Episode Transcript
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Philip Pape (00:00):
Raise your hand if
you've got a little belly fat
you want to lose.
You've gained some belly fatwith age.
You're frustrated becausethings like restricting calories
and exercise aren't reallyworking anymore.
This episode is for you,because belly fat isn't about
eating less food.
It's not about doing more abexercises.
There are actually seven rootcauses that drive fat to your
(00:20):
midsection, and most of themhave nothing to do with what
you're eating or how you'retraining.
Today, I'm breaking down eachcause, from stress to sleep, to
hormones and more, and givingyou specific solutions that
actually work to finally dropthat belly fat.
(00:49):
Welcome to Wits and Weights, theshow that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host, philip Pape, andtoday we're going to expose why
belly fat accumulates in thefirst place and what you can
actually do about it.
I keep hearing from people whosay they're doing everything
right with their nutrition,they're training consistently,
but they're still carryingstubborn fat around their
midsection.
(01:10):
They're frustrated because theconventional path doesn't seem
to work.
Even if they've dropped somebody fat, there's still that
extra little bulge in themidsection.
And then, when I ask whatthey've tried, it's always the
same things.
I've tried going even harder onthe diet.
Maybe I've added some cardio.
Maybe I've added it's alwaysthe same things.
I've tried going even harder onthe diet.
Maybe I've added some cardio.
Maybe I've added some, you know, resistance training in the ab
(01:30):
area, including loaded ab work,which I highly recommend.
But it doesn't necessarilyaddress the root cause, and
today I wanted to walk youthrough what those are.
I wanted to walk you throughseven root causes of belly fat
accumulation, just to get abetter understanding of where
this all comes from and why ittends to change and increase
with age and with menopause andwith all of these other factors.
(01:52):
We're gonna talk about thingslike stress and sleep and
hormones, of course, but we alsoare gonna understand the
physiological mechanisms.
And then, how do we counteractthem and what is your biggest
constraint?
What is the thing that you wantto do to get very specific and
intentional for the cause thatmakes the most sense for you, so
you can start seeing progress?
(02:14):
The one thing I'm not going tocover today is genetics.
Honestly, I was going to haveit on the list and I thought,
well, you can't really changeyour genetics and there are
different body types and shapesand people hold fat in different
areas.
I really wanted to focus on thethings you can completely
control today.
So let's start withunderstanding why our general
understanding and discussion onsocial media about belly fat is
(02:36):
kind of incomplete.
I hear a lot of, I'll say, newercoaches or maybe less informed
people saying that belly fat ispurely about energy balance and
body fat like any other fat, andunfortunately that's not the
case.
I've seen it firsthand, I'veexperienced it myself, being a
guy in my 40s, and it isn't justthis linear thing like, okay,
(02:57):
do all the other things rightand the belly fat's going to
come off Not necessarily.
So what do those look like?
Well, eating more nutritiously,eating fewer calories If you're
trying to go into a deficit,maybe you know moving more,
moving more in the right way,doing your training, all of that
and it's going to slowlydisappear as you drop body fat.
And, on one hand, absolutelythose are the things you want to
(03:17):
be doing to drop body fat ingeneral, which is great for your
health.
Obviously, it supports yourphysique, for your hormones,
everything else, but it's onlypart of the equation.
Belly fat Okay, this is visceralfat around your organs, as well
as the subcutaneous fat underyour skin.
Okay, I want to make sure wecover both right.
The visceral fat is the moredangerous fat, but subcutaneous
(03:40):
fat is also visible and we don'tall like that.
For if we're trying to getleaner, stronger, fitter and we
have to have the, we want tohave that physique that
represents that we are a lifter,we are somebody who's fit, and
so both types of fat are goingto respond to many, many factors
hormonal, metabolic lifestylebecause your body doesn't just
store fat randomly, it makes,I'll say, strategic decisions.
(04:04):
I mean I mean it's passive,it's based on what your body is
just doing on its own, based onyour stress levels, based on
your sleep quality, based on thebalance between your hormones,
based on your daily movement.
And when any of these factorsare off, your body will
preferentially store fat in yourmidsection.
This is a body fat distributionproblem primarily, and no amount
(04:26):
of ab crunches, no amount ofcalorie restriction is going to
fix it if you're not addressingthe root causes.
And I know this because I'veseen people who go on pretty
aggressive deficits and actuallylose a lot of weight or body
fat and they're at a quite lean,almost sickly or dangerously so
level and they still have alittle bit of extra fat on their
belly fat body in their bellyarea.
(04:48):
Now, I don't want to confusethis with people who have body
image issues or dysfunction.
In that case, that's outside myscope.
If you're dealing with bodydysmorphia or any of those
issues or come from the physiquecompetitor world, again that's
outside today's scope.
You might have different issuesto work through.
Today we're gonna work throughjust what are the basic seven
causes, systematically, ofexcess belly fat, why they
(05:12):
matter, what's happening in yourbody and then what you can do
about it.
All right, root cause numberone is the big one chronic
stress and elevated cortisol.
Let's start with this, becausethis is the I don't know if it's
still overlooked, but mostunder addressed factor in belly
fat that people maybe want toput their head in the sand about
or not sure exactly how toaddress it.
(05:33):
Or they kind of throw up theirhands and say, well, my life is
busy, it's crazy, I'm a parent,I'm a exec, whatever.
Nothing I can do about it.
