July 7, 2025 • 39 mins
Grab your free Ultimate Macros Guide ebook to implement everything covered in today's episode with specific formulas and practical steps. Go to witsandweights.com/free
--
What really works for fat loss?
After 70 years of scientific research spanning thousands of studies and millions of participants, the truth is both simpler and more nuanced than the fitness industry would have you believe.
Forget the latest fat loss hack or magic supplement. After 70 years of rigorous research (thousands of studies spanning from NASA's bedrest experiments in the 1970s to today's landmark trials), science has identified 7 key principles that determine fat loss success.
These aren't TikTok trends or new theories. They're evidence-based principles proven over and over again in controlled studies, meta-analyses, and real-world applications.
Main Takeaways:
- A calorie deficit remains non-negotiable for fat loss, but the method to create it is highly flexible
- Protein preserves muscle and controls hunger through multiple mechanisms
- Resistance training beats cardio for body composition every single time
- Diet adherence matters more than diet type when calories are controlled
- NEAT (non-exercise activity) can swing your daily calorie burn by up to 2,000 calories
- Muscle mass serves as your metabolic insurance policy for long-term success
- Sustainable approaches always beat aggressive "quick fix" methods
Episode Resources:
- Try MacroFactor for free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS
- Download our popular ebook, Ultimate Macros Guide
- Related episode: The 3+3 Optimal Model of Fat Loss
Timestamps:
0:01 - 70 years of research distilled into 7 principles
3:28 - Principle #1: A calorie deficit is required
7:23 - Principle #2: Protein is king
11:13 - Principle #3: Resistance training is best for body composition
15:45 - Principle #4: Diet adherence beats diet type
19:56 - Principle #5: NEAT can make or break your deficit
25:09 - Principle #6: Muscle mass is your fat loss insurance policy
29:39 - Principle #7: Sustainability vs. speed
35:36 - How these principles work together for life optimization
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:01):
70 years of fat loss research, thousands of
studies, millions ofparticipants, and you could boil
it all down to a few keyprinciples that determine
whether you succeed or fail.
So today we're going to giveyou seven tips from those 70
years of research.
Not trends, not theory.
It's based on conclusions frommajor studies NASA's studies in
(00:21):
the 70s, landmark trialspublished in major journals like
the New England Journal ofMedicine, metabolic chamber
studies.
You'll discover why the biggestloser contestants, regained all
their weight six years later,how one factor can swing your
daily calorie burn by 2,000calories and why the diet that
works best has nothing to dowith cutting carbs or even
(00:43):
counting macros.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach, philip Pape,
(01:05):
and today we're going to cutthrough seven decades of
research to bring you the onlyfat loss strategies that really
rise to the top, that actuallymatter.
And I get it.
The fitness industry loves toovercomplicate fat loss.
Talk about optimization and newdiets, new supplements, new
(01:25):
exercise protocols.
There's always somethingpromising to be the answer, the
shortcut, the magic pill.
But when you step back and lookat the seven decades of high
quality research, from metabolicchamber studies to landmark
trials involving thousands ofparticipants that have held up
over this entire duration, thereare clear patterns that emerge.
(01:48):
They're things that we justknow work, and today I'm going
to share what those are sevenprinciples that have stood the
test of time that are backed bystudies upon studies upon
studies.
And as much as science cannever be perfect, we can never
fully prove things there arethings we just know that work
because, at any level of theevidence from scientific
(02:09):
research to coaching practice,to anecdote, to individual
experimentation we know thatthese things go far beyond
hypothesis, opinion, theory.
They are as close as we couldget to what we call facts or
truth that are derived frominvestigating the key questions
around fat loss.
(02:29):
Now, before we get into theseseven tips, I want to give you
something that will makeimplementing them just a bit
easier.
I have a guide that's beenaround for a while.
It's a really solid one, of ourmost popular, called the
ultimate macros guide.
It's actually an ebook and thatbreaks down how to set up your
nutrition for fat loss,preserving muscle, long-term
success, but it also talks abouta lot of aspects of nutrition
(02:53):
and supplementation andperiodization.
All of it.
It's completely free.
It includes the approach that Iuse with clients and the
philosophy we're discussingtoday.
That again is backed by theevidence.
Just go to witsowaitscom, slashfree or click the link in the
show notes to grab your copy ofthe Ultimate Macros Guide.
And, by the way, it's beenedited over the years as I've
(03:14):
gotten feedback from many of youwho have either challenged me
on things that were kind of onthe edge of evidence-based or
who just wanted their questionsanswered.
So go get your ultimate macrosguide today, link in the show
notes.
All right, so seven tips from 70years of research.
I'm going to give you thescience, the practical
(03:34):
application and then, mostimportantly, why this matters
for your results.
So let's start with principlenumber one, or tip number one a
calorie deficit isnon-negotiable.
Now let's talk about theelephant in the room, right,
energy balance, calorie deficitsand I know some of you are
rolling your eyes thinking thisis obvious.
This is simplistic.
(03:54):
I've been listening to yourshow for a while, philip.
Of course, calories in,calories out works,
thermodynamics make sense, butthere is so much nuance behind
that and it is always worthrepeating and understanding what
the evidence says over that 70years of research.
So the science behind this wasfirst quantified using metabolic
(04:14):
chamber studies in the mid-20thcentury.
If anybody is as old as me,they've been around since that
time.
I was born in 1980, just forreference.
Now we're talking about.
Metabolic chambers arecontrolled environments and
researchers are able to measurewhat is eaten, every calorie
that's consumed and burned.
They use all sorts of equipmentto figure this out.
(04:35):
And the first law ofthermodynamics you probably
heard about it before fromphysics it is the principle of
the universe that energy cannotbe created or destroyed.
It can only be transferred, andthat's really important to
understand because we still haveto validate that when it comes
to human beings and our foodconsumption, our energy.
(04:56):
There's a study by Hall et alit was a landmark study in 2011
in science, translationalmedicine and they took people
and put them in a controlled,inpatient setting Think of it
like a laboratory for humans andwhen calories were matched, low
carb and low fat diets resultedin identical fat loss identical
.
And we've seen time and timeagain where calories are
(05:18):
controlled, no matter what themacros look like, we tend to see
almost identical results.
It doesn't matter if you'refasting, it doesn't matter when
it's controlled for calories wehave the same results.
Very important why this mattersis any argument about this
versus calories.
It's my hormones versuscalories are missing the point.
(05:38):
In fact, the whole GLP-1Ozempic craze now is proving the
fact that it is about energybalance, because those medicines
cause only one thing you to eatless.
And when you eat less, you loseweight because you go into a
calorie deficit.
This is just a law of physics.
Yes, hormones influence howmuch you want to eat and how
much energy you expend.
(06:00):
Right, and that's the otherside of the equation we have to
think about when we say caloriesin, calories out the calories
out side is highly influenced byso many complex factors,
including calories in.
So even what you eat and howmuch you're taking in it affects
how much you burn, and so wecan't override thermodynamics.
You know again, the new GLP-1medications reduce appetite,
(06:22):
which reduces calorie intake,and that's a great modern proof
of this principle.
So the takeaway is for fat loss,to lose fat, you have to be in
a calorie deficit.
Now, of course, people aregoing to say what about body
recomposition, where you gainmuscle and lose fat?
That is a very tiny corner case, which does exist, where you're
taking in enough energy to packon some muscle while also
(06:44):
losing fat.
But you're losing fat becauseyou don't have enough net energy
to support your current fatstores and therefore your fat is
lost.
But when we're talking aboutmeaningful fat loss right, more
than a few pounds you're tryingto lose fat.
You have to be in a caloriedeficit.
The method you create thatdeficit, with whether it's your
food choice, your meal timing,how you train, how you move,
(07:07):
even medication that part is farmore flexible than people
realize, and that's one of themessages of wits and weights is
that there are many roads to getthere, which is very empowering
when you know that your foodcan be flexible.
It's just the guardrails aroundcalories and then macros, for
other reasons besides weightloss, that come into play.
(07:29):
So principle one is caloriedeficit is non-negotiable.
Tip number two is that proteinpreserves muscle and controls
hunger.
This is an important principlefrom fat loss research, because
if you're not eating enoughprotein, you miss out on not
only lots and lots of sidebenefits of eating protein, but
(07:52):
the very purpose that protein,the very reason that we consume
protein, which is the metabolicadvantage for our muscle
building and our musclepreservation while we're losing
weight, so that we don't losemuscle.
Now, there are lots ofadvantages of protein.
One of them is the thermiceffect of feeding, meaning that
(08:13):
the energy cost of digesting andprocessing protein is highest
of all the macros.
It's about 20 to 30% ofcalories consumed, compared to
five to 10% for carbs and closeto zero for fats.
So if you eat 100 calories ofprotein, your body's going to
burn 20 to 30 calories justprocessing the protein.
(08:35):
Perhaps more importantly for alot of you, though, when it
comes to fat loss, is howprotein affects your hunger
hormones.
Patton Jones and his or hercolleagues showed in 2008 that
protein suppresses ghrelin,that's your hunger hormone.
It then increases GLP-1, pyyand CCK, which are your satiety
(08:57):
hormones.
You literally feel fuller andmore satisfied, so it's kind of
the natural GLP-1.
