November 7, 2025 • 31 mins
You likely don’t have a broken metabolism, you probably have bad information. In this episode, Ben Olliver, Dr. Taylor Waters, and Ryan Stevens expose the biggest lies in fitness about “slow metabolism,” “starvation mode,” and “resets” that waste time and keep high performers stuck. They break down how energy balance actually works, what tracking drift looks like, and why most plateaus come from missed details, not hormones. If you’ve ever said “my metabolism is slow,” this episode will show you what’s really happening, how to fix it, and why honest data always beats hype.
Chapters
(00:00) Introduction
(02:11) What Metabolism Actually Means
(04:53) The Real Reason You Plateau
(11:11) What Is “Starvation Mode”
(15:06) Energy Must Have a Source
(19:28) Hidden Calories Example
(24:28) What a "Broken Metabolism" Actually Looks Like
(26:19) How to Audit, Adjust, Execute
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I need to fix my metabolism. I need to reset my metabolism.
My metabolism's too slow. That's why I'm not losing
weight. All of these kind of buzzwords
don't mean anything. They say all these things like
have you already tested? Have you tested your metabolic
rate? Metabolism factors, hundreds of
thousands of different things that happen in your body.
How are you going to reset it? It's ongoing.
There's no reset button. Like what are you on about?
(00:21):
If we just go into what a brokenmetabolism or damaged metabolism
actually is, you've got. I'm Ryan Stevens.
Doctor Taylor Waters, I'm Ben Oliver.
Welcome to the Superhuman show, Yeah?
I know we've done a few episodeson this before about metabolic
(00:43):
damage. Your metabolism is broken.
My metabolism is too slow. That's why I'm not losing
weight. I need to fix my metabolism.
I need to reset my my metabolism.
All of these kind of like buzzwords that don't mean
anything and like this is like that.
I've got a few bees in my bonnet.
Yeah, make metabolism boost. It is a real.
(01:06):
Term this is this is like one ofmy biggest pet peeves in this
industry is like nebulous language that people don't
elaborate on. So like if someone says we're
going to reset your metabolism, I say what do you mean like
specifically like, like how are you going to reset it?
(01:28):
Like it's ongoing. There's no reset button.
Metabolism factors 10s hundreds of thousands of different things
that happen in your body. Which one are you resetting?
Like what? Like like what you want about.
When you understand what metabolism is, it's like that.
That sentence does nothing. Yeah, yeah, Like even even if
(01:49):
someone says boost your metabolism, I'm like, what?
Like what do you mean? Is it going to like, is it going
to increase the like the heat inmy body that's going to like,
you know, 'cause me to move morelike, like, what does it
actually do? And so like, it's those those
those terms drive drive me nuts because people can't explain
them, I think. People generally use the word
(02:12):
metabolism when they mean energyexpenditure, like they mean
bird, more cows. That's what they mean when they
say like metabolic rate metabolism, it's energy
expenditure is what they're referring to.
So when they say like reset yourmetabolism, what they're meaning
is I'm going to your energy expenditure is for some reason
low, so I'm going to do something that's going to get it
(02:35):
higher. That's really what they're
saying. Yeah.
And like that because this is where you can go down the weeds
of like there are there is like some diseases which like you
have metabolic dysfunction. But this, for the sake of this
conversation, this is the overweight person who is
claiming they're not losing weight because their metabolism
(02:57):
is broken. And that's like, that's
literally the terms that people use.
Like my metabolism is broke. I need to fix my metabolism.
And the problem is that then they'll go work with a coach
which uses those buzzwords of like, we're going to stoke your
metabolism. We're going to Rev up your
metabolism, We're going to fix your metabolic rate, we're going
to reset your hormones. And they think like, that's what
(03:17):
I need. Like that's why I'm not losing
weight. So do you know what's mad?
They say all these things like my metabolism is broken.
It's like, oh, have you already tested?
Have you tested you metabolic? Rate, Yeah, Have you?
Tested so that. You've done pretty fine.
Have you done any blood work? Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. No, the Technica was lift in the
mirror. Fucking the fucking looks
broken. But that's, that's like for that
(03:37):
literally it because, like, because we, we've spoke at this
before about detoxes and stuff and I'm like, well, what toxins
are you measuring? How are you measuring them?
Like specifically, what are you detoxing from?
Are you, are you looking at liver enzymes?
And then you're going to measurebefore and after and they're
like, no, no, I'm just going to weigh myself on the scale.
And if I lose weight, then I've detoxed.
And it's like, so if you piss out your ass for seven days,
(03:58):
you've you've detoxed yourself. But we're not going to look at
any specific markers like I just.
This it's not it's like nothing objective.
It's all like subjective. It's like, oh, I feel like I.
Feel better? Yeah, Yeah.
But that's what those words makeit feel or sound good or useful
or important, when actually it'slike, well, no, let's knuckle
(04:19):
down on specifically what that is.
Again, there's just no specificity in it at all.
It's just real general terms thrown.
Out I tell you what, Germany comes with these budget words,
some sort of like quick fix, which seems very easy, like take
this pill or do this crazy thing.
Whereas like again, it's an avoidance of like the real work
that's going to get the real results because the real work
can be quite uncomfortable. At times, and I think someone
(04:40):
said I'm going to boost your metabolism over the next 18
months. We're going to learn.
How to, I think, and this is because I also don't want people
to take from this that we're just saying like you just have
to keep doing more and eating less because like there is a
massive point of diminishing returns where you, you could be
(05:01):
doing more harm than good. But, and it's a big, but more
often than not, that is the solution where someone has hit
some kind of plateau. And the, and I'm not saying it's
their fault because sometimes it's like an adherence issue,
It's a tracking issue. They go in by their, you know,
(05:25):
their expenditure on their watchor something.
It's, it's, it's, there's some kind of gap between this
calories in, calories out between their expenditure and
what they're putting in. And they think they're doing it,
but they're actually not. And, and, and there's loads of
reasons for that. You know, where we, we spoke
about in different podcasts, Butthat's, that's really what it
comes down to. And, and again, if you've been,
(05:49):
I think if you've been chronically under eating, and
when I say under eating, I'll define that by like, if you've
been starving yourself, you know, and eating between 500 and
1000 calories a day for 12 plus months, you're probably going to
have some underlying hormonal issues.
And that's purely due to like you haven't been giving your
(06:11):
body the fuel to make those hormones like that.
Like, I don't, I don't want to call it like survival mode or
starvation mode because that's what people, that's the term
people use when they're 300 fucking pounds and they've lost
10 lbs because they had a big shit that morning and they need
to. Worry more about surviving.
That, yeah. And they don't lose it.
The next one, they're gone into starvation mode.
And it's like, bro, like you, you could feed yourself for
(06:34):
three years. But you know, if, if you, if
you've gone into, you know, likeif you're in a, you know, if you
like, if you look at like the, it's quite an extreme example,
but like, you look at like the Holocaust, like when you're in a
campus, like a starvation camp, there's going to be massive
hormonal issues going on like that because your, your body is
going to go well, what do we need to prioritize right now?
(06:57):
Like high testosterone levels isnot our concern right now.
We're not looking to reproduce. Yeah, yeah.
And so like your, your body is going to shut down everything it
can and conserve as much energy as possible.
