, I think that's a think about to be direct tips related to that is I don't remember, I can't remember who said this, it might have been already, Hoffman, He wrote the warrior diet could be wrong on that, but I think he said basically when it comes to alcohol, drink the first sit the second and refuse the third, that's kind of a good way you get a little bit tipsy, you can hang out, chances are you gonna leave at 10 30 you be in bed and you've had a good evening and I think if you can't do that and you're like, yeah, but it's gonna be a boring night. My question would be like, if you need to get ball bag to enjoy this person's company, do you even need to be there?

Like, you know, for instance, you can sit in a bar and drink lemonade and we'll still have a good conversation about training, we'll chat shit about whether it's called football or soccer, you know, we'll do all of this stuff, we'll go trump not even drinking alcohol now. Exactly, and hopefully people are finding this boring, but that is again something I realized that something as you get older, you, I guess you need less and less people in your life and you start to realize who are real friends whose valuable to your life, even if somebody is not a friend as such, you can have a good conversation about, I don't know, work or investments or whatever and they bring value to your life, but you know ask yourself, do you need to be going out nine times over december. Do you really know that many people are you that close to that many people that you need to go and get smashed to even go out at all with those people and I have a group of friends over here, well three of them are over here to, over in the UK, that's my core group of friends, I have my, my business, my business night out.

Um and I have my family stuff to me that's christmas is probably three or four times and like I said, there's only really one to a race is there my close friends on drink, whatever. My business one, I drink whatever, believing with my family, like I don't need to smash the idea is to have fun with my family. Maybe some people do, but for me personally, I get on very well with my family, I don't need to get pissed to have a good christmas and you know, get angry and monopoly and stuff like that. Um So that's that a B and C. Race thing. But yeah, I think that's really the first thing is like, do I really need to go on this night out um And yeah, just kind of manager drinking a bit more, something else I always found was every third drink have a point of water and it's amazing how it's something you have something to drink because for a lot of people start having that thing in their hands. Um You know, you can, you can still drink your alcohol, get a bit tipsy and have a laugh, but the water is also sort of helping to clear the system as well.

That's kind of the alcohol thing. I think nutrition wise, like I said it's that even if you're not really gonna count calories if you get that from me or you probably don't know how many you're eating but simple things are the like the fasting, you know fast for breakfast and lunch miss out these meals. Yeah maybe I mean you go after the alcohol doesn't but it's a good strategy. Yeah exactly man, but again it goes back to you know you and I could, could easily say you know just leading into whatever christmas friday, right? So let's say you might reduce your calories a little bit, you know you're gonna be drinking a fair bit, so reduce your carbohydrates, reduce your calories, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday thursday leading into that do whatever you want on christmas day but then know that you need to kind of ease your calories back up over the next couple of days and eat a lot of you know um whole real colorful foods that are going to give you the right nutrients to aid your recovery and detoxification, all that type of stuff like you know that's a fucking strategy that I'm going to give to people but unless they know how much energy is on a fucking plate of food then that strategy is not going to work, right?

So I think that education component is very important because you know like you need to you need to have a base level understanding of the fucking fundamentals before you can implement these strategies I think you know another thing is people just eat like a decade on christmas day, like a lot but realistically, you know, do you need four desserts? Do you need, you know, people are going back like sausage after sausage after sausage artists and if you just eat normally, if you've got meat on your paint, you've got potatoes, you've got, you know, a lot of that stuff. It's like when people say a barbecue, uh to me barbecues and what is wrong with a barbecue barbecue meat is, you know, you're not gonna get fat. Just it's the things that come around that that you didn't need to have, so call it awareness, call it what you like, you know, by all means have a desert, but don't be like a five year old who's like, I've got a I've got to have one of every dessert like have a desert leaving that maybe have one later on.