And that's not true when you'rechronically stressed, whether
it is from work, relationships,finances or even, yes, under
eating and overtraining.
Your body releases cortisol.
Now, cortisol, as I said manytimes recently, it's not a bad
thing.
It's part of the cascade ofhormones in your body.
(05:56):
It's a signaling messenger.
It is your stress hormone andin the short term it is actually
protective.
We need to have stresssometimes to protect ourselves.
It mobilizes energy.
It helps you deal with threatsright the fight or flight.
But when it stays elevated,you're just back to back to back
, keeping that sucker pumped upfor weeks or months.
(06:17):
It tells your body to store fatcentrally, and this is actually
part of its protectivemechanism, taken to an extreme.
So where does it store it?
Around your abdomen.
This is an evolutionaryresponse.
Your body thinks resources arescarce or you're under threat,
so it protects the vital organsby padding them with readily
available energy.
(06:39):
It happens even if you're in acalorie deficit.
Elevated cortisol can make itpretty close to impossible to
lose belly fat, even if you'rein a deficit, regardless of how
much you're eating or exercising, because of the stress
component.
And I don't have to tell youthat stress well, maybe I do
have to tell you.
Stress impacts just abouteverything we're trying to do
(07:00):
here with body composition.
It affects your metabolism aswell.
So it's a vicious cascade whereyou often then have to eat less
and less just to try tomaintain your deficit.
So we don't want that.
So what do we do about this?
Now here's where you know thehook of the episode is without
dieting or exercise.
The premise if you're listeningto Wits and Weights always is
that you are resistance training, no matter what.
(07:21):
To me, exercise is excessivecardio, it's running.
It's doing more than you needto.
It's exercising inefficiently.
It doesn't mean you need to besedentary.
I'm not advocating for that aswell.
What I'm suggesting is doingmore exercise or more of the
wrong type of movement isn'tgoing to help your belly fat
(07:41):
situation, but having thefoundations in place is going to
help.
So first, we do have strengthtraining.
That is worth mentioning.
You know, progressive overloadresistance training.
This builds resilience.
This builds resilience in yourbody to all sorts of things.
Insulin resistance is one ofthem, but stress is another,
because it improves your body'sstress response and the recovery
(08:02):
capacity.
Sound familiar because itimproves your body's stress
response and the recoverycapacity.
Sound familiar If you havelistened to the podcast of the
past few weeks.
I've been covering these topicsa lot recently stress and
recovery and sleep because theyare so important and I think I
didn't give them enoughattention in the past.
Strength training is also astructured outlet for physical
(08:22):
stress that your body can adaptto.
It is anabolic.
It's kind of like sprintingVery efficient, very anabolic,
very helpful.
Walking very anabolic, veryefficient, very helpful.
Running no, very injuriouscauses high stress response.
You know 90% of people don'tknow how to do it right, so it
causes injury right For the 10%of you that do good on you.
You know you're the exceptionto the rule in society.
(08:43):
So strength training isdefinitely number one and that's
going to be a common threadthroughout the episode.
To be honest, that affects allof these.
Secondly is mindful stressreduction.
Now, this does not mean thatyou have to meditate for an hour
every day.
I personally don't likemeditating, but I will find some
time to disengage.
I will find some time fiveminutes even to do box breathing
(09:06):
.
You all have apps on your phone.
The irony is that, as much aswe are stressed because we're
using our smartphones, there aresome helpful tools like the
Breathe app on the iPhone, andthere's lots of famous apps out
there that help you withbreathing.
And I'm actually developing abrand new fitness app that, for
sure, is gonna have elements ofthis built in to help you
develop those skills, butsomething simple like taking
(09:27):
walks outside without your phone.
And I know I say, hey, listento your podcast while you walk.
It's a great stack, but alsowalk without your phone, just
enjoy what you see around you.
We saw a comic in the paper yeah, the physical paper.
My girls like to read thecomics and I forget which comic
it was.
But there was a grandmotherwalking with her grandson out in
(09:49):
the woods and you had a deerand birds and chipmunk squirrels
, you had all this great flowersand everything, and he was on
his phone.
And she said can you, you know,put up, put down the phone and
look at what's around you?
And he said, well, I'm going tomiss all the cool stuff, right?
The big irony that there is somuch in nature to bring you, let
alone the vitamin D and therelaxation and the mindfulness
(10:10):
and the reduction in stress.
What else can you do?
You can journal.
A lot of people love journalingin so many different ways
literally just writing down yourthoughts for five or 10 minutes
before bed or during earlier inthe day to process your day and
help kind of dump it out ofyour brain onto a piece of paper
, and that might actually helpyou let go of some things before
(10:30):
you go to bed.
The third element here of stress, of reducing it, is having
consistency in your dailyroutine.
I can't stress, pun intended,this enough.
Your body craves predictability.
When you eat, when you sleep,when you train, do them at
roughly the same times every day.
You do them and then yourcortisol will naturally regulate
(10:53):
itself.
So the bottom line here is thatstress management isn't just
mental health advice, althoughit's huge for your mental health
.
It also then directly affectsyour fat loss strategy and your
cortisol and thus your belly fat.
All right, root cause number two, so one, was stress.
Number two is, of course, youknow what it's gonna be.
(11:14):
It's the other S word.
It's sleep, poor sleep qualityand sleep restriction.
And this again is the other bigunderestimated lever for losing
body fat.
