June 26, 2025 • 31 mins
Ever wonder why your dieting efforts keep stalling? The answer might surprise you. When it comes to fat loss, most of us are approaching it completely backward—cutting calories too drastically, ignoring metabolic adaptation, or falling into the weekend binge cycle that erases an entire week's progress.
Drawing from our combined 40 years of experience coaching thousands of clients, Justin and Ethan reveal the framework for structuring a fat loss phase that actually works. We unpack the science behind finding your true maintenance calories and explain why smaller deficits (200-300 calories) often produce better results than the standard 500-calorie recommendation, especially for smaller individuals. This isn't just theory—we share why most people dramatically underestimate their body fat percentage and how even fitness professionals like ourselves can accumulate an extra 10-20 pounds without realizing it.
The episode dives deep into practical implementation strategies, from utilizing food scales and simple meal prep systems to understanding when and how to strategically take breaks from your deficit. We explain the critical concept of metabolic adaptation—how losing 10% of your body weight downshifts your metabolism by approximately 25%—and provide actionable solutions to avoid the frustrating plateau this often creates. Most importantly, we share why resistance training isn't optional during a fat loss phase if you want to maintain muscle mass and keep your metabolism as robust as possible.
Whether you're looking to lose your first 10 pounds or your last, this comprehensive guide to structuring a fat loss phase will equip you with the knowledge to finally break the cycle of unsuccessful dieting. Subscribe now and join us next week as we continue exploring the principles that make fitness sustainable for life.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to episode 62 of In the Grand Scheme of
Fitness with your host, justinScallard, and Ethan Wolfe.
Today, folks, we're gonna betalking about how to properly
structure a fat loss phase howone would want to set themselves
up for maximum success withminimizing downside, how long
you should be in a fat lossphase, for what milestones you
(00:20):
should look for, and how to getyourself out of one successfully
so you don't just gain it allback.
That's what we're going to bedigging into Today.
In case you don't know us,we've been trainers,
nutritionists, for 20 years,each give or take, and we've
(00:44):
worked together in the gym floor.
We've owned business togetherstrength rx crossfit gym that
did nutrition and crossfit andthen now ethan has a studio in
west hollywood, california,where he sees private clientele,
and I have a nutrition specificcoaching business for nurses
and health care pros online, andwe've come together, we've
joined forces once again tocreate this podcast here, really
(01:05):
just to like as an excuse tojust hang out with each other.
It's true, that's really it,you know, just talk shop for a
little bit and, uh, you know,hopefully give you guys the
right information so you canavoid so many of the common
mistakes and pitfalls that seemto plague most people on their
pursuit of fitness.
So that's what we're here to do.
the tools for the tool beltexactly, and so last week we
(01:27):
broke down sort of programmingin general like what does this
amorphous term even mean?
Benefits of a routine?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
and a program.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
How to structure it for muscle and for fat loss.
And today we're just going totake it one layer deeper and
break down fat loss specificprogramming.
Because most people want fatloss, everybody wants to like
look athletic, everyone needsmuscle.
Because most people want fatloss, everybody wants to like
look athletic, everyone needsmuscle.
But most people in this countryare considered overweight and I
think I I'm of the belief thatyou know, before you start to
try to put on muscle, we shouldprobably lean you out a little
(01:55):
bit first.
That doesn't mean we're notlifting weights, it doesn't mean
you're not going to be a littlebit of muscle in the process,
but the focus is fat loss, atleast for the first two to six
months and then you can shiftgears.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
It waxes and wanes, but I think most people would
would benefit both from likejust a health and metabolic
standpoint and an aestheticstandpoint for just tightening
up a little bit and and I think,yeah, most people want that
when they start to think aboutparticipating with their food.
Obviously there is a populationthat wants to like get jacked,
but and you can always, andeverything waxes and wanes so
you can put on some muscle andtake off some fat.
(02:25):
Yeah, it's always phasing.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
If you listen to last week's episode of programming
in general, I think we touchedon that, just like the
periodization of your year,where you might have two to four
months where you're leaning out, you might have four months
where you're just hanging out inmaintenance and you might have
four months where you'recommitting to some sort of a you
know bulk or building phase,and that could be your year
indefinitely.
You know just these seasons yougo through with a different
(02:48):
intention, but so, yeah, so youknow my old mentor, Dr Trevor
Cashy, who was great.
He is great still, but he onething he always said was that
everyone is fatter than theythink they are.
Oh, ain't it the truth?
And it's.
I mean, like even you and Iright now.
I guarantee you, if we were toestimate how much body fat we
have on us, we would be wrong,we would be, we would undershoot
(03:10):
how much we actually have.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things.
Right now I'm in a deficit andI was really thinking about,
like, what is a goal weight?
How much percentage do I wantto drop as a general goal?
How much would that look likein weight and all that kind of
stuff?
And you know, I think mostpeople would look at me and be
like you're not overweight atall.
But even then I'd probably sayI have an easy 10 to 20 pounds
that I could lose within that.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
you know, and it's like kind of surprising, it's
like wow it's just the creep andI want to dig into more of this
as we go in this episode butlike it is just the creep of,
like modern day society and justthe luxuries and the
conveniences of life where evensomeone like us, where we are
fitness coaches yeah, that'swhat we do.
And we still somehow, over thecourse of time, have accumulated
(03:53):
an extra 10 or 20 pounds ofbody fat.
And anyone would look at us andbe like, oh, you guys are
healthy and we are healthy.
It's not necessarily likesaying like it's not a binary,
but it's just.
The point here is that it'sjust so easy to just let a
dinner out, you know, an extrasplash of this, like an
untracked meal, like this orthat, and next thing you know,
over the course of months,you've like completely put back
all the fat you've just spent,however long losing you know,
(04:15):
it's just so easy, yeah to do.
It really is, and so anyway.
So, talking about just how tophase out fat loss cycle, like
how you, what would want totrigger one to initiate a fat
loss cycle?
I think is step one.
So like, what's the trigger tosay, okay, I've had fun in
maintenance, or maybe you'vejust finished a bulk, now it's
time to like?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
peel off anything or you've.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Are you starting from scratch?
You've never done anything?
There's a couple different waysone might need to trigger a fat
loss phase.
Either you've just likeintentionally, want to put on
some muscle, which it's fun todo, but then after, like
anything in life, after three,four, five months of your life,
this isn't fun anymore and youwant something new.
You know and then you go tomaintenance.
You do maintenance for two,three months you're like, yeah,
this is much fun.
And after a couple of whileyou're like nothing's happening,
I need to do something and yougo fat loss phase.
(04:56):
After like four months of that,you're like this sucks.
I've been, I have, I've fuckingbeen hungry for months you know,
we always need that newness,which is why I think having
seasons is just so important.
That's one version of it.
Another version is, like yousaid, you just ain't done shit.
Maybe you just like casuallywork out, but you're like of the
mind, like I don't want towatch what I eat because I
exercise.
But then you realize that youjust keep getting fatter over
the years.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, I just say you're not.
You're definitely not gettingthe most out of your workouts
either.
I mean, I think that's asituation that most people fall
into.
It's very easy to be like youknow.
Oh, I'm healthy.
I work out three, four, fivetimes a week.
I run.
I'm a runner, but they justdon't pay attention to what they
eat whatsoever and they're justnot getting the most out of
their exercise, and it's alsomaybe why they're not
potentially at a compositionthat they want to be, whether
it's more muscle or less bodyfat, the disproportionate amount
(05:39):
of calories it takes to burnversus to consume, oh yeah, you
learn real quick that it doesn'tmatter unless you're like
running a marathon every day ordoing like three hour like
kickboxing lessons.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
But barring that one percent extreme, like the vast
majority of us will never clockin enough caloric burn through
exercise to offset a shitty dietor even just a normal diet that
you're not paying attention to.
Yeah, think about it.
Like lifting weights for anhour burns a few hundred
calories maybe 350 a boot campmaybe burns 45500 which might
sound like a lot, but one muffinlater and that 400 calories is
(06:14):
right back on you, baby, it'snot easy.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, I mean a couple slices of bacon or an extra
slice of cheese.
Yeah, you know, you get extracheese on something and there's
a few hundred calories rightthere so easy to do instead of,
like you, like you know, runninginto a wall like that.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
It's just so much easier to go after nutrition and
just it really is the only way.
It's the only way.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I was kind of thinking about like a gas tank,
like it takes a couple minutesto fill your gas tank up with,
you know, with gas.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
That lasts for weeks.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, but it takes a were to drive every day, it
takes time to burn it and it'slike that same thing.
It's like you can just eatsomething real quick.
It takes time to burn it offand then if you just stack that
over a couple of days or likethree days, you kind of have
this.
Have that.
I mean.
Even just the other day I waseating ice cream and I was still
under my maintenance.
But man, I mean by like 100calories and I was in such an
(07:02):
extreme deficit and it's just soeasy to do.
I mean, it's just like you knowI was, I was really hungry
because I was in a strongdeficit.
