Fat Burning Expert: The Real Reason You Can’t Lose Weight! PCOS, Menopause & Stubborn Belly Fat

0:00 I asked my audience for their fifteen most popular unanswered questions about how to lose fat or to gain muscle mass. The first one, how do I lose weight fast? You just answered that. Yeah. The second one is creatine is a miracle thing that everybody should be taking. There's almost nothing creatine can't do. Wow, some statement. Next, is there any harm in eating too much? Much protein. It's rare. And in fact, almost everybody who has some degree of an issue with their body fat levels under consumed protein. That's a damn good question, man. Can I Go into detail of this because a lot of people are very misinformed about this stuff. Okay, so Alan Arragon has been using science to help elite athletes unlock peak performance for over 30 years. And now he's breaking down the nutrition and training strategies that actually deliver results.

0:53 So let's start with protein. So how much protein should I be eating to gain muscle? What is your goal body weight? Take ninety and multiply that by There's your protein target. What about calorie restriction? I've heard you say that ten or twenty percent of your calories can come from pretty much anything you want. Literally anything. So I could eat McDonald's or something. And I could still lose weight theoretically. That's true. And this is reflected in research, along with diet breaks. That's one of the tactics that you can use for long term adherence to a plant. And I'll explain how. I also want to talk about the ketogenic diets, menopause, fasting, sugars, and That that always gets me, man. That that picture always gets me.

1:37 Why? I used to drink. Heavily. I was overworked and trying to be the best father and the best husband. And it got real bad.

1:48 I just needed to stop. And I did So I just Wow, really?

1:53 Yes. Quick one before we get back to this episode. Just give me thirty seconds of your time. Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week. It means the world to all of us, and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started. And if you enjoy what we do here.

2:16 Please join the twenty four percent of people that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app. Here's a promise I'm gonna make to you. I'm gonna do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future. We're gonna deliver the guest that you want me to speak to, and we're gonna continue to keep doing all of the things you love about the show. Thank you. Thank you so much. Back to the episode.

2:44 Why should I listen to you? What have you done in your career in over the last thirty years? But has given you the knowledge, the information, the wisdom that you have on nutrition, dieting, fitness, et cetera. Who is Alan?

2:59 I have over thirty years of experience. In the field. The first ten years consisted of Personal training. The second decade of my career was

3:08 was nutritional counselling. Just counseling people on on How to eat what to eat. And then the third decade of my career, which actually

3:18 Right now in thirteen years now. is the research and education side. My colleagues and I we in quotes do the science we Publish the science. I've been a part of

3:29 Thirty. Thirty publications. Study studies. Yeah. Yeah. A a combination of Narrative reviews. Systematic reviews and meta analyses

3:39 and randomized controlled trials. And how many people have you worked with directly over the last thirty years in terms of in your Your nutritional. Counselling role, but also as a As a trainer.

3:51 Individually it's It's triple digits. Groups. Potentially. Quadruple. And some of those people that you've worked with over the years are

4:04 Fairly high profile. most interesting story is getting an email From Steve Austin and and uh the wrestling fans know him as Stone Cold Steve Austin. In so many words he said

4:19 Hey Alan, I've been I've been doing my research and You're you're the guy. So I wanna work with you. Um I know that you mentioned that you're not

4:31 Working with clients. But Could you please make an exception for me? Here's my number. What did you do with him? With stinkled.

4:39 I helped him get his nutrition right for his Uh in quotes uh Come back to television. It was mainly focused on

4:49 Primarily fat loss. And you work with Derek Fisher as well, who's the five time NBA champion. Yes. Yeah. And Pete Sempras, the former

5:00 World number one tennis plan, Grand Slam champions. Yeah, Pete Sambrus, that's right. When people come to you. And when they message you and DM you. There's probably similar themes. Similar themes as to like what they're trying to accomplish and what their goal is.

5:13 If you just from the top of your head had to stay the most popular themes that people are trying to accomplish. W what are they? How to improve body composition. What does that mean?

5:26 How to lose fat. And or Gain muscle. One of the things that I'm I'm particularly intrigued by, which kind of dovetails into both of those subjects of fat and uh muscle gain. Is

5:40 The subject of protein. And um Because there's been so much said about protein. You know, when I was growing up, they said you have to have protein right after you eat your meal. You have to have this much protein, you have to have it before you eat your meal. It doesn't matter when you have it. So I wanna do a bit of myth busting on the subject of protein. What are what are the biggest myths that people currently believe about protein consumption?

6:01 The biggest myth they have the Hierarchy of importance all s screwed up. Like Everybody's worried about how much protein per meal you need to have for this or that goal. When do you need to time protein relative to the training bout or waking or sleeping or all that stuff. The Main thing they need to be focused on is how much protein do they need to eat.

6:25 By the end of the day. Because when you hit that goal. You Basically won the whole game. the the relative placement, the distribution and the doses of the protein, the timing of it.

6:36 Oh man. It rarely matters. It it rarely matters. Beyond

6:43 getting that protein in in a way that's comfortable and convenient for you and in such a way that you can stick to. in the long term. Some people are more like grazers. Some people are more like gorgers.

6:58 They're both fine, as long as you hit the total by the end of the day. So the hierarchy is Of utmost importance. Get your Total daily protein.

7:06 And then of secondary importance. would be What is the distribution of the constituent doses of that protein total through the day? And then a third important here is like When specifically are you supposed to time that protein around the the

7:20 the training bout. So so yeah the W the way that I put it i is like this. The Day the daily total for protein. That is the cake.

7:31 The distribution. of the doses through the day, that's the icing on the cake and it's a very thin layer of icing. And how do we know that? How do we know that it doesn't really matter what time you have the protein and that the most important thing is just making sure you get the protein? That's a great question.

7:48 The reason that we know That distribution doesn't matter as much as the total is through a couple lines of evidence that I can think of. So there's Yasuda who cl who Compared a three meal

8:01 model with a two meal model. And the three male model had superior effects. for um for muscle gain. But There is a study that was just published.

8:15 Gosh within the last month. It was better from a methodology standpoint because They fed the subjects. an abundance of protein. So Yasuda and colleagues who and colleagues who tested the two versus three, he totaled everybody out at one point three grams per kilogram of body weight per day. That's the total daily protein dose. And so we know now that that's

8:39 A suboptimal total. If you want to push muscle growth. So for pushing muscle growth, we know you you should be at 1.6 grams. per kilogram of body weight, which translates to point seven grams per pound. of body weight. That's where you really want to be if you want to maximize

8:57 muscular adaptations to resistance training, like muscle size and strength gains. So Just latest. Study. They compared Three.

9:09 Uh three protein feedings versus five protein feedings. And the totals of protein intake in the day. In both groups, we're around a gram per pound. So right around uh 2.2 ish grams per kilogram of body weight. So we have the

9:26 Optimize daily total. And we're testing three Versus five protein feedings. We're doing progressive resistance training. And this is the key. This happened in

9:36 Resistance trained subjects. There were no significant differences in mu in muscle size and strength gain. Between the Three protein feedings a day. First.

9:48 Five protein feedings a day. And this is the best design study to date. on the d on the topic. Because when I grew up. and read stuff about gaining muscle, it said you have to have like five or six meals a day. Mm-hmm.

10:02 Um I said that's what bodybuilders do. Whenever we we talk about any kind of physical goal, any Any sort of fitness goal. We have to address So

10:13 Who's the Who's the population? And what goal are we talking about? And maybe a third thing we need to address is what is at stake. So what level are we talking about? So Population goal.

10:27 What level? What's at stake? So with bodybuilders. at elite levels. It is Most of them.

10:39 Consume. Five, six meals a day. Some of them do like even seven or eight in the offseason. And these are individuals who are Enhanced?

10:51 And so they're sealing. for for muscle growth and their rates of muscle muscle growth are significantly higher than people who are In quotes natural. And the amount of food

11:02 Yeah, these individuals can process and use productively. is significantly more. And so with that population. I can see it being

11:13 pretty standard for them to be consuming At least five, six Meals a day. since they tend to have to since they tend to be eating double the amount of of the average person. And so but the interesting thing that happens is that The guidelines from

11:30 This very sort of fringe elite population That's what trickles down into the general public and then they're stuck thinking, Okay, maybe I Need to eat every two point five hours or so or some such. But yeah, with the with the general population and even um

11:44 recreational athletes and people who are hobbyists and and and stuff. You really the impact of actual protein distribution Is Mm.

11:57 Inconsequential. Compared to the total. So how much protein should I be eating a day?'Cause you I think you disagree with the recommended daily sort of allowance that they suggest we As um

12:10 I think I'm ninety kilograms. Mm-hmm. How much protein should I be eating to gain muscle? Lina so much.

12:17 Okay. So We're gonna Apply you to the population. And the goal and the stakes.

12:24 questions. So what would you say your training status Is you're obviously not a beginner. Um So you're somewhere between intermediate An advanced?

12:36 Mm-hmm. Right. So What is your goal.

12:42 Just to release that again. Muscle. Okay. Familiar story, I'm sure. Okay. The way that I do it is

12:48 I go One point six to two point two grams per kilogram of Target body weight or goal body weight. So that's the range that you would be looking at. Now

13:01 With you in particular. I would go more towards the upper end. Because you mentioned that you Part of your goal is To decrease

13:13 Body fat too, uh To a to a minor degree. But you're still your pushing the envelope'cause you're already lean. Mm-hmm. So

13:21 There's an interesting thing about high balling protein that Facilitates That uh Reduction in body fat. If I have a lot of protein.

13:32 It helps to reduce body fat. Yeah. Yeah, it does. And the way that we know this is because There have been Several studies now.

13:42 Four Trials one. Um by Joey Antonio and colleagues. And they

13:51 Examine the effect of very high protein intakes. Anywhere from Abo three point three all the way to Four point four grams. per kilogram. of body weight.

14:01 Roughly gosh. Yeah. Gram and a half to two grams per pound. Is that because you're eating less carbohydrates, you're sort of substituting it for something else, essentially, in terms of you you feeling hungry. So if I'm having three point three grams of protein, I'm

14:15 probably not going to be having something else which is More fatty. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So this particular line of research was done on

14:25 People who are resistance training. And it was done in free living conditions. And they just gave them the assignment. to essentially increase their their protein intake by

14:37 Fifty. And Literally add. eighty to a hundred grams of protein on top. Of their

14:48 Existing habitual dietary intakes. So what would you say to me then? You'd say push even higher. In terms of grams per kilogram of body weight. What is your goal body weight? I don't actually have a goal body weight to be honest. I I just have more of a

15:03 A goal in terms of like strength. Were you ever in The shape that you are wanting to be in. And what what was your body weight at that time?

15:13 I was around ninety. I think I was just a little bit a l below ninety kilograms. So I think I was about eighty eight. Okay. So you know what? Let's take ninety. Yeah. and multiply that by 2.2.

15:25 Ninety times two point two. There's your protein target. Hundred ninety eight. Grams of protein a day. So if my if a protein shake gives me twenty grams of protein, I I need to have basically ten gram ten protein shakes a day. That's all seems like a lot of protein.