Never like to overstate theeffects compared to very
powerful medications, but it'simportant to understand how
protein increases fullness,satiety Also.
This is what I alluded to asperhaps the most important
reason we eat protein is duringa calorie deficit.
(09:17):
Right?
Tip number one your body wantsto break down tissue because it
needs energy.
It's looking for energy andprotein, especially when it's
combined with resistance.
Training is telling your bodylet's preserve muscle tissue
when you're seeking out thoseenergy sources.
Let's not go after that,because that's important.
Let's pull it from your fatstores instead.
(09:39):
If you're not eating protein,if you're not strength training,
the body's like well, I'm goingto take it from where I can get
it, and that includes yourmuscle mass.
This is why people on GLP-1lose massive amounts of muscle,
for the most part when they'renot training and eating protein,
and they're obviously.
Crash dieting is effectivelythe result.
Again, when lifestyle is notcontrolled.
For We've said it before butI'll say it again Studies show
(10:01):
we need about 0.7 to 1 gram perpound of body weight of protein,
or about 1.6 to 2.2 grams perkilogram of body weight, and
that's a super optimal,well-supported range for the
vast majority of people.
Now, eric Helms you guys knowhim, he's been on the show a
couple of times and his researchteam.
(10:22):
They found that leanindividuals in extreme deficits
might need higher intake, up to,say, three grams per kilogram,
but for most of you, the 0.7 toone gram per pound and I'm sorry
, I'm such a between metric andImperial here is the sweet spot.
So when it comes to protein,it's pretty simple.
It doesn't matter when you getit, as long as you get your
total.
(10:42):
It's helpful practically to tryto spread it across your meals.
It also is good because of thesatiety and there's a tiny
optimal effect for musclebuilding and preservation when
you spread it out.
But it is very, very smallBecause your body can utilize
protein very intelligently, nomatter how you eat it.
Even if it's in large what theycall boluses, you eat a lot at
(11:03):
once, but practically it helpsto.
If it's in large what they callboluses like, you eat a lot at
once, but practically it helpsto spread it throughout the day.
So that's tip number two.
Tip number three is thatresistance training beats cardio
for body composition.
Now, this is important becausesome of you are going to say,
wait, I've heard recent studiesthat say cardio is actually
really helpful for fat loss, andyes, it can be.
To an extent, moving your body,increasing calorie burn, can
(11:26):
help.
But we're not talking aboutjust dropping fat.
We're also talking aboutholding onto the muscle while
doing that.
I should reword what I justsaid we're not talking about
dropping weight, we're talkingabout holding onto muscle while
dropping weight, so that whatyou drop is mostly fat.
And that's where resistancetraining is by far the perhaps
most important principle for howyou actually look when you
(11:49):
reach your goal weight, becauseit's not about the weight on the
scale, it's about losing fat,building muscle, becoming fitter
, becoming leaner, and soresistance training absolutely
is non-negotiable for that.
So it is one of the threenon-negotiables.
Besides protein, protein andrecovery for fat loss.
Go look up my episode calledthe 3 plus 3 optimal model of
(12:09):
fat loss, and that is one of thethree non-negotiables.
Now, back in the 1970s, nasa wasstudying what happens to
astronauts in space and theydiscovered that without the
mechanical loading right,without the resistance training
against your muscles which weget from gravity here on Earth,
muscle breakdown accelerateddramatically.
I mean, we know this now thatin people in outer space and
(12:32):
this is one of the challenges ofpotentially going to Mars is
the significant muscle loss andwhat you have to try to do to
hold on to that.
And it was one of the firstmajor clues that resistance
training provides a uniquesignal that you can't get from
cardio, and that's whyastronauts are expected to use
(12:52):
resistance of some form.
Right, it's definitely notgoing to be a barbell when
you're up in the space station.
There's bands and there's allsorts of rigs that they have for
this, but it's a great way toshow how resistance training is
necessary.
There was a 2015 meta-analysisby Strasser and Schobertsberger,
(13:13):
and it looked at dozens ofstudies.
This is a study of studies thatcompared resistance training to
aerobic exercise for bodycomposition and, no surprise,
they found that resistancetraining preserved lean mass
better than aerobic trainingevery time.
And there was a recent studydone by Dr Bill Campbell that, I
believe, showed the same thing.
In his study, they showed whatsome people found surprising,
(13:36):
which is that, yes, cardio canactually be quite effective for
fat loss, but resistancetraining was better at
preserving lean mass.
So that's why, when we talkabout body composition, you need
both.
You definitely need theresistance training, and then
moving through walking andthrough some strategic forms of
cardio help move the needle abit more on the being able to
(13:56):
burn more calories withouthaving to eat less, so to speak.
When you're dieting, your bodyis in an energy deficit.
Right?
Principle number one it needsto get energy from somewhere,
and weight lifting, or liftingweights training, sends what we
call an anabolic signal.
Anabolic means build.
We need this muscle tissue andwe need to build muscle tissue
(14:18):
to replace the tissue that'sbreaking down because we're in
this energy deficit, becausewe're in this energy deficit.
Without that signal, your bodyhappily breaks down the muscle
for energy, because muscle ismetabolically expensive to
maintain.
You don't need to live in thegym, you don't.
You can train as little as two,and even some approaches you can
get away with once a week, butfor most people it's going to be
(14:40):
three to four.
For older individuals, let'ssay over in their 60s, 70s,
sometimes I see two being moreeffective because of recovery,
but for most of you it's goingto be three to four sessions per
week focused on the bigmovement patterns squatting,
deadlifting, pressing, rowing,pulling right, that's
deadlifting.
But other types of pulls aswell, which work multiple muscle
(15:03):
groups right, we call themcompound lifts.
They work multiple joints,multiple muscle groups.
They give you the biggest bangfor your buck and you are
progressing.
You're using progressiveoverload, which is a gradual
increase in weights or reps andor sets over time.
You're challenging your bodymore and more over time and if
you are not getting stronger, ifyou're not able to push harder,
you're not providing theanabolic signal your body needs,
(15:25):
with the caveat that, whileyou're in fat loss and
potentially losing weight, yourrelative strength is probably
more important than yourabsolute strength because you
don't have as many resourcescoming in.
But what I like to tell peopleis just train as if you're able
to get stronger and build muscle, and that should be sufficient
to hold on to that muscle, allright.
Tip number four is that dietadherence beats diet type every
(15:52):
single time, and for those ofyou newer to the show or to the
philosophy we espouse here, thismight surprise you, especially
if you're caught up in all thedebates online about the right
diet keto versus plant-based,versus carnivore versus
intermittent fasting.
There's something new every day, especially with TikTok and
social media.
(16:12):
You've got people inventingdiets left and right.
You know the sugar diets.
I mean all sorts of things thatare all based on a type of diet
like exactly what you eat, butwe know that that actually
doesn't matter.
What matters is are you able toadhere to your diet?
Because if you can adhere to it, it's sustainable, and then,
once it's sustainable, you cantweak the levers to get to the
(16:33):
goal you need and actually beable to do it.
There was a landmark studycalled the Diet FITS trial,
published in JAMA in 2018, andit followed 600 people for 12
months.
Half of them did low carb, halfof them did low fat.
Guess what?
No significant difference inweight loss.
I alluded to this in principle.
(16:54):
One tip number one about acalorie deficit no difference.
The A to Z trial did somethingsimilar.
They compared Atkins Zone,ornish and Learn.
Same result no meaningfuldifference.
When you look at the bigpicture and control for calories
, the SAC study in the NewEngland Journal of Medicine
tested different combinations ofmacros of protein, fats and
(17:16):
carbs.
So it wasn't really about thefood specifically, just
different macros of protein,fats and carbs.
So it wasn't really about thefood specifically, just
different macros.
Again, no significantdifference in fat loss when
calories were controlled.
Okay, and you might say well,wait, what about?
You talk about protein and thisand that.
Again, we're talking about whatmoves the needle versus what's
optimal.
Yes, you need a sufficientamount of protein, but you don't
(17:36):
need massive amounts of protein.
Most people are getting toolittle protein.
But when calories arecontrolled, that alone is going
to have the biggest lever whenit comes to the rate of weight
loss.
So what actually matters?
Well, it's adherence.
Can you adhere?
The diet that works is the oneyou can stick to without feeling
deprived or feeling restricted.
These elegant, scientificallydesigned diets, the ones in the
(18:01):
beautifully polished books onthe shelf or on Amazon or
whatever your Kindle.
They're all worthless if youcan't follow them.
Now, if you can follow them,they can be very helpful tools.
They really can be.
I'm not arguing that.
I'm not arguing that awell-prescribed set of foods and
meal plans and recipes thatgive you some structure and
direction that you can stick tobecause you enjoy it.
(18:23):
I'm not arguing that that can'talso be successful for you
because of the adherence factor.
In fact, I was on paleo foryears, and part of the reason I
was able to stick to it so longis it was flexible enough to
have all the foods I enjoyed.
It had meats, vegetables,fruits, I think, yeah, it just
didn't have grains.
It had other forms of carbs,right, fruits, and it had.
(18:44):
There was no dairy in there,but there's.
It depends on the version ofpaleo you follow.
But anyway, I was able to eat alot of variety of foods and
there were a bunch of greatrecipes that I would make, and
so I was okay with it.
