Aidan:

Hello and welcome to the Ideal Nutrition podcast. My name is Aidan Muir and I’m here with my co-host, Leah Higl. And this is episode 200, which is a bit of a milestone. And so we’re going to do a special episode on non-nutrition stuff. We’re going to do a non-nutrition Q &A. And it’s funny because one of the most positive pieces of feedback we get on the podcast is from people saying that they like that we just get into the content and we just talk nutrition. We don’t have all the other stuff.

So this is the first time since probably like episode three or four that we’ve done anything personal. So here we go. We have like a long list of questions in front of us that we just got from Instagram. I love doing non-nutrition Q and A’s on Instagram because I get some rogue questions in there, but we have a long list of questions. So what we’re to do is we’re going to pick and choose our own questions from stuff that’s targeted at us and ask ourselves the questions. And then we’ll just wrap up whenever we think is appropriate.

Leah:

Perfect. Well, I definitely got a lot of rogue questions, but I…

Aidan:

I assume you get a few more than me. I was like, if I get rogue questions, what are you going to get?

Leah:

Yeah, I definitely got some rogue questions, but I’ve chosen a few that I think are a little bit more podcast appropriate. So the first one was, how was your studying experience with ADHD? And the reason I wanted to answer this one is because I only just found out I had ADHD.

So in terms of thinking back to my uni experience, my schooling experience, well, it makes sense why it was such a hard time for me. Now, like looking back, I really liked studying nutrition and dietetics. And there were a lot of things that became like a very much a hyper fixation during my course that I was so interested in. And those particular subjects were so easy for me. Like I just, I loved them, I wanted to know everything about it, I wanted to do a really good job. And then there were other subjects that I just couldn’t get my brain to enjoy whatsoever.

And it was really hard, had a lot of demand avoidance around watching lectures. And now what I recognise is demand avoidance. And really struggled to be engaged in those particular things. And they were almost always the public health subjects where I really enjoyed the more science medical subjects. So it was overall a hard experience studying, but I’ve always enjoyed studying at the same time. So as long as it was something I was interested in, it went really well. But as soon as it wasn’t, it went, it went okay, but it was just hard.

Aidan:

It’s funny. And we’ve had this conversation off air about the whole, I’ve just discovered I have ADHD. Like we’ve had these conversations for years and like I’ve just like categorised you and half our team. Everyone’s got ADHD. There’s been moments where it’s like, maybe I should hire some people without ADHD, just diversify a little bit.

Leah:

Just some neurotypical people, why not?

Aidan:

Just go in a bit of a different direction to see what we can do there.

The first question I’m going to go with was how did you meet your girlfriend/ fiance/ wife? So Sarah is my fiance. She’s been waiting to get a feature on the ideal nutrition podcast. She, she requests me every time we record be like, are you going to mention me this, this time? I don’t think she listens. So she won’t hear this, but I buried her in episode 200. So I’m sure she’s not listening anymore. So I met her on hinge. So dating apps, dating app success story.

I was actually pretty done with dating apps. So when I moved to Brisbane, I was really keen on meeting people, making friends and stuff like that, partly stemming from the fact that I moved to Canberra for work earlier on in my career and I make friends really easily. And I just did not even try to make friends in Canberra. Like I didn’t even spend my weekends there. I’d go everywhere else on the weekends. And like six months in, I was like, huh, I’ve got no friends in Canberra. And I was like, what happened there? So like when I moved to Brisbane,

That was my first priority. I like, I’m gonna meet as many people as I can. So I got into the dating apps, had some pretty like mixed experiences to be honest. And then I had a second time around on the dating apps, which was when I met Sarah and I was about to delete the app. She had an image or a video of her dancing. It just like reeled me in. was like, that’s the one. Like that’s the one I want. And we went for our first date. had dinner and she took me to a place in Brisbane called the Emporium.

And it’s funny cause like I’m just a, I was a young lad from Wagga Wagga, hadn’t been anywhere nice in my life. And I remember like looking up and being like, this is the nicest place I’ve ever been to.

Leah:

The Emporium?

Aidan:

Yeah. So that’s the first date story. I love that so much.

Leah:

The next question I’m going to answer is, have you ever experienced any professional barriers with your presentation? And for those who don’t know what I look like, I am heavily tattooed.