15:40 That is a lot of protein. Uh I I would Give a little caveat here. You can probably achieve your your goal. Yeah.

15:50 With One point six. grams per kilogram of body weight. So that would be the Lower end. So

15:58 Multiply. Ninety by one point six. Okay. And that's where you can start. So if if that one ninety eight number seems

16:08 Kinda far fetched. Or even a little bit like Hm, how how would I even achieve that, then start off at the lower end. Do women have a different prescription in this regard? Is there a different Approach if you're a woman. Yeah, if you're a woman you would

16:21 almost always start at the low end. Because women have a higher proportion of body fat and and by default they have a lower proportion of lean mass. So with women it would Almost always be All right, let's Start at one point six grams per kilogram of target body weight.

16:37 And see how you do with that. And we can always Ratcheted up. If needed. Is there any such harm in eating too much protein?

16:46 It's rare. Uh you would have to have a pre existing Chronic kidney disease. And then it's Generally not a good thing to be highballing the protein.

16:57 Um, but even people with chronic kidney disease have to realize the trade off. that they're incurring with a low protein diet and older age, sarcopenia and stuff. How are they gonna mitigate that? But for the general healthy population

17:14 there have been many studies that have rolled out looking at effects on kidney function Liver function. Bone health. And there is Virtually zero threat.

17:26 to those organ systems that that you would think might be threatened by a high protein intake. So the human organism Perfectly well equipped. to metabolize and handle. High protein.

17:38 And not all protein is equal, I guess, because you've got you've got these animal proteins and then plant proteins um that come from things like eggs and so on. W what is the best type of protein, do you think? Is there such a thing? I think that the best thing you can do. Is get a mix. of different types of protein.

17:57 It is true that gram for grammar. Generally speaking, animal proteins are more in quotes anabolic. than plant proteins. Meaning that they stimulate a greater Growth response.

18:12 At the muscle level. So they stimulate muscle protein synthesis more potently. than plant proteins. And There are

18:23 maybe one exception to that that we know of, which is Mycoprotein, which is a fungus based protein. that actually outperformed milk protein for stimulating muscle protein synthesis. So there's interesting exceptions like that. But generally speaking animal proteins are better for muscle protein synthesis.

18:42 than plant proteins. Now with that said, Stephen Once you consume a certain amount of total daily protein. Then it doesn't appear to matter.

18:55 how much of your protein is animal based versus how much your pro your protein is plant based. If we're looking at Things like muscle size and strength gain because this has been actually Compared.

19:07 In uh controlled interventions where um Vegan group. has been compared with an omnivore group. And

19:15 Total daily protein was optimized at one point six grams per kilogram of body weight per day or Point seven grams per pound. Yeah. Progressive resistance training for twelve weeks. No significant differences between groups in muscle size and strengthen whether it was a

19:31 Omnivorous protein intake or whether it was a Plant based protein intake and we have Two studies showing that now. You must have so many moments where you're working with someone through your career who's got a goal. And he feels like they just can't accomplish it.

19:45 Where you find yourself saying the same thing over and over again. to people about how to lose fat or to gain muscle mass. Is that same thing just to e Have more protein.

19:57 It's a common thing with The general population with the lay public. My my protein target is at least 160 grams a day. So

20:09 I just make sure that I have four meals with At least forty grams. of of protein. And it's So easy to do.

20:17 incredibly easy to do because Two of my meals per day are just real Oh. Food. And then two of my meals per day, two to three.

20:27 are protein smoothies. And so uh it is just so incredibly easy for me to to get my protein intake through like two scoops of protein, bam, that's almost fifty grams of protein right there right there. So You have two of those a day. got more than half my protein covered. But if I if I have all of my protein in one meal. Mm-hmm.

20:47 Is that going to impact my ability to gain muscle or lose fat if I have it all in one meal? If I just have like one massive protein shake, if I put like five scoops Now, if you were telling me, Hey Alan I want a place really good. in the nationals this year. The N P C Nationals.

21:04 Classic. Classic physique or you know, classic bodybuilding. Or just any one of the physique divisions. I would say, you know, y you you are not going to wanna try to get all your protein in. A single meal because what we want to do

21:20 is we wanna maximize the number of Microanabolic Events. in the course of the day. We want to maximise the amount of times you maximally stimulate muscle protein synthesis in the course of the day.

21:34 Yeah. And Just from a a pragmatic standpoint. You could probably do that at least. three or four times.

21:42 And if you're able to do that three or four times in the day versus once With that one big banger of a meal. then you might actually over time Gain. more muscle than you would have.

21:54 And this could make the difference between placings at the end of the uh end of the prep period. As somebody in the general population. Theoretically you could Mm.

22:08 I am gonna challenge you to do something here. I asked my audience about weight loss and ask them for their fifteen most popular questions that are currently unanswered for them. About weight loss. The first one was

22:22 How do I lose weight fast? Ha. So Essentially you can engage

22:29 What would could be classified as a as a As a protein sparing modified fast, You're basically crash dieting. Um

22:39 I don't love doing that though, honestly. Listen, I've got a wedding. I need to I need to lose weight fast. How do I lose weight fast? Losing weight fast. So you would basically do an aggressive Caloric deficit.

22:51 So anywhere I I would say Twenty percent below your maintenance needs twenty to possibly forty, depending on the individual. percent below your maintenance needs. And then

23:05 Keep the protein high. And this is going to default you to relatively low carbohydrate. Relatively low fat. And

23:15 Just train regularly. Don't hurt yourself. Um Yeah. Protein high and Calories wise, so for example

23:25 If you maintain that We'll we'll just take a round number, two thousand calories. So you would just lop off About a third of that. And then just go.

23:37 And s see if you can Maintain your fat loss. While maintaining Strength levels relatively. You're the it's almost inevitable that

23:47 Crash diet. And uh Lose some strength. in the process. But I mean we're we're talking about Something that's not an optimal process.

23:58 But yeah, that that's that's the game. Basically Aggressive chloride deficit Key protein very high. And then you just go and the deficit could be anywhere from five hundred to a thousand ish calories below what you normally take in. The second one.

24:13 Is Why do I regain weight after stopping a Zempek Wagovee? Exc. Alright. Those GLP one.

24:23 RAs, the recep G L P one receptor agonist drugs. Like Wagovy. Yeah. They have um at least three different mechanisms

24:34 That all converge. Towards Almost nullifying your your hunger and your appetite. Response. And so when you cut out the drug

24:44 Ten year. Normal appetite comes back. And An unfortunate reality. For a lot of uh GLP one users when they get off the drug is

24:57 They just don't have the habits and they don't have the skills necessarily to maintain their weight loss and of course once again they're fighting their appetite. So I would say Perhaps try um A weaning off process.

25:12 Instead of just a jumping off process. A weaning off process where you are reinforcing Countermeasures to overeating. Where you are reinforcing good training habits and good dietary habits.

25:27 And we're all where you're also Progressively learning how to live with And deal with sensations of hunger. Between meals. And just

25:37 Train those habits in. And uh It can be done. I I I I'm not one of The people in the camp who says it's impossible to get off of uh weight loss drug successfully.

25:50 So number three again is is my metabolism damaged after dieting? And they're asking a question here about something called adaptive thermogenesis. Okay, so this is not really a short shot here. Okay. So the the Process of metabolic adaptation. is kinda complex. And it happens in both directions, whether you try to gain weight or whether you try to lose weight. So earlier we talked about uh an increase in non exercise activity thermogenesis or neat.

26:17 An increase in meat in response to an increase in calories. So That occurs and Across studies, I I gave an example that showed a three hundred thirty six calorie increase. In need.

26:32 when a thousand calories were stacked on top of people's maintenance. But there are other studies where the caloric increase was not quite that aggressive. So so On average increases in Neat.

26:45 or non exercise activity thermogenesis. are about two to three hundred calories. So you increase your energy expenditure about two to three hundred calories. If you're overeating. Yeah.

26:57 So your body We'll start to Twitch more and move more, burning more non active color. When you're overeating, yeah. So that's an adj that's an adaptation.

27:09 Caloric surplus side. So in the caloric deficit side. It's just the opposite thing, just the mirror of it. So People

27:18 decrease their Non exercise activity thermogenesis. Or they're neat. They decrease it on average like two To three ish hundred calories. as a result of dieting.

27:29 So this is part of a metabolic adaptation that occurs with dieting. Is this why people don't think the calories in, calories out? system is working for them sometimes because they don't realise that if they're in a c calorie deficit sometimes They are

27:45 subconsciously m moving around less, which means that they're burning less calories. Um so actually they're not in a calorie deficit. Yes, that's correct. So With the

27:56 Dieting side of things. Which is much more of a public health issue. Weight loss is is much more of a A necessity than the weight gain. It's it's tougher for most people because in addition to the decrease in non exercise activity That'll cost people two to three hundred ish calories that they're

28:15 No longer uh No longer burning at the end of the dieting cycle. Then you've got What's called Adaptive thermoreduction.

28:25 Okay, so you mentioned adaptive thermogenesis. Technically that is the There's non shivering adaptive thermogenesis and there's shivering adaptive thermogenesis, but that all has to do with Increases in energy expenditure in response to cold environments. So that's technically that's what adaptive thermogenesis is, it's the increase in energy expenditure. When people diet.

28:48 There's something called adaptive thermal reduction. And that is the is uh decrease in non exercise activity thermogenesis. You're you're basically saying that the body changes when we're in a calorie deficit. It stops doing as much.

29:04 Yes, that's that. Activity part. Yeah. But then there's also the metabolic part. So we got A decrease in non exercise activity.

29:13 Yeah. Then we have adaptive thermal reduction. Which has to do with a A metabolic component that has to do with the sympathetic nervous system and also

29:24 Potentially thyroid output as well. So there's this metabolic Change that goes on. There's behavioral or activity change that goes on.

29:37 They might be telling the truth. When people say I I have a slow metabolism, what's usually happening Pretty massive drop. In neat. or non exercise activity.

29:47 To the order of Two to three hundred calories. Now Adaptive thermal reduction. is another fifty to a hundred calories.

29:56 Okay. So we're looking at in the neighborhood of like Possibly Three, four hundred calories. That they're no longer burning.

30:06 as a result of the dieting process. Now If You take somebody with um Clinically diagnosed.

30:15 hypothyroidism. then their resting metabolic rate could be seven to ten percent lower than somebody without a thyroid issue. So you add another one to two hundred calories less burned over here, then you have the potential For five to six hundred calories.

30:31 of of energy expenditure that this person is challenged with. Uh at the end of their dieting cycle. That people understand it, that if you overeat your metabolism As far as they understand what their metabolism is, is increasing and if you undere, then your metabolism is Slowing down.

30:53 Yes, but I have to emphasize The major component that slows down. is your non-exercise activity. You're not moving around as much.