Compared, and so I was okaywith it.
Compared to how I eat now, itwasn't nearly as flexible as how
I eat now, because now I canenjoy just about any food, which
is awesome, and so this shouldbe liberating.
That's my point.
You don't have to cut out entirefood groups, you don't have to
(19:06):
eat foods you hate, and you caneat foods you love, and you can
build your fat loss plan aroundthose and around your cultural
preferences, your family, yourschedule, your lifestyle, your
vacations, your travel all thethings that life has for us that
are amazing.
A lot of them are around food.
Just a quick reminder because Idon't want to get too off track
here.
But if you're finding value inthese fat loss principles, I
(19:29):
want you to grab my UltimateMacros Guide.
Go ahead and pause the episode,go to witsandweightscom slash
free, or click the link in theshow notes.
You're going to see a lot ofthese philosophies put out into
practice, you know, explained inactual step-by-steps of what to
do.
It's going to help youimplement what we're covering
today, so you might want tofollow along.
Go grab the ultimate macrosguide, click the link in the
show notes or go to what's theweightscom slash free.
(19:51):
All right.
Tip number five neat, can'tneat.
I'm going to explain what thatis.
Neat and I'm not saying NEAT forthose of you who are Monty
Python fans.
Neat can make or break yourdeficit.
What is NEAT?
Neat stands for non-exerciseactivity thermogenesis.
It is a component of yourmetabolism and I still believe
(20:14):
it is the most underestimatedfactor in fat loss success.
There is research by JamesLevin published in Science in
1999.
And I love this study.
I love this study because it'seye-opening.
It showed that NEAT can vary.
Your non-exercise activitythermogenesis how many calories
you burn from non-structuredactivity throughout the day is
(20:35):
how many calories you burn fromnon-structured activity
throughout the day can vary byup to 2,000 calories per day
between individuals of the samesize.
And it seems unbelievable.
Right?
That sounds like a massivenumber, because some of you are
saying well, I burn 2,000calories.
How is this possible?
Because that's the differencebetween, you know, maintaining
your weight and losing twopounds a week, for example, or
(20:57):
whatever.
The math comes out to be Neat.
So what does neat include?
It includes everything that'snot structured exercise or
training.
So it includes, yes, walking.
Some people argue that, but itdoes include walking.
It's fidgeting, conscious orotherwise.
It's standing, it's doingchores.
It's even how much you moveyour hands when you talk, like
I'm doing right now on video ifyou're watching the YouTube.
So it's all your spontaneousmovement throughout your day,
(21:23):
and, yes, even walking, which isnot always spontaneous.
Sometimes it is, sometimes itisn't.
And I'll say, the insidiousthing, when you are restricting
calories and you're trying tolose fat, is that your body then
does a double whammo andsubconsciously reduces your NEAT
to conserve the energy thatyou're depriving it of right?
People don't realize that that,oh, I'm in a fat loss phase.
I should.
The weight should start flyingoff and all of a sudden, I'm
(21:45):
hitting this plateau, and itcould be because you're not
moving as much in all thesedifferent ways.
Rosenbaum and Liebel's researchfrom 2010 show that during
weight loss, your bodyimplements what is called
adaptive thermogenesis Okay, andI'm just mentioning one study
that refers to this term in thelast 15 years.
(22:06):
This is a concept we've knownabout for a long time.
It is the idea that your total,your metabolism, your daily
energy expenditure drops becauseof the unconscious reduction in
your movement.
That's what it is.
There are other reasons yourmetabolism drops during fat loss
, one of those being that you'relosing weight and you weigh
(22:26):
less, and the other being thehormones, the hormone
downregulation, but the factthat you're simply moving less
due to your neat dropping andmuch of it is unconscious is
also a significant factor, andyou might not realize it's
happening.
You might like take theelevator instead of the stairs,
you might sit more, you mightfidget less, you might walk
slower, and the tiny changesthen add up.
(22:47):
They accumulate up to hundredsof calories a day, potentially
right.
And so I think the solution isawareness of these things and
tracking things like step countright.
I think step count is a greatproxy because all these things I
just mentioned generally arereflected in your steps, and so
if you notice your steps go from8,000 a day to like 7,000 a day
maybe it's only a thousandsteps, but on average you're now
(23:09):
giving yourself, makingyourself a little bit harder to
lose fat and if you could aimfor around seven to nine or
10,000 steps a day you know10,000 has always been touted in
popular media, but it's a goodnumber, it's a good round number
to remember.
I always encourage clients togo for 10 to 12,000 if they can
really hit that 12,000 mark,because that extra 2000 calories
(23:30):
or steps a day, which is like amile, can make a difference.
You know just the right amountof difference between continuing
with your dieting phase andfeeling fine versus like feeling
like it's you're too hungry andnot eating enough right it's.
It's finding that threshold andletting your little bit of
extra steps and movement pushyou past, push you up into that
(23:52):
higher regime where you couldeat just a little more and still
lose at the same rate.
And so if you're tracking yoursteps, that's great, but then
you could also trigger yourselfto change your behavior.
Walking after meals is awesome,love it.
It's great for blood sugarright, it's great for recovery,
insulin sensitivity, all thatgreat stuff.
(24:13):
It's one of the best times towalk.
If you're going to pick a time,using a standing desk, pacing
during phone calls, all the funhacks and just remind yourself
to do it, set reminders, setyourself calendar notices,
things like that.
The goal is really just tomaintain or increase your
movement when you're in acalorie deficit.
So if you're able to do thisahead of time, before you go
into your fat loss phase and youknow, hey, I'm getting 7,000
(24:34):
steps a day I definitely don'twant to drop when I go into
deficit.
If anything, I want to try toramp it up a bit.
So that's tip number five isneat, and what a huge factor it
can have in your metabolism.
Now, just to caveat, the 2,000calories.
I believe that that differencewas between sedentary people and
then the most active jobs youcan imagine right Construction
(24:57):
or what have you and so,realistically, we're not
expecting you to increase yourmetabolism by that much.
You're going to be probablysomewhere in the middle and you
can bump it up by a few hundredcalories is the way I would
frame this.
All right, tip number six out ofseven from 70 years of research
, is that muscle mass is aninsurance policy for fat loss.
(25:17):
Right Now, we all love musclefor how it looks.
We love it for its strength andfunction, but it also is a huge
metabolic insurance policy.
I've talked before about howthe industry, the fitness
industry, overplays the factthat muscle is an expensive
tissue and it burns a bunch ofcalories, because it does, but
(25:38):
it doesn't.
It burns calories, but it'slike six to at most nine
calories per day for each pound.
Now if you have an extra 10pounds of muscle, that's up to
90 pounds a day.
I mean, think about it.
You're like, okay, that'sdecent, but it's not this huge
game changer that people talkabout.
Build muscle and you just rampup your metabolism, but muscle
does so much more.
That then downstream actuallydoes increase your metabolism
(26:02):
and make a lot of things easier.
For example, your muscle is ahuge sink for glucose.
It improves glucose disposaland that means that you can
handle carbs better and I meanbetter by a mile, by infinitely
better, to where you can consumemassive amounts of carbs and
make them go to good use.
And then you open up theflexibility in your diet as well
(26:25):
and all the other benefits thatcome along with carbs, like
reduced stress, better nervoussystem, more anti-catabolism,
where you hold onto protein oryou hold onto muscle tissue,
like just so many benefits.
Muscle also enhances nutrientpartitioning.
More calories then hold on tomuscle tissue, like just so many
benefits.
Muscle also enhances nutrientpartitioning.
More calories then get directedtoward muscle tissue rather
than fat storage.
So it's like a virtuous cyclewhen you have muscle mass and of
(26:49):
course, it provides a hugebuffer against sarcopenia as you
age.
By definition, sarcopenia isthe loss of muscle mass and that
is the root of many of theage-related problems diseases,
frailty, injury and ultimatelypharmacology, which is being on
multiple medications, and deathand I don't mean that to sound
(27:12):
dire, and yet it is.
I'm a huge advocate of amuscle-centric approach to all
of this.
Yes, we need to manage our bodyweight, for sure, and our body
fat, but muscle's part of thatequation, so we might as well
also try to maximize that.
Now there's a lesson we cantake from bodybuilding.
Since the 80s, bodybuildershave shown us that muscle can be
(27:34):
manipulated pretty tremendouslythrough bulking and cutting.
Now, whether they're on gear ornot right, whether they're on
anabolic steroids or not, it's amodel for the fact that you
could eat a lot more food duringa muscle building phase without
getting that fat.
You know, if you eat it at theright rate, you can put on a lot
of muscle and not too much fat.
And again, even when you'renatural, when you're not taking
(27:57):
special drugs to gain thissystem, I've worked with many,
many, many clients and I've doneit myself now probably five
times in the last five yearsmuscle building phases where you
are deliberately gaining weightand you're putting on muscle
and you don't gain that much fat.
You gain some fat and then youdiet down you fat loss to lower
(28:18):
body fat levels and preserve themuscle mass.
And, of course, bodybuilders dothis to an extreme right.
They have the off season theimprovement season, they call it
.
They pack on all this muscle.
They might gain 20, 30 poundsand then they go into fat loss
for pretty long fat loss phase,way beyond what any of us need
to do.