We have a podcast logo. yeah, so you can see me I’m more heavily tattooed than that podcast logo there now. I’ve got face tattoos, et cetera, et cetera. So honestly, I have to say I’ve never experienced a professional barrier to my knowledge with how I present myself. I think it’s because of the route that I’ve taken. I mean, I’ve centered my practice and my clients around like they know who I am and they come to see me because of what I bring to the table in terms of being a little different, a little odd.

A lot of the clients that I see are people that look like me and people that are like me. So I think if I worked in a setting that was more quote on quote professional, like if I tried to work in a super medical setting, like be a hospital dietician, I would probably face far more barriers to success.

But overall, I found it to be a really positive thing as someone who is getting clients through social media. It like pays to stand out. I think at the end of the day, and there are not many dietitians that look like me or present the way I do. So I think that gives me almost like a little bit of an edge. So no, I guess I’ve just never really experienced much of a barrier in that particular way.

Aidan:

This is much lower level, but when I hired Tyler, I reckon it was like six months in where it was like, he’s got tattoos. Like I just like, just like didn’t even notice it. Yours were a little bit more noticeable, but I was like, didn’t even, I didn’t even think about that. I remember thinking that tattoos could be a barrier to getting a job. And then when I first hired somebody, just didn’t even, you didn’t even think about it. I was just like blind to it. don’t know. Anyway, but like I, it stands out so much now. Exactly what you said. That’s like people who stand out tend to get more clients. Like it’s so obvious to me now.

Anyway, so the next one, what do I want to do next? I’ll do I’m going to do two boring ones back to back. So if you weren’t to dietitian, what career would you have chosen? Probably something in the exercise space. At that time, I was going to choose like exercise science. Knowing what I know now, I would have done exercise physiology or physio. Not too much backstory there. just into like lifting and stuff. It’s like, it’s interesting. I could see myself doing that. The next one, I’m just going to do this because it’s quick. Do you have pets? No, no reason why I’m not. I just don’t. I like dogs. I want a Labrador. I want a massive Labrador.

Sarah wants little dogs. I don’t want little dogs. So I said I wanted a Great Dane. So we’d meet in the middle on a Labrador. That’s the middle ground. It’s compromise.

Leah:

I’ll actually answer the same question because I got, if I didn’t pursue dietetics, what other degree I would have done. And I was exactly the same. I was interested in lifting. I wanted to do something in the sports space. So I was also considering exercise physiology or physiotherapy. Or I was also considering food science. But I did a little, I spent some time in a chemistry lab just to kind of vibe out what day-to-day life would look like as a scientist working in a lab. And I found it extremely boring.

And at the time I was like, maybe I don’t want to work with people. I want to be in a lab by myself. And then I tried that for two weeks as a bit of a trial run. And I was like, I hate this so I decided to do dietetics instead, which I am so glad I did because actually like love my job. and I love what I do on a day to day. So I’m glad I did choose that.

Aidan:

Somebody asked me how is running, is it raining and breezy going? So I’ve basically like a meme Facebook page that’s called, is it raining and breezy? And when it’s raining, I’ll just say it’s raining when it’s not running or say it’s not running. And maybe I’ll be a little bit more creative than that, but I don’t, put so little effort into this, but I actually think it’s cool having like a nice little outlet on social media that’s not dietetics.

Cause it’s even interesting for me cause I’m like, Facebook’s dead. Like nobody posts on Facebook. Like literally last week I posted on that and got a thousand likes on a post. Like I ate so engaging and then like I put two seconds of effort into it. So it’s cool. Like if my engagement was low in the like nutrition space, I’d be like, my content just sucks. it’s not cause like this is a dead platform. So I read it. We had a siphon in Brisbane last week and engagement was at an all time high.

Leah:

At all time high. Next one I’ll answer is I’m going to not swear. So I’m going to be a little, I’m going to censor myself. Advice for not giving an F what people think. I got quite a lot of questions in the Q and A, like just generally centered around this question. And I think it’s always funny because I actually deeply care what people think.

Like, really deeply and how people perceive me is something that I kind of consistently struggle with and I think probably spend a little too much mental energy on. But my kind of general motto in life is I’m not going to act in a way that doesn’t resonate with me or doesn’t feel real or authentic to me just for other people, even if it makes me deeply uncomfortable.

And I think just like moving past that kind of people pleasing and just kind of constantly challenging myself has really helped in this arena. Like if you’ve been following me on social media for the last like four to five years, you’ve probably kind of just generally seen an increase in like general like authenticity and vulnerability. And I think that’s just over time, just like literally forcing myself to not be what people kind of want me to be, but also just be myself.