31:02 Yes, the other components Like adaptive thermal reduction and potential thyroid issues. That is the minor component. The major component is a drop in Fidgeting, a slowing of the rate that you walk around, an increase in the amount you sit around. And you can control that. Yes.

31:19 It's it's hard to put it. put a finger on it, but as long as you know that stuff goes down. I'll give you an example of uh physique. Competitors? They are As there

31:30 Cutting Cutting phase progresses. They're literally lying around. in between their cardio sessions. And their resistance training sessions and their

31:40 Tupperware meal sessions. Okay, they're no longer. tapping tapping their fingers and bobbing their heads and they no longer have a pep in their step. They're no longer doing Non exercise activities. Basically.

31:54 Question four. What diet actually works best for long term weight loss, keto, low fat, Mediterranean, intermittent fasting? And you gotta give me a answer, yeah. Yeah. I'll say it in one sentence. The diet.

32:13 With Enough protein? Enough total calories. That is Comprised

32:20 Predominantly of Healthy food choices. That Fits the individuals. Personal

32:27 Preferences and tolerances. How do I lose belly fat specifically? Can you target the belly? Targeting belly fat specifically is a matter of targeting Total body fat.

32:42 You can't Necessarily spot reduce the the bell fat. Now if we're go a layer deeper, it is possible For certain diets to be more conducive to preventing

32:57 visceral fat gain. Or maybe even accelerating visceral fat loss. Visceral fat is the fat Uh in the Within the abdominal cavity around the the organs.

33:08 And so It is possible for certain diets to be more conducive to reductions in visceral fat. And that would be diets that have a lower proportion of

33:19 Saturated fat. Which just what's what's an example of a saturated fat food? Fatty land animal meats. So land animal fats are going to be Your saturated fats that are

33:32 More conducive to visceral fat gain. So if you were to switch out let's say fatty cuts of meat just Trim that fat out. And if you replaced it with something like avocado nuts.

33:43 Olive oil seeds. On menopause, why is fat loss harder and what actually works? Okay. During the menopausal transition, which begins at A woman's mid forties on average and then ends in in the mid fifties.

33:58 There are changes. physiologically and hormonally. That can Challenge a fitness program. So it can challenge

34:07 their ability to execute the fitness program and adhere to it. And so Things like Hot flashes. And joint pain.

34:17 Changes in sexual function. And or sleep. All of those things. Can converge to

34:27 lead to a a decreased ability to stick to a program and do the necessary physical activity and dietary adherence. The sort of the standard rate. of progress for body composition change and so the solution to that would be to simply you you don't have to rearrange a whole program.

34:48 Because somebody's going through menopause. You don't have to cut out nutrients and do any special Things. What? has been effective is just lowering the expectation of progress. So whereas I would typically have somebody gun for

35:03 A pound a week of fat loss. Somebody in the menopausal transition. They have more challenges to that going on simultaneously. So We would go for about half of that. Protein.

35:17 What do what do they do in terms of protein? Just keep the protein high? Same range. Yeah. So w with protein, I gotta say There's sort of a two tiered Recommendation. So the general public with average goals. Yeah. We'll do just fine on one point two.

35:32 to one point six. grams per kilogram of body weight. That's kinda like the general population average goal of. Folks. Somebody like yourself.

35:41 Uh somebody like Me and Folks who are oriented towards maybe Pushing the envelope. A little bit more than the average.

35:52 One point six to two point two grams per kilogram. of body weight. And you know there's a Little margin over here. For people on the fringe physique competitors.

36:02 Who I would have No problem seeing them. go higher than that two point two grams per kilogram cutoff. Is there anything else that peri or menopause or women need to understand about

36:15 gaining muscle and keeping fat off when they're going through menopause. Is there anything else that we've missed? You know, I I would just emphasize the understanding that midlife Present. Maybe the highest point of uh psychological stress. in in people's lives.

36:35 So starting from the late forties, going all the way. into people's fifties and sixties. It's it's like that you know, the concentrated period in the menopausal transition, mid forties to mid fifties, is when people are dealing with Ailing parents the stress of ailing parents. the stress of kids going to high school or college. The stress of

36:57 Hitting uh high point. That is necessary. To allocate for all of those things. Mm-hmm.

37:07 All of those things distract from oh I've got a fitness program here. Oh my coach is making me do this and this and this and now he's making me diet like this. That's the thing that I I would emphasize. There's nothing special or different that needs to be done. And in fact, there's a lot of mythology. that's circulating the space right now. Where coaches and gurus and even some physicians

37:32 are telling women that they are just doomed a bunch of belly fat and lose a bunch of muscle. During menopause. It just happens. You're doomed. Oh, that's just not true. Uh there is

37:44 A study called the Swan Study, that's the longest and largest study of its kind. and the average amount of fat gain during the entire menopausal transition. was one point six kilograms. Which is Three and a half pounds.

37:58 And the um average amount of muscle loss total during the menopausal transition was point two kilograms. That's about half. Half a pound. of muscle loss. Statistically significant, yes. Insurmountable no.

38:15 So and are there gonna be outliers? Who experienced double the muscle loss and Double the fat, gain of fat, yes. But none of this is insurmountable. What do you think about taking is it H R T?

38:28 Does that help? Yeah, well well it it helps those who need it. So HRT should be looked at on an individual basis. One of the things that really annoys the absolute crap out of me is when I'm seeing the comment sections on social media With people telling Everybody that hate

38:48 You just turn forty, time to go on HRT. That is between you and your doctor. People are trying to universalise major changes like H R T Some people definitely

39:02 benefit from it. And Just the same, there are a lot of people who don't need it. The people that benefit from it, do they find it easier to gain muscle mass? And to Not gain fat.

39:16 Is that kinda like what is a common Okay. That is a common result, yes. But my thing with HRT is is this. So There has to be

39:26 A symptomologic reason. To get on it. So you have to be incurring or e experiencing Symptoms that are disrupting to your quality of life. Mm-hmm.

39:38 regardless of what your blood labs are. Like for testosterone, for example. If you are out of range. for testosterone. On the lower end, let's say. But you have no symptoms. And you feel fine, you perform great in all aspects.

39:53 Then It's really up to you. whether it bugs you enough that you're below range or all lower on the lower end of the range. Um to Correct that. It's up to you.

40:05 And so Symptomologically driven. Now the other thing to look at with HRT is and A lot of people they get a single Testing point. And they judge their need to get on hormonal replacement therapy based on a single

40:19 Single test. What people need to do is see whether there is some sort of trend. going on. In one direction. Or another.

40:28 Or not. And if that trend is going in a bad direction over time, and you you can do this by just multiple time points over Over an extended period. It's debatable, six months, twelve months to see what's going on. Try to correct things. Through lifestyle and diet.

40:44 And often they are correctable. Um I've just I've come across many cases. Where A guy will be underslept.

40:54 Overwork. Eating like crap. Gets his testosterone levels tested. Oh. You're right at the bottom, or you're even below range. Oh

41:04 Time for HRT. Well, hold on a second. Let's get this guy some sleep. Let's improve his lifestyle. Improved body composition. And then bang, testosterone levels.

41:14 Double. This is not an uncommon thing. And so I am very much a proponent of First of all.

41:24 Are there symptoms driving the justification for HRT? And then secondly. Are we basing things on a single time point, or did we actually see a trend over time? The next question's about PCOS. Mm-hmm.

41:37 lot of women are struggling with PCOS. And that's causing them to have irregular menstrual cycles and Um Fertility issues. What would you say to a woman who is struggling with PCOS in terms of

41:53 Dietary prescription. Okay. Yeah. So PCOS shares a lot of Metabolic characteristics would

42:02 Type two diabetes. So um there is Insulin resistance going on. There there is Impaired glycemic control going on. And so

42:14 We can pretty much justify being cautious with Total amount of carbohydrate intake. with um PCOS. Yeah. With

42:24 Type two diabetes there's Two tiers of importance. Dietarily. So of first importance with type two diabetes, you have to structure the diet so that it allows Body fat loss.

42:36 the success of GLP one drugs a has actually Proven that At the heart of type two diabetes. Is Overeating.

42:46 Uh an abundance of body fat. So the way that type two diabetes happens. is in genetically predisposed individuals. They gain total body fat. And then

42:56 They gain. visceral fat, an un undue amount of visceral fat. And then this leads to insulin resistance and Impairment of glycemic control. So P C O S is is

43:08 Very similar. In this regard. Uh there is no standard or consensus based PCOS diet protocol. But because it shares so many similar characteristics with type two diabetes, then we can

43:24 pretty much employ the same principles of how we would intervene with type two diabetes, which would number one, put a priority on total body fat reduction. And then tier number two would be all right. Do we need to restrict carbohydrates even further? And so that would be very similar with with PCOS and at kind of a population level with type two diabetes.

43:46 Mm, roughly a hundred thirty ish grams of carbohydrates a day. Seems to be sort of the sweet spot. Uh below which people have an easier time controlling their blood sugar then. above that total amount. But that's just a statistical average. We still have to look at things

44:01 Case by case. My girlfriend, she um has PCOS and she Did the ketogenic diet with me, she's on at the moment. We've been doing it for about eight weeks now. We we do it intermittently throughout the years. Um And she said her menstrual cycle has Perfectly corrected itself.

44:17 I think at its maximum it was like sixty days her menstrual cycle. And then Because she's restricted her carbohydrates, as you were saying, in in in this way using keto, it's it's like she said it's perfect. It's like perfectly predictable now. That's awesome. I d I I say that in part because people I think people don't with PCOS you have it irregular menstrual cycles don't often consider that. carbohydrate, sugar, glucose, whatever could be the perpetrator. Yeah.

44:44 Yeah, well 'Cause it's framed as a disease, like you you're born with it, maybe it's heritable, maybe there's an element of truth to that, but Um It's crazy that that dietary intervention had such a profound impact. On how in particular.

44:56 It's glad to hear that you've found something that works. That's that's an you know, that's any time you present with some sort of clinical condition. I would first tell you. Hey C

45:08 see an endocrinologist or see a a doctor who specializes in that particular issue. And in terms of menstrual cycles. Generally. If you do have an irregular cycle, is there anything you should be thinking about?

45:22 Number one, see a doctor. Number two, consider whether or not you are overtraining and under eating. Yeah. So what happens with female physique competitors? Menstrual disruption, menstrual cessation effect. A few

45:36 Month into prep. You've sometimes even a few weeks in a prep, depending on how aggressive the diet is. And so Menstrual disruption is very common. in competitive athletes and in recreational athletes

45:50 who have to maintain a certain level of leanness while maintaining a high volume of Exercise output. Is that the body from an evolutionary perspective saying, Listen, we ar we don't have the energy to have a baby here? So we're just gonna shut this down. That is right on. Yeah. So you kinda do you don't want to be

46:08 restricting your calorie consumption too much if you have an irregular menstrual cycle and you're trying to correct that. Yeah. No, no. Um the so called female athlete triad begins with Overtraining. Undereating.