Then I ate some ice cream andit's like, oh, there goes all
that you know, especially likethe real ice cream, the good
stuff, the french vanilla, thereal, the good stuff, just the
heavy though, man, totally.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
So I think that, like , let's just say, okay, if
you've never done a proper fatloss phase and obviously this is
your trigger, this is your sign, this is time for you to do it
If you are in the other camp, ormaybe you've been in
maintenance for a while, ormaybe you've been, you know,
bulking for a while, then it'sprobably time.
If you can reach down and grablike a handful of stomach fat,
it's probably time to at leastkickstart some sort of a fat
loss phase.
(07:34):
And I think, like for men thatmight look like 20% body fat.
For if you're in that ballpark,like more muscle or bulking
probably isn't doing you muchgood at that point.
And you know, once we get to acertain BMI, body mass index and
body fat percentage, we startto have some health effects too.
So that's why it's always goodto like not be so one way about
(07:56):
your programming, but look at itas seasons you go through,
because there's health benefitsof putting on muscle to an
extent, and then there's healthbenefits of now leaning out a
little bit and losing someweight.
So anyway, so that would belike your trigger, your impetus
to wanna switch gears and gointo a fat loss phase.
How to structure a fat lossphase?
I think step one is we have tounderstand exactly.
Well, there's no way tounderstand exactly, but step one
, we gotta get a really goodestimate on what our maintenance
(08:18):
calories are.
Right, yeah, 100%.
Right, yeah, 100.
You have to know what you'reusing.
Yeah, and the machine of thethermodynamics, so you know,
most people on the planet, Ithink, are somewhere between
2,000 and 2,500 calories whatthey burn over the course of a
day give or take give or take.
You know people on the other, onthe top 10 who burned.
You know over 3,000 people inthe bottom 10 who burn under
1,500 but like most of us aresomewhere around that.
(08:41):
You know know 2000 to 2500calorie mark for maintenance.
And so the easiest way to do isjust go online, just Google
TDEE calculator.
So if you just literally justgo to Google and type in TDEE
calculator, you will get a.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
BMI calculator right.
It stands for total dailyenergy expenditure.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
How much energy your body is expending throughout the
day.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And that includes movement.
So versus like a BMR you know,the idea is to try to
incorporate some form ofexercise if you're exercising,
so that's being equated intoyour total maintenance.
Yeah, everything.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
So you put in your age, your height, your weight,
your activity level, your gender, and then boom, it gives you
sort of like a pretty accurateestimate.
I think it's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And what I like about it is that it kind of airs in
the lower end a little bit.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
So then what you do is it'll show you right there,
like if you get into like a youknow 250 calorie deficit per day
, you're gonna burn like a halfa pound a week, which is super
sustainable.
And if you're a smaller personor if you have a slower
metabolism, I'd recommendstaying in that ballpark.
On two to 300 calorie deficit,you cut too deep.
It's just too much of a overallpercentage of your daily
calories for it to like bereally sustainable long-term,
(09:43):
like if you're if you're like a40 year old woman or plus who
has never lifted weights in yourlife and it's pretty sedentary
you're not burning that manycalories.
Unfortunately, you might onlyburn 16, 1700 calories a day.
So if you get in a 500 caloriedeficit, that's going to be
rough.
You know you're going to beeating like a thousand calories
a day.
Yeah, that's not a lot.
So in that case, aiming forlike a half a pound of fat loss
per week, which translatesroughly into about 250 calorie
(10:06):
deficit per day.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
All right, well, let's.
I think we're getting a carabove the horse here.
So, first things, first let'sget, I think, would be
sustainable.
And so the idea is that there's3,500 calories in a pound of
fat, and so we're starting tocreate, I think, realistic goals
of how fast and how much weightyou want to lose, and then I
(10:28):
think that's going to be one ofthe things that's going to
determine your deficit.
And to what Justin was justsaying, I think it's really
important to pick a deficit thatmakes it sustainable, because,
again, you have to be consistent.
You gotta do this day in andday out, and if picking a longer
road to your goal, butsomething that you'll actually
accomplish, is going to do it,then I think that's a better
route than like what you'resaying, like just chopping off
this huge amount.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Long story short you just like.
If that, if that means you haveto be in a fat loss phase a
little bit longer for it to besustainable because you're not
trying to cut down on yourcalories too much, in the long
run you're going to be wayhappier and it's going to be
much more realistic than if youtry to go off of just everybody
online saying, oh, 500 caloriedeficit.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
But that might not work necessarily for that
archetype I just described 100and like let me tell you, being
hungry is hard.
Like you might have somewillpower, but to battle hunger
day in and day out for months ata time is really challenging.
And if that just ends up to youbinging or breaking your deficit
by having this late night snackbecause you're trying to go to
bed and you're so hungry thatyou just end up eating like a
(11:30):
quesadilla or something that youmake and it just blows it all
out of the water, Then likewhat's the point in the first
place?
Speaker 1 (11:34):
You know you try to remove so much and try to get
there faster, but then if itends up just means that you're
suffering and you end upbreaking, then it's all for
naught, and that's almost alwayshow it goes, where most of us
can tolerate it for a day, two,three, four, but by Friday that
eye is twitching, you know,especially if you did make the
mistake.
Which I see is there's like twocamps the people who cut way
(11:56):
too deep and they try to go into, like just an extreme deficit,
yeah, and the people who arejust like stick a toe in the
water and half-ass it andthey're in a deficit for two or
three days a week, but thenthey're in a surplus the other
half good all the weekends, andthen months goes by and they've
lost zero weight.
They're like, well, dietingdoesn't work for me.
It's like, well, you didn'treally commit, you need to be in
the middle where it's amoderate deficit, because what
(12:17):
ethan just said happens all thetime, where it's like you're
good, you're good, you're good,you're good.
And then you just go have afriday night where you just
whatever like okay, let's justsay you were in a 500 calorie
deficit for five days.
That's 2500 calories.
You've almost burned off anentire pound of fat.
Yeah, that's great.
By being in a 500 caloriedeficit for monday, tuesday,
wednesday, thursday and friday,like congratulations.
And then saturday you eat anentire large pizza and you eat 5
(12:39):
000 calories, and that 2500.
And that people might be like,oh, that's extreme, that would
never happen.
It's like, no, oh, it's easy.
I've looked at thousands ofmeal plans and meal logs.
I should say this happens tovery normal people couple of
beers, four or five slices ofpizza, a little tiny bowl of ice
cream, four or five thousandcalories, plus your breakfast
and lunch earlier in the dayfour or five thousand calories,
(13:00):
and so that two to threethousand calorie deficit you
created in the first five daysof the week you just erased on
saturday and then you come onmonday and you're right back to
where you started.
You're like what the hellabsolutely gotta?
Be super aware of that and Ithink if we were to really go
after it systemically, it's likeyou have to go to the root of
the issue, which was you werejust in too big of a deficit.
Probably had you shrunk thatdeficit down by a little bit,
(13:23):
you might not have had this.
The fuck it, I can't take itanymore moment on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Yeah, because the temptations are always going to
be there, Like the Saturdays arealways going to come and it's
more or less like are you ableto meet the challenge of the
Saturday?
And when you're just starvedand you've been super, super
strict on yourself to that point, that challenge is going to
overcome you.
You're not going to have thestrength.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Especially with your friends.
And everyone else is eatingpizza, so it's like let's not
get it wrong.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
It's like, even if you're in a quality sustainable
deficit, you're still going tobe challenged on a Saturday with
your willpower and still havingto make good choices.
With your willpower and stillhaving to make good choices,
it'll just be that much easierto make them If you aren't just
like chomping at the bit forlike a bite of a cheeseburger or
something like that, you know?
and it's really true to yourpoint.
So people don't realize like aclassic, like burger and fries.
And let's say you had a soda,2000 calories plus easy in a
(14:09):
single day.
Easy, yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I mean without question.
You put breakfast and lunch ontop of it exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
You know, it's a crazy day so it's like it's you
know, don't underestimate whatyou know a classic kind of
highly palatable, convenient anddelicious, and cheap and cheap
highly palatable, convenient andcheap, engineered to be
deliciously addicting and goodyep.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
So if, if we we have to rely a little bit on
self-restraint and discipline,or else we are just gonna get
eaten alive, no pun intended,and so anyway.
So those are some things towatch out for.
And also, like it just sohappens, there's a direct ratio
of, like the faster you loseweight, the more muscle you're
gonna lose.
Yes, right, the slower you loseweight, the more muscle you're
gonna retain.
(14:50):
So if you're just in thismassive deficit 500 to a
thousand calorie deficit per daywhich a lot of people try
you're losing weight rapidly,but you're there's just no extra
resources, since your body'sjust dumping muscle mass because
there's not enough energy tomaintain it, and that's not good
either.
And so I really encourage peopleif you're like above 200 pounds
, you could probably get awaywith a 500 calorie deficit, no
problem.
(15:10):
If you're below, you know, 200,even like 175, you know, I
would encourage you to take thelonger road.
A couple of two 300 caloriedeficit per day somewhere in
there, yeah, you know, and thatmight mean you only lose five
pounds every six to eight weeksinstead of every four weeks, but
it means that it's going to bemuch more sustainable for you in
the long run and you're goingto retain much more muscle mass
when you do hit your weight lossgoal.