But again, it's an example ofthe extremes of what happens.
And they go to extremely lowvascular levels of quite lean
(28:40):
body fat levels, and yet they'reable to preserve their muscle
mass and that's because they'rebuilding this metabolic engine.
They're focusing first andforemost on the muscle mass and
then only using the fat loss toreveal that muscle.
More muscle means you canmaintain a leaner physique,
probably at a higher scaleweight, while eating more
calories.
Don't we all want all of that?
(29:02):
More muscle, more food.
And when I say higher scaleweight, I know you're thinking I
don't want that, but what itmeans is you can be leaner at a
higher scale weight than youthink, which gives you more
flexibility regarding scaleweight for how to live your life
and sustain all of this andthen eat a good amount of food.
(29:23):
You have metabolic flexibility,you have better hormonal
profile, you have higher insulinsensitivity.
You have stronger, denser bones.
And what does this alltranslate to?
Right?
Not just looking good.
Better long-term healthoutcomes period right All the
things we hear people complainabout online and wondering what
the fix is for.
If they were just liftingweights and building muscle, the
vast majority of those thingswould go away or be
(29:44):
significantly mitigated,including many, many, many
people who think it's theirhormones.
So this is why resistancetraining is not optional.
It is the foundation ofsustainable fat loss.
I wish people would not thinkof fat loss as like dieting.
I want people to think of fatloss as having muscle right and
supporting your metabolic engine, and then you can manipulate
(30:05):
your energy stores as needed toreveal your muscle.
That, to me, is fat loss.
It's not losing weight, allright.
Tip number seven, the last tipfrom 70 years of research, is
that sustainability beats speedevery time.
Now we talked about adherenceearlier, how the adherence of a
(30:26):
diet is more important than thetype of diet.
Well, this is related in a way,but it's also related to the
concept of quick fixes andimpatience in our modern world
and the way things are marketed,and it might be the most
important one for your long-termsuccess.
There was a study in 2016 byFothergill and colleagues
(30:49):
following up the biggest losercontestants.
Now I did a separate episodejust on biggest loser follow-up.
You can find it in my feed, butthey were looking at what
happened six years later, afterthe biggest loser contestants
lost all this weight in thiscompetition.
It was a TV competition andmost had regained their weight
and had very significantlysuppressed metabolic rates
(31:11):
compared to where they werebefore the show.
And this is six years later.
Right and for sure, metabolismscan recover, but it's a matter
of degrees, and how much you'vebeat it up over the years tells
you how long it's then going totake to recover.
It's kind of a symmetricalcurve here tells you how long
it's then going to take torecover.
It's kind of a symmetricalcurve here.
And the reason here is becausethey used very aggressive
(31:35):
dieting, very excessive amountsof cardio, and that's exactly
the opposite of what I've beendiscussing today.
That is supported by theevidence.
Rapid weight loss is going toincrease your adaptive
thermogenesis, it's going toincrease the muscle loss, it's
going to increase yourpsychological stress and that
creates the perfect storm forthe rebound weight gain, right,
and then the cardio and the lackof muscle and all of that stuff
(31:57):
.
Research shows, conversely, thatmoderate sustained deficits of
about 500 calories a day 500calories a day, which is a nice
round number it comes out to bea pound of weight loss per week.
For a lot of people that'sabout a half to 1% of their
weight.
Right, it depends on how muchyou weigh.
Of course that moderatedeficits around 500 calories are
(32:18):
associated with betterlong-term outcomes.
We know smaller deficits thanthat.
The problem is they're notenough to move the needle
meaningfully and your body mighteven adapt into them.
And then we know that muchlarger calories per day is just
not sustainable.
It ends up causing all theproblems we saw with the Biggest
Loser maybe not to that extent,but to some degree along that
(32:40):
spectrum.
And it's not just the physicalside effects, they're.
You know, when you have asustainable rate of loss which
I'm a huge advocate of findingout what's the rate of loss you
need to stick to the diet anddon't care about the amount of
weight you have to lose.
Let the rate of loss tell youhow much you lose over a certain
(33:02):
timeframe and then you can say,okay, at this rate of loss, I'm
going to end up at this weightby this date.
And what are you going to do?
Also, when you're at asustainable rate of loss?
You're going to end up at thisweight by this date.
And what are you going to do?
Also, when you're at asustainable rate of loss?
You're going to preserve yourmuscle mass.
It's huge.
You're going to maintain energyfor the training itself because
you're trying to preservemuscle mass via training.
And if you feel wiped outbecause you're crash dieting,
(33:23):
you're not going to have thatenergy.
It's going to allow you to havea social life, because now
you're not saying no toeverything that gets put in
front of you.
You can still enjoy going outto eat and parties and things
like that, with someself-restraint.
Obviously it also helps you tolearn skills and habits
sustainable habits.
What even does that mean?
(33:43):
So many of you are listening.
You've never had that in yourlife and I feel you because I
used to be there.
The up and down, the crashdieting, the extreme approaches,
the next quick fix you get tolearn sustainable habits.
In fact, I just had a call witha client who we went through a
fat loss phase.
We did her pre-diet maintenancephase, we did the fat loss
phase and now we're at asustaining phase and she's like
(34:06):
I don't even want to do anythingdifferent for a while because I
realized that it takes skillsto even sustain your result.
There are skills you have toput in place.
And if you're constantly tryingto diet, especially do it
aggressively, you're never goingto build those skills.
And then, of course, you'regoing to avoid the psychological
stress, the fatigue of theextreme dieting it's the white
knuckling, it's the crash.
(34:27):
You know, like I'm in diet moderight now, I have to say no,
I'm on a diet Like all thatlanguage effectively goes away
when you're only in a moderatedeficit.
A moderate deficit is just, youknow, some good meal planning,
some tweaks, a little moreprotein, more whole foods it's
just some tweaks.
A crash diet is a whole gamechange or a whole change in your
(34:50):
entire lifestyle.
That's extreme.
So if you use things like dietbreaks along the way, if you use
maintenance phases, if you useperiodization, if you use
refeeds, all of those can reducethe physiological and
psychological fatigue, even ontop of the fact that you're
going at a moderate rate of loss.
So think of fat loss as a seriesof strategically designed
(35:14):
phases.
It's not a sprint to the finishline.
I got to get, I got to lose theweight.
If your mentality is I got tolose the weight, you're already
screwed and you're not ready forfat loss, to be honest, because
the goal isn't to lose weightas fast as possible.
It is to lose fat whilebuilding the lifestyle where you
can maintain that fat loss longterm, involving all the tips we
just talked about today.
So tying all these together.
(35:36):
This really isn't just about fatloss, is it?
It's really optimizing the wayyou live, right, and when you do
these things, you don't justlose fat.
You start to build arelationship with your body that
is based on trusting yourselfrather than punishing yourself,
rather than having guilt and alow sense of self-worth.
You trust yourself, you haveconfidence, you develop skills
(35:58):
that then compound over time.
It is a form of personal growthand development and you become
someone who understands how yourbody responds to the different
inputs.
It's what we're all about,because you know what.
No matter how much science youlook at, it doesn't matter until
you try it out for yourself andsee how your body responds,
because I guarantee you're goingto be an outlier with something
(36:19):
, and that's okay and you figureit out.
You'll figure it out doing it.
I've worked with clients who'veimplemented these principles and
for years later you know,obviously they they eventually
fire me because they're likeokay, you just taught me
everything I need to know You'renot everything.
A lot of them come back becausethere's there's next levels of
of knowledge here inoptimization, but still they.
(36:42):
They have a confidence and afreedom that they can go forward
and maintain the results andcontinue to improve.
They may have come to melistening to the podcast,
understanding the science andstill not quite getting how to
make that work for them.
And when you put all theseprinciples into place the
(37:02):
sustainability, along with, yes,the calorie deficit and the
training, the protein and theadherence, all of it, doing,
know, doing it, a reasonablerate of loss, et cetera Then you
become physically and mentallystronger, you become more
confident and you have sort of atoolkit for your life that's
going to carry you forwardforever.
And remember the research we'vecovered today.
I deliberately wanted to go backas far as I could and say how
(37:24):
long have we been looking at fatloss?
And it's like anywhere fromfive to seven decades.
It's thousands of studies,millions of participants.
It's decades of humanexperimentation, but it's more
of a roadmap than anything.
It's a starting point.
Yes, you're going to becomestrong, you become lean, you're
going to become healthy.
That is what it's all about.
But you've got to try thesethings for yourself.
And the big irony with all ofthis, with everything that we
(37:47):
talk about all the time on Witsand Weights, is if you focus on
sustainability and principlesinstead of the next quick thing,
you're probably gonna achieveyour goal faster, right?
Because you're not constantlyfailing and starting over.
So there you have it.
All right, seven tips backed by70 years of research.
Your calorie deficit isnon-negotiable, but how you
(38:09):
create it is very flexible.
Protein is your secret weaponfor preserving muscle and
controlling your appetite.
Resistance training is gonnabeat cardio for body composition
.
Every time, diet adherence isgoing to matter more than diet
type.
Neat can make or break yourresults.
That's your movement.
Muscle mass I'm up to numbersix two hands.
(38:29):
Here is your metabolicinsurance policy.