46:22 Potential eating. disorder nurturing going on there and then down the line the menstrual cycle gets disrupted and stops and then h hormonal changes happen that are negative and then uh ultimately results in Osteopenia. Osteoporosis.

46:37 And so that chain of events is is unfortunately really common. With women who um don't pay attention to. a healthy menstrual cycle.

46:47 People use this term all the time, muscle memory. Mm-hmm. I thought it was Nonsense. But I I spoke to someone the other day and they said to me, Actually, no, your your body does have a muscle memory, which means that if I fall off now

47:00 Uh and I stopped going to the gym. my body is gonna be able to get back to my current physique faster. Because I was here once upon a time. Is this is this true? That is true.

47:12 There's some debate going on amongst the community what what goes on physiologically with Like when you train you create you create new Myonuclei. so called myonuclear domains, and those stay relatively permanent even during times of

47:28 D training. But there's still the So called proprioceptive or motor component to training. That sticks with people.

47:39 Sort of the skill. aspect of it that sticks with people to be able to execute the movements and do the things to cause the adaptations. So not only do you have that muscle memory from the myonuclear domain standpoint. But you have the motor learning at the neurological component. And to a degree y you you also have the skeletal

48:00 component to be able to capacitate those that rebound In loading. And muscle gain, ri muscle regain rather. Is the gut microbiome playing a role in my ability to lose weight? Mm.

48:13 Not a big one. Um Of course if I Why did you make that sound? Well, there's some people in the space who put the microbiome a a as the uh master regulator, everything.

48:26 But I it's definitely a part of the the axis. of organ systems that that manifest whatever you know result we're looking at. It's part of it, yes. But it's not the the It's not the main puppeteer of everything. Everything works in concert to and and I'll just give you an example there. So

48:46 There are certain supplements that are um that are claimed to be able to in quotes fix the gut microbiome and cause greater weight loss. So there have been many studies. looking at this sort of phenomenon.

49:02 And while There is a statistically significant effect in some cases. The absolute amount that they can help for things like

49:12 body fat loss or body weight loss. It's usually not practically significant. It's it's too small to be considered meaningful. And so I wouldn't necessarily rely on changes in the gut microbiome for impacting like global changes. in body fat.

49:31 Here I have twenty eggs. I heard that you eat twenty eggs per week. Which is about You know, four eggs a day potentially. Why do you eat so many eggs?

49:42 Well, number one, I'm one of those weirdos who actually loves Eggs. I love the I love the taste of them. Um They're a great source of protein. Uh a decent source of fat. Most of the fat in there is Olaic acid, by the way, which is a monounsaturate that predominates olive oil.

49:59 It's a low saturated fat thing. Of course the knock on eggs is their cholesterol content. Um But interestingly, uh It's dietary saturated fat that has the

50:10 greater magnitude of impact on blood lipids than than dietary cholesterol, interestingly enough. I recognize that the major health agencies would want you to stop your egg consumption to like one a day, possibly two a day if you're an elderly person. But

50:28 I Take the uh health agencies Um Or even the consensus guidelines. As a

50:36 Okay, that's cool. That's good starting point. Um, I happen to like eggs. I'll eat more than that. Check my blood. Check my health. I'm doing just fine, so I'm one of those people who can do four eggs a day.

50:47 Just fine. Is this part of your broader testosterone protocol? I I like the fact that uh Eggs are conducive to testosterone production. So you're fifty three years old, right? Yes. Do you test your testosterone levels?

51:02 I have not teste my testosterone levels in Forever. But I'm not concerned with it.

51:12 it would be a symptom driven thing for me to even care. So if I was experiencing the symptoms of low testosterone, then that would give me a reason. to check it out and see what's going on. And then I would have to take a step back and look and see. What can I modify with lifestyle? What what do I have available to change

51:32 Non drug wise. And you know what? If I ever need To take exogenous testosterone, if that day ever comes, well then so be it. I'm just not there. What supplements do you take?

51:44 Every day. I take A multivitamin. I take two multivitamins actually. Uh, the reason why I take two multivitamins is because Really uh certain key uh nutrients in there.

51:58 They they have to be in such small amounts per single pill. Yeah, it's really just Meaningless. And so I take two multivitamins, one of them with iron, one of them without iron. And I also take fish oil.

52:11 Uh I take Magnesium. And I take vitamin D three. I take vitamin C and and by the way, I I really should preface this with this is the broscience side of My personal habits because

52:24 I'm taking my vitamins more on Uh placing your bets basis. Rather than hey man this is Just the bottom line, evidence based. I think everybody should do this. Okay, so I want I want to make sure that's clear.

52:37 I also take Magnesium. And I also take collagen. And I also take creatine. If I told you you could only take three of those supplements, which three would you pick?

52:49 That's a damn good question, man. Can I have uh can can I I'm gonna count my two multis as one. So your multivitamin would that be the first one? Yes. Okay, so multivitamin.

53:00 And Omega threes. For sure. vitamin D three. So you've you've sacked off the creatine.

53:07 Yeah. You're a genius. Mm. That's those are those would be I would cr can I add creatine in there? Could I squeeze it in there? No, no, no, no.

53:20 Oh bro. Well it might humble me to Kick the creatine out, so okay, fine, I'll I'll leave those three. You call creatine king cratine. Yeah. Why'd you call it that?

53:34 It's the only non pharmacological supplement that that really really has very strong and Deep and broad evidence base for the Um

53:46 Enhancing the effects of of resistance training. So Strength gains. and size gains. More strength than size. Thus the size gains They they come with the initial uh loading phase where

54:00 A lot more Intramuscular water. Happens. Yeah, i intracellular, intramyocellular hydration. That is the

54:12 the big immediate part of creatine that that folks feel When they Go on it and when they Go off of it. So you you'll lose a few pounds.

54:21 if you get off of creatine. I call it cancreatine because it has Possibly Close to a th

54:30 I wanna say uh it's reached a over a thousand studies. And the majority of those studies show um positive effects. Yeah. Usually with with creatine. If you were to compare a group

54:42 Taking creatine versus a group not taking creatine. The creatine group Will have like a twenty percent increase in their lifting capacity. Whereas the non creatine group will have like twelve ish percent increase in their lifting capacity over a typical study length, eight to twelve weeks ish.

55:01 And so That is a significant strength gain advantage. And over the long term That would definitely augment muscle hypertrophy as well. And once you're loaded with creatine, so

55:15 Being loaded with creatine means that you saturate your muscle creatine stores. And that requires either a loading phase of twenty to twenty five grams per day for five to seven days. Or Um a maintenance phase that you engage

55:29 Like three or five grams a day. You'll be loaded. at um about thirty days. And so during that loading phase. It's

55:38 Pretty common for people to gain roughly. two percent of their body weight. Um as lean mass. Mm.

55:45 People seem to talk about creatine like it's this miracle thing that everybody should be taking. That's one of the one of the few supplements that it seems all the uh experts I speak to about this stuff. Seem to agree upon. Obviously vitamin D omega three comes up all the time and ulti vitamins. But Cratine seems to

56:02 Yeah, nobody seems to have much of an issue with it or be able to point to many side effects of taking with it, both for men and women. Yeah, it's got the Muscul musculoskeletal. Um

56:13 Benefit. There believe it or not, there's even um benefits for creatine on on Joint health. So

56:19 Um, not only that, not only the the athletic performance and muscle hypertrophy side. But they're Are things like uh improved glucose control. Improved. Memory.

56:31 So different domains of cognition can be enhanced. Bye. Creatine. Yeah. level of creatine in the brain can increase with with supplementation and then you

56:41 create a pro energy environment in the brain and that's how Uh these positive effects on memory happen. with creatine supplementation, especially in people with uh Cognitive decline. So so it there's almost nothing creatine can't do.

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57:59 Why is that a useful tool? Yes. One of the big things that dieters encounter our progress plateaus.

58:08 And so We can define a progress plateau as Four to possibly eight weeks of no change in body composition despite good compliance to the program. With that definition out of the way.

58:23 Then Intervening and Overcoming or managing a plateau is really sort of this individualized process. That Needs to be looked at case by case, where for example

58:36 If somebody Feel like they're in the midst of a plateau. and they have been on program, then there's really only two reasons the plateau happened. So reason number one is that their compliance was inconsistent.

58:50 So poor compliance is number one. Or number two, they have reached energy equilibrium. So they've reached a genuine and bona fide new Maintenance point. But there's something that

59:04 is overarching with the plateau concept that People need to understand. So We automatically look at progress plateaus as something negative. When

59:15 People need to re organize or refraction. of what a plateau is, and the plateau is just the body doing its job. When we look at the body as an adaptive survival unit Then

59:31 Homeostasis. Is a big part of that. So if the body achieves homeostasis. Then Hallelujah, we're we're gonna live. We're gonna survive. So If, for example, somebody has a lot of weight to lose, let's say somewhere to the order of Over twenty pounds, twenty, forty

59:49 Sixty pounds to lose. They have to understand that multiple plateaus will be encountered. en route to their ultimate goal. And

1:00:01 the way that the body changes is always going to be this Surge. Slow Stop. Pattern.

1:00:09 And it just continues this way. And with every progressive plateau. The Third part.

1:00:17 Gets. Shorter. And the slowing part and then the Plateau part. gets longer. So you can think of it as

1:00:26 staircases and landings. So with each successive plateau, the staircase gets shorter, the landing gets longer. But it's supposed to go like that. And The plateaus should be getting longer. Because the ultimate goal, after all

1:00:40 is a plateau of sorts. And when people come to realize that then they can look at plateaus as what I call Maintenance practice. So if

1:00:51 They have that mental shift from seeing plateaus as this negative thing where I need to go sniff out the next great diet or the next great product. They can look at it as all right. So the plateau is a good thing. The body is doing its job. Now we have an opportunity

1:01:07 To practice Maintenance. And think about it this way too, Steven. Anybody can Get weight off.

1:01:15 But weight loss maintenance really is the issue. So the better you get. at weight loss maintenance then The more you can win the game. How do I get good at weight loss maintenance?

1:01:27 Alright, so In order to properly maintain You have to properly get there. So properly getting there means That you have to

1:01:38 Do your best to maintain your lean body mass while you're losing body fat. So what happens to a lot of people when they diet? Yeah. is they lose a lot. of lean body mass along lean body mass you mean muscle yes muscle mass. Muscle mass.

1:01:52 Along with their fat mass. And so Muscle tissue is something very important to keep on the body. while you're losing fat. Because

1:02:02 Muscle is we can look at it as our metabolically active. Every tissue is metabolically active, even body fat. But Muscle tissue specifically. Is

1:02:14 the center of our Dietary fuel usage. It is the metabolic engine of the body, if you will. And so if you're losing muscle tissue.

1:02:25 You're really losing Metabolic leverage. While you're losing body fat. So the way that I infer that is that muscle's very greedy. And it it it takes a lot takes up a lot of calories. So if I lose my muscle, when I get when I drop my weight

1:02:42 It's almost like The greedy guy who s who Succe up all my calories is no longer there. And so I'm quite likely just to to rebound quite quickly. That's a great analogy. And and it's accurate too. And in fact, there is a phenomenon

1:02:56 that in the literature it's called collateral fattening. And that happens when The body Senses. an energy crisis at the end of a diet where you've lost a bunch of muscle mass.