It's like your brain is going totell you to move as little as
possible, to expend as little calories as possible because we
(07:17):
don't have anything coming in. And and that happens on a much
smaller extent when you are dieting and when you're in a
calorie deficit, your brain is going to tell you eat more.
Like we're eating into our reserves, like you should eat
more. And as you get deeper in the
reserves, that voice gets loudergoing.
We're, we're really running out.We're like, we need to eat more
(07:39):
now. And sit down more, yeah.
Do like take a nap like and thengo eat some food.
However, like that voice will always win before you starve
yourself to death. Like no, I, I don't know anyone,
you know, aside from mental eating disorders.
(07:59):
I couldn't physically diet so hard that like I just have 0
body fat. Like I would, I would give in
before that point and I think 99% of the population would as
well. You know, it's, it's really, if
you have like a, if you've been diagnosed with like an eating
disorder or something, and that's when you, you know, you'd
have to go into a hospital and you'd have a tube and
everything. But, but, but I think this, this
(08:24):
whole idea of like, Oh my, my body's gone into this energy
conservation mode. That's why I'm not losing fat
when there is so much excess still like that is where I'm
kind of like I, I don't believe you.
And it's one of those things, isn't it, Where like saying that
your body's going into starvation model like, or
whatever they say, it's a easy way to justify to themselves to
(08:45):
eat more and feel and feel less guilty about it.
Yeah. Isn't it?
It's like, come on. Yeah.
Like. I can see you're going to be all
right if you're going to eat fora couple of hours, you know, and
like those people thought they would have just had breakfast.
It's been 3 hours in. It's like you got lunch in a
bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's that whisper. It's the whisper in your head to
tell you to eat more. Yeah.
And then you'll justify it by saying if I don't, the negative
(09:06):
consequences are going to happen.
So I should. Yeah.
So it wouldn't. Oh, no, I didn't want to.
It was I, I had to because of the position that I was in.
Yeah. But it's like, it's just like
you said with the Holocaust. I'm going to use a slightly more
positive here. It's the, the, the example that
I see is on when you watch Bear Grylls, the island or these like
(09:30):
shows where they put them on an island and they've just got to
survive for X amount of time. And if you look on the first day
they get there, they're all wellfueled.
They've been well fueled for months.
They hit the island and they're like, we're going to build
houses. We're going to, we're going to
set up camp. I'm going to hunt this.
I'm going to buy like day 10, they're lying down and they're
sleeping like 16 hours a day. Like they're so exhausted and
(09:53):
all that body is doing is like we are barely getting any fuel
in. So we're going to just slow
everything down and we're just going to, we're just going to
rest and only move when it's essential to move and that's it.
It's like they're not wasting energy.
Like, Oh well, I'm going to build sandcastles now just
because it's fun. Like no, no, no, no, no, that's
gone out the window now. There's no fun to be had.
I'm just going to reserve everything I've got.
(10:15):
But also on those shows they lose weight like it's, it's,
it's not like they start sleeping all day and then they,
they look the same as when they got to the island.
It's like, no, no, they, they lost weight like they, they like
I think 1, I watched 1 and it was like a rugby player because
he was so lean when he went there.
They had to pull him from the show because he dropped like 9
(10:36):
kilos in six days or something and he just had nothing left.
Whereas like you got like the Dom Jolly from Trigger Happy TV
into Fat Bastard. Still there now.
And he's. He's still like he ended up
moving out. He like he had.
He had he had he had reserves for like, you know, they and he
was the laziest one as well. I.
Tell you, you know, when you're truly angry with shows like
(10:56):
what's the other one like celebrity, Get Me Out of here or
whatever. And you know, like when they win
it, they win like a a game and they get like a tin of beans
come in and they're all like jump in for joy.
You get a tin of beans rather than like crickets off the
floor. That's when you know you're
truly. Hungry.
I I tell you what, starvation mode, if you really want to call
it that, is generally paired with heavyweight loss.
(11:18):
Yeah, significant. We're like what the term
starvation and always be paired with with significant weight
loss. So if you are no longer losing
weight. Cannot be starving the.
Charges are you are not starving.
So it's, it is A and again, you're always, I think what
where people get confused is, and this is where it's hard
because as you do lose more weight, you are going to get
(11:40):
some adaptive thermogenesis where you just burn less being
you. And as you said, the the thing
to do then is to eat less and move more.
But. People's perception of what that
is can can often be drastically skewed, which is why we monitor
things, where if you're monitoring X and you're
monitoring Y. Now if things stall, you can
(12:03):
see, OK, This is why it's stalled.
I can shift, but often the accuracy of X is quite poor.
The accuracy of why is quite poor.
So what happens is as these are fluctuating, you were losing
weight and then they fluctuated now and they're in a position
whereby you're not. So you but they're like, but
they perceive they're still here, but they're not.
They're now here because they rest more.
(12:25):
They're not taking the stairs anymore, they're not training
quite as hard, they're not tidy in the house as often and then
their intake is, they've got a bit complacent with their
monitoring or it's only a bit ofthat or I had two meals out last
week that was inaccurate. So now when you were here,
you're now here so you don't sometimes you don't have to eat
less and move more in comparisonto what you were doing 2 weeks
(12:48):
ago. You just need to go back to what
you were doing 2 weeks ago because that what was enabling
you to lose weight. So it's people's perception of
what that is as well that can make it confusing.
I find out with like people's movement throughout the day, it
slowly drops off as people get leaner but they think they're
still moving the same way and that's why tracking steps is so
useful. Because it's harder.
They they perceive fatigue as effort.
Yes, I'm working hard because I'm tired.
(13:10):
No, no, you're actually doing less than you were before.
You're just tired because you'vebeen in a fat loss and you're in
the field. Yeah, and, and the, we, we spoke
about this before as well, but if you've lost a significant
amount of weight, you're no longer carrying around that
weight 24 hours a day. Like if you put on a 20 LB
weight vest and then did all your steps, you burn way more
(13:32):
calories than when you don't. And so if you've lost 20 lbs of
body fat, you, you, you're carrying around £20 less, you're
going to burn probably a couple 100 calories less a day doing
the same stuff. You lose more weight than that,
you lose 100 lbs, you're going to have way less calories, you
know, walk in, walk into the shopping back.
And so when people kind of hit these plateaus and they're like,
(13:52):
I think my metabolisms just, youknow, slowed down.
It's like, no, no, you've just, your output is now matching your
intake like, and now we need to just shift it again.
And, and this is The thing is like, it's, it's not easy
getting lean because your body doesn't want to be lean.
Like we, we, we, where we were made to survive.
That's why we store all excess because it's like your, your
(14:15):
body is just the rainy day fund continuously that it's like,
we'll keep that. We'll keep, we'll keep that
because we might, we might need it, you know, and you're 400
lbs. It's like we might need it And
it's like, I think we're good. It's like, no, we might need it.
You're just hoping for that storm the.
Storm Polynext is coming. We better.
We better keep that. And then it might rain for 10
years. And so it's like it's an
(14:36):
incredible mechanism that we've got because if we didn't have
the reserve, the moment we burned more than we put in, we
would die. Like you just, you would drop
dead. And so like, that's why we've
got that reserve tank. So when people kind of say like,
oh, like, I'm, I'm not losing weight.
I'm like, I'm no longer dipping into my reserve tank.
(14:56):
My metabolism is ruined. It's like, well, what are you
pulling from then? Like how, Like, how are you
surviving? Because you're either putting
too much in or you are using it like.
