Mumbo Update 2025
Today I give you all an update on what's going with me in 2025, 3 years after leaving YouTube. I talk about Hermitcraft Season 10, my plans for Hermitcraft Season 11, retiring from YouTube and my struggles with disordered eating.
I am not a professional; I would highly recommend seeking professional advice from therapists specialising in disordered eating if this is something you’re deeply struggling with.
My first piece of advice is to look at lifestyle transformation over a macro time scale as opposed to focusing on quick fixes. I would put myself on these unsustainable restrictive diets, tell myself I needed to exercise at an incredible intensity almost daily, and within a week I be would exhausted, unmotivated and inevitably fall off the wagon - I would then beat myself up for ‘failing again’ and comfort myself by bingeing heavily.
One thing that really helped me is getting 3-4 incredibly quick recipes that I can cook. I’m talking less than 5 minutes. Are they the absolute healthiest wholefood gold standard? No. But a perfect gold standard recipe that takes a trip to the shop and 30 minutes to prepare actually means I’m eating a triple cheese blend pizza hut for dinner as soon as I’m under any time pressure.
Some examples of these hyper fast meals:
- Microwave burrito bean mix rice, Microwave chill non-carne, Tofu, tenderstem brocolli, some feta cheese. All chucked in a single pan. Over 80g of protein, loads of fibre. 5 minutes max.
- A cold pasta pot (tomato and herb), tofu, feta cheese. All in one pan literally just to heat it, maybe 3 minutes? I will also mix up the pasta pots for pesto/chilli ones for variety.
- Stir fry mix. Some kind of noodle packet with flavouring provided, a stirfry veg mix, tofu. Maybe 5 minutes?
- Falaffels and couscous, maybe some humous and pita breads.
Again, are they perfect? No. But you have to think of the reality. You can write out the perfect plan with macro calories calculated to the second decimal place, a huge veg variety, and 12 hours of exercise mapped to all the different muscle groups, but a plan is just a plan, it doesn’t exist. The real story is how you interact with it, and if you can’t sustain your plan for more than 3 days it’s not really a plan at all. These meals are delicious, easy, satiating, cheap, available from basically any shop, last for days in the fridge, and take less time than ordering takeaways. Having these burden free options mean you are likely to integrate them into a sustainable lifestyle change, as opposed to hunting for absolute perfection.
On that note; a lot of people with disordered eating listen to health and wellness podcasts. I would possibly recommend stopping that, they tend to fear monger and hyperbolise the negative effects of relatively innocuous foods. This again can lead to catastrophizing the tiniest of ‘imperfections’ such as eating an ‘ultra processed protein bar’ or drinking a sugar free soda. I switched out my ‘health’ podcasts for ones that focus on hobbies I enjoy, and that was far better.
I got rid of my scale, I haven’t weighed myself in about a year. Your weight fluctuates a lot daily, and those swings I really struggled with. If I was heavily restricting and woke up heavier I would immediately give up. I would also restrict super hard excited by how much I could lose in a day. Getting rid immediately switched my mentality from thinking on a daily timescale to a long term one. I do take ‘progress’ photos every now again, and my health metrics are tracked by my apple watch, but I don’t really put much effort into any measurements.
In terms of activity, my lifestyle shift happened over 3 years: I began indoor climbing 1-2 times a week, I then slowly built a friend group around climbing who I love spending time with, my love for indoor climbing then spread to a love for outdoor climbing, which then meant I started training for hiking, which gave me the fitness to pursue alpine climbing. I prioritise these hobbies and do them whenever I get any free time, because I love them and my life is built around them. Instead of going for food/drinking with friends we go climbing. If we all get a free day, we go hiking. If we sync up weeks off we go on a trip to the mountains. I know most people have less flexible schedules than me, and kids etc. massively complicate things, but if you can find a form of exercise that you truly love, be it BJJ, running, roller derby, skateboarding, surfing, yoga etc. and build your social structure around it, things will fall into place. To put it simply, I don’t think of anything I do as ‘exercise’ I just view it as fun, in the same way a kid doesn’t view running everywhere and playing tag as a workout!