1:03:09 The body senses that Oh my gosh. We just lost a bunch of precious tissue. We have to do whatever we can to get it back. And so your hunger signals ramp up.

1:03:21 And your body kind of Behaviourally. And even metabolically does what is necessary. for you to feed that back as soon as possible. And This does not necessarily happen, certainly not to that kind of magnitude.

1:03:36 If you keep your muscle mass. while you're losing body fat. You don't experience this collateral fattening type of phenomenon where People just s rebound like crazy because their appetite is out of control at the end of the diet. So the way that you Preserve muscle mass.

1:03:53 During the fat loss process. is a couple things. So you have to make sure that your rate of weight loss Isn't indicative of Something that's Too quick.

1:04:04 So About a half a percent to a full percent. of your body weight lost per week. Is as fast as you really want to go. So w roughly a pound a week.

1:04:16 Uh some people who start off Heavier. Okay, two pounds a week is fine at the very beginning. But you generally don't want to lose more than one percent of your total body weight. per week because then that increases the chances that you're losing an undue amount of

1:04:34 Muscle mass along with Your fat mass. And so if you can In essence.

1:04:41 Control the weight loss rate. Then you will keep your lean mass. Now The other two things that need to be going on at the same time are you need to be resistance training. And you need to be consuming enough protein.

1:04:53 So strength training and protein. Enough protein. You got resistance training and then you have Sort of a top speed limiter on how much weight. That you lose.

1:05:04 Per week. And One percent loss of weight, uh one percent Lost a week is spectacular, actually.

1:05:12 For most people. Even a pound a week, even half a pound. A week. You're looking at like in two years you lost fifty pounds. Most people took like two decades to put on their fifty pounds. So you actually don't want to lose weight too quickly, or else you are susceptible to rebound. It is gonna come off quickly.

1:05:29 If you have a lot of weight to lose, it'll come off quickly at the beginning. So for example, uh somebody who is in a state of obesity, let's say they weigh two hundred fifty pounds. And let's say they're losing two, two and a half pounds a week at the beginning of the program, that's fine.

1:05:44 But On average. On average, you you would want to look at roughly a pound a week as a good benchmark. And I still would not frown upon or scoff at a half a pound a week. For certain cases.

1:06:00 And we can talk about I on the topic of plateaus, for example. I had A client.

1:06:09 Uh I I'm sure she doesn't mind being named uh she's a great person. Pam. Pam Greshock, she's a veteran coach in the space. Uh she's perimenopausal, so she's in her her forties. And she wanted to lose what we calculated out to be eight pounds.

1:06:27 Of that. And she stored the majority of it where she didn't want it. was Around the mid section. And

1:06:36 I had it in mind that okay. This is somebody who's perimenopausal. So there's going to be a lower rate of progress going on. This is somebody who is Highly trained.

1:06:48 So She doesn't have a lot more muscle. to put on. That would Give her some you know, some extra

1:06:57 in quotes metabolic leverage for the whole process of improving body composition. So she's highly trained Parrymenopausal. Wants to lose. eight pounds of fat, which would represent the final eight pounds sort sort of that that pushing the envelope.

1:07:13 Knowing those three things. I knew that. This is gonna be a difficult and slow going process.

1:07:21 So Whereas I would normally have somebody Expect. roughly or at least gun for a pound a week loss. For Pam it was more like

1:07:34 Are you gonna be okay with one to two pounds per month. Like if we can get rid of one to two pounds. of body fat per month. I would be happy with it, and I think you should be happy with it.

1:07:47 And so I convinced her of that. And with her wanting to lose eight pounds. I think it helps to give people a visual. Of what

1:07:59 So Coincidentally, A gallon. A gallon jug. You fill it with butter.

1:08:07 That's eight pounds. And so I had her visualize This Eight pound jug. And um I also had her do a butter visualization too.

1:08:17 So Um a standard stick of butter. It's four ounces. So Four sticks of butter is one pound. And uh

1:08:26 In her case, She wanted to lose Well, she wanted to lose eight pounds, so that's thirty two sticks of butter. that would be removed from her body at The end of the dieting cycle.

1:08:38 What is this? Ha ha That is ten pounds of butter. This is an amazing freaking visual. And th this is because You

1:08:50 Asked about diet breaks. As a tool. For people achieving long term weight loss or just breaking through plateaus or managing plateaus. So Every five to ten pounds.

1:09:03 That somebody loses. in a dieting cycle. Is high time for a diet break. Way you can define a diet break, put some

1:09:12 So it's what I call non YOLO maintenance. So you take off the rules, take off the restrictions, but you're not eating with sheer abandon. You're just relaxing the diet. You take a week off the diet. Either every four to eight weeks.

1:09:28 While you're dieting. Or you take a week off of the diet. Every five to ten pounds that you lose. And The sound of five to ten pounds.

1:09:39 Seems like oh that's nothing. Mm-hmm. But no, it's a milestone. This is ten pounds. Yes. That's crazy.

1:09:46 Ten pounds of of butter off the body. So yeah, every time you you lose ten pounds it's Five to ten pounds in in my experience is high time

1:09:57 Alleviate the mental And the physical fatigue of dieting. And that's one of the tactics that you can use For a long term Adherence to a plan.

1:10:09 Yeah. On the topic of plateaus. You can ac when you're dieting, you will hit a point. Where the plateau periods or the maintenance phases.

1:10:22 Are gonna be longer than the dieting phases. I think that that's ideal to be able to hit that point for a long term weight loss goal. And so It's a lot. Easier or at least a lot less intimidating.

1:10:34 for somebody to know that they're going to Be dieting for Four to eight weeks at a time. In between a Let's say a two to three month maintenance phase.

1:10:46 What about f Fasting. Do you think that fasting is'cause a lot of people talk about this thing called autophagy where If you fast for I don't know, forty eight hours your body switches into the state of autophagy where it starts to heal and repair itself. Are you a fan of fasting?

1:11:03 For weight loss or for uh autophagy or other things. For The control of Calories in. Fasting is legit.

1:11:13 And it's also legit for It It actually works a as a As one of the options. for dieting. There just has been a massive

1:11:23 Accumulation of studies. Showing that it works great. So the intermittent fasting variants we have one what one we talked about earlier, time restricted eating. And we've got Every other day fasting.

1:11:37 And then the other third major variant would be twice weekly fasting or the five two. type of model. Like consecutive day fasting. type of models as well, which are less studied because there's just more risk.

1:11:50 involved in them and it's tough to, you know, incur that risk in research. When you bring up autophagy That's where I kind of have to push back. On um not on your You're mentioning of it specifically, but just in general.

1:12:06 People will say or make claims that Yeah, autophagy. And We can say that we can explain a autophagy as A way that the body

1:12:17 gets rid of uh parts of damage cells. It's an important process within the body. And It is a catabolic.

1:12:28 But the thing is It happens in a caloric deficit. Regardless of whether fasting is involved or not. Ready?

1:12:39 Yes. Yeah. Maintain hypochloric conditions. Atophagy wraps up. Um you can

1:12:47 Have a linear Hypochloric model. or a nonlinear or intermittent hypocaloric model. And You'll get

1:12:56 similar degrees of autophagy if you match the caloric deficit by the end of the week. Now Other interesting thing about autophagy Is that you can ramp up autophagy Through exercise.

1:13:10 And not only that But Both major types of exercise will increase autophagy. So resistance training. Increase the autophagy.

1:13:21 Endurance. Aerobic type training. increases autophagy. So If you want to in quotes chase autophagy.

1:13:29 Then doing it through Intermittent fasting or just going through Prolonged periods of not eating. can be a double edg sword. Whereas the autophagy increases through exercise,

1:13:41 They almost don't have a downside. And so um a lot of times with intermittent fasting it it can be a great tool for people who need to lose excess body weight. But what I'm seeing in the community is people thinking that intermittent fasting is something that is necessary to do regardless of your

1:14:01 Body fat level. that is either necessary or beneficial. And that's not actually true per For the research. There's There's a

1:14:09 In particular that looked at men who were already lean. And I believe this was by Templeton and colleagues. Where are they compared eight? Linear dieting model with an every other day.

1:14:22 Fasting model. What does that mean every other day fasting? So they took twenty four hours off? Yes. Yeah. So it was

1:14:30 Yeah. Every other day. And then The same deficit by the end of the by the end of the week between the two groups.

1:14:38 Yeah. And the intermittent group. actually l lost more lean body mass. Then the

1:14:46 Linear Clark deficit group. They lost more lean body. They live more weight. They're muscle. More muscle.

1:14:57 Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so that gives us a hint that Fasting is great until it isn't because you've achieved what you needed to achieve.

1:15:08 And so then it just kinda becomes a tool. a tool to help people control calories in. One of the beautiful things about fasting and Whether it's time restricted eating, or whether it's Some sort of variant of alternate day fasting or twice a week fasting.

1:15:26 Is that It works. in research regardless of whether people are meticulously tracking things or not. And so that that can be a a boon for individuals who don't necessarily like to micromanage.

1:15:38 their stuff. But for people who are trying to maximize retention of lean mass. Wild. Pushing the envelope of uh Fitness. Uh it can definitely be a double edged sword once you're already lean.

1:15:52 But if I do want to maximise the benefits of autophagy, the best way to do that is fasting versus Just calorie restriction, I'm assuming. We don't know what the optimal level of autophagy is that would actually Confer. Health benefits.

1:16:07 We don't know what that threshold is, and there's different ways that people try to measure autophagy. It's very hard to correlate. Certain levels of autophagy with certain

1:16:21 certain degrees of disease prevention. We we're not there yet. Um I don't think I I I think big picture wise. I think that autophagy Is an algorithm.

1:16:35 running in the background. That is more of a bystander type of thing than a driver. Simple simp similar to insulin and glucagon. So The insulin and glucagon axis. Works when you

1:16:49 Feed versus when you're fasting. So Glucagon levels go up. Glucagon is A hormone that mobilizes fuel stores in the absence. of food.

1:17:02 in the absence of calories. And autophagy is similar in that regard. And I think that a focus on pushing autophagy. is sort of missing the forest for the trees, because if we were to push autophagy to its end, then we could

1:17:21 go all the way to a phenomenon called autosis. Which is runaway cell death. Which happens in starvation. in some cases. And so I think that we need to focus on

1:17:34 Other things like How do we maintain A certain body fat percentage. While maintaining a certain physical activity level while maintaining a certain dietary pattern.

1:17:47 I think that it's those things. that are much more productive to target. than seeing how far can we push auto autophagy. before potentially going into runaway cell death. Mm-hmm.

1:18:00 I was looking at the the benefits of this thing they call autophagy, and it says they're the ben the proven likely benefits are Cellular cleaner. So it repairs damaged proteins. And organelles, I believe, improving cell efficiency. Metabolic health improves insulin sensitivity.