Pick one. That's sorry.
That's the thing it's with, withfueling and like with like body
composition or the energy balance, it's like we cannot
create energy from nowhere. Otherwise we would be able to
survive years without food because we could just create
(15:18):
this energy that we got from nowhere.
But also we can't just it's likeit's, it's a bit like a car.
If there's no fuel left in the car, the car will not run.
It won't suddenly go, Oh no, I can run.
I just. Prefer to use.
Fuel, I'll just run off air now.No, no, once the fuel is gone,
the car will stop. So it's like if you're not
(15:39):
dropping, there's obviously something coming in to fuel it
enough as to where it doesn't need to use your own tissues
because like starvation, it will, your body needs to burn
something. So what will happen is it will
use the vast majority of its fatstores.
Then it will use the vast majority of his muscle stores.
Then you'll see like people's like fingernails start growing
(16:01):
stuff. Yeah, your organs, people's
organs will start to eat away. And then eventually they'll eat
away until they're gone and they're done.
It's like, so it's unless the organs are starting to go,
you're probably doing all right.You've probably got plenty to
work with. Yeah.
Like you, like you said, you can't create energy from
nothing. So when people say my metabolism
is broken, it's like, well, no, like the energy is coming from
(16:21):
somewhere. Now obviously that's when we
look at like there's a tracking issue, like something's going to
be off. They're moving a little bit
less. And if we look at like the two
biggest needle movers with that is your intake and then steps
like you need. Yeah, you need 100%.
So often if you look at one of those two things when you were
looking, when you hit a plateau and you reassess those two
(16:41):
variables, the chances are you change one of those and you're
going to start moving the needleagain and.
Then when, when you have someonein in that situation and they
say, you know, I think I'm in starvation mode or whatever it
is, you can literally like do like process of elimination
where you can be like, right, well, let's get some blood work.
And so it's like you think your metabolism is broke.
(17:03):
Like let like specifically what about it is broke and they'll go
hormones. OK, which ones Thyroid right,
let's get it checked and then you look thyroid comes back
perfectly fine like right what'snext?
What's the next hormone? Have you ever?
Checked someone's blood work? Yes, and the thyroid was out.
(17:25):
Only with guys that haven't beencomplaining of starvation mode
where they're super lean, where like they've just they've just
got shredded and like and they've been slightly below.
But this is like the end of likea 20 week diet.
Yeah, I'm just trying to think. I don't think.
Yeah, I think I would have actually.
I've seen blood work from somewhere at the back end of a
fat loss phase on their thyroid up, but you can see it's
(17:46):
starting to drop off. But I've never seen someone who
thinks I need to check because Ithink it might be out.
And it was out. It's always been fun.
And I've, yeah, I mean, I had a guy who was like 240 lbs.
I had his calories. I think we started around 2500.
No movement went as low as 1200 to still 240-240-1240. 2 sounds
(18:10):
fishy and then. And then I was like, right,
well, you know, again the I think my metabolism's broke.
I think I need to build it. And I was like, OK, bring
calories up. 3000 calories, 240 lbs.
Should have gained some weight from from that 3, two, 240 lbs.
Don't think he's following his plan whatsoever.
(18:32):
Then gets his thyroid, gets blood work.
Thyroid's high like right. So like metabolism's good.
What's the problem? And it's like you're just not,
you're just not doing it. But it's, it's like you, you
talk about hormones and then yousay, right, thyroid's fine.
You know, you talk about gut health and again, you ask
(18:52):
specifics, they can't give you an answer.
And they're like microbiome or, or it's like, I don't think I'm
absorbing my food. That's why I'm I'm not losing
weight. It's like, well, if you're not
absorbing it, you'd be losing more weight.
Yeah. Like you like, it's like that.
That's like a, a problem, like one of the, one of the first
symptoms of any gut issue is of excessive weight loss because
(19:15):
something is going on where you're not absorbing the
calories. And so if you're getting fatter
and you're like, oh, calories are just like what?
Like you you, you're a super. Story then yeah you you look
that you've absorbed them quite.Well, if anything, yeah.
I tell you another similar example where someone has said
to me my metabolism is broken soI can't remember the exact cows,
(19:35):
but for the sake of this conversation, let's say 2000.
They drop in like a pound a weekor whatever and it's literally
like this. And then all of a sudden they
start gaining weight. Like like probably not as fast,
but you can see it. I would say if someone started
to maintain like, oh, maybe we readjust the variable.
Seems like I think my metabolismis broken.
I think I need to come out of a fat loss phase and I showed him
his graph and I literally just ask or is there any differences
(19:58):
in your behaviors between like this when it's coming down to
when it's going up just like anything and like classic eating
out a lot more because I'm on the go and it's like, here we
go. Think I solved the problem.
What you think is like your chicken and rice at home is
covered in oil, extra calories and you start to see the weight
go back up. So again, like I said
previously, it's often. Like an energy output issue,
like they're moving a little bitless, but they think they're
(20:19):
moving as much as they was and they think their nutrition
precision is as good as what it was.
But obviously they're eating out.
And as you know, chefs, they don't care about the waistline,
you know, oil. Yeah, get that, Get this.
In yeah, it is it is like I I think the two most common causes
I see of those plateaus is slowly just being a bit more
(20:40):
inconsistent or meticulous with with the tracking, like the
licks, bites and tastes and things, which is natural because
you're more hungry. Like your cravings go up a
little bit like you're just one won't hurt starts to add up over
the week. I think another thing is you
just have lost a load of weight and you're no longer burning as
(21:01):
many calories as you think you are.
And and you know, again, people will be like, well, my watch
said, but I'm doing this. And it's like your watch is
nonsense like it always has been.
Like it's, I would completely ignore that.
I've had some crackers with likeyou know, like on my fitness
party. Sometimes you like the exercise
calories on it's like 3-4 hundred or whatever Yeah my God,
like this dude's on some little calories still not dropping and
(21:21):
find out. Oh, they've.
Been adding the. Calories eating the calories
back, it's like, oh, hang on, turn that thing off.
All of a sudden you don't realise it.
Yeah. You don't realize the impact it
has. Yeah, you've had some crackers
with that, but you know what youwere saying about like the bikes
licks and taste. What I often find when I've
spoken to people, you like when someone's like, oh, I only had a
handful of nuts. It's nothing because it almost
seems like small in your hand and they almost think, oh, that
(21:42):
one too much like handful of nuts.
It's a couple of 100 calories. You know, she's like, oh, I
won't. Love that they think of mass,
isn't it? It's the, the sort of and that's
where again, it's always the perception is if if the
conversation literally went, oh,scale, what data has plateaued?
So, OK, so now we know energy balance is even.
So we need to now what are we going to shift to make it uneven
(22:05):
again? And it's like, but instead it's
like, oh, it's got to be something's bust.
It's got to be something's broken.
And it's like if we just go intowhat from an understanding
standpoint, what a broken metabolism or damaged metabolism
actually is. So you've got, again, as you
said, generally become more complacent with monitoring or
(22:27):
your, your intake has gone up a little bit for whatever reason,
whether because some people aren't even tracking, but you're
just, you happen to be eating a bit more than you were before
you on your general day-to-day. You rest a lot more and move a
lot less than you were because you're more tired because you've
been under fueling your body's needs in order to drop body fat.