And sustainability always beatsspeed.
And these work.
Guess what?
Whether you are 19 or 79,whether you have 10 pounds to
lose or 100, whether you're justgetting started or you are
advanced, these principles work,just to different degrees and
different levels ofcustomization to the application
(38:52):
.
All right, if you're ready toimplement these in practice,
grab my Ultimate Macros Guide.
It covers everythingwitsandweightscom slash free or
click the link in the show notes.
Gives you formulas, steps,explanations, the science behind
this, all the things you needto care about, I'll say, to put
in place what we've coveredtoday and put it into action,
because knowledge bingingcontent without implementing it
(39:14):
this is just entertainment,folks.
It's just info that's gonna goin one ear and out the other,
and I want you to get results.
I want you to put this stuffinto action and, until next time
, I want you to keep using yourwits, lifting those weights, and
remember that when sciencespeaks, smart people listen, but
it's up to you to put it intopractice.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights Podcast
(39:36):
.
70 years of fat loss research, thousands of
studies, millions ofparticipants, and you could boil
it all down to a few keyprinciples that determine
whether you succeed or fail.
So today we're going to giveyou seven tips from those 70
years of research.
Not trends, not theory.
It's based on conclusions frommajor studies NASA's studies in
(00:21):
the 70s, landmark trialspublished in major journals like
the New England Journal ofMedicine, metabolic chamber
studies.
You'll discover why the biggestloser contestants, regained all
their weight six years later,how one factor can swing your
daily calorie burn by 2,000calories and why the diet that
works best has nothing to dowith cutting carbs or even
(00:43):
counting macros.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach, philip Pape,
(01:05):
and today we're going to cutthrough seven decades of
research to bring you the onlyfat loss strategies that really
rise to the top, that actuallymatter.
And I get it.
The fitness industry loves toovercomplicate fat loss.
Talk about optimization and newdiets, new supplements, new
(01:25):
exercise protocols.
There's always somethingpromising to be the answer, the
shortcut, the magic pill.
But when you step back and lookat the seven decades of high
quality research, from metabolicchamber studies to landmark
trials involving thousands ofparticipants that have held up
over this entire duration, thereare clear patterns that emerge.
(01:48):
They're things that we justknow work, and today I'm going
to share what those are sevenprinciples that have stood the
test of time that are backed bystudies upon studies upon
studies.
And as much as science cannever be perfect, we can never
fully prove things there arethings we just know that work
because, at any level of theevidence from scientific
(02:09):
research to coaching practice,to anecdote, to individual
experimentation we know thatthese things go far beyond
hypothesis, opinion, theory.
They are as close as we couldget to what we call facts or
truth that are derived frominvestigating the key questions
around fat loss.
(02:29):
Now, before we get into theseseven tips, I want to give you
something that will makeimplementing them just a bit
easier.
I have a guide that's beenaround for a while.
It's a really solid one, of ourmost popular, called the
ultimate macros guide.
It's actually an ebook and thatbreaks down how to set up your
nutrition for fat loss,preserving muscle, long-term
success, but it also talks abouta lot of aspects of nutrition
(02:53):
and supplementation andperiodization.
All of it.
It's completely free.
It includes the approach that Iuse with clients and the
philosophy we're discussingtoday.
That again is backed by theevidence.
Just go to witsowaitscom, slashfree or click the link in the
show notes to grab your copy ofthe Ultimate Macros Guide.
And, by the way, it's beenedited over the years as I've
(03:14):
gotten feedback from many of youwho have either challenged me
on things that were kind of onthe edge of evidence-based or
who just wanted their questionsanswered.
So go get your ultimate macrosguide today, link in the show
notes.
All right, so seven tips from 70years of research.
I'm going to give you thescience, the practical
(03:34):
application and then, mostimportantly, why this matters
for your results.
So let's start with principlenumber one, or tip number one a
calorie deficit isnon-negotiable.
Now let's talk about theelephant in the room, right,
energy balance, calorie deficitsand I know some of you are
rolling your eyes thinking thisis obvious.
This is simplistic.
(03:54):
I've been listening to yourshow for a while, philip.
Of course, calories in,calories out works,
thermodynamics make sense, butthere is so much nuance behind
that and it is always worthrepeating and understanding what
the evidence says over that 70years of research.
So the science behind this wasfirst quantified using metabolic
(04:14):
chamber studies in the mid-20thcentury.
If anybody is as old as me,they've been around since that
time.
I was born in 1980, just forreference.
Now we're talking about.
Metabolic chambers arecontrolled environments and
researchers are able to measurewhat is eaten, every calorie
that's consumed and burned.
They use all sorts of equipmentto figure this out.
(04:35):
And the first law ofthermodynamics you probably
heard about it before fromphysics it is the principle of
the universe that energy cannotbe created or destroyed.
It can only be transferred, andthat's really important to
understand because we still haveto validate that when it comes
to human beings and our foodconsumption, our energy.
(04:56):
There's a study by Hall et alit was a landmark study in 2011
in science, translationalmedicine and they took people
and put them in a controlled,inpatient setting Think of it
like a laboratory for humans andwhen calories were matched, low
carb and low fat diets resultedin identical fat loss identical
.
And we've seen time and timeagain where calories are
(05:18):
controlled, no matter what themacros look like, we tend to see
almost identical results.
It doesn't matter if you'refasting, it doesn't matter when
it's controlled for calories wehave the same results.
Very important why this mattersis any argument about this
versus calories.
It's my hormones versuscalories are missing the point.
(05:38):
In fact, the whole GLP-1Ozempic craze now is proving the
fact that it is about energybalance, because those medicines
cause only one thing you to eatless.
And when you eat less, you loseweight because you go into a
calorie deficit.
This is just a law of physics.
Yes, hormones influence howmuch you want to eat and how
much energy you expend.
(06:00):
Right, and that's the otherside of the equation we have to
think about when we say caloriesin, calories out the calories
out side is highly influenced byso many complex factors,
including calories in.
So even what you eat and howmuch you're taking in it affects
how much you burn, and so wecan't override thermodynamics.
You know again, the new GLP-1medications reduce appetite,
(06:22):
which reduces calorie intake,and that's a great modern proof
of this principle.
So the takeaway is for fat loss,to lose fat, you have to be in
a calorie deficit.
Now, of course, people aregoing to say what about body
recomposition, where you gainmuscle and lose fat?
That is a very tiny corner case, which does exist, where you're
taking in enough energy to packon some muscle while also
(06:44):
losing fat.
But you're losing fat becauseyou don't have enough net energy
to support your current fatstores and therefore your fat is
lost.
But when we're talking aboutmeaningful fat loss right, more
than a few pounds you're tryingto lose fat.
You have to be in a caloriedeficit.
The method you create thatdeficit, with whether it's your
food choice, your meal timing,how you train, how you move,
(07:07):
even medication that part is farmore flexible than people
realize, and that's one of themessages of wits and weights is
that there are many roads to getthere, which is very empowering
when you know that your foodcan be flexible.
It's just the guardrails aroundcalories and then macros, for
other reasons besides weightloss, that come into play.
(07:29):
So principle one is caloriedeficit is non-negotiable.
Tip number two is that proteinpreserves muscle and controls
hunger.
This is an important principlefrom fat loss research, because
if you're not eating enoughprotein, you miss out on not
only lots and lots of sidebenefits of eating protein, but
(07:52):
the very purpose that protein,the very reason that we consume
protein, which is the metabolicadvantage for our muscle
building and our musclepreservation while we're losing
weight, so that we don't losemuscle.
Now, there are lots ofadvantages of protein.
One of them is the thermiceffect of feeding, meaning that
(08:13):
the energy cost of digesting andprocessing protein is highest
of all the macros.
It's about 20 to 30% ofcalories consumed, compared to
five to 10% for carbs and closeto zero for fats.
So if you eat 100 calories ofprotein, your body's going to
burn 20 to 30 calories justprocessing the protein.
(08:35):
Perhaps more importantly for alot of you, though, when it
comes to fat loss, is howprotein affects your hunger
hormones.
Patton Jones and his or hercolleagues showed in 2008 that
protein suppresses ghrelin,that's your hunger hormone.
It then increases GLP-1, pyyand CCK, which are your satiety
(08:57):
hormones.
You literally feel fuller andmore satisfied, so it's kind of
the natural GLP-1.
Never like to overstate theeffects compared to very
powerful medications, but it'simportant to understand how
protein increases fullness,satiety Also.
This is what I alluded to asperhaps the most important
reason we eat protein is duringa calorie deficit.
(09:17):
Right?
Tip number one your body wantsto break down tissue because it
needs energy.
It's looking for energy andprotein, especially when it's
combined with resistance.
Training is telling your bodylet's preserve muscle tissue
when you're seeking out thoseenergy sources.
Let's not go after that,because that's important.
Let's pull it from your fatstores instead.
(09:39):
If you're not eating protein,if you're not strength training,
the body's like well, I'm goingto take it from where I can get
it, and that includes yourmuscle mass.
This is why people on GLP-1lose massive amounts of muscle,
for the most part when they'renot training and eating protein,
and they're obviously.
Crash dieting is effectivelythe result.
Again, when lifestyle is notcontrolled.