1:18:18 Neuroprotection, heart and muscle quality, maintains mitochondria, helps adapt to training and oxidative stress. immune tuning and longevity. There's sort of strong Animal evidence, I believe. around the longevity component, but they the the research that I was reading talked about how it can bath.

1:18:35 Backfire. Because um Tumors may use autop autophagy to survive. Um And some treatments for

1:18:44 established cancers aim to inhibit it. And if you overdo fasting, as you said in the study you cited, you can lose muscle, which is not great and be fatigued, et cetera. Um there is a bit of a trend, I think, with people doing a lot of water fasts and stuff like that quite periodically. I think it's rising, even sort of juice fasts and stuff like that. What's your take on Those types of fasts. I'm not a big fan, Stephen. Uh I think that the cycle that people go through.

1:19:11 at least in the developed world. Is that they go through the year Then November comes around. And then the holidays hit. They overdo it.

1:19:21 November. Through December. All the way up to the end of the year and they're like Oh boy, I have ten to twenty pounds that I won't lose.

1:19:31 And then They just use these sort of fasts and these detoxes to Crash off the Bad decisions.

1:19:42 And then the cycle repeats. Annually. So I think that it's a much healthier approach for people to secure and reinforce. The right habits.

1:19:56 So the entirety of the year. Instead of um jumping on the fast. To get rid of the the holiday binges. This sort of brings me to the ketogenic diet.

1:20:07 Um My dad used the ketogenic da, and I think actually my brother as well, um, but also a few other my friends in my life used it as a way to Trump. There. Fat quite quickly.

1:20:18 recomposite their body. Um Very very quickly. And the results of seeing someone on the ketogenic diet are quite astounding. Because w my friend the other day uh s sent me a the chart of his weighing scales at home. And it's the sort of gradual increase upwards. And then he did the ketogenic diet where he cut out carbohydrates and sugar. It's basically Almost entirely, and it's just straight line down.

1:20:39 And it's body. His body weight. What is your perspective on the ketogenic diet? What is it good for? What is it not good for? Is it good at all? It is a

1:20:50 Very effective. way to lose weight and fat. And that's for a a few Big reasons. First of all.

1:20:59 If somebody Western dietary pattern. to the ketogenic diet. then they're automatically

1:21:08 Cutting out a lot of Highly processed. Hyper palatable. Carb fat. combo junk foods and snacks.

1:21:18 That are just energy dense. Easy to overconsume mindlessly. That's the good thing about the ketogenic diet. In addition to well They're finally eating enough protein now. And so along with the increase in protein comes the increase in satiety and a better

1:21:34 hunger control. Now the negatives of the ketogenic diet. The big one is that The majority of people who engage a ketogenic diet. They don't do it permanently.

1:21:48 For one reason or another, they're no longer on the keto diet. And this is reflected in research as well, even in uh vulnerable populations who would stand to benefit from from that level of restriction. So usually what happens in research is You take you take a group, two groups of subjects and one is on the high carb, low fat control diet. And one of them is on a ketogenic diet which can be achieved by a maximum of fifty of carbohydrate.

1:22:16 in the day or or less than So what happens at The twelve month point. in the diet and sometimes at the six month point. The keto group is now consuming about

1:22:29 Two to three times. more carbohydrates than the original fifty gram assignment. So they rebound. They Insidiously creepy.

1:22:38 Up the carb intake. There's something about the ketogenic diet. That the majority of people who engage it. Just can't stick to.

1:22:47 It's too restrictive for people. They can't stick to it but By what you were saying, they also end up rebounding. Above Where they were before.

1:22:56 They end up rebounding like I'll give you a specific example. There was one study Well, there is the A to Z study. Where um

1:23:08 The individuals on the Atkins diet. Ended up consuming. What looked a lot like the zone diet. His own diet.

1:23:17 Yes, the zone diet is a forty percent carbohydrate, thirty percent Protein thirty percent fat. So it's c a k the keto diet, roughly. Th the keto diet is more like sixty to eighty percent fat. And then you know, fifteen to twenty ish percent protein.

1:23:33 And then the carbohydrates are The remainder. Uh minor percentage. So what happens is like the people who started off At fifty grams.

1:23:42 of carbohydrate at the beginning of the study, the keto group. At the twelve month point. They were Decrept that carbohydrate intake up to around one hundred fifty grams of carbohydrate. Whereas their assignment was

1:23:57 Fifty grams. of carbohydrate a day. This is a common theme. In long term keto studies. Is this up creep?

1:24:08 in carbohydrate intake over time because people can't maintain the the the fifty grams of carbohydrate max. Required to stay. Yeah. And I'm not saying that there aren't

1:24:20 a lot of people out there who are just living the keto life permanently, they're out there. Yeah. But they are In the minority. I see them in the comment section whenever I talk about keto. I h I see people say, Lo I've been on the keto diet for five years, for seven years, for ten years. Sure.

1:24:36 There's entire There's huge communities of folks who've been on keto for five, ten years. They're Or longer. And That's great.

1:24:45 More power to these folks. But claiming that this is a universal solution ignores The reality. At some people.

1:24:54 Most people, uh per the research, the majority Can't stick to it. One of the caveats of the keto diet. The other one would be for those who can stick to the keto diet.

1:25:06 Yeah. You really have to look at the quality of uh the diet in order for it to be cardiovascularly healthy. If you're gonna engage an Let's say an eighty, eighty five percent fat diet. Yeah.

1:25:21 There's gonna be very different effects. If that eighty to eighty five percent are from land animal fats. Versus from Nuts, avocados.

1:25:31 Olive oil. very different cardiovascular effects going on there. And so Uh that's the other caveat. with the keto diet. There's a Mediterranean Type of keto diet that's a

1:25:43 Is Healthy. And that has You know, it it it is one of these cardiovascularly protective

1:25:51 types of diets that you can engage. Whereas if you just do like beef, bacon, and butter from here on out, then uh you don't have the best cardiovascular risk. trajectory. What about gaining muscle on the ketogenic diet? W if I'm restricting carbohydrates, is it more difficult to gain muscle mass.

1:26:12 The short answer is yes. And the nuanced answer is you still can gain muscle on keto. And the the body is is really resilient and and quite genius.

1:26:26 At manufacturing the carbohydrate um endogenously or from within the body. So your your body can Make carbohydrate out of lactate.

1:26:38 And Fill at least partially your muscle glycogen stores. And so um Going on a zero carbohydrate diet. Doesn't necessarily

1:26:49 end up with the the type of results that you you you might imagine for somebody who's completely avoiding carbohydrates. And In the research comparing Strength gains. From a high carbohydrate, low fat diet.

1:27:04 Versus a keto diet. The keto folks, as long as they're equated with protein and total calories with the control diet. They've got similar strength gains. It's quite a An interesting phenomenon. Muscle size gains is

1:27:20 Different story. Interestingly. Almost always there's some advantage to the high carb, low fat control group compared with the ketogenic diet group when it comes to both gains in lean mass.

1:27:33 As well as retention. And one of those things is Hm more or less obvious. It's like you simply carry

1:27:44 More muscle glycogen. When you're on a high carbohydrate, low fat diet. And muscle glycogen glycogen is the stored form of carbohydrate. Within the muscle and then

1:27:55 Uh minor amount in in the liver. And for every gram. of carbohydrate that you store as glycogen, there's Mm three ish grams of water stuck to it. And so just

1:28:07 Sitting there. you're carrying more more muscle mass, more fullness. on a non-ketogenic diet. What about the carnivore diet? A lot of people have talked about that recently, um, which is just a diet where you just eat meat. What's your Just your point of view on that.

1:28:23 Well Okay, it's a little silly and it's a little extreme, but it has some merit. to it. So the carnivore diet, when you get on it, it's similar to how when people Go on a keto diet after they've been doing the standard Western diet.

1:28:37 Since forever. So the standard Western diet has Too much of everything it's gotten. Too much total calories, too much refined carbohydrate. Got.

1:28:45 Yeah, it's got a moderate amount of protein, but you're also eating everything under the sun, from burgers to fries. to cakes to ice creams, to cookies. Uh in addition to Pasta and

1:28:59 Everything else. So When you go from that Excess of everything. to the carnivore diet.

1:29:07 You automatically and spontaneously Eat far fewer calories. than you used to on your standard Western diet. So The carnivore diet is actually the lesser of the evils when we're comparing it to the standard Western diet.

1:29:21 And You can even Try to optimize the carnivore diet. Like some people Engage a carnivore diet that is just

1:29:30 Extreme. Like Beef and salt. Yeah, so That is very appealing.

1:29:36 to people who have a tendency to jump on the carnivore diet'cause it's Even more extreme and people with tendencies towards Mm. the extremes they'll A lot of'em are ex vegans, actually.

1:29:46 Carnivores. 'Cause they can only be on one extreme side or the other. It's tough for them to be in the grayscale here. But

1:29:57 Is um The lesser of the evils. It Can be Optimize if that's even possible. If people

1:30:05 had more variety within their carnivore model, within their plant free Like for example if some of But he went carnivore instead of doing beef and salt, he had A rotation of Fatty fish.

1:30:18 Poultry. Beef. Eggs. Dairy. And

1:30:25 Who knows, he maybe he might even justify protein powder in there for a dessert. Who knows? It it's still animal based. Do you find that vegans and vegetarians struggle more to gain muscle mass? Typically. Vegans. And vegetarians. in the general population do because they're not aware of how to structure the diet.

1:30:45 And the training program to to Achieve that. So What are they missing? They're just not eating enough. Total calories.

1:30:53 And they're not eating enough protein. generally speaking. Now there are some vegans who will Drink a bunch of Mountain Dew and Yeah. Have have um potato chips and and things like that and still stay vegan and Oreo cookies are vegan, I I believe as well.

1:31:09 But Vegans can still Gain. muscle on par with omnivores. If they

1:31:16 Structure it right. Are most people that you encounter and have worked with over the years Not getting enough protein. Like the average.

1:31:28 Yes. Almost everybody who Has been Overweight? Or obese.

1:31:36 Or just h had some degree of of an issue with their body fat levels. Almost all of them. Under consumed protein. What about people that are Very skinny.

1:31:48 Because I've got lots of friends that um would be in the skinny fat category where they've they're kind of They look very, very, very skinny, but they've got you know a little bit of a roll. Yeah. Um and they often say to me.

1:32:00 That they just can't gain weight. I've heard this a lot from from friends. I j I just can't gap gain weight. I've heard I need to have more protein, but you know, I I'm just not gaining any weight. Yeah. Yeah, that is uh the in quotes hard gainer. Phenomenon.

1:32:15 and people will have different degrees of body fat in in that category. But these folks What they actually have an issue with is A spontaneous Increase in what? We call it

1:32:26 Non exercise activity. Thermogenesis. It's an increase in spontaneous movement. Just an increase in fidgeting. You know, tapping, moving around.