(22:50):
Or again, it can be a combination of these three
things as well. Is you're now a lot smaller than
you were, so you're doing the same amount of movement than you
were doing before, but because you're carrying round less
weight, it's not. It's not the same.
So the all those things have occurred and you might get a
little bit of like your thyroid output, it can drop down a
little bit, but that's the body's normal response to weight
(23:13):
loss. And as you feel back up, that
will correct itself as well. And you can't stop that from
occurring either. I think that's going to happen
when you lose weight. So you, if you can't control
that, there's no point focusing on it.
But you can control the other things.
You can control how much you consume in, you can control how
much you move in. I guess you can't control your
weight loss because as in as in,you know, I guess you could, we
(23:33):
would put a weighted vest on if you really wanted to balance
that out. So it's when it comes to the
solutions to those problems, like when someone comes to you
and that's happened, where do you first put the the sort of
priority? I mean, I, I go I, I heavily vet
the diet first just from an inherent standpoint.
(23:57):
Then like let's assume that theyhave been tracking everything,
nailing everything, nothing has changed.
I'm probably going to look at output next, like in terms of
steps and I might just try and increase, increase them by 1015%
again, like you have to see what's realistic with their,
(24:19):
with their lifestyle, their time.
You know, I'm not going to go from like 10,000 steps to 20,000
overnight. Like it's going to be an
incremental thing. I, I will only look at blood
work if, if the numbers, just like if I, if I really knew that
someone was nailing their diet, Like, let's just say it was you
(24:42):
and let's just say it was you. But you know, let's say like you
were like fan like I'm eating 1300 cows a day.
Like I swear on my life. I swear on my family's life.
I'm doing 15,000 steps like on my weight isn't budging.
Then I would go, let's look at the bloods and let's see what's
going on. And then, you know, if that was
(25:04):
genuinely true, there's probablygoing to be something out of
whack, whether it's your test levels or just tanked or your
thyroid's down. And then like, you know, in that
situation, your options are basically where we can come out
of the diet and bring calories back up and hope that they come
back or you implement, you know,thyroid medication and TRT, you
know, and that that's like two things which I am a fan of.
(25:25):
Like when, if you're already using assistance, like if you're
on TRT anyway, you've thrown away that, that natty card.
I am a fan of like T4T3 supplementation when you're in a
like, a like a steep calorie deficit as like monotherapy,
you're not using it to lose fat,you're using it to stop your
thyroid from decreasing. And so it's like you said, like
(25:49):
you're going to naturally get decreases in those hormonal
outputs with like test and thyroid.
So if you can supplement with them just to keep them at even
keel, yeah, you can just feel a bit better when replacement
dosage. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're not using it to like, youknow, you're not doing a steroid
cycle. You're not taking loads of
thyroid to melt fat because thatcomes with its own nasty side
effects, but just to keep thingseven keel.
(26:10):
But even then you could be, you could be taking that and then
you hit another plateau and it'slike, well, now we've, we've got
a decision to make. We can change the output or we
can decrease the input. I tell you from like an
efficiency standpoint as well, especially when someone's like
at a back end of a fat. So he's already tired and like
with our clientele, they're super busy.
It's much more efficient to reduce calories and increase
your output 100%. Yeah, it's so much easier to
(26:33):
eat. Eat less 200 and burn more 200I.
Was thinking about this the other day and if, if, if
performance and like work capacity, if I didn't value
those things because I because Ivalue being able to do a good
amount of work. And so like a low volume
training doesn't sit well with me because it's like I want to
be able to have endurance and the only way you get endurance
(26:55):
is by doing more and building work capacity.
But if my goal was to just look good and be in shape, I would be
doing a minimalist 3 day a week training program.
Maybe like 3 movements each time.
My non training days I would go aggressive on the deficit like
(27:16):
you know like 1000 calories, 1500 calories deficit and I
would just walk like 2 hours and.
Just walk as much. And then on my on my training
days, I would, I would eat, I would probably go like still in
a deficit, probably a much less deficit.
So I feel good when I train and I would still walk on those days
and that's what I'd do. And I and I, I would probably
look better than I do now. My body wouldn't be as beat up,
(27:39):
but I I wouldn't be able to perform like the output, but
like I'd probably be pretty goodthat that's going to be my, my
retirement plan that that is, that is my retirement plan for
fitness like the minimalist like.
Two years time is it? Yeah.
Because, because, because even like, even by doing like the the
cardio and the Zone 2 stuff, like you said, when you're in a
(28:00):
deficit, you get more tired. You throw a bunch of cardio on
top of that, you're even more tired, you're even more hungry.
You, you, you make life so hard for yourself.
But that's the trade off of if you want to be fitter as well
whilst you're trying to do all those other things.
Yeah, yeah. Like if if I wanted to be leaner
than I am now, I wouldn't do as much work as I do as I do now.
And this is like where it's likeagain, 99% a 100% wrong.
(28:25):
If I wanted to be leaner than I am now, I would do significantly
less. And you kind of like, well, how
does that work? Because you've just said you
have to do more and eat less. It's like, no, no, I would eat
much less and I would do even less.
And I would, I would, I would literally walk, do enough
resistance training. I wouldn't do any high intensity
stuff. I wouldn't do any zone 2 stuff
other than like a brisk walk. And yeah, I I would just eat
(28:50):
less food. Less food increase your movement
throughout the day. Because when you do get very
lean, you're much more sensitiveto the symptoms of like fatigue,
I find. So like when you do a hard
training session and you're lean?
Like you're like, oh. I am tanked by the end of the
day, but when you're like a little bit heavier, like you do
(29:10):
it. Oh, I I feel fine.
Yeah. It's it's so again, you you
don't want to put yourself because then once you're
fatigued, your ability to resisttemptations and your ability it,
it all goes to pot. So you basically want to feel as
good as you can be as move as much as you can of low
intensity, and then just manage your diet as best you can.
Yep. Nail, nail those rocks.
(29:32):
But yeah, from a from a metabolism standpoint, it's
it's, it is going to be you're going to need to shift one of
those needles in either direction.
You have to shift the output up or the input down.
Lean into the input first if youcan, and then if the the output,
if you've got the capacity to move it up, take it or just look
(29:55):
at again, as you said, the client who's coming down the
same, well, the apparently the same behaviours are given the
opposite reaction. So what's happened to these
behaviours that are causing that?
So you can almost go through andbe OK.
What is different in this phase than is going on here?
And as you said, then you can start pointing things out and
they're, they're giving you clear things to improve now,
(30:16):
because it's these are clearly the things that are hindering my
progress and making it go the other way.
So these are the ones that I need to address if I want to go
back to the progress that I was seeing.
Before. And that's a case, if it's not a
case of changing the plan, it's your execution of the current
plan has changed. Yeah.
So I think in if you're in this situation where maybe those
(30:36):
words have those, the blasphemy has come out of your mouth.
I think my metabolism is damaged.
Well, it's. Blasphemy, another word for
shit. Well, it's it's like religious
like you. Know if you go into.
Religious. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If the horseshit comes out of your mouth, then I would one
take a very honest look at your behaviors and habits regarding
(30:58):
tracking your food, following your nutrition plan.
If that's sorted, then look at your output.
Look at increasing your output. Sit, like I say, slightly, you
know, by ten, 1020%. And then once you've done those
two things, that will probably solve it for you just to create
(31:19):
again, just to create that deficit again.
If you're doing that significantly, then get blood
work and see if there's anythingout.