And I think that comes back to the thing of we often say, eat whatever you want, but we are realistically still eating within some limits because if I if I just keep eating and eating meeting, I can literally feel myself about to explode. That should, you know, to me that is just like a bit of a warning sign, I'll stop there, I'll come back later. Yeah, because you don't you don't you don't you don't end up enjoying it. Like if you eat so much and you're eating just to fucking eat because the food is there, you're eating for hedonistic value of what it tastes like and you know, you end up not, you enjoy it whilst it's going down, but then 15 minutes later, like I feel so fucking sick and like now you're probably gonna shoot yourself later on, probably gonna sleep like shit. You know, I think think about the implications, the unintended consequences. He wrote the warrior diet, which is effectively you eat like a hunter gatherer, you basically nibble through the day, you know, you're picking stuff in the forest or whatever and then you have whatever you caught, you eat a big meal in the evening and you can kind of use that strategy.

But also what he says when you come to your evening meal to stop you gorging because you feel hungry at that point is start with the high protein stuff, then eat your vegetables and by the time you've done that, and then if you want to have carbohydrates this, this is just for the worrier die, But it's a very good strategy for your christmas meal. If you eat a load of turkey, then you eat a load of vegetables. By the time you get to the roast potatoes, you probably had that 20 minute period where leptin kicks in, it's like that kind of, I'm full hormone, the elections kicked in and you will just find that you then won't eat a load of, you know, potatoes and sausages and again, I'm not saying don't eat the potatoes, but I'm just saying that strategy alone can make it easier, you'll naturally just not eat as much, you'll still enjoy the meal, you'll still have a bit of everything. But the natural thing is ask christmas day, I'm gonna start with six sausages and loads of roast potatoes and then I have like a square of ham at the end, you know, it's just reverse how you eat your meal and strategies like that can make a massive, massive difference, you know, we all know it's hard to gorge on stuff, I did an eating challenge ones, it was 32 ounce steak and onion rings and all this sort of stuff and we made the mistake probably of having the steak first because you know, the time it takes to chew it and digest and it sends messages to your body that you already eaten enough, and by the time I get to the onion rings and I was like, oh man, I'm done.

So yeah, yeah, exactly, I was going to say it's a poor strategy for eating competition, but it's a perfect strategy for christmas day. That's brilliant. That's brilliant, man, you know, we could have this conversation for the next couple of hours, but I'm obviously aware of your time, it is getting late here. Um we'll start winding up the episode, may I'll split this up over probably, you know, 3 to 4 episodes, I'll listen back to it, and uh and figure out the best way to split up to fucking all over the place here. But I mean at the end of day, like we, we tied everything back in together. Um You know, we, the first things we spoke out spoke about two minutes in, we brought back around, you know, 40 minutes later. So I think that was really cool man, but thank you very much for your time, but I really appreciate it. Where can people find you mate? Um well why the business websites, Storm force fitness dot com, that's laws, er um kind of local thing, but otherwise find me on facebook, if you can spell my name properly, john J. O N. Latoc, Ellie space T.

O C. Q. That's probably the best way I'm happy to answer questions, develop anything as you can probably tell, I'm like sure, you know, there's plenty more underneath all of this and it's exciting to, to get to know people and to wrap up the episode, that's really the key to all this is let us get to know, you get to know yourself and then the implementation side of it, The tactics side of it is probably simpler than you think because you find something that resonates with you and the good thing then is you can start to ignore all the bullshit that flies around, you know, within reason, once you find what works for you and what training you like and a nutrition thing that works for you. You know, you're good to go pretty much for the rest of your life, so take the time to do that based on your values, build the process off the values and that will get you to that goal and you'll be surprised what you can achieve. Yeah you and I are very similar in that sense. We do, we're very educational, we give people the information and knowledge to be able to you know shape their shape their lives for the rest of their fucking lives man.

So that's awesome mate, I'll have all of your links in the show notes made. Thank you very much for coming on the show, we need to do this again definitely. And that rounds out this four part installment of the coach's corner with J. L. T. Of Storm Force Fitness. I hope everyone had a very merry christmas and a happy new Year. Stay tuned for more live train perform episodes coming this year. If you enjoyed these episodes and you got some benefit from these messages, please pass it off to your friends and family and Any five star ratings and reviews are much appreciated, much love guys piece