Rethinking Nighttime Nutrition: Dr. Mike Ormsbee on Sleep, Metabolism & Fat Loss

(00:00:00) Rethinking Nighttime Nutrition: Dr. Mike Ormsbee on Sleep, Metabolism & Fat Loss
(00:03:31) Pre-sleep feeing for females
(00:11:16) Perimenopause sleep
(00:17:16) Thoughts on protein
(00:41:12) Resistance training

Can eating before bed really help you burn fat, sleep better, and build muscle? In this eye-opening episode, Dr. Mike Ormsbee joins Hailey to explore the science of nighttime nutrition, revealing how the right bedtime snacks can actually support metabolism, recovery, and weight loss—especially for active women and endurance athletes. Tune in as they debunk common myths about late-night eating, discuss research-backed strategies for pre-sleep fueling, and share real-life success stories that challenge conventional fitness advice.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, This is Haley and I'm Lara and welcome
to the body Pod.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to the body Pod. Today I get to interview
doctor Michael Ormsby, who is a professor and graduate program
director in the Department of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology, the
director of the Institute of Sports Science and Medicine at
Florida State University, and he is a fellow of the

(00:31):
American College of Sports Medicine and the International Society of
Sports Nutrition and is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist
with distinction through the National Strength and Conditioning Association. His
research expertise involves the interaction of exercise, training, nutrition, and
supplementation to improve metabolism and achieve overall optimal body composition,

(00:55):
human performance, and health in both athletic and clinical populations.
Today we talk about pre sleep feeding for females that
has always been thought to be a no no, at
least in my world, the sex differences in research, and
why everyone is going to want to start taking collagen
if you aren't already. We also talk about the nuances

(01:16):
in scientific research and how there seems to always be contradictions,
So you're going to want to listen up to this
and share with a friend. Let's get into the show.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Welcome doctor Mike Ormsby to the Body Pod. So excited
to have you here today.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
You know, it's been really cool. We're just talking offline
about some friends that are mutual to us, so I'm
find it happy to connect with you.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yes, and I actually just spoke with Abby Smith Ryan
who I know you know too, like thirty minutes ago,
so that's great.

Speaker 4 (01:56):
Yeah. I actually was speaking with her this morning as well,
probably before you could talk.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah, she's great.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
And I have to say, while I was diving into
kind of the questions I wanted to ask you here,
I discovered that you were a triathlete and that you're
a cyclist.

Speaker 4 (02:14):
Yes. Well, I have to preface it. I was active
in that space for quite a long time, but when
we started having children is when that sort of changed
for me. When the time commitment that I was trying
to put into that wasn't my priority anymore. So yes,
I love it. We still work with a lot with
endurance athletes. I did pretty decent stuff like up to

(02:36):
like a half iron man distance in trathon, wasn't winning anything,
but had a great time for a decade training and
racing and all that.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yeah, that's awesome me too. I stopped.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
I only did seventy point three, but I stopped twenty nineteen,
twenty eighteen, and that was my last one. Didn't know
what at the time, but that was my last one.
And now I just ride my bike, so I much
prefer to cycle, and I go to Europe once once
a year to kind of ride there. And there's the

(03:11):
only sport that I can do NonStop and not ever
get tired of.

Speaker 4 (03:15):
So that's great, and finding that one thing is so
so useful.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yes, absolutely, Well, we're going to dive right in because
I'm dying to get your take on. First of all,
let's start with pre sleep feeding for females. And I
have to say I have never my mind is completely
blown on this because in every course that I've ever done,
we've always been like, Nope, circadian rhythm, donat you know,

(03:42):
two to three hours before bed, and then all of
a sudden, now I'm completely changing my mind. So let's
start there and just tell me what your research has
shown on this and what your thoughts are.

Speaker 4 (03:54):
Yeah, it's a great story, because you're right, there's a
lot of confusing things about the message, and just like
most of these things, the nuances really matter, and what
you would ask someone to do would really depend on
what their goal is and how they even define eating
before bed. And so let's sort of back up. I was,

(04:15):
I remember it was like two thousand and eight, nine
and ten, and I was trying to get like a
niche topic to sort of dive into. And you know,
I was coming off competing as an athlete in college
as an ice hockey player, and then getting into trathon,
and I had a lot of friends who were in
that space, but also in like the bodybuilding world and
the figure world and all these different athletes, and every

(04:37):
one of those athletes ate at night, and they all
ate before bed. Late at night. They're having eggs or
cottage cheese or a protein shake or maybe some fruit
with it, something that was reasonable. It wasn't in all
out like fast food go or pizza or ice cream
at that time, but it was food to fuel for
the next day. And so right about that same time,

(04:58):
the Biggest Loser was on tea and I remember hearing
all the trainers on that saying, you know, don't eat
after six or seven pm. There are these cutoff times
and so that was sort of my first dive into
it was around twenty ten to twenty twelve. We did
a very first study in that space, and we're like,
you know what, let's just see what's going on. Why
why can't we eat at that time? What is the problem?

(05:20):
And so we took a stance of like an applied
research laboratory metabolic aspects of pre sleep feeding and exactly
sort of like what was tolerable and we wanted to
know good or bad, Like I'd like to know for myself,
was it a good thing to eat these things? Or
was it bad? And so in that context of smaller
protein centric type meals or snacks, looking at you know,

(05:44):
probably less than three hundred calories, a lot of the
work is right around two fifty or even just shy
of that of a protein dominant food looks like it
was actually either doing nothing or was a benefit to
certain markers. And so the story there is actually pretty
pretty neat. So our lab and one of the lab
overseas was doing this and they were looking at muscle metabolism,

(06:06):
we were looking at fat metabolism and what and so
we've sort of paired all these topics together and like,
let me ask you this, Hailey, like when you think
of pre sleep feeding, what time are you thinking of
when you think about eating it? And are you thinking
about your largest meal? And there's the confusion like is
it dinner where it's like a large mixed macronutrient meal, carbs, fats, proteins,