And if nothing is out, then you probably just need to do do a
little bit more and eat a littlebit less.
And if you're really, really tired of it, take a little break
and then go back to it. Cool.
Perfect. Well, thank you as always for
tuning in. Be sure to like and subscribe on
(31:40):
iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube andwe'll see you next time.
If you love this show, please like, share and leave us a five
star review so that we can help more people.
I'm John Matson, reminding you to always go get what's yours.
I need to fix my metabolism. I need to reset my metabolism.
My metabolism's too slow. That's why I'm not losing
weight. All of these kind of buzzwords
don't mean anything. They say all these things like
have you already tested? Have you tested your metabolic
rate? Metabolism factors, hundreds of
thousands of different things that happen in your body.
How are you going to reset it? It's ongoing.
There's no reset button. Like what are you on about?
(00:21):
If we just go into what a brokenmetabolism or damaged metabolism
actually is, you've got. I'm Ryan Stevens.
Doctor Taylor Waters, I'm Ben Oliver.
Welcome to the Superhuman show, Yeah?
I know we've done a few episodeson this before about metabolic
(00:43):
damage. Your metabolism is broken.
My metabolism is too slow. That's why I'm not losing
weight. I need to fix my metabolism.
I need to reset my my metabolism.
All of these kind of like buzzwords that don't mean
anything and like this is like that.
I've got a few bees in my bonnet.
Yeah, make metabolism boost. It is a real.
(01:06):
Term this is this is like one ofmy biggest pet peeves in this
industry is like nebulous language that people don't
elaborate on. So like if someone says we're
going to reset your metabolism, I say what do you mean like
specifically like, like how are you going to reset it?
(01:28):
Like it's ongoing. There's no reset button.
Metabolism factors 10s hundreds of thousands of different things
that happen in your body. Which one are you resetting?
Like what? Like like what you want about.
When you understand what metabolism is, it's like that.
That sentence does nothing. Yeah, yeah, Like even even if
(01:49):
someone says boost your metabolism, I'm like, what?
Like what do you mean? Is it going to like, is it going
to increase the like the heat inmy body that's going to like,
you know, 'cause me to move morelike, like, what does it
actually do? And so like, it's those those
those terms drive drive me nuts because people can't explain
them, I think. People generally use the word
(02:12):
metabolism when they mean energyexpenditure, like they mean
bird, more cows. That's what they mean when they
say like metabolic rate metabolism, it's energy
expenditure is what they're referring to.
So when they say like reset yourmetabolism, what they're meaning
is I'm going to your energy expenditure is for some reason
low, so I'm going to do something that's going to get it
(02:35):
higher. That's really what they're
saying. Yeah.
And like that because this is where you can go down the weeds
of like there are there is like some diseases which like you
have metabolic dysfunction. But this, for the sake of this
conversation, this is the overweight person who is
claiming they're not losing weight because their metabolism
(02:57):
is broken. And that's like, that's
literally the terms that people use.
Like my metabolism is broke. I need to fix my metabolism.
And the problem is that then they'll go work with a coach
which uses those buzzwords of like, we're going to stoke your
metabolism. We're going to Rev up your
metabolism, We're going to fix your metabolic rate, we're going
to reset your hormones. And they think like, that's what
(03:17):
I need. Like that's why I'm not losing
weight. So do you know what's mad?
They say all these things like my metabolism is broken.
It's like, oh, have you already tested?
Have you tested you metabolic? Rate, Yeah, Have you?
Tested so that. You've done pretty fine.
Have you done any blood work? Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. No, the Technica was lift in the
mirror. Fucking the fucking looks
broken. But that's, that's like for that
(03:37):
literally it because, like, because we, we've spoke at this
before about detoxes and stuff and I'm like, well, what toxins
are you measuring? How are you measuring them?
Like specifically, what are you detoxing from?
Are you, are you looking at liver enzymes?
And then you're going to measurebefore and after and they're
like, no, no, I'm just going to weigh myself on the scale.
And if I lose weight, then I've detoxed.
And it's like, so if you piss out your ass for seven days,
(03:58):
you've you've detoxed yourself. But we're not going to look at
any specific markers like I just.
This it's not it's like nothing objective.
It's all like subjective. It's like, oh, I feel like I.
Feel better? Yeah, Yeah.
But that's what those words makeit feel or sound good or useful
or important, when actually it'slike, well, no, let's knuckle
(04:19):
down on specifically what that is.
Again, there's just no specificity in it at all.
It's just real general terms thrown.
Out I tell you what, Germany comes with these budget words,
some sort of like quick fix, which seems very easy, like take
this pill or do this crazy thing.
Whereas like again, it's an avoidance of like the real work
that's going to get the real results because the real work
can be quite uncomfortable. At times, and I think someone
(04:40):
said I'm going to boost your metabolism over the next 18
months. We're going to learn.
How to, I think, and this is because I also don't want people
to take from this that we're just saying like you just have
to keep doing more and eating less because like there is a
massive point of diminishing returns where you, you could be
(05:01):
doing more harm than good. But, and it's a big, but more
often than not, that is the solution where someone has hit
some kind of plateau. And the, and I'm not saying it's
their fault because sometimes it's like an adherence issue,
It's a tracking issue. They go in by their, you know,
(05:25):
their expenditure on their watchor something.
It's, it's, it's, there's some kind of gap between this
calories in, calories out between their expenditure and
what they're putting in. And they think they're doing it,
but they're actually not. And, and, and there's loads of
reasons for that. You know, where we, we spoke
about in different podcasts, Butthat's, that's really what it
comes down to. And, and again, if you've been,
(05:49):
I think if you've been chronically under eating, and
when I say under eating, I'll define that by like, if you've
been starving yourself, you know, and eating between 500 and
1000 calories a day for 12 plus months, you're probably going to
have some underlying hormonal issues.
And that's purely due to like you haven't been giving your
(06:11):
body the fuel to make those hormones like that.
Like, I don't, I don't want to call it like survival mode or
starvation mode because that's what people, that's the term
people use when they're 300 fucking pounds and they've lost
10 lbs because they had a big shit that morning and they need
to. Worry more about surviving.
That, yeah. And they don't lose it.
The next one, they're gone into starvation mode.
And it's like, bro, like you, you could feed yourself for
(06:34):
three years. But you know, if, if you, if
you've gone into, you know, likeif you're in a, you know, if you
like, if you look at like the, it's quite an extreme example,
but like, you look at like the Holocaust, like when you're in a
campus, like a starvation camp, there's going to be massive
hormonal issues going on like that because your, your body is
going to go well, what do we need to prioritize right now?
(06:57):
Like high testosterone levels isnot our concern right now.
We're not looking to reproduce. Yeah, yeah.
And so like your, your body is going to shut down everything it
can and conserve as much energy as possible.
It's like your brain is going totell you to move as little as
possible, to expend as little calories as possible because we
(07:17):
don't have anything coming in. And and that happens on a much
smaller extent when you are dieting and when you're in a
calorie deficit, your brain is going to tell you eat more.
Like we're eating into our reserves, like you should eat
more. And as you get deeper in the
reserves, that voice gets loudergoing.
We're, we're really running out.We're like, we need to eat more
(07:39):
now. And sit down more, yeah.
Do like take a nap like and thengo eat some food.
However, like that voice will always win before you starve
yourself to death. Like no, I, I don't know anyone,
you know, aside from mental eating disorders.