But as I say - this is all a process. Having spent a full day editing this and hearing myself talk about food the whole time, I ordered a pizza lol
I am not a professional; I would highly recommend seeking professional advice from therapists specialising in disordered eating if this is something you’re deeply struggling with.
My first piece of advice is to look at lifestyle transformation over a macro time scale as opposed to focusing on quick fixes. I would put myself on these unsustainable restrictive diets, tell myself I needed to exercise at an incredible intensity almost daily, and within a week I be would exhausted, unmotivated and inevitably fall off the wagon - I would then beat myself up for ‘failing again’ and comfort myself by bingeing heavily.
One thing that really helped me is getting 3-4 incredibly quick recipes that I can cook. I’m talking less than 5 minutes. Are they the absolute healthiest wholefood gold standard? No. But a perfect gold standard recipe that takes a trip to the shop and 30 minutes to prepare actually means I’m eating a triple cheese blend pizza hut for dinner as soon as I’m under any time pressure.
Some examples of these hyper fast meals:
- Microwave burrito bean mix rice, Microwave chill non-carne, Tofu, tenderstem brocolli, some feta cheese. All chucked in a single pan. Over 80g of protein, loads of fibre. 5 minutes max.
- A cold pasta pot (tomato and herb), tofu, feta cheese. All in one pan literally just to heat it, maybe 3 minutes? I will also mix up the pasta pots for pesto/chilli ones for variety.
- Stir fry mix. Some kind of noodle packet with flavouring provided, a stirfry veg mix, tofu. Maybe 5 minutes?
- Falaffels and couscous, maybe some humous and pita breads.
Again, are they perfect? No. But you have to think of the reality. You can write out the perfect plan with macro calories calculated to the second decimal place, a huge veg variety, and 12 hours of exercise mapped to all the different muscle groups, but a plan is just a plan, it doesn’t exist. The real story is how you interact with it, and if you can’t sustain your plan for more than 3 days it’s not really a plan at all. These meals are delicious, easy, satiating, cheap, available from basically any shop, last for days in the fridge, and take less time than ordering takeaways. Having these burden free options mean you are likely to integrate them into a sustainable lifestyle change, as opposed to hunting for absolute perfection.
On that note; a lot of people with disordered eating listen to health and wellness podcasts. I would possibly recommend stopping that, they tend to fear monger and hyperbolise the negative effects of relatively innocuous foods. This again can lead to catastrophizing the tiniest of ‘imperfections’ such as eating an ‘ultra processed protein bar’ or drinking a sugar free soda. I switched out my ‘health’ podcasts for ones that focus on hobbies I enjoy, and that was far better.
I got rid of my scale, I haven’t weighed myself in about a year. Your weight fluctuates a lot daily, and those swings I really struggled with. If I was heavily restricting and woke up heavier I would immediately give up. I would also restrict super hard excited by how much I could lose in a day. Getting rid immediately switched my mentality from thinking on a daily timescale to a long term one. I do take ‘progress’ photos every now again, and my health metrics are tracked by my apple watch, but I don’t really put much effort into any measurements.
In terms of activity, my lifestyle shift happened over 3 years: I began indoor climbing 1-2 times a week, I then slowly built a friend group around climbing who I love spending time with, my love for indoor climbing then spread to a love for outdoor climbing, which then meant I started training for hiking, which gave me the fitness to pursue alpine climbing. I prioritise these hobbies and do them whenever I get any free time, because I love them and my life is built around them. Instead of going for food/drinking with friends we go climbing. If we all get a free day, we go hiking. If we sync up weeks off we go on a trip to the mountains. I know most people have less flexible schedules than me, and kids etc. massively complicate things, but if you can find a form of exercise that you truly love, be it BJJ, running, roller derby, skateboarding, surfing, yoga etc. and build your social structure around it, things will fall into place. To put it simply, I don’t think of anything I do as ‘exercise’ I just view it as fun, in the same way a kid doesn’t view running everywhere and playing tag as a workout!
But as I say - this is all a process. Having spent a full day editing this and hearing myself talk about food the whole time, I ordered a pizza lol