Even though I do give an F what people think and I think it’s always funny when people assume that I don’t care. You also have this like positive feedback loop of like the more you do this, the more you succeed. Exactly. It’s always like benefited me. Like there are times where I have faced some criticism, but the positivity is always far outweighed any kind of criticism. So I’m like, nah, you win some, lose some.

Aidan:

Even though I do give an F what people think and I think it’s always funny when people assume that I don’t care. You also have this like positive feedback loop of like the more you do this, the more you succeed.

Leah:

Exactly. It’s always like benefited me. Like there are times where I have faced some criticism, but the positivity is always far outweighed any kind of criticism. So I’m like, nah, you win some, lose some.

Aidan:

Yeah. And we’ve spoken about this with criticism like off air when. I remember the first time, like I thought I’d care more about criticism, but like the first time I had a few semi viral videos on TikTok and I just got roasted. Jeez, like I loved it. I thought it was so funny. Like my, my names in the group chats with the boys have always been based on roasts that I’ve got off TikTok. Somebody called me melon head or something like that. And like, that’s, that’s my name in a group chat.

Leah:

I actually love the hate. Like I have that one thing that went viral a little while ago where it went onto the very much like let’s say like very right wing side of American TikTok. It was very strange. It was all like older men, very right wing opposite of me politically, I suppose. And so much hate. But they were just saying things like, this is a man. And I was like, well, as kind of a gender fluid person, I don’t care that you think I’m a man and not a woman. It’s like all the criticism they had. was like, I actually don’t care about this. So it’s like, it’s fine.

Aidan:

Yeah, I’m usually so positive on social media. don’t like roasting people, but like one of my favourite reels was that one where you roasted all the people criticising you. that was really fun actually.

Leah:

Like how dare you criticise me? You are like equally as weird. But anyway.

Aidan:

I don’t want to encourage you doing more, but like I rate it. It was fun. So one of the questions to me was any niche hobbies? If you had to guess, Leah, what are my niche hobbies?

Leah:

Niche hobbies. I know that you like basketball and crypto.

Aidan:

A little bit.

Leah:

Well, I guess like all I can remember is that NBA top shot. Yeah. You got really obsessed with that for a while. Don’t know if you’re still into it.

Aidan:

I have about like 50 moments on there that I’m trying to sell for one dollar that I can’t. So like I’ll share the story. So like I probably put like nothing crazy, like five thousand dollars into this and doubled the money on a decent portion of them. And like it was just one of those things where I like rode this wave of NFTs and just went really well. But I held on to half my collection and like I’ve got moments in that I bought for $700 and now I can’t sell for one. It’s crazy.

Leah:

Yeah, that is insane.

Aidan:

Other niche hobbies. This is not niche. I play guitar. I’ve played like almost every day. almost every day outside of exceptions. Like if I go camping or traveling or like whatever for a very, very long time. I am way more into history than I think most people would think.

Aidan:

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. don’t know that. The Roman Empire is my Roman Empire.

Leah:

Yeah, typical.

Aidan:

It’s so funny because like I was so into it and then that trend came around. was like, oh, okay. I’m a stereotype. We all do this. But yeah, like one night I was like trying to go to sleep and I don’t really watch TV. You’re trying to go to sleep. I was like, oh, I’ll just put a really boring documentary on. I just got hooked. And then I found a podcast series on the Roman Empire that’s like 600 episodes long.

And I listened to everything. And just like turned me into like going into adjacent areas of history. So way more into it than you think. And then the other thing like kind of sent me from the crypto stuff is I’m really into investing and that I view that as a hobby. Like obviously it’s nice to have a hobby that makes a bit of money as well. But like I got into like stocks and stuff like that at like 21 years old, like way earlier than it’s like pretty normal. And I just found it interesting. So I was like, I like this. I will view this as a hobby.

Leah:

Next one I’ll answer is like an easy one. What was your most painful tattoo? And I love this question because I’m always like, well, all tattoos hurt and they all suck. But the most painful one was probably my most recent one where I got my entire throat kind of blacked out. That was gnarly. If you ever want to get your throat tattooed, be prepared for an absolute world of pain.

It was probably the most pain I’ve ever had in my life. I’m not gonna lie. And I’ve had my nose broken and piercing ripped out at a show before and this was by far much, worse. So yeah, that’s my most painful tattoo, but they all hurt.