When you don't get enough sleepor when your sleep quality is
poor, you've got those hungerhormones that get ramped up or
disrupted.
I should say Ghrelin, the thingthat signals hunger goes up,
(11:35):
leptin signals fullness goesdown.
Right, I've said this manytimes.
Plus, there's other hormones,like GLP-1, that get affected,
and so you're hungrierthroughout the day.
You're less satisfied.
When you do eat, you're likeokay, what does that have to do
with belly fat.
Well, sleep deprivation raisesinsulin resistance.
Your cells become lessresponsive to insulin, so your
body secretes more to compensate.
(11:55):
And guess what?
Chronically elevated insulin,in addition to cortisol, is one
of the primary drivers of bellyfat storage.
People who consistently sleepless than seven hours a night
have significantly more visceralfat than those who sleep enough
.
Even when controlling for dietand exercise, obviously it gets
worse when you're packing on thepounds and a calorie surplus an
(12:16):
uncontrolled surplus, I shouldsay.
But even when you're not, oreven when you're dieting, even
when you're at a deficit, youcould potentially, whatever fat
you do store or distribute, youmight distribute preferentially
toward belly fat because you'rechronically underslept.
And I want to add one extrathing.
I was reading ScientificAmerican this week and there's a
really cool article about the.
(12:38):
I think it's called theglymphatic system.
It's your cerebral spinal fluid.
It's this fluid that basicallywashes over your brain and takes
waste away, and it actuallybecomes more efficient and is
used properly when you getenough sleep, because it happens
only in certain stages Ibelieve it's deep sleep, but
it's often later in the nightand they found that these
(13:00):
brainwaves correlate to thefluid pulsing through and
cleaning things out, and thatcould potentially affect
everything related to yourhealth and cognition.
Sleep is so important.
I was talking to my wife thisweek and we're like honey yes,
honey, we need to get to bed inthe time we're trying to get to
bed.
And, by the way, no TVs, nophones.
(13:22):
Let's agree to kind of holdeach other accountable and just
relax into that bedtime ritualand then go to bed.
And, by the way, no TVs, nophones.
Let's agree to kind of holdeach other accountable and just
relax into that bedtime ritualand then go to sleep and get.
You know that extra half hourcan make such a huge difference.
Right, and the consistency isimportant too.
Even when I'm a little bitdeprived with sleep let's say
I'm getting six and a half hoursfor a week or two, as long as
I'm going to bed and waking upat the same time.
My deep sleep and REM sleep arestill surprisingly high.
(13:45):
But as soon as I get a nightthat's interrupted and that
could even be in the otherdirection, like sleeping an
extra hour on the weekends allof a sudden my deep and REM
sleep the next night or thatnight is cut short.
You can see this in the numbers.
So getting enough sleep isimportant.
It has to be restorative, ithas to be quality sleep.
You've got to have a bedtimeroutine the same wind down
(14:08):
activities each night dimmingthe lights whenever you can
before bed, putting on the blueblocking glasses, potentially
wearing a sleep mask, keepingyour bedroom dark, cool, quiet,
limiting caffeine after 2 pm,minimizing screen exposure in
the evening.
You're like, ah, so many thingsto think about.
Pick just one, pick just one.
I think the blue light exposureis probably the big one for a
(14:28):
lot of us, because we're on ourscreens or watching TV and blue
light suppresses melatonin andthat makes it harder to fall
asleep.
So you're just throwingeverything off with your
circadian rhythm.
And then, I've mentioned inother episodes, training earlier
in the day can be extremelybeneficial to people.
You know, late evening trainingcan elevate your cortisol and
your core body temperature, bothof which interfere with sleep
(14:51):
quality.
All right.
Now one of the best investmentsI've made I talked about
recently is my sheets, and Ipersonally use sheets from Cozy
Earth.
They are derived from bambooand I joked before another
episode.
So are my underwear, becauseyou're going to hear this over
(15:11):
and over, right, because it'dbecome an inside joke, but I
love things to breathe.
I sweat really easily.
I get really hot and even inthe winter actually even more so
in the winter when you have theheat on I find and you know my
wife's trying to get warm andget all the covers and I'm
trying to stay cool that's whereI get hot.
So, like, let me let me tellyou what my thing looks like
Once I get into bed.
(15:32):
At worst I might read a book.
I might read a book with anorange bulb, wearing orange,
blue, blocking glasses for abouthalf an hour Not too stressful
of a book, although I wasrecently reading a Stephen King
novel probably a bad idea rightbefore bed and I just kind of
let my mind unwind.
If there's something on my mindbothering me, I'm going to
reach over and just write itdown or even even jot it in my
(15:54):
phone, although I try to havesomething physical.
And then I've got a sleep maskand I don't do anything for my
ears, cause we live in a veryquiet of woodsy area, but if you
have street noise, you knowputting something in your ear
could help.
You know I don't sleep withclothes on.
Some people like to wearpajamas but even in the winter I
get hot so I might have the fanon low.
Remember, in the winter you goclockwise to actually spread the
(16:16):
heat around, so then thatdoesn't make you as cool.
When you turn it on, you getwhere I'm going.
You have to think through allof these things.
So then my sheets.
The most recent addition isthese Cozy Earth sheets, because
they're kind of silky, but nothot silky.
They're actually very coolsilky, I can't really describe
it.
They wick, kind of like gymclothes.
That wicks away.
You know, I sometimes wearcotton shirts when I use a
(16:37):
barbell because the bar sticksbetter, but I get sweatier.