(06:27):
the whole thing and it's five six eight hundred, nine
hundred calories and it's one bowlus with that definition, there
probably is not a great reason to eat that before bed,
like right before bed, and then how long after that
meal before you go to sleep? And so we have
a very strict definition of it. It's two hours after
dinner and within thirty minutes of going to bed is

(06:49):
how we define pre sleep feeding with these protein dominant foods.
And that's we focused on protein because way of a
big interest in protein, but also it was like what
people were doing. We wanted to see what was actually
happening in these more athletic contexts to people who were
interested in health and performance and competing again the next day.
So with that definition, it changes it right like Hayley, like,

(07:14):
let's say you work out at night, you work all
day long, you're working, mom, you finish work, you get
your kids to bed, and then that's your only time.
And you're so dedicated that you say eight to nine pm,
nine to ten pm is the only time I have.
I'm going to do it then. And let's say you
exhaust yourself and you really put in a good effort
at that workout. If you then want to also, say

(07:35):
compete in your race, your cycling race the next morning,
or another really good effort tomorrow, you better eat because
you need to restock those fuel sources in order to
compete well. And if you think about outside of like
the individual sport athletes, if you're in a team setting
and you have doubles in its summertime and you're trying
to you know, compete hard to every day for like

(07:58):
a camp scenario or something like that, then you'd better
be eating at night. And so sometimes it's not even
is it good or bad, it's like this is required.
You have to do this to compete. Here's a good example.
We were really fortunate to do work with a race
called the Florida Ultraman. Have you ever heard of this race?

Speaker 3 (08:17):
It's a not that one, but I'm familiar with.

Speaker 4 (08:20):
Yeah, So the oilier man's insane, right, They're so long,
they're really really long races, and the athletes are awesome,
and we had a great relationship with the Florida Ultraman
race director, so we got access to the athletes. And
it's a three day triathlon and the time stops at
the end of each day, So like the faster you
finish on Friday, you have more time to eat, recover,

(08:42):
do what you need before you go to bed and
wake up super early the next day. But if you're
finishing in the evening and you're not a fast finisher,
but you're going to finish, you're finishing and it's dark out,
and then you have to get up at five in
the morning to do it again, and you you actually ride, run,
or swim all day long for three days straight. And
in that scenario, if you get off your bike and

(09:02):
used to eating gels and drinking you know, liquid cover,
hydrates and proteins, and then you try to go to
bed and do it again, you will not make it
to the finish line. And so that's what I always
mean by nuance. And so even the bigger companies that
you might see on social media that often are saying
we've got white paper evidence showing that heart variability is

(09:23):
disrupted and your sleep is disrupted. The nuance isn't there.
So I always, as you know, much as I know
I shouldn't do it, I always try to comment and
say it for who and in what setting? And are
you working out in the evening? Are you perhaps you're
an athlete that's struggling with energy availability, and in that sense,

(09:43):
using that night time slot to get one more feeding
is a good idea just to get total energy up
for that particular person. So there are so many nuances
to it, and so there is where I'm commenting, like,
you know, for who, what scenario? Are you an athlete?
Are you competing again tomorrow? And what's your ultimate the
goal at the end of all this stuff. So there's
sort of the nutshell of it. I'm happy to go

(10:04):
through the nuances, but I figured i'd lay it up
with that sort of a background.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
No, that's great because I think for me specifically in
these groups, I'm always trying to teach alongside my experts
to fuel for the demands of the training session. And
whatever that training session is, we know that we need
more carbohydrate for potentially a really hard hit session or
really hard strengths training session, but maybe not as much
for if you're going for a walk the next day

(10:29):
or whatever. And I only work with middle aged women,
so women pretty much in this pery slash post menopause space,
which is getting a lot of chatter if you haven't noticed.

Speaker 4 (10:43):
No, I noticed. Yeah that's great, it's it's phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, good and bad. But here is where the science.
I'm super intrigued with any expert to kind of break
up your take on if this population. So if you
that you just said, now, if we're taking a you know,
middle aged woman that already has most women are time crunched.

(11:09):
They're probably not recovering well or sleeping great in this
perimental pauzzle space. So you already have these these things
going against you, even if you are healthy and eating
well and blah blah blah. But for someone that isn't
really competing and is just wanting to get up the
next day and say, Hayley, tell me what to do
in the weights room, does this matter as much or

(11:32):
is it kind of negligible? Of well, are you hungry
a little bit before bed? What time did you eat dinner?
I mean I go to bed early, so for me,
I like to be tucked in by eight point fifty nine.

Speaker 4 (11:46):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
Does it always work? It doesn't always work.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
But now that my two teenagers are out of the
house and I only have one.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
At home, it makes a little bit easier.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
But in that situation, does that matter for not looking
at performance?

Speaker 4 (12:03):
Yeah, I would say it almost matters more. And so
and here's why if you're in that scenario, which just
sounds like everybody who's listening to this is we still
have a trouble meeting our total daily protein needs. It's
just it is. It is hard to hit those sometimes
even if you have the best laid plan. And what
we're finding is that it's probably not magic of eating

(12:25):
at protein before bed. It's the magic of having one
more feeding time to get your total daily protein intake
to a level that you want it to be at
for all the other benefits that that brings, and you
do not have to be worried about it adding fat
mass and I can show the data to we can
talk through the data on that, and so psychologically it

(12:46):
allows you the freedom as someone who is in that space,
super crunched on time, you didn't get the protein and
you needed your kids are whining and complaining and you
need to, you know, figure out life and then guess what,
You've got one more chance to top off your protein stores.
In this particular scenario, it's easy because you're already at

(13:07):
home and you have access to those foods. It's hopefully
a quiet time when you're trying to do your destress
and start your bedtime routine perhaps, and you don't have
to worry about any of the issues that people are
afraid of with adding fat or fat gain or any
of it. When we make the caveat of small protein
centric meals. And so here's the example. We have a