(15:31):
Ultimately, you're going tolook way better.
You're going to have feltbetter along the way you know,
yeah.
So what we recommend isdefinitely figuring out sort of
what your maintenance calorie is.
You can going to have feltbetter along the way, you know,
yeah, so what we recommend isdefinitely figuring out sort of
what your maintenance calorie is.
You can go to that website,tdeecalculatorcom, figure that
out, enter your stuff in thereand then at that point, now it's
okay.
So now you know.
But now you got to actually beaccurate, because accuracy
predicts results.
(15:52):
Like one thing that we always dowith our clients is whenever
they're saying like oh, um, Ineed, I want to adjust my
calories because it's notworking anymore.
And I look at their stuff andit's almost always like they're
only logging like every otherday, or they're logging for two
or three days and they stop.
And I know it's tedious and Iknow it sucks, but at the end of
the day, like what getsmeasured gets managed and if
we're not tracking data, we aretruly guessing.
(16:13):
Yeah, it's shooting in the dark, and so you have to accurately
measure this stuff.
Otherwise you're just in thislike fat loss, jail forever, yep
, and you're just like it kindof works and it kind of doesn't
it kind of works just becausethat's a reflection of the
attention and time you'reputting into it.
Get a food scale.
Put the plate on your foodscale before you load your plate
with food.
It's one extra step, but itreally just changes the game for
(16:34):
you 100%, yeah, changes thegame for you.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
A hundred percent, yeah, and I think it's like it
goes down to you know hacking itin some way, but like preparing
your own food is going to bethe primary way in which you can
know what's in it.
Now that doesn't mean you can'tgo and get like rotisserie
chicken someplace or go to evena fast food restaurant and get
something that might fit yourmacros.
Like you know, as long as youhave the numbers, you can do it.
But I is, preparing your ownfood in some capacity is going
to be the easiest way to knowexactly what's going in.
(16:58):
And even if you go to TraderJoe's and you get the sous vide
turkey breasts, you know that'spre-cooked and all you have to
do is heat it.
You know, I'm not saying you gotto sit there and chef it up,
but just even if it'smicrowavable, frozen rice,
frozen vegetables and apre-cooked meat.
You know, then at least you canstill have the numbers and you
can still prepare your own foodand you can still at least
measure what's going in.
So you know what's happening inthat regard.
(17:20):
So 100.
You know it can be tedious totake this all on, but there are
ways to hack it and I think youknow getting behind some simple
meal prep, getting a crock potgoing, doing things that make
this as easy as possible, ishuge because, unfortunately, if
you don't prepare your own food,it's going to be extremely
difficult to measure what'sgoing in.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
And we're kind of backlogging it.
So you know how much you haveto eat.
Now, in order to make sureyou're actually eating that, you
have to measure it.
The easiest way to measure itis to prepare your own food.
Even if you make it the easiestas possible, you still pretty
much have to do it.
It's very challenging,otherwise, to make sure you're
actually eating.
Restaurant you go to haseverything listed for calories
and you're looking up every itemwhich some restaurants do don't
(18:00):
get me wrong and you can dothat, but it's still pretty
challenging to always yeah eatout, so you just have to start
making your own food, and that'swhere things like getting into
a meal prep pattern oh, that's,that's the result.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
accelerator man, if you're just like in the zone and
you're like you've got everyweek you've got a few chicken
breasts, you've sliced up withsome veggies and some rice and
individual Tupperwares.
You've got some ground beefwith some beans or whatever and
individual Tupperware and you'vegot like and you open that
fridge and it's just like boom,boom, boom.
You man.
You get results so fast.
It's insane.
It's like every day you're likedropping a quarter pound.
(18:31):
You're, you know, you're seeingmovement, you're seeing your
body changing.
Yeah, so motivating.
You know, and to that point Iwanted to say, like,
occasionally you're going to eatout and that's all right, the
better you get at tracking thisstuff.
Like you know, I could ordersome, you know whatever.
Like there's a pho place nextdoor and it's pretty
straightforward Sauce, it'sfilet, mignon, it's rice, it's
veggies.
I bet you I could probablyguesstimate within 10 or 20
percent is no big deal.
(18:52):
Yeah, we all can recover fromthat.
But if it's every meal thatyou're guesstimating and you're
10 or 20 percent off, that meansyou're 10 or 20 percent off of
your tracking.
But the thing is, is that youshould only be in a 10 to 15
percent deficit total?
Yeah, so if you're 10 to 20percent off because you're
eating out every meal and you'rejust taking your best guess,
(19:14):
you're just not gonna get there.
You might get lucky but, likeyou just don't know how much oil
they're using in their cookingand how much is in the sauce and
all these different things.
It's like you don't know howmuch meat they're using exactly
yeah cut of meat exactly becausenobody's like ordering takeout,
pulling everything outindividually and weighing it.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
You know there's three ounces of chicken in my
pad thai.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, no one's doing that yeah, so save the money,
because once you start cookingfor yourself, man, the bank
account goes up and the scalegoes down.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
It's the truth, it's just the truth and like a good
strategy, I think, is to justget like some staple meals for
breakfast, lunch and dinner thatyou don't mind eating
consistently, that are reallyeasy to make, and just have like
a couple of them on rotation,and then maybe you swap out and
you maybe do something morenovel for your meal prep and
something that maybe takes alittle thinking.
But if you just have a couplemeals that you can just shoot
(20:01):
from the hip or you just don'thave to think about it, like
overnight oats for breakfast forme is just like such a no
brainer.
You know, it's like proteinpowder, almond milk, stir it up,
put my oats and my frozenberries in and it's just a nice
easy on the go.
I don't have to heat it, itjust takes me no time to make.
It's readily available.
I don't mind eating it anytimeI eat it.
It's totally fine and you canjust like make five days worth
(20:22):
of breakfast in 10 minutes,totally, you know and so it's
like things like that, or like ataco day, like I, like a, like
a mexican, like I just, you know, I get a couple tortillas, some
chicken breasts, some onions,just simple things by the way,
like go to your grocery storeand buy the pre-made stuff yeah,
Frozen.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
You know peppers for taco night, Like the pre-cooked
chili lime chicken breast atTrader Joe's.
It's like six bucks for a wholepound of like pre-sliced,
pre-cooked chicken breast.
You know some Ezekiel tortillasand boom.
By the way, that was myabsolute lunch.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
This today I just described.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
There is exactly what I ate today.
But there is exactly what I atetoday.
But that's the game and it'slike it's filling.
It's a no brainer to track.
It doesn't have to put anythingon a food scale.
I can just look at the packageand see what the serving size is
and just do that.
It's two seconds of my life.
The whole meal is probablythree or four dollars and it was
, you know, perfect.
So you know, being okay withthat says I'm going to take 40
(21:17):
minutes.
But two hours later you'restill sitting there with 15
different sauce cups and you'relike this is terrible.
Keep it simple, just like.
Take advantage of the pre-madevegetables and frozen vegetables
and pre-made meats and stuff atyour grocery store and like
proteins, couple starches andsome veggies.
Yeah, and then so okay, sothat's kind of how you do it.
That's your target.
It's going to show you how manycalories to eat.
Easy math one gram of proteinper pound of goal weight.
(21:38):
So if you're 200 pounds, youwant to be 150 to 150 grams of
protein a day.
You're going to be perfect,great.
So now, how long do we stay inthis fat loss phase?
So, assuming you're accurateand you're weighing yourself in
every morning and you'retracking your meals, you know
you should be seeing somewherebetween about a half pound and a
pound of fat loss per week.
If you did, but we justrecommend it.
It almost always works, and ifit's not working, I would want
to see what kind of foods you'reeating and how accurate your
(21:59):
tracking is.
But assuming you're doing that,that's the trajectory you
should be on, and so I thinkthat 10 to 15% of your body mass
is a good time to reassess.
So if you're 200 pounds, youjust lost 20 pounds.
You probably want to reassess.
Okay, is it time to go build upto maintenance for a week or
two and get my body a rest fromdieting, a little break from
dieting?
(22:19):
Or am I feeling good andeverything's good and I just
want that extra 10, and there'sno reason to my mindset's okay,
my mood's okay.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Keep going, the scales keep moving.
Everything's good to go.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
I would agree with that, because dieting is
stressful.
I'm in a fat loss phase rightnow and it's always one of these
sneaky things where I've donethis tired, I'm just cranky and
I'm tired and I'm just likewhat's wrong with me?
Am I getting old?
Am I just like?
Am I depressed?
(22:49):
What is happening?
And then I'm like I'm just twoweeks into a fallout.
This is like the hardest partof it.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I'm in the trenches.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
right now, my body is screaming for me to eat more
food.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
It's not quite used to it, it's not quite acclimated
.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Yeah, you just get like lethargic and that kind of
grogginess.
You're like, oh yeah, I need totake a little nap.
But then you know, yourmetabolism adapts, you start
creating a little bit more of abalance and energy and being in
a deficit isn't so hard.
But sometimes, like two weeksin, can be tricky, but anyway.