So then I'm like, ah, I want towear those wicking shirts
instead, but then they're slippy, right Slippery.
So imagine that kind ofslipperiness and coolness in
your bed.
So that's why I love the CozyEarth sheets.
This ended up being kind of anad, but I do support them.
If you go to witsandweightscomslash Cozy Earth, you can get
20% off with my code,witsandweights.
(16:57):
So witsandweightscom dot comslash cozy earth for the bamboo
sheets, because if you areserious about optimizing sleep,
you've got to go through thechecklist of constraints.
We talked about this, thechecklist of constraints, as a
lever for fat loss, for bellyfat, for cortisol, for recovery,
and these are simple, tangiblechanges that you can make.
(17:21):
All right, let's keep goingthrough these.
I've spent enough on sleep.
I think you get the idea.
Go to witsandweightscom slashcozy earth.
Check out those sheets.
Root cause number three hormonalchanges.
Yes, this has to be on the list, especially estrogen,
testosterone and thyroid.
I would say this isparticularly relevant for women
(17:41):
going through perimenopause andmenopause, and we just had Zora
Ben-Umu on the podcast and shewas in our Physique University
doing a live Q&A.
She talked about the menopausetimeline starting as early as
the mid-30s for some women, andso there might be an extended
period here where the hormonesstart to decline.
Then they start to go kind ofhaywire and then they decline
(18:03):
again before finally hittingmenopause and they've dropped,
and this can affect belly fatmassively.
In fact, for many people it isthe big driving cause.
It also affects men withdeclining testosterone.
It also affects anyone withthyroid dysfunction.
There's lots of thyroid issues.
Our assistant, my assistantcoach, carol, shout out to you
(18:24):
Carol in Physique University.
She is a hormone expert and haspersonally dealt with
Hashimoto's thyroiditis andunderstands how this affects
your metabolic dial, which thencascades to everything else.
We're going to talk about thatin a second here.
Let's start with estrogen.
When estrogen drops duringmenopause, the fat distribution
shifts.
I don't have to tell women this.
You know this, you've heardabout it or you've experienced
(18:47):
it.
Premenopausal women tend tostore fat in their hips and
thighs, whereas later inpremenopause, into menopause,
postmenopausal women store itmore in their abdomen.
You see a change in theanoid-gynoid ratio.
You see a change into thatdifferent body shape, and this
isn't necessarily about gainingmore fat overall.
That's what's important.
(19:08):
It's about where the fat goeson your body.
I've had plenty of clients.
I've worked with women in their40s, for example, 40s and 50s,
where we dial in all the thingsand they start to drop body fat
and they start to get moremuscular and lean and looking
great, and yet they still havethe belly fat.
It almost becomes a little bitmore pronounced, because now you
see that that's the lasttrouble spot.
If you will or I'll get peoplecoming to me saying, look, I
(19:30):
just have 10 pounds left andit's all in my belly.
So if you can relate to this,that's what I'm talking about.
Similarly, for men, lowtestosterone definitely leads to
increased abdominal fat anddecreased lean mass.
Testosterone definitely leadsto increased abdominal fat and
decreased lean mass.
Now there's a chicken and egghere, because if you're carrying
extra body fat in general, itcan also drop your testosterone,
and that's a vicious cycle.
(19:52):
But testosterone will naturallydrop as well.
And then thyroid dysfunctionwhether that's hypo or
hyperthyroidism directly affectsyour metabolism and the pattern
that your body stores fat in.
Excuse me, the challenge hereis that the hormonal shifts also
make it harder to maintainmuscle, right Cascades, we talk
(20:15):
about the knock-on effects ofthings.
I recently talked aboutperformance, blood work and how
one cause can lead to multipleoutcomes, and one outcome can be
from multiple causes and youhave to or one outcome could be
from multiple causes and youhave to kind of find out where
the biggest of the lowesthanging fruit is.
You think about muscle.
It's your most metabolicallyactive tissue, right?
It burns a lot of calories,it's very active, and if you
have less of it, it means youhave a slower metabolism, easier
(20:36):
fat gain.
This also then contributes toyour belly fat.
So there is a body compositioncomponent for sure, and that's
why it's good to do all thebasics, no matter what, because
they will give you a greatfoundation to figure out.
What is my remaining constrainton this list when it comes to
belly fat that we want to getrid of?
All right.
So what do we do about thehormones?
(20:59):
Well, you know what I'm goingto say.
We've already talked aboutstrength training.
Non-negotiable, it keeps yourhormones as favorable as
possible within the constraintsof aging.
Meaning everybody's going tohave a different hormonal
profile and women especially,are going to have those drops
and those volatility among thedifferent hormones that may, and
almost likely will require atsome point, hormone replacement
(21:21):
therapy.
Right, bioidentical hormonetherapy.
I don't want to say thateverybody has to have it.
There are people, there arewomen in our group that I know,
you know, have felt nodifference across the ages.
Would they be benefit?
Would they benefit from HRT?
Maybe, but they're notscreaming to have it, whereas
others are.
Now there could be things thatare non-symptomatic, like the
belly fat, that maybe could be,you know, assisted by hormone
(21:45):
therapy.
And we're not even going to getinto things like the GLP-1s
today, which is probably anotherarea ripe for study.
When it comes to visceral fatand fat distribution, I don't
think we have the data for ityet.