(13:30):
technique in our lab Helly, it's really cool. It's called microdialysis.
And with microdialysis, we can insert these very small probes
into any tissue that we want. Think of it almost
like a belly piercing. So we pinch a layer of
skin and your abdominal belly fat, for example, and we
put a small needle into that tissue. Remove the needle

(13:52):
and we leave this flexible probe underneath the skin, and
in that probe I can end up measuring what's coming
out of your fat cells in any condition. Can be sleeping,
it can be exercised, it can be whatever sort of
stimulus we give to the body, could be eating. And
when we've done this, we've done this in men and
in women, and in both cases we don't see any

(14:13):
change in overnight fat coming out of the fat cell,
which would be called lipolysis. And so with like polysis
staying no different than a place ebo, we know that
it's not changing insulin enough or any of the hormones
really to have an effect that's dampening or lowering the
fat metabolism response. It all stays elevated, no matter if

(14:36):
you have nothing or if you have this protein drink.
And so if the net gain is nothing, but you're
having the advantage of a more protein in your day,
it's a win. It's a win across the board. And
so that's to me, would be for this what your
question was, like these very busy forty plus year old
women who've got lives and children and trying to do

(14:59):
everything for everybody. Probably this is a time when you
can say, hey, this times for me. I've got I
can have a shake, I can have a little bit
of cottage cheese or yogurt. Now, not all of those
foods have been tested, but my suspicion is that all
of those protein centric foods would be really good options
for this particular example.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
Oh, I did it last night.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
I tested the theory because I have been so busy
the last few weeks that I'm just I'm barely I
mean usually I'm pretty good and pretty routine eat the
same things, roughly the same foods, but I've just been
running on empty and so these late time kind of
meal snacks, and.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
I think that's the difference.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
So if you're saying, if we look at sleep architecture,
then when we hear about like heavy food, like food
sitting in the belly and not digesting and we want
that all digested before ideally we go to sleep, or
where the sleep hygiene conversation comes in, then this really
is just like it is what you said, a snack

(16:02):
of protein. It's not having, you know, a glass of
wine before bed. All of these things that we know
will hinder sleep architect like the sleep efficiency. So I
think that could be really helpful, especially for women that
aren't as afraid that it's gonna make them fat, but
they're they're on limited calories because most of the time
they're coming to me for body composition help, and so

(16:25):
you know that window is how do you get us
all of this protein in, which then takes me to
my next question of intermittent fasting. All right, let's take
a quick break to hear from some of the body
pod sponsors.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
We'll be right back. This is a huge.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Conversation in the mental puzzle space of do we fast
do we not? Usually the answer, I'm curious your opinion
is is it depends which, which you know makes it
hard because everyone wants a specific answer for everyone and
that's really hard to do.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
But what are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Because for me, it shortens the protein feeding window if
we're just looking at hitting protein overall.

Speaker 4 (17:16):
Yeah, so kind of two things to close out or
maybe part of that other conversation. I think it's important
too that people understand that what I'm referring to in
all of these our research studies with many people, and
if you know that anytime you eat anything you don't
sleep well, then that's true for you and you need
to pay attention to that. So even if the literature

(17:37):
says one thing, you need to know how you respond
to it. So I love how you said you experimented
with it last night, and that's what really matters when
it comes down to it, is how do you respond
to it. So I think that's an important piece to this.
And one of the other things we didn't go into
too much detail in that space was like the outcome
measures and so outside of fat metabolism, So we see

(17:59):
that there's either no change or an increase in morning
resting metabolism, which means that you've been sort of revving
just a little bit higher all night from some of
these protein centric drinks. So that potentially could be helpful
if you expanded that over a long period of time.
So that's sort of one. It's also important to know
that if you're new to exercise or you've never done

(18:20):
it and you're just starting. And in our study, which
was in women in this category, we gave them the
pre sleep feeding and it didn't actually help much or
at all with like glascemic control even with the protein drinks,
so small changes and like insulin sensitivity and blood glucose
which were not going the direction you would want, Okay,

(18:42):
So that made me thinking, oh, maybe we shouldn't do
it for people who are sedentary, and so we decided
to use that same group and add exercise, and so
just four weeks of including just three days of exercise
and pre sleep feeding in this overweight to some of
the women had obesity middle aged group, if they added
exercise and did the pre sleep feeding, absolutely abolished any

(19:04):
metabolic problems. And so the exercise is such a sledgehammer
in driving our metabolic responses to things that that pre
sleep feeding then was ended up being either the advantage
or no change while the exercise needed to be in there.
So if you're someone who's sedentary and just adding in
pre sleep feeding, then I think you would need to
watch blood gluecose levels. Again, not many studies in that

(19:26):
exact space, but from the one or two that exists,
I would say be cautious with that approach. So just
you know, make sure it's not all everything's positive. There
are pluses and minuses to anything that's chosen. And then
some of your clients and people who are interested, maybe
they do train hard in their they are elite at
their age or their age group athletes or something that's

(19:48):
where this could be interesting, and that there are data
showing that after an evening battle of exercises was soccer
if you had pre sleep protein. It actually had things
like reactive strength indres and counter movement jump were able
to come back to normal faster after a hard game.
So theoretically you could compete more or better or maybe

(20:10):
just a little bit harder each time you do compete.
Because that lasted for three days, the benefit was higher
for performance for roughly three days, So that's there. And
then there's also an advantage to muscle protein synthesis. So
the other group I was talking about overseas that runs
this as Luke van Luin and his group, and they've
found in a ton of different studies that it actually

(20:31):
increases muscle protein synthesis while you're sleeping with a small
protein dominant snack in their hands. They actually have seen
over twelve weeks of training with this strategy, where again
it was used to increase total daily protein. They just
took it before bed. They had better outcomes for like
cross sectional area, muscle strength, all the things that you

(20:52):
might be looking for for a trained individual who's like
a gym goer wanting to add muscle to their frame.
So a little more context there with what outcomes people
are finding, and again it's a little bit mixed, but
what I'm telling you is like the summary of the
good points, and that's where you would use this strategy.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
Where have you been for the last three years?