(07:59):
I couldn't physically diet so hard that like I just have 0
body fat. Like I would, I would give in
before that point and I think 99% of the population would as
well. You know, it's, it's really, if
you have like a, if you've been diagnosed with like an eating
disorder or something, and that's when you, you know, you'd
have to go into a hospital and you'd have a tube and
everything. But, but, but I think this, this
(08:24):
whole idea of like, Oh my, my body's gone into this energy
conservation mode. That's why I'm not losing fat
when there is so much excess still like that is where I'm
kind of like I, I don't believe you.
And it's one of those things, isn't it, Where like saying that
your body's going into starvation model like, or
whatever they say, it's a easy way to justify to themselves to
(08:45):
eat more and feel and feel less guilty about it.
Yeah. Isn't it?
It's like, come on. Yeah.
Like. I can see you're going to be all
right if you're going to eat fora couple of hours, you know, and
like those people thought they would have just had breakfast.
It's been 3 hours in. It's like you got lunch in a
bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's that whisper. It's the whisper in your head to
tell you to eat more. Yeah.
And then you'll justify it by saying if I don't, the negative
(09:06):
consequences are going to happen.
So I should. Yeah.
So it wouldn't. Oh, no, I didn't want to.
It was I, I had to because of the position that I was in.
Yeah. But it's like, it's just like
you said with the Holocaust. I'm going to use a slightly more
positive here. It's the, the, the example that
I see is on when you watch Bear Grylls, the island or these like
(09:30):
shows where they put them on an island and they've just got to
survive for X amount of time. And if you look on the first day
they get there, they're all wellfueled.
They've been well fueled for months.
They hit the island and they're like, we're going to build
houses. We're going to, we're going to
set up camp. I'm going to hunt this.
I'm going to buy like day 10, they're lying down and they're
sleeping like 16 hours a day. Like they're so exhausted and
(09:53):
all that body is doing is like we are barely getting any fuel
in. So we're going to just slow
everything down and we're just going to, we're just going to
rest and only move when it's essential to move and that's it.
It's like they're not wasting energy.
Like, Oh well, I'm going to build sandcastles now just
because it's fun. Like no, no, no, no, no, that's
gone out the window now. There's no fun to be had.
I'm just going to reserve everything I've got.
(10:15):
But also on those shows they lose weight like it's, it's,
it's not like they start sleeping all day and then they,
they look the same as when they got to the island.
It's like, no, no, they, they lost weight like they, they like
I think 1, I watched 1 and it was like a rugby player because
he was so lean when he went there.
They had to pull him from the show because he dropped like 9
(10:36):
kilos in six days or something and he just had nothing left.
Whereas like you got like the Dom Jolly from Trigger Happy TV
into Fat Bastard. Still there now.
And he's. He's still like he ended up
moving out. He like he had.
He had he had he had reserves for like, you know, they and he
was the laziest one as well. I.
Tell you, you know, when you're truly angry with shows like
(10:56):
what's the other one like celebrity, Get Me Out of here or
whatever. And you know, like when they win
it, they win like a a game and they get like a tin of beans
come in and they're all like jump in for joy.
You get a tin of beans rather than like crickets off the
floor. That's when you know you're
truly. Hungry.
I I tell you what, starvation mode, if you really want to call
it that, is generally paired with heavyweight loss.
(11:18):
Yeah, significant. We're like what the term
starvation and always be paired with with significant weight
loss. So if you are no longer losing
weight. Cannot be starving the.
Charges are you are not starving.
So it's, it is A and again, you're always, I think what
where people get confused is, and this is where it's hard
because as you do lose more weight, you are going to get
(11:40):
some adaptive thermogenesis where you just burn less being
you. And as you said, the the thing
to do then is to eat less and move more.
But. People's perception of what that
is can can often be drastically skewed, which is why we monitor
things, where if you're monitoring X and you're
monitoring Y. Now if things stall, you can
(12:03):
see, OK, This is why it's stalled.
I can shift, but often the accuracy of X is quite poor.
The accuracy of why is quite poor.
So what happens is as these are fluctuating, you were losing
weight and then they fluctuated now and they're in a position
whereby you're not. So you but they're like, but
they perceive they're still here, but they're not.
They're now here because they rest more.
(12:25):
They're not taking the stairs anymore, they're not training
quite as hard, they're not tidy in the house as often and then
their intake is, they've got a bit complacent with their
monitoring or it's only a bit ofthat or I had two meals out last
week that was inaccurate. So now when you were here,
you're now here so you don't sometimes you don't have to eat
less and move more in comparisonto what you were doing 2 weeks
(12:48):
ago. You just need to go back to what
you were doing 2 weeks ago because that what was enabling
you to lose weight. So it's people's perception of
what that is as well that can make it confusing.
I find out with like people's movement throughout the day, it
slowly drops off as people get leaner but they think they're
still moving the same way and that's why tracking steps is so
useful. Because it's harder.
They they perceive fatigue as effort.
Yes, I'm working hard because I'm tired.
(13:10):
No, no, you're actually doing less than you were before.
You're just tired because you'vebeen in a fat loss and you're in
the field. Yeah, and, and the, we, we spoke
about this before as well, but if you've lost a significant
amount of weight, you're no longer carrying around that
weight 24 hours a day. Like if you put on a 20 LB
weight vest and then did all your steps, you burn way more
(13:32):
calories than when you don't. And so if you've lost 20 lbs of
body fat, you, you, you're carrying around £20 less, you're
going to burn probably a couple 100 calories less a day doing
the same stuff. You lose more weight than that,
you lose 100 lbs, you're going to have way less calories, you
know, walk in, walk into the shopping back.
And so when people kind of hit these plateaus and they're like,
(13:52):
I think my metabolisms just, youknow, slowed down.
It's like, no, no, you've just, your output is now matching your
intake like, and now we need to just shift it again.
And, and this is The thing is like, it's, it's not easy
getting lean because your body doesn't want to be lean.
Like we, we, we, where we were made to survive.
That's why we store all excess because it's like your, your
(14:15):
body is just the rainy day fund continuously that it's like,
we'll keep that. We'll keep, we'll keep that
because we might, we might need it, you know, and you're 400
lbs. It's like we might need it And
it's like, I think we're good. It's like, no, we might need it.
You're just hoping for that storm the.
Storm Polynext is coming. We better.
We better keep that. And then it might rain for 10
years. And so it's like it's an
(14:36):
incredible mechanism that we've got because if we didn't have
the reserve, the moment we burned more than we put in, we
would die. Like you just, you would drop
dead. And so like, that's why we've
got that reserve tank. So when people kind of say like,
oh, like, I'm, I'm not losing weight.
I'm like, I'm no longer dipping into my reserve tank.
(14:56):
My metabolism is ruined. It's like, well, what are you
pulling from then? Like how, Like, how are you
surviving? Because you're either putting
too much in or you are using it like.
Pick one. That's sorry.
That's the thing it's with, withfueling and like with like body
composition or the energy balance, it's like we cannot
create energy from nowhere. Otherwise we would be able to
survive years without food because we could just create
(15:18):
this energy that we got from nowhere.
But also we can't just it's likeit's, it's a bit like a car.
If there's no fuel left in the car, the car will not run.
It won't suddenly go, Oh no, I can run.
I just. Prefer to use.