1:32:40 Uh Just being more hyper kinetic in response to increasing their caloric intake. In twenty four hours.

1:32:50 You and I expend X amount of calories. Mm-hmm. So total daily energy expenditure. is composed of um various components. So there is a resting

1:33:02 energy expenditure component. So our so called resting metabolic rate, or it's also called resting energy expenditure or basal metabolic rate. Those are all interchangeable. That is the amount of calories that your body burns in a twenty four hour period just to Stay alive. Okay, so if you were bedridden.

1:33:21 The amount of calories you you burn just through your vital organs and your systems working. That's your resting energy expenditure. Now the Other part of energy expenditure is your active energy expenditure.

1:33:36 So active energy expenditure consists of we can subdivide it into your exercise activity. and your non-exercise activity. With hard gainers. It's their non exercise activity. That spontaneously

1:33:51 Goes up. when they try to eat more to gain weight. It's an interesting study done in the late nineteen nineties by Levine and colleagues where He took a group of normal weight. subjects. It was m mostly male

1:34:05 sample of subjects. And he fed them A thousand calories above and beyond their maintenance requirements. And I believe this w was for ten weeks. What happened w during the during the study and

1:34:20 As a result of eating a thousand calories above their maintenance needs, They ended up burning. On average. three hundred thirty six calories through an increase in non exercise activity. So

1:34:35 Th that is a very interesting phenomenon. One of the uh subjects in that study. Actually ended up burning almost seven hundred calories. as an increase. In their non exercise activity thermogenesis.

1:34:50 And so What happens to This Archetype. This hard gainer person.

1:34:58 is they just start fidgeting more, they just start walking faster. They just start sitting less. They start bobbing their head more. They can even uh just subconsciously train harder, train more. And their energy expenditure side.

1:35:14 Just ramps up spontaneously in response to to an increase in calories. So if someone is a hard gainer and they struggle to gain weight because of this sort of spontaneous energy usage. What advice would you give them? Stop moving. Eat more. Okay, so The principle would be to eat more.

1:35:34 Uh the practice would be Eat more. in a way that you get those calories in easily and conveniently. And so you can structure Liquid meals.

1:35:47 Two In a day they rarely need three. Shakes. to have between their meals. uh at any point in the day where it's convenient.

1:35:57 And then you just literally add nutrition and calories that way. And that so that's the solution, just literally eat more. I think the The thing that sits underneath everything we're talking about is

1:36:10 Motivation. Whatever that means, which is like having the motivation to stick to something. Discipline, whatever you want to call it. When you look back through the last thirty years of your career Are there any similarities in

1:36:24 The thing. Or the catalyst moment that made somebody finally Stick to it. Stick to the diet, stick to the exercise regime. Stick to the whatever.

1:36:34 Is the are there any themes? Of a person going from Struggling. To disciplined. So the first thing that comes to my mind is

1:36:45 They finally arrive at the point where Their physical goals become Priority number one. Changing the body.

1:36:54 So losing Body fat. gaining muscle. Achieving Your ideal body composition. That is a

1:37:03 Colossally. Give a cruel. goal. Whenever I work with somebody who's preparing for A contest of some sort.

1:37:11 Whether it is in the more elite line. of physique contest or whether they're just joining a transformation challenge. But they're both very, very serious. And they both are putting their program. At the top of their priority list.

1:37:28 So when I say top of your priority, I mean You do what you need to do to stay alive and and and keep breathing. as as a top priority. And right there. is your physical goals. Okay, so

1:37:42 The big problem with people who find that they can't hit their goals or they can't stay consistent. Or they're just having A struggle losing X amount of body fat.

1:37:53 Or even a struggle of gaining X amount of muscle. Is that they simply have Five other things that are prioritized. in their day. Above and beyond their

1:38:03 Their program. Mm-hmm. So they have Five That can come in the way.

1:38:12 of sticking to the program. So somebody has to be at the point in their lives where they're gonna make it a top priority because you know, there's nothing metabolically different from these physique competitors and these people who join these challenges. Versus somebody in the general population who's just Struggling.

1:38:31 The people in the Physique contests. Will always hit their goal. Within one percent. at the end of the prep period, they'll always hit their goal.

1:38:40 And so they're not a different species, they're not a different animal. They don't have special metabolisms. They just have different priorities. And so That is the difference. You have to hit a point where

1:38:53 Your physical goal becomes priority one. And is there anything That one can do. in your opinion, or that you try and do when you were a trainer back in the day. Two

1:39:05 Make this someone's priority. You can sit somebody down. And Review with them. the what are the reasons why you're doing this.

1:39:18 Name me three. Three three good things that you think will come out of this. Or three drivers that you can think about. And then you can just have them write that down.

1:39:29 And then They can be reminded. That way. But

1:39:33 Fundamentally, Steven. They have to arrive at that point. Sort of on a Self initiated.

1:39:40 Way. You you can't Really? Make the horse drink. You know? You can pull them You know, they almost have to

1:39:50 get there themselves. And and you're kind of you can facilitate it only to a certain degree. And after you ask them, okay what What are the reasons? Then you can also have them put in their face, Okay, what are the barriers?

1:40:03 So to have him right down to your three biggest stumbling blocks and so Then you can give them two sets of things to think about. That will keep them On task and motivated.

1:40:13 U Fifty three years old? Fifty three. Fifty three years old. He looks very different at forty years old. Ah yes, sorry, I did.

1:40:23 Yeah. Yeah, whoa, buddy. Yep, yep. Mm-hmm. I remember that guy. Woo.

1:40:32 That's an amazing shot. And you look younger now. I do, actually, thank God. Thank God. Yeah.

1:40:40 Yeah. That that always gets me, man. That that picture always gets me. Why? It was when my my first son was seven ish and my younger baby was um

1:40:54 So Four. And so Parents with young children. Are very stressed out.

1:41:04 Bad habits. I used to drink. Heavily. Yeah, I I started drinking heavily. At that point.

1:41:11 Um and I drank heavily from When I was forty till I was about forty six. Six. Were you an alcoholic at At forty years old? Oh yes.

1:41:21 Oh yes. What did that look like? It was It it got really bad towards the final couple years.

1:41:31 I'm talking A bottle bottle and a half. Of wine. And A night.

1:41:38 By myself. Seven days a week. Seven days a week. And the bottle and a half. That's almost a thousand calories of Thousand calories of regret.

1:41:50 It's what it was. Yeah. Do you know what caused that? The various stress vectors in life, you know, um

1:42:01 Being a dad. Mm. Trying to be the best husband. Um Becoming successful

1:42:09 Uh in terms of Coming into demand. With projects and people Approaching me with Business partnerships.

1:42:17 And um me thinking geez ah I I worked like two decades for this. For this stuff to happen. How can I turn anything down, you know? So I said, Yes, they'll do that. Yes, they'll do that. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then

1:42:31 Pretty soon your your yeses just stack up and your workpil stacks up like this. All of those things, you know, they kind of converge into this mix of stress and anxiety and Alcohol is a very convenient and very

1:42:49 Available. And very acceptable means Two Engage in a substance that acts as an anxiety band aid.

1:43:00 My alcohol addiction. was a very real thing. Uh And I'm really glad I I overcame it.

1:43:10 through this period from forty to forty six, forty seven. Who were you and w what is it that you You did that made you Realised something had to change. So

1:43:28 During that time period. I was just very reactive. to my environment. I was just going with the flow. Uh

1:43:39 I honestly was not as ambitious as I should have been and and focused on my goals. I was comfortable. Yeah, I was comfortable. And

1:43:54 The unfortunate thing about the drink and fortunate thing. too is it hit it hit a rock bottom point. Where I knew that it wasn't a matter of all right, I gotta pull back or how am I gonna moderate and this and that. It was more like

1:44:12 I just need to stop. I just need to stop. And I need to redirect. This tendency towards routine.

1:44:23 Thing of needing to do the same thing daily. Just redirect it. How did you know you needed to stop? Oh, I knew that I needed to stop because my professional and personal life Basically imploded all all

1:44:37 Because of my my own actions. Now for you was it just a case of Right, I'm gonna stop doing this. Or did you have to did you go somewhere, did you get support? Did you seek some counselling or anything like that?

1:44:49 So I have been able to Just make the hardcore commitment to stop. And keep that commitment and uh um I've been able to redirect my Ritualistic.

1:45:02 Tendencies towards Training. And good nutrition. And I Get a lot of questions'cause like every year. I do a post on Instagram.

1:45:11 About how Okay, it's year six now. Not a single drink. Here's what I've learned during that time. And then uh next month. Uh actually on the twenty fifth.

1:45:23 Of August. Uh that's gonna be year seven. So I'm gonna do the same thing. And so The question I always get is So how do you stay abstinent?

1:45:33 Like what what do you do to Not Slip up. And What I do is i if I get kind of a a craving

1:45:42 Or a nagging or a feeling like Oh my god, I gotta have some alcohol. Then I just sit back and I think through the scenario in my mind. Of me. Drinking to My degree of satisfaction degree of

1:45:56 You know, S facedness. And then I kinda picture that. And then I picture how It might last for an hour or two. And then after that hour or two.

1:46:08 may have made some really bad impressions on Uh after that hour or two I may have Plowed through the the hot wings. Uh at two, three AM.

1:46:22 And then after that. Feel like hell? The next morning definitely can't work out that day. And then where did that get me? And so

1:46:32 I just go through that scenario in my mind. And then when I'm done going through that scenario, it takes like a minute. And I'm right back at uh where I need to be uh mind framewise.

1:46:44 also apply that sort of visualization. that pre mortem where you kinda play out the scenario and see what the consequence would be can also be applied to many things we're talking about today around Diet and work outs and stuff like that. Like playing it forward to see how you'll feel about it in the future and sort of

1:47:01 visualizing those consequences. Thank you for sharing that. I I think it's somewhat dovetailed into the How W what what we're talking about about change in your life and motivation, discipline, like how does change occur in people? And as you said, it's when it becomes a priority and quite clear in your life,

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1:49:40 Generally speaking they're A nothing burger. And there's a lot of scaremongering around artificial sweeteners. But there is one Artificial sweetener that has a

1:49:51 Kind of a Crappy track record. For Both. Impairing glucose control

1:49:58 And also weight gain. And that's saccharin. So Saccharin is the one artificial sweetener that's kind of bombed out. at the mom shelter there. As far as the literature

1:50:12 is concerned. But the good news about Sacharin It's by the way, it's the little pink packet. Things. It's not really uh commercially pervasive.

1:50:24 So it's not that popular anyway. No, it's almost commercially extinct. So um the other sweeteners like sucralose, aspartame. Stevia, or some people call it Stevia. Um

1:50:36 They're all fair game. They're all in the same boat. Okay. Pretty dang innocuous. And you'd have to consume impossible amounts.

1:50:44 of those things to incur negative health effects in in a lifetime, really. 'Cause some people have thought that they're potentially carcinogenic. These sort of artificial sweetness that you find in certain uh Diet beverages. Yeah, no, that's that's definitely a leap.