Speaker 4 (21:13):
So, Haley, I think it's exciting. I think it's a
neat place. But again it's end of one. And that
brings me back to your original question, which was intermittent fasting.
Now intermittent fasting. As you said, you probably have five experts.
They all say something different, or at least it's it's
confusing enough to say it depends, and I'm not going
to help you out all there. It is still depends.
But I'll tell you this from my experience working with

(21:35):
lots of different people in research, studies and even in coaching.
It's a great tool. It's a fantastic tool if you'd
like to intermitt fast. And so I never pushed someone
away from it if they like it. Some people have
lifestyles where it really just suits them to wake up
and not eat for a while, and some people don't.
You wake up and you're starving, and so for me,
I always push, like, follow what's natural to you and

(21:58):
then just make the best choices with So we have
folks who have used inerminent fasting, absolutely love it. It
shortens the eating window, can control calories, and as you
probably know all the data like if you just choose
to do a slightly clerk restricted and eat all day
at the end of a longer period of time, you
tend to have very similar outcomes. So it's a great tool.

(22:19):
If you like it, use it. If you don't like it,
don't use it. But it certainly is something that would
that would work with this protein feeding that I'm talking about.
Depending on where you weigh, where you decide to bracket
your start and end time with eating. And so if
you if you bracket that in the morning, clearly you
wouldn't be having that at night. If you bracket that
in the middle of the day, or you stop around

(22:40):
eight pm, like twelve to eight for example, again you
wouldn't have something later. But I will tell you this.
I read a lot of studies that talk about fasting
or inter minute fasting, and then you read the details
and it's like, oh, but we allow an essential amino
acid drink. Oh but we allow a protein drink. And
so it's like, is it really fasting or is it not?
And so so even if the title says intermitten fasting,

(23:02):
there are several different times I've looked through it and
it's like it's fasting. But we do allow tea, we
do allow you know, things that have small amount of calories.
We do allow an essential meno acid drink just to
maintain you know, amino acid levels in the system. So
you have to look at that quite quite a sort
of a nuanced lens. But for me, everything is possible

(23:25):
to be a benefit, but it has to fit your
lifestyle because if you can't stick to it, it's never
going to work.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
Okay, that's the mic drop right there, because this is
while I think the the Internet in this day and
age is so amazing, it's information overload. And then you
get these you know, niche populations. Well for you know,
this specific population of women that say I'm working with

(23:52):
and then they hear, you know, well I can't do this,
now I should do this, Now, I shouldn't do this,
now I should do this. And it's this back and
forth game with each you know, new article that comes
out and then women come to me and they're like,
just tell me what to do, tell me exactly what
to eat, and tell me what exercise to do, and
I'll do it to a team. I'm really good at

(24:13):
following through. And it's never that simple because we're all
unique and individual. And while there are some do you
see some from your perspective, if we're looking at this,
what are the overarching themes that we really have to
nail besides the nuances of whether you're going to intermittent
fast or whatever.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
In the nutrition and fitness space, yeah.

Speaker 4 (24:38):
I mean everyone's going to talk about which leverage to
pull and what's you know, or you hear some conversations about,
you know, stepping over dollars to pick up pennies, and
that's where the nuance is crazy, Like you probably have
had these discussions like I don't know about you, but
I don't have time to always you know, to do
everything perfectly to get two training sessions of cold bath,
look at the sun, you know, do all the different things,

(25:01):
and so you have to choose with the busy lifestyle
one are the biggest things and this to me, you
can really get that into three spaces exercise, nutrition, and sleep.
And if those big rocks are under control, the little
other pebbles that fall out are much easier to manage.
Or you just aren't in a situation where you're trying

(25:21):
to be on stage or compete, and a thing you
just want to have a lifestyle where you feel pretty
good you can handle your lifestyle with your spouse and
your kids. And in that sense, those three big items
are exactly where I'd be landing. And then I might
think about, all right, nutrition is pretty well dialed in,
but I don't really like eating in the morning, So
maybe intermitt fasting is something that I would try. And

(25:44):
you know, I wouldn't even get there until I had
the basics lined up for those other areas. And Haley,
I agree with you. Like people all the time, they're like,
I don't get it. I was told to not eat
before bed. I was told to eat before bed, and
so I think it can be far easier than that.
And I I think it's a step wiser proch Like
what's the simplest possible thing you can change today that

(26:05):
you barely even notice it in your lifestyle that would
then add up over time to be a big impact. So,
for example, one of the courses that I have online
it we finish it with these small steps, and it's
like every chapter in that book is where do you finish?
And what's one action item you can take today. Maybe
it's increasing your approaching and take just a little bit
and that's all you do for like four weeks to

(26:26):
dial in that habit. Or maybe it's something like, you
know your vitamin D is super low and so you
take a vitamin supplement and that's the only thing we
ask you to change. And your clients might be like,
what in the world I'm paying you to do this?
And then it's like, yeah, but if you stick with me,
this is the key is getting all of these big
ticket items where it's so routine you stop thinking about it.

(26:47):
And so for me, those are those are the big
the bigger sort of levers that I can pull in
order to sort of set my boundary, set my baseline
for where I can eventually get to you. I always
know I can fall back on these three things exercise, nutrition,
and sleep.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
So true, and this is what I have with with
some of my you know, high profile clients that are
that are you know, running companies or what are They
don't I don't have They don't have time for me
to micromanage them at all. I mean, and really I'm
just like, okay, do if we do the basics, it
doesn't the nuances that come from again, like you said,

(27:25):
eating before or eating after, or you know, doing this
kind of cardio versus this kind of cardio. At the
end of the day, are you doing something resistance training?
Are you sleeping well, recovering well? And are is your
nutrition pretty on point about it?