Fuel, I'll just run off air now.No, no, once the fuel is gone,
the car will stop. So it's like if you're not
(15:39):
dropping, there's obviously something coming in to fuel it
enough as to where it doesn't need to use your own tissues
because like starvation, it will, your body needs to burn
something. So what will happen is it will
use the vast majority of its fatstores.
Then it will use the vast majority of his muscle stores.
Then you'll see like people's like fingernails start growing
(16:01):
stuff. Yeah, your organs, people's
organs will start to eat away. And then eventually they'll eat
away until they're gone and they're done.
It's like, so it's unless the organs are starting to go,
you're probably doing all right.You've probably got plenty to
work with. Yeah.
Like you, like you said, you can't create energy from
nothing. So when people say my metabolism
is broken, it's like, well, no, like the energy is coming from
(16:21):
somewhere. Now obviously that's when we
look at like there's a tracking issue, like something's going to
be off. They're moving a little bit
less. And if we look at like the two
biggest needle movers with that is your intake and then steps
like you need. Yeah, you need 100%.
So often if you look at one of those two things when you were
looking, when you hit a plateau and you reassess those two
(16:41):
variables, the chances are you change one of those and you're
going to start moving the needleagain and.
Then when, when you have someonein in that situation and they
say, you know, I think I'm in starvation mode or whatever it
is, you can literally like do like process of elimination
where you can be like, right, well, let's get some blood work.
And so it's like you think your metabolism is broke.
(17:03):
Like let like specifically what about it is broke and they'll go
hormones. OK, which ones Thyroid right,
let's get it checked and then you look thyroid comes back
perfectly fine like right what'snext?
What's the next hormone? Have you ever?
Checked someone's blood work? Yes, and the thyroid was out.
(17:25):
Only with guys that haven't beencomplaining of starvation mode
where they're super lean, where like they've just they've just
got shredded and like and they've been slightly below.
But this is like the end of likea 20 week diet.
Yeah, I'm just trying to think. I don't think.
Yeah, I think I would have actually.
I've seen blood work from somewhere at the back end of a
fat loss phase on their thyroid up, but you can see it's
(17:46):
starting to drop off. But I've never seen someone who
thinks I need to check because Ithink it might be out.
And it was out. It's always been fun.
And I've, yeah, I mean, I had a guy who was like 240 lbs.
I had his calories. I think we started around 2500.
No movement went as low as 1200 to still 240-240-1240. 2 sounds
(18:10):
fishy and then. And then I was like, right,
well, you know, again the I think my metabolism's broke.
I think I need to build it. And I was like, OK, bring
calories up. 3000 calories, 240 lbs.
Should have gained some weight from from that 3, two, 240 lbs.
Don't think he's following his plan whatsoever.
(18:32):
Then gets his thyroid, gets blood work.
Thyroid's high like right. So like metabolism's good.
What's the problem? And it's like you're just not,
you're just not doing it. But it's, it's like you, you
talk about hormones and then yousay, right, thyroid's fine.
You know, you talk about gut health and again, you ask
(18:52):
specifics, they can't give you an answer.
And they're like microbiome or, or it's like, I don't think I'm
absorbing my food. That's why I'm I'm not losing
weight. It's like, well, if you're not
absorbing it, you'd be losing more weight.
Yeah. Like you like, it's like that.
That's like a, a problem, like one of the, one of the first
symptoms of any gut issue is of excessive weight loss because
(19:15):
something is going on where you're not absorbing the
calories. And so if you're getting fatter
and you're like, oh, calories are just like what?
Like you you, you're a super. Story then yeah you you look
that you've absorbed them quite.Well, if anything, yeah.
I tell you another similar example where someone has said
to me my metabolism is broken soI can't remember the exact cows,
(19:35):
but for the sake of this conversation, let's say 2000.
They drop in like a pound a weekor whatever and it's literally
like this. And then all of a sudden they
start gaining weight. Like like probably not as fast,
but you can see it. I would say if someone started
to maintain like, oh, maybe we readjust the variable.
Seems like I think my metabolismis broken.
I think I need to come out of a fat loss phase and I showed him
his graph and I literally just ask or is there any differences
(19:58):
in your behaviors between like this when it's coming down to
when it's going up just like anything and like classic eating
out a lot more because I'm on the go and it's like, here we
go. Think I solved the problem.
What you think is like your chicken and rice at home is
covered in oil, extra calories and you start to see the weight
go back up. So again, like I said
previously, it's often. Like an energy output issue,
like they're moving a little bitless, but they think they're
(20:19):
moving as much as they was and they think their nutrition
precision is as good as what it was.
But obviously they're eating out.
And as you know, chefs, they don't care about the waistline,
you know, oil. Yeah, get that, Get this.
In yeah, it is it is like I I think the two most common causes
I see of those plateaus is slowly just being a bit more
(20:40):
inconsistent or meticulous with with the tracking, like the
licks, bites and tastes and things, which is natural because
you're more hungry. Like your cravings go up a
little bit like you're just one won't hurt starts to add up over
the week. I think another thing is you
just have lost a load of weight and you're no longer burning as
(21:01):
many calories as you think you are.
And and you know, again, people will be like, well, my watch
said, but I'm doing this. And it's like your watch is
nonsense like it always has been.
Like it's, I would completely ignore that.
I've had some crackers with likeyou know, like on my fitness
party. Sometimes you like the exercise
calories on it's like 3-4 hundred or whatever Yeah my God,
like this dude's on some little calories still not dropping and
(21:21):
find out. Oh, they've.
Been adding the. Calories eating the calories
back, it's like, oh, hang on, turn that thing off.
All of a sudden you don't realise it.
Yeah. You don't realize the impact it
has. Yeah, you've had some crackers
with that, but you know what youwere saying about like the bikes
licks and taste. What I often find when I've
spoken to people, you like when someone's like, oh, I only had a
handful of nuts. It's nothing because it almost
seems like small in your hand and they almost think, oh, that
(21:42):
one too much like handful of nuts.
It's a couple of 100 calories. You know, she's like, oh, I
won't. Love that they think of mass,
isn't it? It's the, the sort of and that's
where again, it's always the perception is if if the
conversation literally went, oh,scale, what data has plateaued?
So, OK, so now we know energy balance is even.
So we need to now what are we going to shift to make it uneven
(22:05):
again? And it's like, but instead it's
like, oh, it's got to be something's bust.
It's got to be something's broken.
And it's like if we just go intowhat from an understanding
standpoint, what a broken metabolism or damaged metabolism
actually is. So you've got, again, as you
said, generally become more complacent with monitoring or
(22:27):
your, your intake has gone up a little bit for whatever reason,
whether because some people aren't even tracking, but you're
just, you happen to be eating a bit more than you were before
you on your general day-to-day. You rest a lot more and move a
lot less than you were because you're more tired because you've
been under fueling your body's needs in order to drop body fat.
(22:50):
Or again, it can be a combination of these three
things as well. Is you're now a lot smaller than
you were, so you're doing the same amount of movement than you
were doing before, but because you're carrying round less
weight, it's not. It's not the same.
So the all those things have occurred and you might get a
little bit of like your thyroid output, it can drop down a
little bit, but that's the body's normal response to weight
(23:13):
loss. And as you feel back up, that
will correct itself as well. And you can't stop that from
occurring either. I think that's going to happen
when you lose weight. So you, if you can't control
that, there's no point focusing on it.