So, like I would say, 10 ofyour body weight that you've
lost is a good time torecalibrate and to see do I want
(23:20):
to keep going or do I want tobuild up to maintenance for a
couple of weeks and give myselfa break?
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yeah, I think that's.
It's definitely and it also isjust like you said like
psychologically it gives you alittle break and let your body
kind of recoup a little bit.
It's a good way, especially ifyou have a lot of weight to lose
.
You know, if you're reallyoverweight or obese and you have
a really long journey ahead ofyou, expect the waves to kind of
come and go of intensity of howyou're approaching it.
You know, realistically youprobably won't lose all of your
weight all in one go.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
It'll be very challenging.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
It'll be hard on your body, and you know so.
It depends, I think, a lot ofit on how much weight you have
to lose.
But 100%, yeah, I think it'sjust beneficial to kind of wax
and wane with it, depending.
And I think, yeah, the 10% is agreat marker.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Also too like is.
Let's say, someone wants tolose weight and they're 150
pounds, so maybe we want torecommend that they eat 1800
calories, right?
But then maybe there's somebodywho's 200 pounds, they want to
lose weight, we recommend thatthey eat 2400 calories.
So why do we have a personwho's heavier eat more food?
It's because the smaller ourbody gets, the lower our
metabolisms go, and so it'scalled metabolic adaptation.
(24:21):
Every 10% of body mass that youlose, your metabolism
downshifts and sort of adaptsdownward, regulates downward by
25%.
So if I'm 200 pounds and I lose20 pounds of just aggregate
mass, then my metabolism is nowdownshifted because I'm a
smaller person moving throughoutspace and
(24:41):
time, and so I'm just requiringless energy to propel my body
because I'm just a smallerperson now.
Yeah, so when you do lose 10,like what might have worked for
you?
Maybe 2200 calories worked foryou when you were 200 pounds,
but now that you're 175, you'rerealizing like I'm not losing
any weight anymore.
You have two options you cantake a little bit of a break
from your diet for a second, butwhen you go back into it you're
(25:02):
gonna have to, like you can'teat the same that you did at 200
.
It's not gonna work, becausethat was your 10 deficit 25
pounds heavier, but 25 poundslighter.
Now that might look like 1900,and that's just the reality of
different body sizes and howmuch energy they require, and so
be conscious of that.
If you are a bigger person, youdo have a bigger journey that
you might need to break it upinto, like you know, multiple 10
(25:23):
chunks to get you ultimatelydown to where you want to go.
So just know that, like at thevery beginning, 2,500, 3,000
calories might be a deficit foryou, but then, as you get closer
to your goal, that might bemore like 1,900, you know 100%.
So be conscious of that as yougo through your process.
You know, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
And one of the things I'd recommend which is like we
obviously we always recommendthis is but it's to include
resistance training.
Oh, for sure, you have to do it.
You know you can do no exerciseand still get in a proper
participation with your food andchange your body composition.
So don't think that exercise isrequired and again, you can't
exercise, exercise a bad diet,but the bottom line is that our
skeletal muscle is the biggestconsumer of calories.
(26:01):
It's the thing that's going toaffect our metabolic rate the
most, and so a resistancetraining is as we kind of just
was saying earlier is going tolimit how much lean mass you
lose.
If you're in a deficit, it'sgoing to at least help you
maintain and therefore keep yourmetabolism up and keep all the
benefits of having lean mass onus.
But then also, just in thejourney in general, whether you
go into a maintenance or in theebbs and flows, but in a certain
(26:22):
sense, just having the morelean mass you have, the better.
And I think that over time, ifyou commit to a good exercise
regimen, you will put on somelean mass, especially if you're
hitting your protein goals andespecially if you're not always
living in a deficit.
And over the long game, ifyou're treating this as a
lifestyle and you've gotmultiple years under your belt,
as the time will pass, no matterwhat you do.
So you might as well just likemake it part of your identity
(26:44):
and make it a lifestyle.
But if you start increasing thatlean mass over time, your
metabolic ability to consumecalories will kind of be fluffed
up a little bit totally, and ifyou're able to keep some mass
on you, then you won'tnecessarily just like
continually have to also justreduce calories forever as you
get leaner and leaner.
And they'll kind of be thismoment where, if you can have
some good mass on you that'slean and your body fat's pretty
(27:06):
low, you'll kind of be like thislittle fat burning machine
because metabolism is revving upand you're not necessarily just
becoming a smaller and smallerperson, because it's true, the
more weight you lose, the lesscalories you get to eat, and so
it's kind of like a I don't wantto say punishment, but it's
kind of like a shitty situationsometimes.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
It's the often overlooked aspect of fat.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Put all this, work and you finally get to a place
that feels good.
And now you get to and you putall this calorie restriction and
now you get to even lesscalories.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Your reward is less calories and the only way to
mitigate that is, to resistancetrain yeah and burn calories by
adding more lean mass to yourresistance training.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
It's the only way.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
That is essentially what recomposition means.
It's not like you just turn fatinto muscle.
It means that you lose fat andyou build muscle and you lose it
and you sort sort of this likehitching motion, where you
slowly build more lean muscle up.
So you know, maybe if you're200 pound, if you're 200 pound
guy, this is like the goal forevery guy that I know at least.
It's like 200 pounds, like 10%body fat.
That's hard because I'm 200pounds right now and I'm
(28:01):
probably like 16% body fat.
So if I were to lose, get downto 10 body fat, I'd probably be
more like 185 pounds.
Yeah, there's a 15 pound delta.
Now I'm not gonna build 15pounds of muscle without putting
on any fat.
It's this like game of like.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Okay, let me get back up let me put some muscle on,
then I yeah then I get back to200.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
But then I got fat again.
I'm like damn it.
It is sort of like yeah,assuming we're drug free, if
you're on steroids, that happensa lot faster for everybody.
Of course, yeah, we don't wantto do that because it has its
own side effects.
But you know, ultimately, likeif we were to reach this place
where you're, like you are for aguy, you know 200 pounds, same
weight, but you're 10% body fatversus that is that means you
got like 10 or 15 more pounds ofmuscle on oh yeah, you're going
(28:40):
to be a monster.
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's hugeand you're burning way more
calories.
When you were at 200 poundswith less muscle mass, exactly.
And so you know, some version ofthat is what you're explaining
there 100%.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
That's literally what I was just doing, because I was
looking at what my body fatpercentage is, how much I weigh.
Now, if I were to drop down 5%,6%, how much weight would that
take off of my body and thentake off of my body?
and then if I were to then puton like five pounds of muscle
which is an insane doable, but amission for, like the, course
of a year and I basically wasdoing my tdee and comparing how
(29:12):
many calories I was usingbasically at the different
compositions and what to expectand how long it might take me,
and just playing that whole gameof like oh okay, so if I lose
10 and gain five, where doesthat put me?
And this and that, that, thisand that.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
So all back and forth , it can really be a fun hobby
to really just like master theskill set of like
recompositioning your body.
And then the good thing is isyou are healthier, you're
stronger, you look better.
You know it's a win-win.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, you got to gamify it a little bit, I think.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I think that's really the way calories and logging
your food it can be tedious,like, trust me, it's.
It's definitely annoyingsometimes, but then I'm right
now I'm in a place where, like,I'm opening up my food logging
app like five times a day, ohyeah like I've already logged
everything like it's alreadydone, but like I'm always like,
oh where it feels good, though,yeah it feels good.
I'm like oh, I hit my numbersand it's almost like this
gamification, like, oh, I've got300 extra calories right now
(30:01):
like oh, I can I can make aquesadilla with some reduced
cheese I'm like great great.
Oh, I can even put some sourcream on there.
We'll put some hot sauce like,oh, I got a snack now or this or
that, and yeah, it's, it's.
I'm in the place right nowwhere it's very rewarding
totally, and it's still tediousat times, but it's like exciting
and I'm kind of like kind ofchecking my aura ring.
I'm like, well, how manycalories?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
did I burn today?
Yeah, what's?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
how many did I eat?
What kind of put me in totally.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Oh, it's like yeah, exactly, and then and then.
The consequence of that is you,just one morning you just wake
up, look in the mirror, you'relike, oh, wow, I'm pretty
shredded right now wow, yeah,this is great.
I always look at like, okay, amonth, so you know june 1st like
where am I starting at withweight, where do I want to be?
And then I really just look atlike each month is like okay,
what's the mission for thiscalendar month and what needs to
(30:43):
happen, and really just kind oflike you know, pace it day to
day from that.
And then also I always try toget my protein in as early as I
can.
So if I can just have dinner,just be dessert, like perfect,
you know, because if I've likebasically like got all my
protein in by like 3 or 4 pm andthen dinner can just be like
something super, like pasta justsomething super low protein and
high carb.
Got it all in, but I still havelike a thousand calories left.
(31:03):
Yeah, you saw, you could haveall the parmesan cheese you want
on there exactly and likethat's like a great reward at
the end of the day forpracticing a little restraint.
Everyone has this like rewardbehavior syndrome and so just
lean into it.
So then like okay, practicerestraint for the first three
quarters of the day by eatingjust all your veggies and fruits
and proteins only so you cansave, you know, 30 40 percent of
your calories for dinner thatyou can just like have fun with
(31:26):
and just have pizza and pastaand ice cream.