Speaker 4 (27:41):
No doubt about it? Worry it's so boring. Do you
know what the name of that course is. It's called
Changing Body Composition through Diet and Exercise. So nobody wants
to click on it, but it is. It's just like
hearing me in a lecture and I'm going through lecture
by lecture, what do these things actually mean? And it's
just a science, you know. We end with like these
are the tools. Hopefully now you have the ability to

(28:03):
use those tools as you want. And I think you
know you mentioned resistance training and that's such a critical
piece to this and I think I think it's the part.
And I know you have other guests to kind of
go through these things, but that piece is so critical.
We always say, like, if you want to be a
smaller pair, then just do the slow aerobic exercise. You'll

(28:24):
be a smaller pair, but you won't actually change the
way that pair looks. Then you have to add in
the resistance training to sort of sculpt out what that
will eventually look like. And so one of the studies
we're running right now might be of interest. It's specifically
in postment appalls of women, and these are women that
are also pre diabetic and either overweight or have obesity,

(28:44):
and we are directly, directly for the first time, comparing
aerobic exercise to resistance exercise on outcomes of fat metabolism.
And this is a five year study we've been running now.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
Haley, Okay, do tell.

Speaker 4 (28:59):
It's it's phenomenal. And so these women are awesome, They
really want help. They come to us because of that,
and they get training for twelve weeks and they get
it's either straight aerobic training or straight resistance training. And
in most of the research you probably have seen to date,
it's aerobic heavy. It's switching now like a little more

(29:19):
resistance training and women specifically, but a lot of it's
aerobic dominant type research for weight and control. And that's
because when you compare twenty minutes of running to twenty
minutes of weightlifting, your calorie burn is going to be
far higher in the running. You just say, you're burning
more calories with that. And so there's a couple other
studies who have tried to pair these together, but they

(29:41):
paired them on time, so you would work out for
say forty five minutes in both groups, but the calorie
burn was so much higher in one that it really
shifted the conversation. And so what we've done is we've
instead of matching time, we're matching calorie output. So you
exercise to burn a certain number of calories, and so
the resistance training group ends up working out longer, but

(30:01):
they're burning the same amount of calories as the other group.
And so now we're finally to a point where we're
getting some data back, and you know, have plenty of
things coming out of this lab based on what we're finding.
But it's just awesome to watch how the strength training
particularly is improving what you would think strength. And then
you see the confidence come up. You see all of

(30:22):
the ability to sort of handle the stresses that we're
thrown at them sort of come up a little bit.
And even the aerobic group they're new to exercise, so
it's great, but then they all are starting to say,
I wish I was doing some resistance train and I
can see that group over there. I want I want
to join that group. So we have fantastic, awesome participants

(30:42):
in a whole team here that that handles the training
and all of the outcomes. But we're looking at how
how are they utilizing fat, how are they putting on fat?
What exactly is going on with microballasis and biopsies and
all the science techniques we can throw at them, And
so we should have some really good answers here. And
the hope is this, Haley, is that at the end

(31:03):
of it, that the guidance on what to do is
less of anecdote where we know we should be resistance training,
and it's more of they put these things head to
head and either there was no difference in the fat
metabolism piece of it, or there was a greater improvement

(31:23):
from being able to resistance train and add these other
pieces of weight and strength to it, which you know
obviously have like longevity outcomes and other things that are
are quite useful for postmenopausal women.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
I love that. So do you are you measuring and
what are your what are.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Your thoughts on visceral fat because this is also a
big one that changes for women as we kind of
go into this menopausal transition, most women notice more abdominal fat.
And when we look at visceral fat specifically, the question
is always how do I target it.

Speaker 4 (32:00):
It's usually a multimodal approach. And so there are several
studies that we've done in this space looking at visceral
fat with resistance training, hit training, aerobic training, usually with
a higher protein intake. And a lot of these are
in men and women, but all of a middle age,
and many of them are perrier, postman apostle, and and

(32:20):
so in our work, I don't know if you remember,
years ago, there was a program called Body for Life
that came out. It was kind of the nineties. Yeah, yeah,
So that's when I was starting research in this space.
And so a guy named doctor Rcierro had these grants
and I was a student in his lab, and we
were just starting to figure out what's help with that
particular program, because it was really the first time we

(32:41):
got a big message to lift weights and add protein.
And so we decided to compare that particular program, which
was resistance training three days a week and three days
a week of high intensity interval training with one day off,
so a six day program, and then we compared it
to at the time, which was the old Food Guide
pyramid back then, and so the Food Guide pyramid, and

(33:04):
then it was the basic recommendations that go along with
it were increased physical activity five days a week, so
it was everybody was exercising, but the one group got
resistance training and specifically a higher protein intake that we
accomplished through protein shakes and protein bars. So it was
primarily through those mechanisms to jack protein up in our hands.

(33:26):
We looked at DEXA and we were calculate visceral fat
and subcutaneous fat and changes over a twelve week study.
And so these women were just awesome gos. They worked
so hard and in that time, no matter what you did,
starting an exercise program with some dietary instructions was helpful.
So everybody lost weight, everybody lost body fat, everybody gained

(33:49):
a little bit of muscle mass. But there are proally
probably two giant things I learned from that. The resistance
training and the protein in that group led to far
greater more significant changes in reductions in belly fat and
visceral fat than not including a higher protein diet and

(34:10):
not including resistance training, so by far to attack that
visceral tissue, at least in the studies that we've run,
it's got to be a combination of something with resistance
training and a much higher protein intake than many women
are many people in general are typically eating when they're
starting out on these types of programs, So that was
really really critical to us. The other part was that

(34:33):
the women in that study were, for better or worse,
they were so awesome, but they were so stuck on
the body weight number as compared to the body composition number.
And so I remember talking to at least three of
those subjects that wanted to basically escape from the study

(34:54):
because their body weight had not shifted enough for what
they thought should be happening in a twelve each study.
But then I show them the decks of data and
we see a giant drop in body fat and visceral
fat and in an increase in muscle mass. And I
was hoping that would push them over the edge to say, okay, no, no, no,

(35:15):
this the composition is critical to this piece of it.
But we have to get out of our own way sometimes, Hayley,
there's such a stigma on body weight and it has
got to shift a body composition because we're doing ourselves
no favors by sticking in this weight only and just
losing muscle mass in some of these programs that exist
when you don't account with resistance training and a higher

(35:36):
approach and intake.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
Were these women and men in a calorie deficit or
were you just having them resistance train over the top pressure.