Aidan:

Someone asks, what is my favourite holiday spot? And I interpreted this question as like anywhere you’ve been like multiple times and I’ve never been anywhere multiple times. So like not really…That’s probably like I grew up in a pretty low income type household. So it’s like, we just didn’t go places. Which makes me so grateful for travel. Like I rate travel so highly now. If I took that wording differently, being like, where is the favourite place you’ve been to?

I would say my trip to America last year was the favourite holiday I’ve ever done. I know heaps of people would like disagree with me on that being a great place, but I loved it. Like I was stoked to be there. I’d been looking forward to it for ages and it met all the hype for me. So I loved that.

Leah:

I’m going to end on a, one that I just want to talk about and that’s my new cat Neo. Someone asked what is Neo’s backstory?

So to give you a little bit of context, a few weeks ago, actually over a month ago now, I adopted a Sphinx cat, so a hairless cat from a friend who has three legs. Not my friend, the cat has three legs. That’s the way I was going to say that sounded weird. The cat has three legs. She’s freaking adorable. She’s like my baby.

Her backstory is not super interesting, but essentially she was living with my friend with a couple of other Sphinx cats that came from different litters, but she was like very neurotic. She is like the neurodivergent cat. She’s like very neurotic, like she’s super, super needy. And we are not exactly sure how she came to significantly break her leg. There was some kind of freak accident while that person was not home.

They think maybe she got caught on something and she just tried to escape and she snapped her leg in multiple places. And she had to get the leg amputated. And that only happened towards the end of last year. And when she got her leg amputated, it meant that she needed more full-time care, something that the person that she was living with couldn’t really provide. So I adopted her and because I live, work from home, I get to be with her like pretty much all the time. And she’s super happy and doing super well. And I love her so much. And I just wanted to talk about her.

Aidan:

I have a few more left. So do you want to ask me two of these, whichever ones you reckon would be most interesting?

Leah:

What if, if social media didn’t exist, how would your life be different? And I’m actually curious how you would have approached business.

Aidan:

Yeah. Yeah. So I have thought about this a fair bit. I think I, in terms of like my personal life, I’d be way more offline. And I think that would have quite a few positives to be honest on my life. I’m not going to go too deep on that, but it’s like obviously on social media, like I post every day, I actually post it every day of 2025. So we’re like almost a quarter away through the year.

Like that definitely means I’m at least using the apps every day and stuff like that. Spend a fair bit of time on it. And I didn’t even have a personal Instagram before social media. would not have a TikTok. Like I probably wouldn’t have Instagram or TikTok if it wasn’t for business reasons.

Leah:

That’s crazy to me.

Aidan:

Yeah. Yeah. I’m curious now that I’ve experienced it if I would, but like if you went back without social media, I wouldn’t. So I don’t know pros and cons of that. From a business perspective, I thought about this a lot when I started Ideal Nutrition the second time around. I don’t think I’m the best speaker, but I noticed every time I do a presentation, I would get at least one client from it.

And I sat down and I thought, okay, if I was trying to grow a business in the most efficient way possible, not like hustle, culture, work as hard as I can, like what’s the most efficient way? I knew for me personally to get what I wanted out of it. I probably needed to get like two new clients per week because my retention is really good. I didn’t have grand visions of building a big business. I was just like, I just want to enjoy what I’m doing, make a decent income. That’s how I was thinking at the time.

And one of the routes I saw was social media. I saw that, huh, this seems pretty exponential. I have a bit of evidence that this is working a little bit. If I just did this better and did this for longer, so on and so forth, I’ll see success there. But the other thing was presentations. It’s like I could hit up every gym, anywhere where can find somebody else to put together an audience for me. And then I could just speak. And the thing is, if that was all I was doing, I would try to get better at it. There’s a lot of things I could do to improve in that area. And that was so obvious to me being like, if I didn’t have social media, that is what I would have done to grow a business.

Leah:

Why don’t we move to something a bit more related to your hobbies and go what inspired you to switch from powerlifting to marathon running?

Aidan:

So it just comes easier to me. I did like distance running when I was a kid and it was just like, I was good at it. It was easy. I’m naturally like a pretty like skinny slash lean person. So like, obviously there was advantages there. We could talk like fast twitch, slow twitch muscle fibers. Like I seem to tend more in that direction. So natural ability there. I like making progress with stuff and yeah, you know, when you like first pick up a barbell and you start making newbie gains and you’re making progress like every week, it’s pretty cool feeling.