Obviously you got to keep itunder your calorie targets.
You still got to play the game,playing the game still, but
like you're just not having tojust like sit there at 8 pm and
eat a chicken breast and spinachbecause you blew your load on
lunch and had a big bowl ofpasta when you should have
probably had, you know,something a little bit leaner.
So now dinner is like meh,sucks.
Yeah, all right, guys, that wasa longer one, but I think we
(31:48):
hopefully covered it.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yeah, you know, we got something out of there.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
That was episode 62.
We'll see you guys next weekfor another episode of In the
Grand Scheme of Fitness withJustin and Ethan.
Peace out.
Welcome to episode 62 of In the Grand Scheme of
Fitness with your host, justinScallard, and Ethan Wolfe.
Today, folks, we're gonna betalking about how to properly
structure a fat loss phase howone would want to set themselves
up for maximum success withminimizing downside, how long
you should be in a fat lossphase, for what milestones you
(00:20):
should look for, and how to getyourself out of one successfully
so you don't just gain it allback.
That's what we're going to bedigging into Today.
In case you don't know us,we've been trainers,
nutritionists, for 20 years,each give or take, and we've
(00:44):
worked together in the gym floor.
We've owned business togetherstrength rx crossfit gym that
did nutrition and crossfit andthen now ethan has a studio in
west hollywood, california,where he sees private clientele,
and I have a nutrition specificcoaching business for nurses
and health care pros online, andwe've come together, we've
joined forces once again tocreate this podcast here, really
(01:05):
just to like as an excuse tojust hang out with each other.
It's true, that's really it,you know, just talk shop for a
little bit and, uh, you know,hopefully give you guys the
right information so you canavoid so many of the common
mistakes and pitfalls that seemto plague most people on their
pursuit of fitness.
So that's what we're here to do.
the tools for the tool beltexactly, and so last week we
(01:27):
broke down sort of programmingin general like what does this
amorphous term even mean?
Benefits of a routine?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
and a program.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
How to structure it for muscle and for fat loss.
And today we're just going totake it one layer deeper and
break down fat loss specificprogramming.
Because most people want fatloss, everybody wants to like
look athletic, everyone needsmuscle.
Because most people want fatloss, everybody wants to like
look athletic, everyone needsmuscle.
But most people in this countryare considered overweight and I
think I I'm of the belief thatyou know, before you start to
try to put on muscle, we shouldprobably lean you out a little
(01:55):
bit first.
That doesn't mean we're notlifting weights, it doesn't mean
you're not going to be a littlebit of muscle in the process,
but the focus is fat loss, atleast for the first two to six
months and then you can shiftgears.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
It waxes and wanes, but I think most people would
would benefit both from likejust a health and metabolic
standpoint and an aestheticstandpoint for just tightening
up a little bit and and I think,yeah, most people want that
when they start to think aboutparticipating with their food.
Obviously there is a populationthat wants to like get jacked,
but and you can always, andeverything waxes and wanes so
you can put on some muscle andtake off some fat.
(02:25):
Yeah, it's always phasing.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
If you listen to last week's episode of programming
in general, I think we touchedon that, just like the
periodization of your year,where you might have two to four
months where you're leaning out, you might have four months
where you're just hanging out inmaintenance and you might have
four months where you'recommitting to some sort of a you
know bulk or building phase,and that could be your year
indefinitely.
You know just these seasons yougo through with a different
(02:48):
intention, but so, yeah, so youknow my old mentor, Dr Trevor
Cashy, who was great.
He is great still, but he onething he always said was that
everyone is fatter than theythink they are.
Oh, ain't it the truth?
And it's.
I mean, like even you and Iright now.
I guarantee you, if we were toestimate how much body fat we
have on us, we would be wrong,we would be, we would undershoot
(03:10):
how much we actually have.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things.
Right now I'm in a deficit andI was really thinking about,
like, what is a goal weight?
How much percentage do I wantto drop as a general goal?
How much would that look likein weight and all that kind of
stuff?
And you know, I think mostpeople would look at me and be
like you're not overweight atall.
But even then I'd probably sayI have an easy 10 to 20 pounds
that I could lose within that.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
you know, and it's like kind of surprising, it's
like wow it's just the creep andI want to dig into more of this
as we go in this episode butlike it is just the creep of,
like modern day society and justthe luxuries and the
conveniences of life where evensomeone like us, where we are
fitness coaches yeah, that'swhat we do.
And we still somehow, over thecourse of time, have accumulated
(03:53):
an extra 10 or 20 pounds ofbody fat.
And anyone would look at us andbe like, oh, you guys are
healthy and we are healthy.
It's not necessarily likesaying like it's not a binary,
but it's just.
The point here is that it'sjust so easy to just let a
dinner out, you know, an extrasplash of this, like an
untracked meal, like this orthat, and next thing you know,
over the course of months,you've like completely put back
all the fat you've just spent,however long losing you know,
(04:15):
it's just so easy, yeah to do.
It really is, and so anyway.
So, talking about just how tophase out fat loss cycle, like
how you, what would want totrigger one to initiate a fat
loss cycle?
I think is step one.
So like, what's the trigger tosay, okay, I've had fun in
maintenance, or maybe you'vejust finished a bulk, now it's
time to like?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
peel off anything or you've.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Are you starting from scratch?
You've never done anything?
There's a couple different waysone might need to trigger a fat
loss phase.
Either you've just likeintentionally, want to put on
some muscle, which it's fun todo, but then after, like
anything in life, after three,four, five months of your life,
this isn't fun anymore and youwant something new.
You know and then you go tomaintenance.
You do maintenance for two,three months you're like, yeah,
this is much fun.
And after a couple of whileyou're like nothing's happening,
I need to do something and yougo fat loss phase.
(04:56):
After like four months of that,you're like this sucks.
I've been, I have, I've fuckingbeen hungry for months you know,
we always need that newness,which is why I think having
seasons is just so important.
That's one version of it.
Another version is, like yousaid, you just ain't done shit.
Maybe you just like casuallywork out, but you're like of the
mind, like I don't want towatch what I eat because I
exercise.
But then you realize that youjust keep getting fatter over
the years.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, I just say you're not.
You're definitely not gettingthe most out of your workouts
either.
I mean, I think that's asituation that most people fall
into.
It's very easy to be like youknow.
Oh, I'm healthy.
I work out three, four, fivetimes a week.
I run.
I'm a runner, but they justdon't pay attention to what they
eat whatsoever and they're justnot getting the most out of
their exercise, and it's alsomaybe why they're not
potentially at a compositionthat they want to be, whether
it's more muscle or less bodyfat, the disproportionate amount
(05:39):
of calories it takes to burnversus to consume, oh yeah, you
learn real quick that it doesn'tmatter unless you're like
running a marathon every day ordoing like three hour like
kickboxing lessons.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
But barring that one percent extreme, like the vast
majority of us will never clockin enough caloric burn through
exercise to offset a shitty dietor even just a normal diet that
you're not paying attention to.
Yeah, think about it.
Like lifting weights for anhour burns a few hundred
calories maybe 350 a boot campmaybe burns 45500 which might
sound like a lot, but one muffinlater and that 400 calories is
(06:14):
right back on you, baby, it'snot easy.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, I mean a couple slices of bacon or an extra
slice of cheese.
Yeah, you know, you get extracheese on something and there's
a few hundred calories rightthere so easy to do instead of,
like you, like you know, runninginto a wall like that.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
It's just so much easier to go after nutrition and
just it really is the only way.
It's the only way.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I was kind of thinking about like a gas tank,
like it takes a couple minutesto fill your gas tank up with,
you know, with gas.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
That lasts for weeks.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, but it takes a were to drive every day, it
takes time to burn it and it'slike that same thing.
It's like you can just eatsomething real quick.
It takes time to burn it offand then if you just stack that
over a couple of days or likethree days, you kind of have
this.
Have that.
I mean.
Even just the other day I waseating ice cream and I was still
under my maintenance.
But man, I mean by like 100calories and I was in such an
(07:02):
extreme deficit and it's just soeasy to do.
I mean, it's just like you knowI was, I was really hungry
because I was in a strongdeficit.
Then I ate some ice cream andit's like, oh, there goes all
that you know, especially likethe real ice cream, the good
stuff, the french vanilla, thereal, the good stuff, just the
heavy though, man, totally.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
So I think that, like , let's just say, okay, if
you've never done a proper fatloss phase and obviously this is
your trigger, this is your sign, this is time for you to do it
If you are in the other camp, ormaybe you've been in
maintenance for a while, ormaybe you've been, you know,
bulking for a while, then it'sprobably time.
If you can reach down and grablike a handful of stomach fat,
it's probably time to at leastkickstart some sort of a fat
loss phase.
(07:34):
And I think, like for men thatmight look like 20% body fat.
For if you're in that ballpark,like more muscle or bulking
probably isn't doing you muchgood at that point.
And you know, once we get to acertain BMI, body mass index and
body fat percentage, we startto have some health effects too.