There's a really goodconversation with Karen Martell
coming out soon where weactually got into some of that
which is fascinating.
So follow the podcast and catchthat episode soon, on a Friday.
(22:08):
But strength training protectsyour muscle.
It helps you build new muscle.
It counteracts the hormones.
It gives you anabolic hormonesignaling growth factor,
testosterone, which is hugelybeneficial for men and women.
It supports your thyroid.
So that's training, fine.
What about the other stuff?
Protein we talked that to death, but it's worth bringing up
again, especially if you'renewer to the podcast.
(22:28):
Getting sufficient protein ishuge.
It's huge, especially if you'reimpairing post menopause,
believe it or not, aiming forthat 0.71 gram per pound of body
weight a day.
Also, adding creatine,potentially.
All of this just to supportyour performance in the gym, so
that you can build and maintainthe muscle mass, support
recovery and to support yourhormones.
(22:49):
And then the other piece here ishormone replacement therapy or
even thyroid medication, whetherit's desiccated, more natural
thyroid, if that's enough foryou, or synthetic versions of
thyroid or other interventionsthat you should just not dismiss
.
Like, don't dismiss theseoptions if you're struggling
despite doing everything elseright.
You're doing all the things andstill something's off.
(23:12):
It's definitely worth gettingit checked.
If nothing else, right.
Get your hormones checked, ifnothing else.
So hormones are reallyimportant.
It's really an entirely separateepisode, potentially and
actually, since I name-droppedKaren Martell, and it's really
an entirely separate episode,potentially and actually, since
I name dropped Karen Martell theepisode she and I get into.
What do we talk about preciselythere?
We're actually talking aboutmenopausal hormone therapy, so
(23:32):
it's more geared toward women,of course, but the idea applies
to men as well.
When it comes to TRT, get itchecked.
Guys, get it checked.
I know some people, I know lotsof guys that are on various
levels of TRT.
I can connect you with somepeople.
There's some great people inthe industry that deal with this
in an objective, evidence-basedway.
So, again, don't dismiss any ofthese tools.
If you need them once you'vedialed in the basics, all right.
(23:54):
That's number three hormones.
Root cause number four isinsulin resistance and
hyperinsulinemia.
So insulin, what is this?
Insulin is your storage hormone.
Again, when I talk hormones,there's no good or bad.
There's how they are expressed,based on your behaviors, your
lifestyle, your genetics, etcetera.
So insulin is your storagehormone.
(24:15):
When you eat right, especiallywhen you eat carbohydrates, all
right.
Carbohydrates, not good or bad.
They're actually superbeneficial actually.
So I guess they are good.
There's a lot of it dependsthere, right?
So when you eat, especiallycarbs, your pancreas releases
insulin to shuttle the glucoseinto your cells for energy or
(24:36):
for storage, and I say it thatway because you can immediately
use it as energy or you canstore it as fat.
When insulin is chronicallyelevated either because you're
eating constantly throughout theday, right, and maybe you're in
a surplus, or because yourcells have become resistant to
insulin signal I'm going to saythese are two different things.
(24:58):
There's reasons insulin canincrease that are okay, that are
fine, right.
And your blood sugar, forexample, as measured by blood
sugar.
And I talked all about thiswith Ben Zeal, who has type 1
diabetes, where he basicallysaid look, if you're lifting
weights, if you're walking andyou're healthy and you don't
have type 1 diabetes, you don'teven have to worry about your
blood sugar.
And I know that's controversialin some spaces where blood
(25:18):
sugar is everything blood sugarmanagement and all this but
honestly, it matters more whenyou've got deficiencies and
we've got issues going on,because that is when you worry
about fat storage, which againdoes come down to energy balance
.
But there's a way to bemetabolically efficient versus
inefficient in terms of yourmetabolism, where you store fat
(25:41):
and how sensitive or not you areto the insulin, and that's
where I'm going here.
Okay, it's not carbs make youfat.
That is not where I'm going.
In fact, if you lift weights,insulin is your friend.
When it comes to carbs, becauseof the shuttling and storage
mechanism, you pull them intoyour muscles, you pull them into
glycogen, where you store anduse them during your heavy
(26:01):
training sessions and get themost out of them, and your
muscles are like huge batteriesor sinks for that glucose.
But when we're talking aboutbelly fat, especially liver fat
and visceral fat, that is whereinsulin loves to store the
excess, especially when you'reinsulin resistant.
So you can have insulinresistance even when your
(26:23):
fasting glucose looks normal.
I want to disconnect some ofthese concepts.
And this is where it getscomplicated.
With blood work, your body isjust secreting more insulin to
keep the glucose in check.
This is called hyperinsulinemiaand it's actually a precursor
to type 2 diabetes.
So it's part of prediabetes.
I did a whole episode about howyou can reverse or prevent
(26:45):
pre-diabetes while eating carbs.
You know, go check that out.
If I remember, I will include alink in the show notes where we
talk about all the lifestylefactors that really affect all
of this.
But number one on the listwhich you're going to notice a
pattern here is, of course,strength training.
And this is the cool thing,guys, is that you don't have to
do any exotic exercise orrunning or cardio or anything,
(27:07):
as long as you're liftingweights.
You're going to bang out a lotof these root causes in terms of
the first line of defense.
Right Like you've got that outof the way as a constraint, now
you can move to the next thing.
When you're lifting, yourmuscles become insulin sensitive
.
They pull the glucose out ofyour bloodstream without needing
as much insulin.