For We've said it before butI'll say it again Studies show
(10:01):
we need about 0.7 to 1 gram perpound of body weight of protein,
or about 1.6 to 2.2 grams perkilogram of body weight, and
that's a super optimal,well-supported range for the
vast majority of people.
Now, eric Helms you guys knowhim, he's been on the show a
couple of times and his researchteam.
(10:22):
They found that leanindividuals in extreme deficits
might need higher intake, up to,say, three grams per kilogram,
but for most of you, the 0.7 toone gram per pound and I'm sorry
, I'm such a between metric andImperial here is the sweet spot.
So when it comes to protein,it's pretty simple.
It doesn't matter when you getit, as long as you get your
total.
(10:42):
It's helpful practically to tryto spread it across your meals.
It also is good because of thesatiety and there's a tiny
optimal effect for musclebuilding and preservation when
you spread it out.
But it is very, very smallBecause your body can utilize
protein very intelligently, nomatter how you eat it.
Even if it's in large what theycall boluses, you eat a lot at
(11:03):
once, but practically it helpsto.
If it's in large what they callboluses like, you eat a lot at
once, but practically it helpsto spread it throughout the day.
So that's tip number two.
Tip number three is thatresistance training beats cardio
for body composition.
Now, this is important becausesome of you are going to say,
wait, I've heard recent studiesthat say cardio is actually
really helpful for fat loss, andyes, it can be.
To an extent, moving your body,increasing calorie burn, can
(11:26):
help.
But we're not talking aboutjust dropping fat.
We're also talking aboutholding onto the muscle while
doing that.
I should reword what I justsaid we're not talking about
dropping weight, we're talkingabout holding onto muscle while
dropping weight, so that whatyou drop is mostly fat.
And that's where resistancetraining is by far the perhaps
most important principle for howyou actually look when you
(11:49):
reach your goal weight, becauseit's not about the weight on the
scale, it's about losing fat,building muscle, becoming fitter
, becoming leaner, and soresistance training absolutely
is non-negotiable for that.
So it is one of the threenon-negotiables.
Besides protein, protein andrecovery for fat loss.
Go look up my episode calledthe 3 plus 3 optimal model of
(12:09):
fat loss, and that is one of thethree non-negotiables.
Now, back in the 1970s, nasa wasstudying what happens to
astronauts in space and theydiscovered that without the
mechanical loading right,without the resistance training
against your muscles which weget from gravity here on Earth,
muscle breakdown accelerateddramatically.
I mean, we know this now thatin people in outer space and
(12:32):
this is one of the challenges ofpotentially going to Mars is
the significant muscle loss andwhat you have to try to do to
hold on to that.
And it was one of the firstmajor clues that resistance
training provides a uniquesignal that you can't get from
cardio, and that's whyastronauts are expected to use
(12:52):
resistance of some form.
Right, it's definitely notgoing to be a barbell when
you're up in the space station.
There's bands and there's allsorts of rigs that they have for
this, but it's a great way toshow how resistance training is
necessary.
There was a 2015 meta-analysisby Strasser and Schobertsberger,
(13:13):
and it looked at dozens ofstudies.
This is a study of studies thatcompared resistance training to
aerobic exercise for bodycomposition and, no surprise,
they found that resistancetraining preserved lean mass
better than aerobic trainingevery time.
And there was a recent studydone by Dr Bill Campbell that, I
believe, showed the same thing.
In his study, they showed whatsome people found surprising,
(13:36):
which is that, yes, cardio canactually be quite effective for
fat loss, but resistancetraining was better at
preserving lean mass.
So that's why, when we talkabout body composition, you need
both.
You definitely need theresistance training, and then
moving through walking andthrough some strategic forms of
cardio help move the needle abit more on the being able to
(13:56):
burn more calories withouthaving to eat less, so to speak.
When you're dieting, your bodyis in an energy deficit.
Right?
Principle number one it needsto get energy from somewhere,
and weight lifting, or liftingweights training, sends what we
call an anabolic signal.
Anabolic means build.
We need this muscle tissue andwe need to build muscle tissue
(14:18):
to replace the tissue that'sbreaking down because we're in
this energy deficit, becausewe're in this energy deficit.
Without that signal, your bodyhappily breaks down the muscle
for energy, because muscle ismetabolically expensive to
maintain.
You don't need to live in thegym, you don't.
You can train as little as two,and even some approaches you can
get away with once a week, butfor most people it's going to be
(14:40):
three to four.
For older individuals, let'ssay over in their 60s, 70s,
sometimes I see two being moreeffective because of recovery,
but for most of you it's goingto be three to four sessions per
week focused on the bigmovement patterns squatting,
deadlifting, pressing, rowing,pulling right, that's
deadlifting.
But other types of pulls aswell, which work multiple muscle
(15:03):
groups right, we call themcompound lifts.
They work multiple joints,multiple muscle groups.
They give you the biggest bangfor your buck and you are
progressing.
You're using progressiveoverload, which is a gradual
increase in weights or reps andor sets over time.
You're challenging your bodymore and more over time and if
you are not getting stronger, ifyou're not able to push harder,
you're not providing theanabolic signal your body needs,
(15:25):
with the caveat that, whileyou're in fat loss and
potentially losing weight, yourrelative strength is probably
more important than yourabsolute strength because you
don't have as many resourcescoming in.
But what I like to tell peopleis just train as if you're able
to get stronger and build muscle, and that should be sufficient
to hold on to that muscle, allright.
Tip number four is that dietadherence beats diet type every
(15:52):
single time, and for those ofyou newer to the show or to the
philosophy we espouse here, thismight surprise you, especially
if you're caught up in all thedebates online about the right
diet keto versus plant-based,versus carnivore versus
intermittent fasting.
There's something new every day, especially with TikTok and
social media.
(16:12):
You've got people inventingdiets left and right.
You know the sugar diets.
I mean all sorts of things thatare all based on a type of diet
like exactly what you eat, butwe know that that actually
doesn't matter.
What matters is are you able toadhere to your diet?
Because if you can adhere to it, it's sustainable, and then,
once it's sustainable, you cantweak the levers to get to the
(16:33):
goal you need and actually beable to do it.
There was a landmark studycalled the Diet FITS trial,
published in JAMA in 2018, andit followed 600 people for 12
months.
Half of them did low carb, halfof them did low fat.
Guess what?
No significant difference inweight loss.
I alluded to this in principle.
(16:54):
One tip number one about acalorie deficit no difference.
The A to Z trial did somethingsimilar.
They compared Atkins Zone,ornish and Learn.
Same result no meaningfuldifference.
When you look at the bigpicture and control for calories
, the SAC study in the NewEngland Journal of Medicine
tested different combinations ofmacros of protein, fats and
(17:16):
carbs.
So it wasn't really about thefood specifically, just
different macros of protein,fats and carbs.
So it wasn't really about thefood specifically, just
different macros.
Again, no significantdifference in fat loss when
calories were controlled.
Okay, and you might say well,wait, what about?
You talk about protein and thisand that.
Again, we're talking about whatmoves the needle versus what's
optimal.
Yes, you need a sufficientamount of protein, but you don't
(17:36):
need massive amounts of protein.
Most people are getting toolittle protein.
But when calories arecontrolled, that alone is going
to have the biggest lever whenit comes to the rate of weight
loss.
So what actually matters?
Well, it's adherence.
Can you adhere?
The diet that works is the oneyou can stick to without feeling
deprived or feeling restricted.
These elegant, scientificallydesigned diets, the ones in the
(18:01):
beautifully polished books onthe shelf or on Amazon or
whatever your Kindle.
They're all worthless if youcan't follow them.
Now, if you can follow them,they can be very helpful tools.
They really can be.
I'm not arguing that.
I'm not arguing that awell-prescribed set of foods and
meal plans and recipes thatgive you some structure and
direction that you can stick tobecause you enjoy it.
(18:23):
I'm not arguing that that can'talso be successful for you
because of the adherence factor.
In fact, I was on paleo foryears, and part of the reason I
was able to stick to it so longis it was flexible enough to
have all the foods I enjoyed.
It had meats, vegetables,fruits, I think, yeah, it just
didn't have grains.
It had other forms of carbs,right, fruits, and it had.
(18:44):
There was no dairy in there,but there's.
It depends on the version ofpaleo you follow.
But anyway, I was able to eat alot of variety of foods and
there were a bunch of greatrecipes that I would make, and
so I was okay with it.
Compared, and so I was okaywith it.
Compared to how I eat now, itwasn't nearly as flexible as how
I eat now, because now I canenjoy just about any food, which
is awesome, and so this shouldbe liberating.
That's my point.
You don't have to cut out entirefood groups, you don't have to
(19:06):
eat foods you hate, and you caneat foods you love, and you can
build your fat loss plan aroundthose and around your cultural
preferences, your family, yourschedule, your lifestyle, your
vacations, your travel all thethings that life has for us that
are amazing.
A lot of them are around food.
Just a quick reminder because Idon't want to get too off track
here.
But if you're finding value inthese fat loss principles, I
(19:29):
want you to grab my UltimateMacros Guide.
Go ahead and pause the episode,go to witsandweightscom slash
free, or click the link in theshow notes.
You're going to see a lot ofthese philosophies put out into
practice, you know, explained inactual step-by-steps of what to
do.