Speaker 4 (35:47):
It depends on the study. The one I'm referring to
was not. It was they met with a dietician weekly
to keep them at their target calories, which was based
on keeping them even so, it was based we had
did resting metabolic rate in their activity factors to keep
them in a certain small range of coloric intake, and
then we just manipulated the protein side of it and

(36:08):
the exercise side so that the calories were equated, so
in that particular study was over and above. So protein
itself is pretty pretty unique. We have done so much
work with not just a pre sleep protein but just
daily protein changes, and in every single every single paper
that I put out on it or looked at or
been associated with, if you're in a situation where you're

(36:31):
an athlete should have high approaching, if you're in a
situation where you're trying to recover more, probably should have
higher ap protein. If you're in a situation where you
want to be losing belly fat, you should probably have
more approtein. If you're in a situation where you're trying
to lose weight. In general, I would also increase protein.
And so I get a lot of questions around, well,
in this situation, that situation, would you increase it decrease?

(36:52):
And like in every one of those situations, I would
lock in and dial in protein at the level that
we want and then manipulate the other manutrients around that
based on your exercise output.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
So we can then, just to confirm that I'm hearing
you right, we can change visceral fat without being in
a calorie deficit.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
Then that study showed, Yes, that.

Speaker 4 (37:16):
Study showed with the higher energy output more of energy flux, Yes,
we actually had a reduction in the visceral fat in
that particular study. Pretty great to see that, And I
want to follow that, Hailey with another really cool study.
I think your audience would really like. We were looking
at a giant weight loss study. These were people who
were looking to go get bariatric surgery. So they were

(37:38):
going to a bariatric center to have surgery and instead
they see our team sitting there and we're like, hey,
instead of having that surgery, come with us for some diet,
for some diet and exercise. So, as you can imagine,
many people didn't want that, and so they went on
their way. But we were able to recruit a lot
in for our work which was run by a guy
named Eddie Joe for his PhD dissertation that was run

(37:58):
out of a colleagues lab at our university. And so
when they came through and we actually recruited these people in,
every one of them went on the medically supervised diet
which was required at the bariatric center. Do you know
the calorie intake for a medically supervised diet? How low
that is?

Speaker 3 (38:13):
Under one thousand?

Speaker 4 (38:15):
Yes, about about eight hundred calories is what it was
when we did the study. It's terrible, and it's mostly liquid,
and you're coming from a position where you're going for
bariatric surgery, so the calories are far higher than that
in your usual life, and then you quickly cut that
down with mostly liquid foods to go to go through
these and it's just miserable, right. You do lose a
lot of weight though, because you're just not eating much

(38:37):
at all. And so what we did is we took
all these people and we said, it's actually at a
harm if we don't add protein to both of these groups,
because on a calorie on a Graham's Perkge basis, they
were like at zero point four Graham's perkge, which is
like half of the RDA, which we know is probably
half of what we should be eating. So you can

(38:59):
do the math. It's very very low based on total
body size. And so when we added protein to both groups,
it became a situation where it was like really cool
to see where they you know, they all had a
little bit extra protein. So it put their calories up
to about twelve hundred or so, which is still not
very high, but it was at least better than eight hundred.
And then one of those groups got resistance training and

(39:21):
the other one did standard of care, which was more
like calisthenics and just walking and things like that. And
after the period of that particular study, this is going
back to the body weight versus composition. Both groups lost
a ton of body weight, but the composition was so
critical so when they lost all that weight, the group
that maintained or had the higher protein and got the

(39:41):
resistance training of their weight lost, let's say twenty four
percent of that weight lost was fat and they only
lost a teeny little bit of muscle along that way. Now,
on the other hand, the the group that got a

(40:02):
little bit of protein but didn't do resistance training, they
lost a significant amount of muscle mass in that in
that period of time. So the end of the day,
and I think I said that backwards, so let me
just rephrase that the group that did resistance training only
lost four percent of their muscle mass. The group that
did not do resistance training lost twenty four percent of

(40:23):
their muscle mass in that study. Twenty four so like
a quarter of the weight loss was muscle. And so
now if you stop doing that, you're at a place
where you're smaller, but you also have way less muscle.
And if you start to eat normally again it's called
weight recidivism, you're just gonna put it right back on
and go even even worse with it. And so in

(40:44):
my mind, that was like, gosh, out of the gate,
we had data to show that in any of these
weight loss giant weight loss studies like you've got to
be weight training, got to have higher protein in order
to save your muscle mass.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Okay, so then this same conversation would apply to someone
who's going on like a GLP one and losing a
lot of weight but not adding in resistance training and protein,
but resistance training being the bigger rock for preserving muscle mass.

Speaker 4 (41:15):
One hundred percent. Now, I haven't run those studies. I
know a lot of those are coming out now and
being done with colleagues of mine all over the place.
But yeah, because it's just a different mechanism to lose
the weight. But if the weight was coming off that fast,
you better be doing something to maintain the integrity of
your muscle mass or you'll be just set up for
other problems.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
All right, let's take a quick break to hear from
some of the body pod sponsors.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
Okay, Now, this is going to be getting into the
weeds here, but I'm going to ask it anyways. So
for the resistance training, did it matter what they were doing?
And what I mean by that is a rep range
getting close to failure using effort or just you know,
kind of going in and being like, Okay, do your

(42:11):
own thing, but you have to lift some weights.