But you can control the other things.
You can control how much you consume in, you can control how
much you move in. I guess you can't control your
weight loss because as in as in,you know, I guess you could, we
(23:33):
would put a weighted vest on if you really wanted to balance
that out. So it's when it comes to the
solutions to those problems, like when someone comes to you
and that's happened, where do you first put the the sort of
priority? I mean, I, I go I, I heavily vet
the diet first just from an inherent standpoint.
(23:57):
Then like let's assume that theyhave been tracking everything,
nailing everything, nothing has changed.
I'm probably going to look at output next, like in terms of
steps and I might just try and increase, increase them by 1015%
again, like you have to see what's realistic with their,
(24:19):
with their lifestyle, their time.
You know, I'm not going to go from like 10,000 steps to 20,000
overnight. Like it's going to be an
incremental thing. I, I will only look at blood
work if, if the numbers, just like if I, if I really knew that
someone was nailing their diet, Like, let's just say it was you
(24:42):
and let's just say it was you. But you know, let's say like you
were like fan like I'm eating 1300 cows a day.
Like I swear on my life. I swear on my family's life.
I'm doing 15,000 steps like on my weight isn't budging.
Then I would go, let's look at the bloods and let's see what's
going on. And then, you know, if that was
(25:04):
genuinely true, there's probablygoing to be something out of
whack, whether it's your test levels or just tanked or your
thyroid's down. And then like, you know, in that
situation, your options are basically where we can come out
of the diet and bring calories back up and hope that they come
back or you implement, you know,thyroid medication and TRT, you
know, and that that's like two things which I am a fan of.
(25:25):
Like when, if you're already using assistance, like if you're
on TRT anyway, you've thrown away that, that natty card.
I am a fan of like T4T3 supplementation when you're in a
like, a like a steep calorie deficit as like monotherapy,
you're not using it to lose fat,you're using it to stop your
thyroid from decreasing. And so it's like you said, like
(25:49):
you're going to naturally get decreases in those hormonal
outputs with like test and thyroid.
So if you can supplement with them just to keep them at even
keel, yeah, you can just feel a bit better when replacement
dosage. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're not using it to like, youknow, you're not doing a steroid
cycle. You're not taking loads of
thyroid to melt fat because thatcomes with its own nasty side
effects, but just to keep thingseven keel.
(26:10):
But even then you could be, you could be taking that and then
you hit another plateau and it'slike, well, now we've, we've got
a decision to make. We can change the output or we
can decrease the input. I tell you from like an
efficiency standpoint as well, especially when someone's like
at a back end of a fat. So he's already tired and like
with our clientele, they're super busy.
It's much more efficient to reduce calories and increase
your output 100%. Yeah, it's so much easier to
(26:33):
eat. Eat less 200 and burn more 200I.
Was thinking about this the other day and if, if, if
performance and like work capacity, if I didn't value
those things because I because Ivalue being able to do a good
amount of work. And so like a low volume
training doesn't sit well with me because it's like I want to
be able to have endurance and the only way you get endurance
(26:55):
is by doing more and building work capacity.
But if my goal was to just look good and be in shape, I would be
doing a minimalist 3 day a week training program.
Maybe like 3 movements each time.
My non training days I would go aggressive on the deficit like
(27:16):
you know like 1000 calories, 1500 calories deficit and I
would just walk like 2 hours and.
Just walk as much. And then on my on my training
days, I would, I would eat, I would probably go like still in
a deficit, probably a much less deficit.
So I feel good when I train and I would still walk on those days
and that's what I'd do. And I and I, I would probably
look better than I do now. My body wouldn't be as beat up,
(27:39):
but I I wouldn't be able to perform like the output, but
like I'd probably be pretty goodthat that's going to be my, my
retirement plan that that is, that is my retirement plan for
fitness like the minimalist like.
Two years time is it? Yeah.
Because, because, because even like, even by doing like the the
cardio and the Zone 2 stuff, like you said, when you're in a
(28:00):
deficit, you get more tired. You throw a bunch of cardio on
top of that, you're even more tired, you're even more hungry.
You, you, you make life so hard for yourself.
But that's the trade off of if you want to be fitter as well
whilst you're trying to do all those other things.
Yeah, yeah. Like if if I wanted to be leaner
than I am now, I wouldn't do as much work as I do as I do now.
And this is like where it's likeagain, 99% a 100% wrong.
(28:25):
If I wanted to be leaner than I am now, I would do significantly
less. And you kind of like, well, how
does that work? Because you've just said you
have to do more and eat less. It's like, no, no, I would eat
much less and I would do even less.
And I would, I would, I would literally walk, do enough
resistance training. I wouldn't do any high intensity
stuff. I wouldn't do any zone 2 stuff
other than like a brisk walk. And yeah, I I would just eat
(28:50):
less food. Less food increase your movement
throughout the day. Because when you do get very
lean, you're much more sensitiveto the symptoms of like fatigue,
I find. So like when you do a hard
training session and you're lean?
Like you're like, oh. I am tanked by the end of the
day, but when you're like a little bit heavier, like you do
(29:10):
it. Oh, I I feel fine.
Yeah. It's it's so again, you you
don't want to put yourself because then once you're
fatigued, your ability to resisttemptations and your ability it,
it all goes to pot. So you basically want to feel as
good as you can be as move as much as you can of low
intensity, and then just manage your diet as best you can.
Yep. Nail, nail those rocks.
(29:32):
But yeah, from a from a metabolism standpoint, it's
it's, it is going to be you're going to need to shift one of
those needles in either direction.
You have to shift the output up or the input down.
Lean into the input first if youcan, and then if the the output,
if you've got the capacity to move it up, take it or just look
(29:55):
at again, as you said, the client who's coming down the
same, well, the apparently the same behaviours are given the
opposite reaction. So what's happened to these
behaviours that are causing that?
So you can almost go through andbe OK.
What is different in this phase than is going on here?
And as you said, then you can start pointing things out and
they're, they're giving you clear things to improve now,
(30:16):
because it's these are clearly the things that are hindering my
progress and making it go the other way.
So these are the ones that I need to address if I want to go
back to the progress that I was seeing.
Before. And that's a case, if it's not a
case of changing the plan, it's your execution of the current
plan has changed. Yeah.
So I think in if you're in this situation where maybe those
(30:36):
words have those, the blasphemy has come out of your mouth.
I think my metabolism is damaged.
Well, it's. Blasphemy, another word for
shit. Well, it's it's like religious
like you. Know if you go into.
Religious. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If the horseshit comes out of your mouth, then I would one
take a very honest look at your behaviors and habits regarding
(30:58):
tracking your food, following your nutrition plan.
If that's sorted, then look at your output.
Look at increasing your output. Sit, like I say, slightly, you
know, by ten, 1020%. And then once you've done those
two things, that will probably solve it for you just to create
(31:19):
again, just to create that deficit again.
If you're doing that significantly, then get blood
work and see if there's anythingout.
And if nothing is out, then you probably just need to do do a
little bit more and eat a littlebit less.
And if you're really, really tired of it, take a little break
and then go back to it. Cool.
Perfect. Well, thank you as always for
tuning in. Be sure to like and subscribe on
(31:40):
iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube andwe'll see you next time.
If you love this show, please like, share and leave us a five
star review so that we can help more people.
I'm John Matson, reminding you to always go get what's yours.
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