So that's why it's always goodto like not be so one way about
(07:56):
your programming, but look at itas seasons you go through,
because there's health benefitsof putting on muscle to an
extent, and then there's healthbenefits of now leaning out a
little bit and losing someweight.
So anyway, so that would belike your trigger, your impetus
to wanna switch gears and gointo a fat loss phase.
How to structure a fat lossphase?
I think step one is we have tounderstand exactly.
Well, there's no way tounderstand exactly, but step one
, we gotta get a really goodestimate on what our maintenance
(08:18):
calories are.
Right, yeah, 100%.
Right, yeah, 100.
You have to know what you'reusing.
Yeah, and the machine of thethermodynamics, so you know,
most people on the planet, Ithink, are somewhere between
2,000 and 2,500 calories whatthey burn over the course of a
day give or take give or take.
You know people on the other, onthe top 10 who burned.
You know over 3,000 people inthe bottom 10 who burn under
1,500 but like most of us aresomewhere around that.
(08:41):
You know know 2000 to 2500calorie mark for maintenance.
And so the easiest way to do isjust go online, just Google
TDEE calculator.
So if you just literally justgo to Google and type in TDEE
calculator, you will get a.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
BMI calculator right.
It stands for total dailyenergy expenditure.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
How much energy your body is expending throughout the
day.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And that includes movement.
So versus like a BMR you know,the idea is to try to
incorporate some form ofexercise if you're exercising,
so that's being equated intoyour total maintenance.
Yeah, everything.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
So you put in your age, your height, your weight,
your activity level, your gender, and then boom, it gives you
sort of like a pretty accurateestimate.
I think it's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And what I like about it is that it kind of airs in
the lower end a little bit.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
So then what you do is it'll show you right there,
like if you get into like a youknow 250 calorie deficit per day
, you're gonna burn like a halfa pound a week, which is super
sustainable.
And if you're a smaller personor if you have a slower
metabolism, I'd recommendstaying in that ballpark.
On two to 300 calorie deficit,you cut too deep.
It's just too much of a overallpercentage of your daily
calories for it to like bereally sustainable long-term,
(09:43):
like if you're if you're like a40 year old woman or plus who
has never lifted weights in yourlife and it's pretty sedentary
you're not burning that manycalories.
Unfortunately, you might onlyburn 16, 1700 calories a day.
So if you get in a 500 caloriedeficit, that's going to be
rough.
You know you're going to beeating like a thousand calories
a day.
Yeah, that's not a lot.
So in that case, aiming forlike a half a pound of fat loss
per week, which translatesroughly into about 250 calorie
(10:06):
deficit per day.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
All right, well, let's.
I think we're getting a carabove the horse here.
So, first things, first let'sget, I think, would be
sustainable.
And so the idea is that there's3,500 calories in a pound of
fat, and so we're starting tocreate, I think, realistic goals
of how fast and how much weightyou want to lose, and then I
(10:28):
think that's going to be one ofthe things that's going to
determine your deficit.
And to what Justin was justsaying, I think it's really
important to pick a deficit thatmakes it sustainable, because,
again, you have to be consistent.
You gotta do this day in andday out, and if picking a longer
road to your goal, butsomething that you'll actually
accomplish, is going to do it,then I think that's a better
route than like what you'resaying, like just chopping off
this huge amount.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Long story short you just like.
If that, if that means you haveto be in a fat loss phase a
little bit longer for it to besustainable because you're not
trying to cut down on yourcalories too much, in the long
run you're going to be wayhappier and it's going to be
much more realistic than if youtry to go off of just everybody
online saying, oh, 500 caloriedeficit.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
But that might not work necessarily for that
archetype I just described 100and like let me tell you, being
hungry is hard.
Like you might have somewillpower, but to battle hunger
day in and day out for months ata time is really challenging.
And if that just ends up to youbinging or breaking your deficit
by having this late night snackbecause you're trying to go to
bed and you're so hungry thatyou just end up eating like a
(11:30):
quesadilla or something that youmake and it just blows it all
out of the water, Then likewhat's the point in the first
place?
Speaker 1 (11:34):
You know you try to remove so much and try to get
there faster, but then if itends up just means that you're
suffering and you end upbreaking, then it's all for
naught, and that's almost alwayshow it goes, where most of us
can tolerate it for a day, two,three, four, but by Friday that
eye is twitching, you know,especially if you did make the
mistake.
Which I see is there's like twocamps the people who cut way
(11:56):
too deep and they try to go into, like just an extreme deficit,
yeah, and the people who arejust like stick a toe in the
water and half-ass it andthey're in a deficit for two or
three days a week, but thenthey're in a surplus the other
half good all the weekends, andthen months goes by and they've
lost zero weight.
They're like, well, dietingdoesn't work for me.
It's like, well, you didn'treally commit, you need to be in
the middle where it's amoderate deficit, because what
(12:17):
ethan just said happens all thetime, where it's like you're
good, you're good, you're good,you're good.
And then you just go have afriday night where you just
whatever like okay, let's justsay you were in a 500 calorie
deficit for five days.
That's 2500 calories.
You've almost burned off anentire pound of fat.
Yeah, that's great.
By being in a 500 caloriedeficit for monday, tuesday,
wednesday, thursday and friday,like congratulations.
And then saturday you eat anentire large pizza and you eat 5
(12:39):
000 calories, and that 2500.
And that people might be like,oh, that's extreme, that would
never happen.
It's like, no, oh, it's easy.
I've looked at thousands ofmeal plans and meal logs.
I should say this happens tovery normal people couple of
beers, four or five slices ofpizza, a little tiny bowl of ice
cream, four or five thousandcalories, plus your breakfast
and lunch earlier in the dayfour or five thousand calories,
(13:00):
and so that two to threethousand calorie deficit you
created in the first five daysof the week you just erased on
saturday and then you come onmonday and you're right back to
where you started.
You're like what the hellabsolutely gotta?
Be super aware of that and Ithink if we were to really go
after it systemically, it's likeyou have to go to the root of
the issue, which was you werejust in too big of a deficit.
Probably had you shrunk thatdeficit down by a little bit,
(13:23):
you might not have had this.
The fuck it, I can't take itanymore moment on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Yeah, because the temptations are always going to
be there, Like the Saturdays arealways going to come and it's
more or less like are you ableto meet the challenge of the
Saturday?
And when you're just starvedand you've been super, super
strict on yourself to that point, that challenge is going to
overcome you.
You're not going to have thestrength.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Especially with your friends.
And everyone else is eatingpizza, so it's like let's not
get it wrong.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
It's like, even if you're in a quality sustainable
deficit, you're still going tobe challenged on a Saturday with
your willpower and still havingto make good choices.
With your willpower and stillhaving to make good choices,
it'll just be that much easierto make them If you aren't just
like chomping at the bit forlike a bite of a cheeseburger or
something like that, you know?
and it's really true to yourpoint.
So people don't realize like aclassic, like burger and fries.
And let's say you had a soda,2000 calories plus easy in a
(14:09):
single day.
Easy, yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I mean without question.
You put breakfast and lunch ontop of it exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
You know, it's a crazy day so it's like it's you
know, don't underestimate whatyou know a classic kind of
highly palatable, convenient anddelicious, and cheap and cheap
highly palatable, convenient andcheap, engineered to be
deliciously addicting and goodyep.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
So if, if we we have to rely a little bit on
self-restraint and discipline,or else we are just gonna get
eaten alive, no pun intended,and so anyway.
So those are some things towatch out for.
And also, like it just sohappens, there's a direct ratio
of, like the faster you loseweight, the more muscle you're
gonna lose.
Yes, right, the slower you loseweight, the more muscle you're
gonna retain.
(14:50):
So if you're just in thismassive deficit 500 to a
thousand calorie deficit per daywhich a lot of people try
you're losing weight rapidly,but you're there's just no extra
resources, since your body'sjust dumping muscle mass because
there's not enough energy tomaintain it, and that's not good
either.
And so I really encourage peopleif you're like above 200 pounds
, you could probably get awaywith a 500 calorie deficit, no
problem.
(15:10):
If you're below, you know, 200,even like 175, you know, I
would encourage you to take thelonger road.
A couple of two 300 caloriedeficit per day somewhere in
there, yeah, you know, and thatmight mean you only lose five
pounds every six to eight weeksinstead of every four weeks, but
it means that it's going to bemuch more sustainable for you in
the long run and you're goingto retain much more muscle mass
when you do hit your weight lossgoal.
(15:31):
Ultimately, you're going tolook way better.
You're going to have feltbetter along the way you know,
yeah.
So what we recommend isdefinitely figuring out sort of
what your maintenance calorie is.
You can going to have feltbetter along the way, you know,
yeah, so what we recommend isdefinitely figuring out sort of
what your maintenance calorie is.
You can go to that website,tdeecalculatorcom, figure that
out, enter your stuff in thereand then at that point, now it's
okay.
So now you know.
But now you got to actually beaccurate, because accuracy
predicts results.
(15:52):
Like one thing that we always dowith our clients is whenever
they're saying like oh, um, Ineed, I want to adjust my
calories because it's notworking anymore.