With powerlifting for me, I still love lifting. I do not see myself ever stopping lifting. I don’t know if I’ll ever do a powerlifting comp again. And there’s, multiple reasons. One is that just injuries. There’s, there’s definitely ways around my injuries. I’m not going to pretend that there’s not, but every time I squat and I have like four weeks in a row of squatting, my knees hurt. So I’m like, I can’t, I won’t do a full powerlifting prep. Even my elbows, like I get like elbow pain and stuff like that. So I won’t do squats.

Which definitely means my PB of a 195 kilos squat. That’s probably what it is for life now. I deadlifted 260 kilos at the end of last year. I could be wrong. I just don’t see myself doing better than that.

Leah:

You think that’s your cap?

Aidan:

I think that’s my cap unless I gain size and after a certain point when I gain size, I don’t stay lean. And I was like, well, if I have the choice of being lean year round, probably just be lean year round like that. It just comes easy to me. I might just do that. And then bench press, I bench pressed 127 kilos last year.

And I don’t see, and I tore my pec like right after. So I’m like, that’s me down there. Like I, in like not the pec tear, I just don’t see myself benching more than 127 using like real talk examples here. I got into lifting and was really consistent off the bat and got pointed in the direction of good information very early on. So like I was doing four plus per four plus sessions per week in the gym consistently training with good intensity, good program, good everything for years on end and.

Four years in, I think it’s four years into my training, I hit my first 100 kilo bench press. And I thought that was like my like natty potential. Although I did see some girls benching 100 and I was like, ah, I could probably get a more there. So for me to hit like 127 or whatever, like I’m like, that’s insane. Like I just, I’ve hit all my lifetime goals in powerlifting. And every time I prep for a meet, just like, my body just hurts.

And to be fair with running, same thing. I run a marathon, I’m cooked. But like, I see so many easy wins for me in the marathon running space and I’ve got so much room for improvement. And it’s just like, if I just show up and train consistently, I get better every single time. With powerlifting, if I do that, I can train for a year and get better. Like, so probably it’s still room there, but it’s like, assuming I don’t get hurt.

Leah:

Yeah, you see this for like physiologically, you can make more progress, more long-term in marathon running.

Aidan:

Yeah. I also, this is a small thing, but like, It’s funny because I’m obviously busy with work and stuff like that, but I’ve got a bit of free time. And with powerlifting, you can only really train like eight to 12 hours per week and doing more than that. There’s only so much you can recover from.

As somebody who has a lot of injuries, like it’s probably done for me to even do 12 hours. With marathon running, like they’re all doing like 20, maybe not 20, but like they’re doing 16 plus hours per week. I’m like, I’ve got the time. I can do that. If there’s a sport that favours you putting in more effort, I might like to do that sport to a degree. Yeah, sweet. Anything else we want to chat about in this 200th episode?

I’ll answer one last question. Somebody asked like, when do you think you’ll hit 100,000 followers on Instagram?

Leah:

Yeah, you’re getting close.

Aidan:

It’s getting close. Yeah. Fun fact for everyone. I set a goal every year of hitting 10,000 new followers every year. And I’ve done that every single year since I set that goal when I hit about 50,000. When I hit 50,000, I decided I was going to slow down and not because I went from like 3,000 to 50,000 in a two year timeframe.

And I was a little bit concerned being like, like being serious. Like I genuinely was like, is this going too fast? Like how much do I want? Like if I’m really like, am genuinely a very happy person. I don’t want to mess with that. And I’m like, at that rate of growth, I was like, what if I hit 200,000? What if I hit five? Like there’s some stage I’m like, is this bigger than I want? And I was already happy. Like, why did I, why did I pursue more?

So at that point, I switched to just going 10,000 per year. At some stage it was no longer about that. It wasn’t like I was trying to slow down. was like, Oh, content just got better. Like I have to act, I have to actively try to grow. But I kind of set my work hours to a degree being like, how much does it take for me to grow 10,000 per year?

So that therefore means you will see me hitting 100,000 probably end of 2026.

Leah:

I like that’s a good goal.

Aidan:

Cool. Well, hopefully this is the only time we do personal stuff. if you like this, you won’t get it again for a long time. If you didn’t like this, the only time. that’s fine. Well, apart from that, that has been episode 200 of the Ideal Nutrition podcast. If you have been a regular listener for a long time, I really appreciate you. Sure, Leah does too.

Leah:

Absolutely.

Aidan:

So apart from that, thank you to everyone who’s been listening this long. If you haven’t already, you could please leave a rating and a review, we would massively appreciate that.