1:50:59 That's definitely a leap based on Animal data and completely unrealistic doses and Conditions that are irrelevant to human physiology. Yeah, it's it's more dangerous stepping out and breathing in the the city air, basically.

1:51:14 What is the most important thing we haven't talked about that we should have talked about, Alan? For the people that are sat at home listening to this. Okay, so If we look At the things people care about that don't freaking matter.

1:51:31 In terms of diet. They fixate on Weird buzzwords. Like They fixate on not in they they don't even be weird words, but like sugar, for example.

1:51:43 There has been such scare mongering around sugar. don't delineate between added sugars to the diet. versus sugar that is intrinsic or naturally occurring. In foods.

1:51:56 For fruit. Things like fruit, fresh fruit. And even milk has naturally occurring uh Sugar in it, lactose. um can be problematic for um some of the population, but Look at fresh fruit.

1:52:08 I've actually heard people Vilify fruit. Because it has sugar. And It's one thing to

1:52:18 Take an idea. And Put out a a plausible claim. Okay, so yeah, it's got sugar.

1:52:26 And then, you know, we all know that if you add a ton of sugar to the diet, you lower the quality of the diet, and then you can Um push your bets towards negative health consequences down the line. Okay, that That's fine, that's reasonable. But

1:52:40 Even though fruit has sugar. It also has A ton of other beneficial components. And it's in this low calorie.

1:52:51 High water. High micronutrient density package. That is satiating and displaces stomach space for Otherwise junky foods that you may

1:53:03 Th a lot of people would have consumed instead of that fruit. But beyond all that, forget about all the reasoning and stuff. Let's look at the literature. Does fruit cause negative health consequences.

1:53:17 Does it cause. Things like impaired blood glucose control. Cause obesity, does it cause weight gain? Uh it does the opposite of all those things.

1:53:26 Fresh food. actually has been shown to improve glycemic control. improve body weight, improve body composition, and improve the protection against a range of cardiometabolic diseases and cancer. So It doesn't really matter what anybody says. We just have to face

1:53:44 Face the evidence. Um, there's something called the glycemic index that was big in the eighties and nineties and people were It's kinda come back around again. Glycemic index. High glycemic index foods and things like that. And there's

1:53:58 A couple of fruits that are actually have a high glycemic index in that would be pineapples in it. And watermelons. Watermelons. Yeah. High on the GI scale, but the way that glycemic index is determined is you get 50 grams of carbohydrate from a given food, regardless of the amount that you have to eat. Fifty grams of it.

1:54:16 And then you measure its effect on your blood sugar levels for two hours after ingestion. 'Cause Seen as keto friendly, which is But it but watermelons have what's called a low glycemic load. So they have a very low amount of carbohydrate. Per serving. Yeah, per serving, yeah. Even though the carbohydrate itself, if you were to gather

1:54:35 Fifty grams of it. A more pronounced effect on blood sugar elevations. And so there Even though fruits th those fruits have a high GI and certain foods have a high GI

1:54:48 They have a low glycemic load, and ultimately People need to Stop um Stop and think about things. Like the the

1:54:57 longest living populations. On the planet. Do not avoid fruit. The fruit is a regular part of there. What about the white stuff?

1:55:06 The white. Sort of. Added sugar. There is it called refined sugar? Mm-hmm. Yeah, refined we can call it added sugar. Mm-hmm.

1:55:13 What about the added sugar? Added sugar is problematic. In two different ways at least. So the first way is it's diluting The nutrient density of the diet. It's uh

1:55:24 It's a phenomenon called micronutrient dilution, when you have just a bunch of junk micronutrient free calories in the diet. The other way that it Poses a problem. is because it is usually packaged with highly processed and engineered

1:55:40 Refined carbohydrate and fat combination foods. So your classic desserts. Pastries, cookies, cakes. Things like that. And so

1:55:52 The sugar itself. If you were to if I were to just put up A jar of sugar in front of you. And say hey, I challenge you to not just spoon that in. You'll go, Oh, no problem.

1:56:03 Yeah. It's people paint sugar out to be this inherently evil Thing but The way that it gets into trouble is when it is a part

1:56:15 of these hyper palatable highly processed, high highly engineered dessert and snack foods. And so that is the main issue with added sugar. And the various health organizations. I mentioned the Institute of medicine.

1:56:29 or now the National Academy of Medicine saying, Hey, we need to cut off our added sugars at twenty five percent of the diet. There's the World Health Organization. sort of the absolutely terrified version of that where they want people to max out their added sugar to to five percent of the calories in the diet.

1:56:48 But That's usually not realistic. And it gets a little bit extreme. Pathological. So what would you say?

1:56:59 Ten percent. Of total calories. Max. W with added sugar. And that would fall kind of right into

1:57:07 This discretionary Whatever you want. And I would want to qualify that ten to twenty percent margin by saying that

1:57:19 If you're hyper caloric. In other words, if you're consuming more calories than you're taking in you're trying to gain gain weight or something like that, you probably want to keep your Your discretionary calorie allotment to ten percent, or your indulgence food to ten percent rather than twenty percent. How many days a week do you go to the gym? Four to five.

1:57:38 I'm just trying to confront this this question mark in my head about if you go to the gym seven days a week, for example. Is that not giving your body enough time to rest? But I guess it depends what you're doing there and how hard you're working. Yeah, and a great example of that is a little bit more. Total sets per week.

1:57:53 You know, like you can cram Let's imagine for a given Muscle group. You do Like nine s nine sets a week, or ten sets a week.

1:58:03 Uh you could probably get those in In a single session. But it's more productive to probably spread it out over at least two days. How long does it take for me to start to lose muscle?

1:58:16 Oh man, okay. That is a good question and a tough one. So Muscle loss happens very rapidly in bedridden. Individuals.

1:58:26 So lean mass just especially critically ill folks. Oh man. Goes really fast. Yeah. Contrast that with you.

1:58:34 Taking A week off. Or even two weeks off. But it's more of like a um an active arrest. Where you're not just merely sitting around.

1:58:46 You could probably go a couple weeks before you Start noticing material drops in in Strength. And fitness.

1:58:56 Uh three weeks. Yeah, you'll definitely I think you'll definitely feel that. And do I need to work out Till failure in terms of resistance training and like, you know. Bicep cells, whatever. in order to get gains? Do I need to be going all the way until I can't

1:59:11 It depends on the goal. Um you mentioned that your goal was To gain muscle. Yeah. So

1:59:22 In reality. Um and and the this question is surprisingly more complex than You might hope it It's gonna be but Okay.

1:59:31 When people Try to train to failure. And this has been tested out in the research literature. They usually automatically leave one to two reps in the tank, even three reps in the tank.

1:59:45 And even trained Even resistance trained subjects when you Tell them to Train of failure. Or leave one rep in reserve.

1:59:55 They'll routinely leave actually two to three reps in reserve. So people underestimate their their abilities. To Push. Uh they usually it's almost an automatic margin there that the body sort of

2:00:09 regulates and governs. And sort of automatically prevents you from going. So With that said. I think that Most people

2:00:19 can train to failure. Without worrying about whether they're violating the the Golden uh guidelines seen in the literature what It's very common for um the consensus in the exercise science community, even in the hypertrophy folks to say, Yeah, leave uh one to two reps in reserve.

2:00:38 I think That depends on on the exercise. So You'd be kind of a fool. to be doing lateral raises to to like to think that you can't do partials.

2:00:51 for lateral raises and and still get some benefit out of it. And you'd be kind of a fool to think, Yeah, I'm I'm gonna do concentration curls here. I'm gonna leave uh one to two reps in reserve. No, that's different. On the other hand

2:01:03 Deadlifting. Benching. Squatting. Mm.

2:01:08 free weight barbell multi joint types movements. Well they're they're c more conducive to leaving one to two reps in the tank. But for single joint isolation exercises and and even machine exercises And

2:01:21 Lighter loads. Where it's safe, take it to failure, man. We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next, not knowing who they're leaving it for, and the question left for you. Is how does nature impact on your life? It it has quite a big impact.

2:01:40 Um Yeah. Yeah. It has an impact and and obviously the environment is Important.

2:01:48 I'm wondering through the lens of what you do in terms of You know, m you know, mindset and health and psycho you know, these kinds of things. If you think much about Being outside. This is

2:02:00 being inside. You know, I I've even read some interesting studies around people that run outside versus on a treadmill. have a more sort of uh Have cognitive benefits. Because the brain is stimulated more. I think that there

2:02:16 There's a good amount of literature. On The Psychological. benefits of uh

2:02:23 Just being in nature or even getting Getting some sun. And I think that there's Epidemiological like Population.

2:02:32 based data showing that uh marine communities tend to be the longevity champs. Marine, what does that mean? Uh communities that l that live by the ocean or close to the ocean. And

2:02:45 Or that omega three they're eating from the fish. And that factors in as well. For sure. But that just the Kinda almost the metaphysical effect of Going to the beach, you know? That's gotta play it.

2:02:58 And so So yeah. I I I think it definitely has an effect and I think that there are data That we can point to that says it does. Alan, where where should people go right now if they want to learn more from you? Where where is the best place to follow you for more information as as you continue to investigate and educate on the science of all of the things we've talked about today?

2:03:18 My website is alanarragon.com. That's the hub. Of everything. And Maybe my most active

2:03:27 Social media platform is Instagram. So that is Cut. The Alan Aragon. And this book I have in front of me.

2:03:36 When did you write this book? I wrote that thing from Well, it includes the thirty years of experience that I was So I've just crammed the thirty years into there, but the actual writing of that took from

2:03:50 About twenty two. twenty all the way to twenty twenty two. Yeah. Took about two years. So first published in twenty twenty two, and it's really like a bible. That's kinda the way I describe it. It has everything in it from

2:04:04 What I love about it is you have all these Pictures as well. I'm glad you like it. Well I mean it's like it's it's Dare I say, it's a it's quite like a

2:04:14 Like a like a nice accessible textbook. Well there's adopted it and made it a Yeah. Interesting. Doesn't surprise me.

2:04:25 Yeah, Hunter Waldman is is one of them. Yeah. Thank you so much, Alan. Thank you for doing what you do. Um, people love your message because it's so demystifying in a world that is increasingly mystified by lots of information from lots of different people. So please do continue to do what you're doing. And I I uh I'm rooting for you in this new season of life where you're gonna get even closer to patients once again and clients once again and be even more hands-in with your community. So I highly recommend everybody goes and follows you on Instagram to keep track of how they can join your community and be one of those people that you directly impact with your work.

2:04:56 I I'm gonna I'm gonna subscribe to your review so that I can stay ahead of All of the um the scientific literature as and when it comes out, because for me it is quite demystifying, but you're you're one of the great voices in this space of um simplification. And understanding, so I applaud you for that.

2:05:13 I think it's all learnable, it's all teachable. But Thank you so much for the opportunity to be on the show. This is huge and uh Thank you all for tuning in.

2:05:23 Thank you. We're done. Uh

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