Speaker 4 (42:13):
Yeah, that's a good question, Haley. That particular one was supervised,
so they had a student trainer with them every single rep,
every single exercise, and they were pushing for the sort
of the normal recommendation, so it was full body exercise
and they had that those three days a week, and
then they had a rep range of round eight to
twelve and they were supposed to be hitting close to

(42:35):
failure on the end of those and so we had
RPE scales rating or perceived exertion scales for every single
time they went through that. So, yeah, it does matter,
like you need to be getting close to failure. And
I'm sure you've had conversations about that, Like the weight
probably is not as important, it's just are you getting
close to failure? And they were pushing themselves. They worked hard,

(42:56):
they had a really good experience. It's actually helpful to
be held accountable to somebody. They say that all the time, like,
even if you're very well trained, it's nice to have
a coach where oh yeah you can someone could keep
you accountable. And yeah, they're they're pushing themselves.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Okay, so let's go, let's move on to REP ranges
since we're kind of touching on this for women and
in like this midlife area is it is there only
one way to train? Do we train all REP ranges?
Do we get benefits from different REP ranges? I mean,

(43:32):
I love to hear what my any expert says and
any kind of turn that they might have or difference
that they might have in this specific population.

Speaker 4 (43:43):
Yeah, I I don't know, if you ask my friends
and stuff, I'm I'm pretty middle of the road kind
of person.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
So I like that.

Speaker 4 (43:51):
Once again, I don't know that I'll you know, be
real controversial and anything. But the way that I see it,
based on my you, the literature, past coaching experience, and
been in this field for thirty years, like, there's a
there's a benefit to just about every type of exercise
and every type of REP range to tissue metabolism, performance, recovery, psychology,

(44:15):
you know what have you and so to me, if
you like lower reps and heavier weight, then lift that way.
If that's too heavy for you, or you are at
an age where you like you don't need to backsquat
so much anymore, like, then just shift it a little
bit and then you can use a different rep range
and so for me, I like to work through a

(44:36):
full range of them. I have heavy days, I have
light days. The people that we work with, the women
that are highly active and are associated with our facility
at the Institute of Sports Sciences in Medicine, do that too.
So there'll be a day of you know, you know,
even with the aerobic world, like a zone two day,
and then they'll be like a higher intensity day and
there'll be heavy days and all that. And some of

(44:57):
that's based on how you feel that day, Hailey, because
there there's something to autoregulation where you're in the gym
or you're in your garage, wherever you're training, and some
days you're just like, I'm dialed in. I can totally
go heavy today, that's what I want to be doing.
But that's taxing on your nervous systems. So I don't
think you should do that every single day, and so
we work through a wide range of weights and also

(45:19):
repetitions is what I would personally recommend, and there's some
data to back up variety in general. So again, Paul,
our heroes run many of these studies. I was associated
with two or three of them. They're called Prize and
it's so the prize is an acronym for protein is,
the P, resistance training is, the R I is intermittent

(45:39):
like sprints, s is stretching or yoga, and then E
was endurance. And so he compared in many different studies
this Prize program to traditional exercises, and simply the variety
that's provided with you know, something different just about every
single day was quite useful, and I think it would
be useful for things in general like compliance and wanting

(46:02):
to go do something. It's not the same thing every day.
But he also found greater benefits with that sort of
approach for like you said, visceral fat, abdominal fat, muscle mass, etc.
And so outside of just rep ranges even between types
of exercise, I think that variety is really nice and
it keeps you ready, right like if my kids want

(46:22):
to play on the playground, I want to be able
to do that with him. If they want to do
some activity, I hope I can still throw a ball
or kick a soccer ball, So it keeps you sort
of it at least keeps me in the mindset of
like I can still hang with most things, so let's
go ahead and try these different activities.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
Absolutely. Okay.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
So another study that I would like your input on,
which was super fascinating to me because I've never really
cared that much about pologen and when people ask me,
I'm like, what take it or don't?

Speaker 3 (46:59):
It's one other that I have to take.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
And now, after I've listened to some podcasts that you're on,
I'm starting the collagen regularly from here on out, So
let's talk about that.

Speaker 4 (47:11):
Yeah, So that's another one. I felt the same way
before we actually did the research on. I was like, oh, no, like,
it's not a complete protein. I don't think this is
This probably isn't the way that I would be wanting
to get my protein in. And so when the opportunity
came up to study collagen, we made sure to do
it right. We when we chose a population that was great,

(47:33):
and I'm you know, as I'm getting older, I'm like, hey, ye,
middle age is great, let's study let's study that. I
want to see what happens. And so we took lifelong
active people. Lifelong active it could be anything. It could
been golf walking, it could have been even like high
level elite athletes. But you had to be active your
whole life. And then we ended up studying collagen intake
at three different levels, like zero, so you took up

(47:55):
placebo ten grams per day or twenty grams per day,
and then we measured and we had them take the
supplement for nine months, which is the kicker. That's a
very hard thing to pull off in the research world,
is something that long. And we did that for a
couple of reasons. One is like there's a lot of
negativity around collagen. We want to make sure we didn't

(48:16):
just go too short, and that we didn't want to
finish and say, you know, if we had done a
little bit longer, maybe we would have seen something, So
we wanted to take it all the way out. We
also wanted to look at see if there's any changes
in bone mineral density, and that won't change until at
least a minimum of nine months, so we were still
just on the customer. If we were going to see something,
we might have seen it about that point. And so

(48:38):
our primary outcomes were not muscle growth, which I wouldn't
recommend collegen for. Our primary outcomes was joint pain and
a lot of middle aged active people one day or
another have joint pain. So you couldn't have diagnosed to osteoarthritis,
but you had to have some type of reoccurring but

(48:59):
not persistent joint pain. And so that's what we did.
We lined it up. Shiloakivkovski ran that study for her
PhD dissertation, and she's phenomenal and we did so much
great work in that space. And what we ended up
finding after nine months of that was that taking the
collagen was most beneficial if you were the most active.