All right, that's the importantthing here.
The other huge thing forinsulin is, of course,
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non-exercise activitythermogenesis.
Neat, neat is neat.
We love neat.
Walking after meals Set a timerto stand and move.
Twice an hour, every 30 minutes, move for two minutes.
These small bouts of activityare going to trigger the glucose
uptake without spiking theinsulin.
Right, it's kind of likeunlocking.
I think it has to do withcalcium channels, don't quote me
(27:51):
on that, but it's a signal,like many of these things.
Sitting all day is a signalthat's not good.
Moving a lot is a signal thattells your body to be more
anabolic, more sensitive toinsulin, to use all of these
things and guess what To notstore your fat in your belly.
To not store your fat in yourbelly.
The funny thing here is a lotof lifters I know who are eating
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properly and they're moving alot, even when they're in a
surplus, gaining weight.
They gain more muscle that wayand not as much fat, and they
don't really gain any belly fat.
You know, we all gain a littlebit of the subcutaneous fat just
because of general distribution, but being an active person who
lifts weights significantlyblunts that uptake so that you
can be confident, even in acalorie surplus when you're
(28:34):
gaining weight, that whateverfat you gain isn't gonna go, you
know, shooting to your belly.
The other thing is when we talkabout blood sugar and insulin, I
do still believe it's importantto have Pretty balanced meals,
significant amount of fiberright, which you can't get on a
carnivore diet.
You can't get any fiber on acarnivore diet.
I think fiber is so importantfor so many reasons Gut health,
(28:54):
digestion, you know, your bowelmovements, your gut microbiome,
your and, of course, your stableblood sugar, which really comes
more from balancing fats andcarbs as well as the protein,
and since you have to haveprotein anyway, might as well
have them all together.
Don't be eating one macro meals, you know.
And if you have less bloodsugar volatility, even if you
(29:15):
are eating a lot like those guys, raise your hand and have to
eat 4,000 calories, okay, it'sfine.
Don't worry about your insulin.
As long as you're eatingbalanced meals and you're
lifting weights and you're usingit the way it's meant to be
used, you're going to be good,all right.
So we are halfway through theseven root causes.
We've covered stress andcortisol, we've covered sleep
quality, hormonal changes,insulin resistance I guess more
than halfway and each of theseis creating a physiological
(29:37):
environment where your bodypreferentially stores fat in
your midsection.
So now let's get to theremaining three causes numbers
five, six and seven.
Root cause number five is asedentary lifestyle and low NEAT
.
Now, you might think I've kindof already covered this, but we
just talked about insulinspecifically and what you can do
(29:58):
about it.
Now I'm talking about the directimpact beyond that of a
sedentary lifestyle and notenough movement.
Okay, and this isn't aboutexercise and running and cardio
and working out or even training.
Right, you can train six days aweek and still be too sedentary
.
I see it all the time Guys who,or ladies who have a desk job
(30:20):
and they have their trainingsessions and they're consistent,
but then they get 3000 steps aday and you might it might sound
crazy, but many of you probablycan relate to that.
You know, and you almost giveyourself a pass because you're
like well, I trained so I don'thave to move as much.
Excuse me, because when you sitfor extended periods, your body
does a lot of things that arebad.
Okay, a lot of signaling thatyou don't want.
(30:41):
Your body suppresses enzymes,for example, that are called
lipoprotein lipases, and theseare responsible for pulling the
fat out of your bloodstream andburning it.
So you're actually slowing fatburning essentially right.
And now your fat stays incirculation longer and
eventually gets stored.
You guessed it in your belly,All right.
Now you might say, well, isn'tit about energy balance?
(31:03):
It is, but it's also aboutwhich energy systems your body
is deciding to use and how yourbody is deciding to store the
excess fat.
And when you sit for too long,you're biasing it in the wrong
direction, toward visceral bellyfat.
Studies show that sitting timeis an independent risk factor
for central obesity.
(31:24):
That means, even if you trainand exercise regularly,
prolonged sitting is going topromote more belly fat
accumulation.
Guys, this is such an easy thingto do.
To not sit is actually a prettyeasy step, you know, compared
to going to a gym and training,it's easy, right.
I want you to move for twominutes every 30 minutes, that's
(31:45):
it, and make it purposeful.
If you need to Walk to getwater, walk to go to the
bathroom, you know, go up anddown the stairs, go take a phone
call, whatever, like.
Make it purposeful if you needto.
But you know what's two minutes?
It's nothing.
Go on in a flash.
Walking after meals is alsohuge.
Having that 10-minute walk evenis going to improve your
glucose disposal, your enzymeactivity.
So these kind of tie togethernumbers four and five with the
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insulin and with the sedentarybehavior.
We've talked about strengthtraining to death.
But having a higher metabolicrate because you have more
muscle mass is going to help youburn more calories in general.
With that higher metabolismjust put you a little further
away from the.
My body needs to store fat andso it's gonna store fat in belly
mode, right?
(32:28):
So your training session isimportant, but what you do the
other 15 hours of the day, orsometimes 16 or 17,.
It matters just as much, if notmore, for losing belly fat.
All right, root cause number sixis aging and sarcopenia.
Now I mentioned.
I wouldn't discuss genetics,and I also am not talking about
(32:48):
just aging in and of itself.
I'm talking about what comeswith aging when you're not
intervening, which you knowwhere I'm going with this.