It's going to help youimplement what we're covering
today, so you might want tofollow along.
Go grab the ultimate macrosguide, click the link in the
show notes or go to what's theweightscom slash free.
(19:51):
All right.
Tip number five neat, can'tneat.
I'm going to explain what thatis.
Neat and I'm not saying NEAT forthose of you who are Monty
Python fans.
Neat can make or break yourdeficit.
What is NEAT?
Neat stands for non-exerciseactivity thermogenesis.
It is a component of yourmetabolism and I still believe
(20:14):
it is the most underestimatedfactor in fat loss success.
There is research by JamesLevin published in Science in
1999.
And I love this study.
I love this study because it'seye-opening.
It showed that NEAT can vary.
Your non-exercise activitythermogenesis how many calories
you burn from non-structuredactivity throughout the day is
(20:35):
how many calories you burn fromnon-structured activity
throughout the day can vary byup to 2,000 calories per day
between individuals of the samesize.
And it seems unbelievable.
Right?
That sounds like a massivenumber, because some of you are
saying well, I burn 2,000calories.
How is this possible?
Because that's the differencebetween, you know, maintaining
your weight and losing twopounds a week, for example, or
(20:57):
whatever.
The math comes out to be Neat.
So what does neat include?
It includes everything that'snot structured exercise or
training.
So it includes, yes, walking.
Some people argue that, but itdoes include walking.
It's fidgeting, conscious orotherwise.
It's standing, it's doingchores.
It's even how much you moveyour hands when you talk, like
I'm doing right now on video ifyou're watching the YouTube.
So it's all your spontaneousmovement throughout your day,
(21:23):
and, yes, even walking, which isnot always spontaneous.
Sometimes it is, sometimes itisn't.
And I'll say, the insidiousthing, when you are restricting
calories and you're trying tolose fat, is that your body then
does a double whammo andsubconsciously reduces your NEAT
to conserve the energy thatyou're depriving it of right?
People don't realize that that,oh, I'm in a fat loss phase.
I should.
The weight should start flyingoff and all of a sudden, I'm
(21:45):
hitting this plateau, and itcould be because you're not
moving as much in all thesedifferent ways.
Rosenbaum and Liebel's researchfrom 2010 show that during
weight loss, your bodyimplements what is called
adaptive thermogenesis Okay, andI'm just mentioning one study
that refers to this term in thelast 15 years.
(22:06):
This is a concept we've knownabout for a long time.
It is the idea that your total,your metabolism, your daily
energy expenditure drops becauseof the unconscious reduction in
your movement.
That's what it is.
There are other reasons yourmetabolism drops during fat loss
, one of those being that you'relosing weight and you weigh
(22:26):
less, and the other being thehormones, the hormone
downregulation, but the factthat you're simply moving less
due to your neat dropping andmuch of it is unconscious is
also a significant factor, andyou might not realize it's
happening.
You might like take theelevator instead of the stairs,
you might sit more, you mightfidget less, you might walk
slower, and the tiny changesthen add up.
(22:47):
They accumulate up to hundredsof calories a day, potentially
right.
And so I think the solution isawareness of these things and
tracking things like step countright.
I think step count is a greatproxy because all these things I
just mentioned generally arereflected in your steps, and so
if you notice your steps go from8,000 a day to like 7,000 a day
maybe it's only a thousandsteps, but on average you're now
(23:09):
giving yourself, makingyourself a little bit harder to
lose fat and if you could aimfor around seven to nine or
10,000 steps a day you know10,000 has always been touted in
popular media, but it's a goodnumber, it's a good round number
to remember.
I always encourage clients togo for 10 to 12,000 if they can
really hit that 12,000 mark,because that extra 2000 calories
(23:30):
or steps a day, which is like amile, can make a difference.
You know just the right amountof difference between continuing
with your dieting phase andfeeling fine versus like feeling
like it's you're too hungry andnot eating enough right it's.
It's finding that threshold andletting your little bit of
extra steps and movement pushyou past, push you up into that
(23:52):
higher regime where you couldeat just a little more and still
lose at the same rate.
And so if you're tracking yoursteps, that's great, but then
you could also trigger yourselfto change your behavior.
Walking after meals is awesome,love it.
It's great for blood sugarright, it's great for recovery,
insulin sensitivity, all thatgreat stuff.
(24:13):
It's one of the best times towalk.
If you're going to pick a time,using a standing desk, pacing
during phone calls, all the funhacks and just remind yourself
to do it, set reminders, setyourself calendar notices,
things like that.
The goal is really just tomaintain or increase your
movement when you're in acalorie deficit.
So if you're able to do thisahead of time, before you go
into your fat loss phase and youknow, hey, I'm getting 7,000
(24:34):
steps a day I definitely don'twant to drop when I go into
deficit.
If anything, I want to try toramp it up a bit.
So that's tip number five isneat, and what a huge factor it
can have in your metabolism.
Now, just to caveat, the 2,000calories.
I believe that that differencewas between sedentary people and
then the most active jobs youcan imagine right Construction
(24:57):
or what have you and so,realistically, we're not
expecting you to increase yourmetabolism by that much.
You're going to be probablysomewhere in the middle and you
can bump it up by a few hundredcalories is the way I would
frame this.
All right, tip number six out ofseven from 70 years of research
, is that muscle mass is aninsurance policy for fat loss.
(25:17):
Right Now, we all love musclefor how it looks.
We love it for its strength andfunction, but it also is a huge
metabolic insurance policy.
I've talked before about howthe industry, the fitness
industry, overplays the factthat muscle is an expensive
tissue and it burns a bunch ofcalories, because it does, but
(25:38):
it doesn't.
It burns calories, but it'slike six to at most nine
calories per day for each pound.
Now if you have an extra 10pounds of muscle, that's up to
90 pounds a day.
I mean, think about it.
You're like, okay, that'sdecent, but it's not this huge
game changer that people talkabout.
Build muscle and you just rampup your metabolism, but muscle
does so much more.
That then downstream actuallydoes increase your metabolism
(26:02):
and make a lot of things easier.
For example, your muscle is ahuge sink for glucose.
It improves glucose disposaland that means that you can
handle carbs better and I meanbetter by a mile, by infinitely
better, to where you can consumemassive amounts of carbs and
make them go to good use.
And then you open up theflexibility in your diet as well
(26:25):
and all the other benefits thatcome along with carbs, like
reduced stress, better nervoussystem, more anti-catabolism,
where you hold onto protein oryou hold onto muscle tissue,
like just so many benefits.
Muscle also enhances nutrientpartitioning.
More calories then hold on tomuscle tissue, like just so many
benefits.
Muscle also enhances nutrientpartitioning.
More calories then get directedtoward muscle tissue rather
than fat storage.
So it's like a virtuous cyclewhen you have muscle mass and of
(26:49):
course, it provides a hugebuffer against sarcopenia as you
age.
By definition, sarcopenia isthe loss of muscle mass and that
is the root of many of theage-related problems diseases,
frailty, injury and ultimatelypharmacology, which is being on
multiple medications, and deathand I don't mean that to sound
(27:12):
dire, and yet it is.
I'm a huge advocate of amuscle-centric approach to all
of this.
Yes, we need to manage our bodyweight, for sure, and our body
fat, but muscle's part of thatequation, so we might as well
also try to maximize that.
Now there's a lesson we cantake from bodybuilding.
Since the 80s, bodybuildershave shown us that muscle can be
(27:34):
manipulated pretty tremendouslythrough bulking and cutting.
Now, whether they're on gear ornot right, whether they're on
anabolic steroids or not, it's amodel for the fact that you
could eat a lot more food duringa muscle building phase without
getting that fat.
You know, if you eat it at theright rate, you can put on a lot
of muscle and not too much fat.
And again, even when you'renatural, when you're not taking
(27:57):
special drugs to gain thissystem, I've worked with many,
many, many clients and I've doneit myself now probably five
times in the last five yearsmuscle building phases where you
are deliberately gaining weightand you're putting on muscle
and you don't gain that much fat.
You gain some fat and then youdiet down you fat loss to lower
(28:18):
body fat levels and preserve themuscle mass.
And, of course, bodybuilders dothis to an extreme right.
They have the off season theimprovement season, they call it
.
They pack on all this muscle.
They might gain 20, 30 poundsand then they go into fat loss
for pretty long fat loss phase,way beyond what any of us need
to do.
But again, it's an example ofthe extremes of what happens.
And they go to extremely lowvascular levels of quite lean
(28:40):
body fat levels, and yet they'reable to preserve their muscle
mass and that's because they'rebuilding this metabolic engine.
They're focusing first andforemost on the muscle mass and
then only using the fat loss toreveal that muscle.
More muscle means you canmaintain a leaner physique,
probably at a higher scaleweight, while eating more
calories.
Don't we all want all of that?
(29:02):
More muscle, more food.
And when I say higher scaleweight, I know you're thinking I
don't want that, but what itmeans is you can be leaner at a
higher scale weight than youthink, which gives you more
flexibility regarding scaleweight for how to live your life
and sustain all of this andthen eat a good amount of food.
(29:23):
You have metabolic flexibility,you have better hormonal
profile, you have higher insulinsensitivity.
You have stronger, denser bones.
And what does this alltranslate to?
Right?
