Today on the podcast:
Siobhan O’Hagan is a personal trainer, online coach and MyProtein sponsored athlete.
She is currently living in Bali and this is her hat trick appearance on the podcast. In March 2018, we recorded our first episode on living a life of freedom, avoiding fad diets and how putting accountability photos on Instagram changed her life.
In June 2019 for round 2, we talked about relationships with food, the ‘fitness’ identity’ and finding self-love. Today’s conversation is a long-overdue round 3.
Episode Outline
- 04:33 What’s changed in Siobhan’s life since we first chatted a couple years ago?
- 06:20 Her current morning routine and how that sets up her day
- 08:09 How she works with clients these days
- 10:55 The most underrated fat loss tool of looking at calories over the week vs day by day
- 13:15 How to stress less about weight loss by focusing on other areas of your life
- 16:15 Her experience with disordered eating and advice to those struggling with their food or body relationship
- 19:37 How to stop caring as much about how you look
- 24:04 BMI scales and why you should think about ditching the weighing scale
- 28:38 How to stop letting the opinions of others negatively affect you
- 31:35 Instagram vs reality
- 37:27 Why Siobhan has been so successful on Instagram
- 39:00 Something that Siobhan has changed her mind about in recent years
- 41:29 Book recommendations
- 46:36 Vlogging on YouTube
- 49:47 The single biggest thing that Siobhan is most excited about right now
Key Points
- One underrated fat loss strategy is to plan out your caloric intake goals on a weekly, as opposed to daily, basis. This just gives so much more flexibility to your lifestyle, allowing you to account for unexpected calories that come in via spontaneous social events, or to at least be able to eat the occasional “off-diet” food that you enjoy.
- Especially for women, if the goal is weight loss, your appearance in the mirror matters much more than tape measurements or the scale. Siobhan says that relying on scales is like “picking numbers out of the sky”. The number on the scale gets swayed so easily, so getting emotionally attached to those numbers is a waste of energy.
- One modern trend is seeing social media influencers, usually women, who show off physical “flaws” such as excess body fat and saying that “there’s nothing wrong” with them. Siobhan believes that, for some people like herself, this may actually be achieving the opposite intended effect, because some women may not even be considering these physical characteristics as flaws in the first place. While these influencers most likely have good intentions, this is still another example of a social media phenomenon that one has to be wary of to avoid falling into the comparison trap when it comes to how they look.
Powerful Quotes by Siobhan
- When it comes to long-term results, the people who achieve them are those who don’t stress about it and take the pressure off of dieting.
- We want slow progress because slow progress leads to long-term results.
- The only way to attain happiness is to stop chasing what you think you should be doing to make other people happy.
Guest Info
Siobhan O’Hagan
Siobhán is a personal trainer and online coach. She originally studied Mathematics in college but her passion for training and healthy living encouraged her to take a risk and change careers. A risk that has proved worthwhile.