Muscle loss that comes withaging is massive.
Starting around age 30, youlose about 3% to 5% of your
muscle mass per decade.
For women I shouldn't say forwomen, men and women it could be
up to 8%.
Let's just put it that way.
There's a lot of controversyand debate around okay, women in
(33:12):
perimenopause actually lose,lose it faster and in some
evidence suggests that that doeshappen.
But it's also.
There are also a lot of womenthat don't that kind of lose at
the same rate.
So I don't want to fear mongeror or say something that isn't
accurate, but it doesn't matter.
You're losing a ton of musclemass, no matter what.
Okay.
And muscle mass.
Less muscle mass means a slowermetabolism, less glucose
(33:33):
disposal, lower calorie burn,more fat storage, and so as you
age, that alone is going tocause you to preferentially
store fat in your midsection.
We've already talked aboutlifting weights so many times
today.
But remember when you lift ithas to be progressive.
It has to be with heavierweights, more volume, greater
(33:55):
intensity or difficulty overtime.
Some way that challenges youeach time you go in the gym more
than you did last time.
Protein intake we've discussedit overlaps with this one as
well.
The older you get, generally,the more protein you need to
stimulate muscle proteinsynthesis effectively, because
we get a little less efficientwith age.
So you know bias toward higherprotein as you age.
(34:15):
We talked about potentiallycreatine supplementation.
There's other nutrientsupplementation that we didn't
even get into.
But in general the goal isn'there to stop the clock on aging.
You know literally it's tofiguratively and functionally
slow the aging process,primarily by focusing on muscle
mass.
Right, because that just makesaging so much harder on your
body composition, your belly fat.
Now, if you're already in yourforties, fifties or sixties and
(34:37):
you haven't been doing it well,start.
There's a lot that getsreversed.
There's a lot you can do andI've I've heard people call in,
listeners and clients say, wow,it's.
It's incredible how just thelifting weights part starts to
shift that body fat distributionfavorably and it even causes
you to, you know, because youhave more muscle mass,
stretching out your subcutaneousfat.
(34:58):
There's some physical benefitsyou know just from a physique
perspective, that start toappear even when you don't
change your body fat.
Sometimes you have more bodyfat but you also have more
muscle mass.
It's kind of amazing, all right.
Root cause number seven I had tomention it, it's alcohol.
Alcohol has several veryimportant mechanisms that
promote belly fat.
Here's another.
I'll call it an easy one, right, if you're.
(35:19):
You know this is not addressingalcoholism or addiction per se.
This is just social consumptionof alcohol, which for many of
you it's way too much of it andsome would argue too much is
more than zero, especially withthe recent study that got buried
effectively by the government.
Now that sounds like aconspiracy theory, but I'm going
to do an episode at some pointabout the alcohol health study.
(35:42):
That was public you couldGoogle it right now.
You could see the study and itwas basically prevented from
being transferred into updatedguidelines for how many drinks
you can have a day before itbecomes injurious, before it
becomes a problem, and what theyfound is that more than one
drink a day starts to haveserious negative health
consequences over time.
(36:03):
It has a much highercorrelation with all cause
mortality.
We used to think two is fine aday.
Now we know it's barely one.
If that, if you're, you know,smaller, petite female, whatever
, maybe half drink a day, itstarts to be not a great thing
and that's that's over thelongterm.
But even in the short term,alcohol definitely affects belly
fat.
Your body is going toprioritize metabolizing the
(36:23):
alcohol over everything elsewhen you drink it and so when
you drink it, your fat oxidationtemporarily is suspended, right
.
So the calories from alcoholget used instead and nothing
else gets used.
So I don't want to fear mangahere and say that it's going to
cause you to store even morebody fat.
It's still energy, it's stillcalories.
But your body has to burn thosealcohol calories.
(36:45):
First because it's a poison,it's a toxin and it needs to
clear those out through yourliver, right, our natural detox
system.
So that's one thing that'simportant, calories in general.
But secondly, and probably moreimportantly for belly fat, is
alcohol raises cortisol, itlowers testosterone,
particularly in men, and thesefavor central fat storage.
And then third is that it's notsatisfying to drink alcohol in
(37:09):
terms of your hunger.
In fact, you probably end upeating more.
You get munchies, you gethungry, right, you drink 150
calories from a light beer orwhatever beer, and then you're
hungry afterward.
You know, comparing that tolike if you had 150 calories of
chicken breast, it's going toleave you full, right, it's
simple satiety equation whichcauses you to eat more food and
then store more.
That way, again, that's energybalance, but it's still part of
(37:30):
the equation.
So what do you do about this?
Well, it's prettystraightforward here.
You're going to cut the amountor the frequency of your alcohol
and, wherever you are today,start there and shift.
If you drink every night, taketwo nights off a week, right, I
used to drink every night.
I used to have a glass of redwine every night and then beer
on the weekend, and then Iswitched to just beer on the
(37:51):
weekend, and then I switched toone a weekend.
Then I switched tonon-alcoholic beer and now I
might have one non-alcoholicbeer every other week because I
just don't desire any of itanymore.
And even the non-alcoholic beer, it's more like, well, I'm kind
of bored the desire for it,which is a good thing, because
(38:12):
you don't need alcohol foranything.
You don't need it to enjoy timewith people.
You don't need it for theflavor necessarily.
You might say you do, but thenwhen counteracted with the
negatives, right.
Anyway, you can hear where I'mgoing with this.