Not just looking good.
Better long-term healthoutcomes period right All the
things we hear people complainabout online and wondering what
the fix is for.
If they were just liftingweights and building muscle, the
vast majority of those thingswould go away or be
(29:44):
significantly mitigated,including many, many, many
people who think it's theirhormones.
So this is why resistancetraining is not optional.
It is the foundation ofsustainable fat loss.
I wish people would not thinkof fat loss as like dieting.
I want people to think of fatloss as having muscle right and
supporting your metabolic engine, and then you can manipulate
(30:05):
your energy stores as needed toreveal your muscle.
That, to me, is fat loss.
It's not losing weight, allright.
Tip number seven, the last tipfrom 70 years of research, is
that sustainability beats speedevery time.
Now we talked about adherenceearlier, how the adherence of a
(30:26):
diet is more important than thetype of diet.
Well, this is related in a way,but it's also related to the
concept of quick fixes andimpatience in our modern world
and the way things are marketed,and it might be the most
important one for your long-termsuccess.
There was a study in 2016 byFothergill and colleagues
(30:49):
following up the biggest losercontestants.
Now I did a separate episodejust on biggest loser follow-up.
You can find it in my feed, butthey were looking at what
happened six years later, afterthe biggest loser contestants
lost all this weight in thiscompetition.
It was a TV competition andmost had regained their weight
and had very significantlysuppressed metabolic rates
(31:11):
compared to where they werebefore the show.
And this is six years later.
Right and for sure, metabolismscan recover, but it's a matter
of degrees, and how much you'vebeat it up over the years tells
you how long it's then going totake to recover.
It's kind of a symmetricalcurve here tells you how long
it's then going to take torecover.
It's kind of a symmetricalcurve here.
And the reason here is becausethey used very aggressive
(31:35):
dieting, very excessive amountsof cardio, and that's exactly
the opposite of what I've beendiscussing today.
That is supported by theevidence.
Rapid weight loss is going toincrease your adaptive
thermogenesis, it's going toincrease the muscle loss, it's
going to increase yourpsychological stress and that
creates the perfect storm forthe rebound weight gain, right,
and then the cardio and the lackof muscle and all of that stuff
(31:57):
.
Research shows, conversely, thatmoderate sustained deficits of
about 500 calories a day 500calories a day, which is a nice
round number it comes out to bea pound of weight loss per week.
For a lot of people that'sabout a half to 1% of their
weight.
Right, it depends on how muchyou weigh.
Of course that moderatedeficits around 500 calories are
(32:18):
associated with betterlong-term outcomes.
We know smaller deficits thanthat.
The problem is they're notenough to move the needle
meaningfully and your body mighteven adapt into them.
And then we know that muchlarger calories per day is just
not sustainable.
It ends up causing all theproblems we saw with the Biggest
Loser maybe not to that extent,but to some degree along that
(32:40):
spectrum.
And it's not just the physicalside effects, they're.
You know, when you have asustainable rate of loss which
I'm a huge advocate of findingout what's the rate of loss you
need to stick to the diet anddon't care about the amount of
weight you have to lose.
Let the rate of loss tell youhow much you lose over a certain
(33:02):
timeframe and then you can say,okay, at this rate of loss, I'm
going to end up at this weightby this date.
And what are you going to do?
Also, when you're at asustainable rate of loss?
You're going to end up at thisweight by this date.
And what are you going to do?
Also, when you're at asustainable rate of loss?
You're going to preserve yourmuscle mass.
It's huge.
You're going to maintain energyfor the training itself because
you're trying to preservemuscle mass via training.
And if you feel wiped outbecause you're crash dieting,
(33:23):
you're not going to have thatenergy.
It's going to allow you to havea social life, because now
you're not saying no toeverything that gets put in
front of you.
You can still enjoy going outto eat and parties and things
like that, with someself-restraint.
Obviously it also helps you tolearn skills and habits
sustainable habits.
What even does that mean?
(33:43):
So many of you are listening.
You've never had that in yourlife and I feel you because I
used to be there.
The up and down, the crashdieting, the extreme approaches,
the next quick fix you get tolearn sustainable habits.
In fact, I just had a call witha client who we went through a
fat loss phase.
We did her pre-diet maintenancephase, we did the fat loss
phase and now we're at asustaining phase and she's like
(34:06):
I don't even want to do anythingdifferent for a while because I
realized that it takes skillsto even sustain your result.
There are skills you have toput in place.
And if you're constantly tryingto diet, especially do it
aggressively, you're never goingto build those skills.
And then, of course, you'regoing to avoid the psychological
stress, the fatigue of theextreme dieting it's the white
knuckling, it's the crash.
(34:27):
You know, like I'm in diet moderight now, I have to say no,
I'm on a diet Like all thatlanguage effectively goes away
when you're only in a moderatedeficit.
A moderate deficit is just, youknow, some good meal planning,
some tweaks, a little moreprotein, more whole foods it's
just some tweaks.
A crash diet is a whole gamechange or a whole change in your
(34:50):
entire lifestyle.
That's extreme.
So if you use things like dietbreaks along the way, if you use
maintenance phases, if you useperiodization, if you use
refeeds, all of those can reducethe physiological and
psychological fatigue, even ontop of the fact that you're
going at a moderate rate of loss.
So think of fat loss as a seriesof strategically designed
(35:14):
phases.
It's not a sprint to the finishline.
I got to get, I got to lose theweight.
If your mentality is I got tolose the weight, you're already
screwed and you're not ready forfat loss, to be honest, because
the goal isn't to lose weightas fast as possible.
It is to lose fat whilebuilding the lifestyle where you
can maintain that fat loss longterm, involving all the tips we
just talked about today.
So tying all these together.
(35:36):
This really isn't just about fatloss, is it?
It's really optimizing the wayyou live, right, and when you do
these things, you don't justlose fat.
You start to build arelationship with your body that
is based on trusting yourselfrather than punishing yourself,
rather than having guilt and alow sense of self-worth.
You trust yourself, you haveconfidence, you develop skills
(35:58):
that then compound over time.
It is a form of personal growthand development and you become
someone who understands how yourbody responds to the different
inputs.
It's what we're all about,because you know what.
No matter how much science youlook at, it doesn't matter until
you try it out for yourself andsee how your body responds,
because I guarantee you're goingto be an outlier with something
(36:19):
, and that's okay and you figureit out.
You'll figure it out doing it.
I've worked with clients who'veimplemented these principles and
for years later you know,obviously they they eventually
fire me because they're likeokay, you just taught me
everything I need to know You'renot everything.
A lot of them come back becausethere's there's next levels of
of knowledge here inoptimization, but still they.
(36:42):
They have a confidence and afreedom that they can go forward
and maintain the results andcontinue to improve.
They may have come to melistening to the podcast,
understanding the science andstill not quite getting how to
make that work for them.
And when you put all theseprinciples into place the
(37:02):
sustainability, along with, yes,the calorie deficit and the
training, the protein and theadherence, all of it, doing,
know, doing it, a reasonablerate of loss, et cetera Then you
become physically and mentallystronger, you become more
confident and you have sort of atoolkit for your life that's
going to carry you forwardforever.
And remember the research we'vecovered today.
I deliberately wanted to go backas far as I could and say how
(37:24):
long have we been looking at fatloss?
And it's like anywhere fromfive to seven decades.
It's thousands of studies,millions of participants.
It's decades of humanexperimentation, but it's more
of a roadmap than anything.
It's a starting point.
Yes, you're going to becomestrong, you become lean, you're
going to become healthy.
That is what it's all about.
But you've got to try thesethings for yourself.
And the big irony with all ofthis, with everything that we
(37:47):
talk about all the time on Witsand Weights, is if you focus on
sustainability and principlesinstead of the next quick thing,
you're probably gonna achieveyour goal faster, right?
Because you're not constantlyfailing and starting over.
So there you have it.
All right, seven tips backed by70 years of research.
Your calorie deficit isnon-negotiable, but how you
(38:09):
create it is very flexible.
Protein is your secret weaponfor preserving muscle and
controlling your appetite.
Resistance training is gonnabeat cardio for body composition
.
Every time, diet adherence isgoing to matter more than diet
type.
Neat can make or break yourresults.
That's your movement.
Muscle mass I'm up to numbersix two hands.
(38:29):
Here is your metabolicinsurance policy.
And sustainability always beatsspeed.
And these work.
Guess what?
Whether you are 19 or 79,whether you have 10 pounds to
lose or 100, whether you're justgetting started or you are
advanced, these principles work,just to different degrees and
different levels ofcustomization to the application
(38:52):
.
All right, if you're ready toimplement these in practice,
grab my Ultimate Macros Guide.
It covers everythingwitsandweightscom slash free or
click the link in the show notes.
Gives you formulas, steps,explanations, the science behind
this, all the things you needto care about, I'll say, to put
in place what we've coveredtoday and put it into action,
because knowledge bingingcontent without implementing it
(39:14):
this is just entertainment,folks.
It's just info that's gonna goin one ear and out the other,
and I want you to get results.
I want you to put this stuffinto action and, until next time
, I want you to keep using yourwits, lifting those weights, and
remember that when sciencespeaks, smart people listen, but
it's up to you to put it intopractice.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights Podcast
(39:36):
.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.