And I look at their stuff andit's almost always like they're
only logging like every otherday, or they're logging for two
or three days and they stop.
And I know it's tedious and Iknow it sucks, but at the end of
the day, like what getsmeasured gets managed and if
we're not tracking data, we aretruly guessing.
(16:13):
Yeah, it's shooting in the dark, and so you have to accurately
measure this stuff.
Otherwise you're just in thislike fat loss, jail forever, yep
, and you're just like it kindof works and it kind of doesn't
it kind of works just becausethat's a reflection of the
attention and time you'reputting into it.
Get a food scale.
Put the plate on your foodscale before you load your plate
with food.
It's one extra step, but itreally just changes the game for
(16:34):
you 100%, yeah, changes thegame for you.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
A hundred percent, yeah, and I think it's like it
goes down to you know hacking itin some way, but like preparing
your own food is going to bethe primary way in which you can
know what's in it.
Now that doesn't mean you can'tgo and get like rotisserie
chicken someplace or go to evena fast food restaurant and get
something that might fit yourmacros.
Like you know, as long as youhave the numbers, you can do it.
But I is, preparing your ownfood in some capacity is going
to be the easiest way to knowexactly what's going in.
(16:58):
And even if you go to TraderJoe's and you get the sous vide
turkey breasts, you know that'spre-cooked and all you have to
do is heat it.
You know, I'm not saying you gotto sit there and chef it up,
but just even if it'smicrowavable, frozen rice,
frozen vegetables and apre-cooked meat.
You know, then at least you canstill have the numbers and you
can still prepare your own foodand you can still at least
measure what's going in.
So you know what's happening inthat regard.
(17:20):
So 100.
You know it can be tedious totake this all on, but there are
ways to hack it and I think youknow getting behind some simple
meal prep, getting a crock potgoing, doing things that make
this as easy as possible, ishuge because, unfortunately, if
you don't prepare your own food,it's going to be extremely
difficult to measure what'sgoing in.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
And we're kind of backlogging it.
So you know how much you haveto eat.
Now, in order to make sureyou're actually eating that, you
have to measure it.
The easiest way to measure itis to prepare your own food.
Even if you make it the easiestas possible, you still pretty
much have to do it.
It's very challenging,otherwise, to make sure you're
actually eating.
Restaurant you go to haseverything listed for calories
and you're looking up every itemwhich some restaurants do don't
(18:00):
get me wrong and you can dothat, but it's still pretty
challenging to always yeah eatout, so you just have to start
making your own food, and that'swhere things like getting into
a meal prep pattern oh, that's,that's the result.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
accelerator man, if you're just like in the zone and
you're like you've got everyweek you've got a few chicken
breasts, you've sliced up withsome veggies and some rice and
individual Tupperwares.
You've got some ground beefwith some beans or whatever and
individual Tupperware and you'vegot like and you open that
fridge and it's just like boom,boom, boom.
You man.
You get results so fast.
It's insane.
It's like every day you're likedropping a quarter pound.
(18:31):
You're, you know, you're seeingmovement, you're seeing your
body changing.
Yeah, so motivating.
You know, and to that point Iwanted to say, like,
occasionally you're going to eatout and that's all right, the
better you get at tracking thisstuff.
Like you know, I could ordersome, you know whatever.
Like there's a pho place nextdoor and it's pretty
straightforward Sauce, it'sfilet, mignon, it's rice, it's
veggies.
I bet you I could probablyguesstimate within 10 or 20
percent is no big deal.
(18:52):
Yeah, we all can recover fromthat.
But if it's every meal thatyou're guesstimating and you're
10 or 20 percent off, that meansyou're 10 or 20 percent off of
your tracking.
But the thing is, is that youshould only be in a 10 to 15
percent deficit total?
Yeah, so if you're 10 to 20percent off because you're
eating out every meal and you'rejust taking your best guess,
(19:14):
you're just not gonna get there.
You might get lucky but, likeyou just don't know how much oil
they're using in their cookingand how much is in the sauce and
all these different things.
It's like you don't know howmuch meat they're using exactly
yeah cut of meat exactly becausenobody's like ordering takeout,
pulling everything outindividually and weighing it.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
You know there's three ounces of chicken in my
pad thai.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, no one's doing that yeah, so save the money,
because once you start cookingfor yourself, man, the bank
account goes up and the scalegoes down.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
It's the truth, it's just the truth and like a good
strategy, I think, is to justget like some staple meals for
breakfast, lunch and dinner thatyou don't mind eating
consistently, that are reallyeasy to make, and just have like
a couple of them on rotation,and then maybe you swap out and
you maybe do something morenovel for your meal prep and
something that maybe takes alittle thinking.
But if you just have a couplemeals that you can just shoot
(20:01):
from the hip or you just don'thave to think about it, like
overnight oats for breakfast forme is just like such a no
brainer.
You know, it's like proteinpowder, almond milk, stir it up,
put my oats and my frozenberries in and it's just a nice
easy on the go.
I don't have to heat it, itjust takes me no time to make.
It's readily available.
I don't mind eating it anytimeI eat it.
It's totally fine and you canjust like make five days worth
(20:22):
of breakfast in 10 minutes,totally, you know and so it's
like things like that, or like ataco day, like I, like a, like
a mexican, like I just, you know, I get a couple tortillas, some
chicken breasts, some onions,just simple things by the way,
like go to your grocery storeand buy the pre-made stuff yeah,
Frozen.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
You know peppers for taco night, Like the pre-cooked
chili lime chicken breast atTrader Joe's.
It's like six bucks for a wholepound of like pre-sliced,
pre-cooked chicken breast.
You know some Ezekiel tortillasand boom.
By the way, that was myabsolute lunch.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
This today I just described.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
There is exactly what I ate today.
But there is exactly what I atetoday.
But that's the game and it'slike it's filling.
It's a no brainer to track.
It doesn't have to put anythingon a food scale.
I can just look at the packageand see what the serving size is
and just do that.
It's two seconds of my life.
The whole meal is probablythree or four dollars and it was
, you know, perfect.
So you know, being okay withthat says I'm going to take 40
(21:17):
minutes.
But two hours later you'restill sitting there with 15
different sauce cups and you'relike this is terrible.
Keep it simple, just like.
Take advantage of the pre-madevegetables and frozen vegetables
and pre-made meats and stuff atyour grocery store and like
proteins, couple starches andsome veggies.
Yeah, and then so okay, sothat's kind of how you do it.
That's your target.
It's going to show you how manycalories to eat.
Easy math one gram of proteinper pound of goal weight.
(21:38):
So if you're 200 pounds, youwant to be 150 to 150 grams of
protein a day.
You're going to be perfect,great.
So now, how long do we stay inthis fat loss phase?
So, assuming you're accurateand you're weighing yourself in
every morning and you'retracking your meals, you know
you should be seeing somewherebetween about a half pound and a
pound of fat loss per week.
If you did, but we justrecommend it.
It almost always works, and ifit's not working, I would want
to see what kind of foods you'reeating and how accurate your
(21:59):
tracking is.
But assuming you're doing that,that's the trajectory you
should be on, and so I thinkthat 10 to 15% of your body mass
is a good time to reassess.
So if you're 200 pounds, youjust lost 20 pounds.
You probably want to reassess.
Okay, is it time to go build upto maintenance for a week or
two and get my body a rest fromdieting, a little break from
dieting?
(22:19):
Or am I feeling good andeverything's good and I just
want that extra 10, and there'sno reason to my mindset's okay,
my mood's okay.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Keep going, the scales keep moving.
Everything's good to go.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
I would agree with that, because dieting is
stressful.
I'm in a fat loss phase rightnow and it's always one of these
sneaky things where I've donethis tired, I'm just cranky and
I'm tired and I'm just likewhat's wrong with me?
Am I getting old?
Am I just like?
Am I depressed?
(22:49):
What is happening?
And then I'm like I'm just twoweeks into a fallout.
This is like the hardest partof it.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I'm in the trenches.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
right now, my body is screaming for me to eat more
food.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
It's not quite used to it, it's not quite acclimated
.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Yeah, you just get like lethargic and that kind of
grogginess.
You're like, oh yeah, I need totake a little nap.
But then you know, yourmetabolism adapts, you start
creating a little bit more of abalance and energy and being in
a deficit isn't so hard.
But sometimes, like two weeksin, can be tricky, but anyway.
So, like I would say, 10 ofyour body weight that you've
lost is a good time torecalibrate and to see do I want
(23:20):
to keep going or do I want tobuild up to maintenance for a
couple of weeks and give myselfa break?
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yeah, I think that's.
It's definitely and it also isjust like you said like
psychologically it gives you alittle break and let your body
kind of recoup a little bit.
It's a good way, especially ifyou have a lot of weight to lose
.
You know, if you're reallyoverweight or obese and you have
a really long journey ahead ofyou, expect the waves to kind of
come and go of intensity of howyou're approaching it.
You know, realistically youprobably won't lose all of your
weight all in one go.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
It'll be very challenging.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
It'll be hard on your body, and you know so.
It depends, I think, a lot ofit on how much weight you have
to lose.