I think it's a great idea to tryto reduce it, if not eliminate
it.
It's really your choice.
It's gotta be personalized toyou and where you are today.
If you're having three drinkswhen you go out to eat tonight,
(38:34):
have one or two.
Make that a intentional plan,you know.
Give yourself a post-it note, areminder, something on the
kitchen.
Tell your accountabilitypartner, your spouse, whatever,
say, hey, I know, I like todrink.
Just remind me that I'm goingto have one and I'm going to
have seltzer water or diet soda.
For the rest, you know, andmaybe I'm going to start with
the water or the excuse me, theseltzer diet soda, just to kind
(38:55):
of get the act of the drinkinggoing with a non-alcoholic
beverage Right.
And you can if you're, if you'redrinking for you know, because
it's relaxing or it calms youdown, you know how many more
things can do that without theside effects.
(39:15):
I mean drink-wise, there's whatI love is called what is it
called?
Cryo brew.
It's brewed coffee, but you canhave herbal tea, sparkling
water, diet soda, and you canalso do things reading before
bed, you know, talking to yourspouse.
There's different ways to enjoyyourself without having to
drink the enjoyment via alcohol,because for most of us it's
just a habit, it's not somethingthat you actually crave or want
, and so you just work itthrough the behavior change
(39:36):
process.
So I'm going to actuallymention one more thing If you
strength train consistently, itactually offsets some of the
drinking right, and if you eatwell the rest of the week, it
offsets it somewhat.
And I don't want to say that asa license to drink.
I just want to say that get thefoundations in place regardless
.
(39:58):
So if we bring this all together, we've covered seven root
causes of belly fat storage thathave nothing to do with just
diet and exercise.
It's chronic stress, poor sleep, hormone changes, insulin
resistance, being sedentary, thesarcopenia that comes with
aging and muscle loss or that issarcopenia and alcohol intake.
Now you could argue that, oh,alcohol is part of your diet and
sedentary lifestyle is part ofexercise.
But I'm talking about nothaving to do chronic metronomic
(40:21):
cardio, sweating it out typeexercise to burn more calories
just because you're trying tolose belly fat.
You don't have to do crunchesand a whole bunch of ab
exercises to try to lose bellyfat.
It's not going to work.
It's not going to work.
Whatever evidence you've seenthat spot reduction might be a
thing, it's minuscule comparedto just training in general,
watching your energy intake andsupporting these other things as
(40:45):
needed, especially sleep andstress.
And that creates theenvironment in your body where
then fat storage preferentiallyhappens in your midsection, when
you're not doing any of thesethings right, or when you're
doing a lot of these things thatwork against you.
And so you have to find thesolution.
That is your biggest constraintright now.
Right, not restricting caloriesmore, not doing more ab
(41:07):
exercises, but addressing thephysiology that's driving fat to
your belly in the first place.
Now a real health thing, atangent I want to cover before
we conclude about belly fat.
It's not just cosmetic, right.
Visceral fat around your organsis metabolically active and so
it's inflammatory.
It secretes inflammatorycompounds, it disrupts your
(41:28):
hormone signaling, it increasesyour risk of metabolic disease.
It's a vicious cycle becausethe other things you're doing do
those as well, but oftentimesthey're happening because
they're increasing the belly fat.
So when you can address theseven root causes, belly fat is
often one of the first thingsthat ends up going.
I'm talking about the visceralfat, not necessarily
subcutaneous fat, because it'sthe most metabolically active.
(41:51):
It actually responds fastestwhen you improve your sleep or
your stress management or yourtraining.
So it might feel like belly fatis stubborn, but it could be
more responsive than you thinkand you might make faster
progress than you think.
But you've got to do it.
You've got to take the actiontoday.
So those are the seven rootcauses of belly fat, and you
(42:13):
might be doing all these thingsand you might still not be
seeing the results.
If so, I think this is whereanother level of objective data
can be helpful, and this is whyI've partnered with Vitality
Blueprint, so you can getperformance blood work.
All right, you can get aperformance blood work analysis,
where we're going to look atyour hormones, your inflammation
markers, your metabolic health,all of the things that affect
(42:34):
what we talk about today and youmight find that there's
something that's not beingaddressed through something as
simple as your nutrition.
All right, and then we can getyour biggest constraint and
build a clear path forward.
We don't want to guess.
I definitely want you to do thethings we talked about today
lift weights, get your steps,dial in your sleep, your stress
all the big pillars.
But there are always layers ontop of that, like the hormone
(42:57):
replacement therapy, where youhave to get a level deeper to
get an answer.
So go to winsorweightscom slashbloodwork if you want that
performance bloodwork analysis.
It's a one-off thing where Iput together a plan for you
based on the results.
You can hit me up with quite asmany questions as you want.
I'm effectively your coach inthe short term, based on the
(43:17):
data.
It's performance analysis.
It's not medical analysis.
There's actually a medicalperson on staff who will also be
looking at your bloodwork froma healthcare perspective.
So go to witsandweightscomslash bloodwork if you want that
today.
And remember that losing bellyfat it's not about just doing
more of a deficit.
It's not just about doing moreab stuff.
(43:40):
It's root causes, so that youcan get leaner, get stronger,
get healthier and then drop thatbelly fat.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits lifting those weights
and remember that the strongestversion of you is waiting on the
other side.
I'm Philip Pape and this isWits and Weights.
I'll talk to you next time.