(49:23):
If you were the most active people in the study,
and so there were some benefits in some things we
measured across the board, but if you exercised more than
about one hundred and I think it was about one
hundred and sixty hundred and eighty minutes a week, that's
where those people ended up seeing the most benefit from
taking collagen. If you didn't if you were active, but

(49:44):
it was less than that one hundred and fifty minutes
a week or so, that's where not so much was
seen in those individuals. And the thought is that the
most active people have the most opportunity to get collagen
because it's very hard to get collagen where it needs
to go you have to have blood flow to the joints,
and that only is really going to happen maybe when

(50:05):
you're exercising that those people are just so active that
you had an opportunity to get the collagen perhaps to
these areas we were measuring for joint pain. Now some
nuances here, right, let's always sort of cap this off
in our hands. Ten grams seem to work a little
bit better in most cases than twenty grams, and we

(50:26):
don't know why. So it's interesting. Yeah, so ten grams
is what I take. Ten grams is what I typically
recommend for people. Now twenty it wasn't ineffective, It just
had we had more of the outcomes changed in the
positive direction from ten grams, And I don't know why.
We have some theories on it. We're trying to test
now with some ongoing work, but we still don't know why.

(50:50):
And I think with the Collegen conversation, it's like, how
in the world would it be better than like a
complete protein, like a wave protein, And that's where this
a lot of negativity comes. Still, if you're talking about
muscle growth, collagen should not be what you're choosing to take.
You should be taking away or caseine or you know,

(51:11):
a soy supplement product or something. The collagen specifically in
my mind, because it's the only data I've seen that
I believe is with this joint pain angle, And I
don't know. I'm not sure exactly why it would help
with these specific things other than the makeup of it
with the glycine, the proleine hydroxyproleine combination of these amino

(51:32):
acids that are high concentration in collagen also make up
the tends in the joint, so it's not that they're
absent from away, they just are very much present in
the collagen. And I think a lot of work needs
to be done to say why would it target a tissue?
We don't know. But at the end of the day,
the mechanisms are really really critical, but the outcomes to

(51:56):
me are even more critical. Do you feel better than
hate it? And we can figure out the in between
and we work on it, and I'm not, you know,
putting down the mechanistic piece. We need to know that,
But at the moment, it looks like pain is better
if you're very active. Why not give it a try.
It's not gonna hurt anything, and it might it might
help you.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
No, this is great because I don't know any female
or very few that does not have some kind of
joint pain, especially post menopause when we no longer have estrogen,
that comes up a lot. And so this is great news.
I mean, I'm starting. I started the protein last night.
Now what's starting the collegeen today?

Speaker 3 (52:36):
I have it.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
I have loads in my house. I just if it's
not sitting right out. I'm really good with creatine and
just getting protein. But then it's just one extra thing
to like throw in there.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like the timing for
it's also probably important for collegen, like that would be
like a pre workout type time that you would want
to take it before exercise you.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Can, oh, okay, good, so they can take it if
they're having some some protein before add.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
It in there.

Speaker 4 (53:06):
Yeah, exactly. And I'm starting to see it now. There's
companies that are coming out with with Way and Collegen
mixed together. So it's one thing. Just watch your dosing,
make sure you get in the right dosing if you're
looking at those those products.

Speaker 3 (53:19):
Okay, great, I'm so mad. We're out of time right now.
I feel like we.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
Got two things on my list done, but while we
wrap this up because I'm sensitive of your time and
I just appreciate you so much, Mike. It's so great
to get to know you and have a conversation with you.

Speaker 3 (53:36):
Uh if people are looking for you, you said you,
I know you have to. You're the author of two books.

Speaker 4 (53:41):
Too, yes, so yeah real real uh real fun read.
So one's a textbook, which is an exercise physiology textbook,
which is like a great like background resource if you're
a trainer or someone in ex fizz and just need
like the nuts and bolts. The other one's more of
like a it's a it's a book and a what
was made through a company called The Great Courses that

(54:03):
was bought by Wonderum. So it's like this continuing education
courses and it's not overly like entertaining. You're basically in
a classroom with me, and they're twenty four to thirty
minute lectures so you can listen to them like on
a commute and it's just the nuts and bolts. But
it's a really good base to have, like if you
want a base before you dig into like one hundred
podcasts that get confusing. It's a good base to have.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
Well, this is amazing, and this is for anyone, not
just trainers or students.

Speaker 4 (54:32):
Yeah. Yeah, the Great Courses are really cool. They are
like any topic you can imagine. But the one that
I did was on changing body composition through diet and exercise,
and it's for everybody. It's made at any level. It's
an intro level.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
Okay, great, so they can find that online or your Instagram.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
What's your Instagram handle?

Speaker 4 (54:52):
Yeah, so Instagram's just at Mike Wormsby and I try
to put up everything from our lab. There a lot
of our studies, these pre sleep feeding things are things
that are in and related to these topics we've talked
about today, So it's a great resource there. And then yeah,
the Great Courses thing is available. Just if you just
google that title in my name, you'll you can find it.
But Great Courses Amazon has it a couple easy spots.

(55:15):
But yeah, i'd encourage a follow to see what we're
up to and love communicating with If anybody's questions.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
Oh that's great.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Well, thank you so much again Mike for your time,
and I just appreciate what you're doing in the field
and your willingness to talk to my audience who I
know are going to absolutely love this podcast great.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
Thanks Haley anytime, Thanks for listening.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a
five star review and sharing the body Pod with your friends.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
Until next time,