But 100%, yeah, I think it'sjust beneficial to kind of wax
and wane with it, depending.
And I think, yeah, the 10% is agreat marker.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Also too like is.
Let's say, someone wants tolose weight and they're 150
pounds, so maybe we want torecommend that they eat 1800
calories, right?
But then maybe there's somebodywho's 200 pounds, they want to
lose weight, we recommend thatthey eat 2400 calories.
So why do we have a personwho's heavier eat more food?
It's because the smaller ourbody gets, the lower our
metabolisms go, and so it'scalled metabolic adaptation.
(24:21):
Every 10% of body mass that youlose, your metabolism
downshifts and sort of adaptsdownward, regulates downward by
25%.
So if I'm 200 pounds and I lose20 pounds of just aggregate
mass, then my metabolism is nowdownshifted because I'm a
smaller person moving throughoutspace and
(24:41):
time, and so I'm just requiringless energy to propel my body
because I'm just a smallerperson now.
Yeah, so when you do lose 10,like what might have worked for
you?
Maybe 2200 calories worked foryou when you were 200 pounds,
but now that you're 175, you'rerealizing like I'm not losing
any weight anymore.
You have two options you cantake a little bit of a break
from your diet for a second, butwhen you go back into it you're
(25:02):
gonna have to, like you can'teat the same that you did at 200
.
It's not gonna work, becausethat was your 10 deficit 25
pounds heavier, but 25 poundslighter.
Now that might look like 1900,and that's just the reality of
different body sizes and howmuch energy they require, and so
be conscious of that.
If you are a bigger person, youdo have a bigger journey that
you might need to break it upinto, like you know, multiple 10
(25:23):
chunks to get you ultimatelydown to where you want to go.
So just know that, like at thevery beginning, 2,500, 3,000
calories might be a deficit foryou, but then, as you get closer
to your goal, that might bemore like 1,900, you know 100%.
So be conscious of that as yougo through your process.
You know, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
And one of the things I'd recommend which is like we
obviously we always recommendthis is but it's to include
resistance training.
Oh, for sure, you have to do it.
You know you can do no exerciseand still get in a proper
participation with your food andchange your body composition.
So don't think that exercise isrequired and again, you can't
exercise, exercise a bad diet,but the bottom line is that our
skeletal muscle is the biggestconsumer of calories.
(26:01):
It's the thing that's going toaffect our metabolic rate the
most, and so a resistancetraining is as we kind of just
was saying earlier is going tolimit how much lean mass you
lose.
If you're in a deficit, it'sgoing to at least help you
maintain and therefore keep yourmetabolism up and keep all the
benefits of having lean mass onus.
But then also, just in thejourney in general, whether you
go into a maintenance or in theebbs and flows, but in a certain
(26:22):
sense, just having the morelean mass you have, the better.
And I think that over time, ifyou commit to a good exercise
regimen, you will put on somelean mass, especially if you're
hitting your protein goals andespecially if you're not always
living in a deficit.
And over the long game, ifyou're treating this as a
lifestyle and you've gotmultiple years under your belt,
as the time will pass, no matterwhat you do.
So you might as well just likemake it part of your identity
(26:44):
and make it a lifestyle.
But if you start increasing thatlean mass over time, your
metabolic ability to consumecalories will kind of be fluffed
up a little bit totally, and ifyou're able to keep some mass
on you, then you won'tnecessarily just like
continually have to also justreduce calories forever as you
get leaner and leaner.
And they'll kind of be thismoment where, if you can have
some good mass on you that'slean and your body fat's pretty
(27:06):
low, you'll kind of be like thislittle fat burning machine
because metabolism is revving upand you're not necessarily just
becoming a smaller and smallerperson, because it's true, the
more weight you lose, the lesscalories you get to eat, and so
it's kind of like a I don't wantto say punishment, but it's
kind of like a shitty situationsometimes.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
It's the often overlooked aspect of fat.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Put all this, work and you finally get to a place
that feels good.
And now you get to and you putall this calorie restriction and
now you get to even lesscalories.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Your reward is less calories and the only way to
mitigate that is, to resistancetrain yeah and burn calories by
adding more lean mass to yourresistance training.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
It's the only way.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
That is essentially what recomposition means.
It's not like you just turn fatinto muscle.
It means that you lose fat andyou build muscle and you lose it
and you sort sort of this likehitching motion, where you
slowly build more lean muscle up.
So you know, maybe if you're200 pound, if you're 200 pound
guy, this is like the goal forevery guy that I know at least.
It's like 200 pounds, like 10%body fat.
That's hard because I'm 200pounds right now and I'm
(28:01):
probably like 16% body fat.
So if I were to lose, get downto 10 body fat, I'd probably be
more like 185 pounds.
Yeah, there's a 15 pound delta.
Now I'm not gonna build 15pounds of muscle without putting
on any fat.
It's this like game of like.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Okay, let me get back up let me put some muscle on,
then I yeah then I get back to200.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
But then I got fat again.
I'm like damn it.
It is sort of like yeah,assuming we're drug free, if
you're on steroids, that happensa lot faster for everybody.
Of course, yeah, we don't wantto do that because it has its
own side effects.
But you know, ultimately, likeif we were to reach this place
where you're, like you are for aguy, you know 200 pounds, same
weight, but you're 10% body fatversus that is that means you
got like 10 or 15 more pounds ofmuscle on oh yeah, you're going
(28:40):
to be a monster.
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's hugeand you're burning way more
calories.
When you were at 200 poundswith less muscle mass, exactly.
And so you know, some version ofthat is what you're explaining
there 100%.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
That's literally what I was just doing, because I was
looking at what my body fatpercentage is, how much I weigh.
Now, if I were to drop down 5%,6%, how much weight would that
take off of my body and thentake off of my body?
and then if I were to then puton like five pounds of muscle
which is an insane doable, but amission for, like the, course
of a year and I basically wasdoing my tdee and comparing how
(29:12):
many calories I was usingbasically at the different
compositions and what to expectand how long it might take me,
and just playing that whole gameof like oh okay, so if I lose
10 and gain five, where doesthat put me?
And this and that, that, thisand that.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
So all back and forth , it can really be a fun hobby
to really just like master theskill set of like
recompositioning your body.
And then the good thing is isyou are healthier, you're
stronger, you look better.
You know it's a win-win.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, you got to gamify it a little bit, I think.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I think that's really the way calories and logging
your food it can be tedious,like, trust me, it's.
It's definitely annoyingsometimes, but then I'm right
now I'm in a place where, like,I'm opening up my food logging
app like five times a day, ohyeah like I've already logged
everything like it's alreadydone, but like I'm always like,
oh where it feels good, though,yeah it feels good.
I'm like oh, I hit my numbersand it's almost like this
gamification, like, oh, I've got300 extra calories right now
(30:01):
like oh, I can I can make aquesadilla with some reduced
cheese I'm like great great.
Oh, I can even put some sourcream on there.
We'll put some hot sauce like,oh, I got a snack now or this or
that, and yeah, it's, it's.
I'm in the place right nowwhere it's very rewarding
totally, and it's still tediousat times, but it's like exciting
and I'm kind of like kind ofchecking my aura ring.
I'm like, well, how manycalories?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
did I burn today?
Yeah, what's?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
how many did I eat?
What kind of put me in totally.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Oh, it's like yeah, exactly, and then and then.
The consequence of that is you,just one morning you just wake
up, look in the mirror, you'relike, oh, wow, I'm pretty
shredded right now wow, yeah,this is great.
I always look at like, okay, amonth, so you know june 1st like
where am I starting at withweight, where do I want to be?
And then I really just look atlike each month is like okay,
what's the mission for thiscalendar month and what needs to
(30:43):
happen, and really just kind oflike you know, pace it day to
day from that.
And then also I always try toget my protein in as early as I
can.
So if I can just have dinner,just be dessert, like perfect,
you know, because if I've likebasically like got all my
protein in by like 3 or 4 pm andthen dinner can just be like
something super, like pasta justsomething super low protein and
high carb.
Got it all in, but I still havelike a thousand calories left.
(31:03):
Yeah, you saw, you could haveall the parmesan cheese you want
on there exactly and likethat's like a great reward at
the end of the day forpracticing a little restraint.
Everyone has this like rewardbehavior syndrome and so just
lean into it.
So then like okay, practicerestraint for the first three
quarters of the day by eatingjust all your veggies and fruits
and proteins only so you cansave, you know, 30 40 percent of
your calories for dinner thatyou can just like have fun with
(31:26):
and just have pizza and pastaand ice cream.
Obviously you got to keep itunder your calorie targets.
You still got to play the game,playing the game still, but
like you're just not having tojust like sit there at 8 pm and
eat a chicken breast and spinachbecause you blew your load on
lunch and had a big bowl ofpasta when you should have
probably had, you know,something a little bit leaner.
So now dinner is like meh,sucks.
Yeah, all right, guys, that wasa longer one, but I think we
(31:48):
hopefully covered it.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yeah, you know, we got something out of there.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
That was episode 62.
We'll see you guys next weekfor another episode of In the
Grand Scheme of Fitness withJustin and Ethan.
Peace out.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.