Coach's Corner With Justin and Ethan
Welcome to "Coach's Corner with Justin and Ethan," where your health and fitness journey gets a simplified makeover! Join Justin and Ethan, two seasoned coaches with a combined 30 years of experience, as they navigate the labyrinth of health and fitness, unraveling myths from facts to guide you towards success.
In each episode, we dive headfirst into the vast world of well-being, shedding light on weight loss, dissecting diet fads, exploring diverse workout styles, and fine-tuning the often overlooked aspect of mindset. Our mission is to demystify the complexities surrounding health, making your journey not only effective but enjoyable.
Get ready for a lively and informative conversation that feels like a chat with your favorite fitness buddies. Justin and Ethan draw upon their extensive experience, sharing real-life stories from working with thousands of clients. No stone is left unturned as they break down what really works and what's just another fitness fad.
Whether you're a fitness enthusiast or a beginner taking the first steps toward a healthier lifestyle, "Coache's Corner" is your go-to source for practical insights, debunking myths, and embracing the joy of the journey. Tune in for a fun and engaging exploration of the truth behind health and fitness, and let Justin and Ethan be your trusted guides to a healthier, happier you!
Coach's Corner With Justin and Ethan
Understanding Weight Fluctuations: Separating Fat Loss from Water Retention
Why does your weight seem to fluctuate wildly despite all your hard work? Join us as we uncover the real reasons behind those frustrating plateaus and unexpected spikes during your weight loss journey. Learn why weight loss isn't a straightforward path and understand the vital distinctions between fat loss and water weight retention. We'll break down how your caloric needs change as your weight decreases and why making the right adjustments is essential to keep the progress going. Patience and persistence are key, and we’ll share real-life examples that underscore the importance of sticking with your plan, even when the scale seems stuck.
Ever wondered why the scale jumps around despite your best efforts? We explore the psychological and physiological aspects of weight fluctuations, from menstrual cycles to sodium intake. Find out the importance of frequent weighing to identify patterns and prevent frustration. Our discussion covers the mental hurdles of dieting, such as battling cravings and handling temporary setbacks. Personal stories will illustrate how something as simple as a sodium-rich meal can cause temporary weight gain, helping you understand the difference between water retention and actual fat loss.
Ready to refine your weight loss strategy? We dive into the necessity of precise food measurement, revealing how easy it is to underestimate calorie intake. Discover the benefits of minimizing takeout and the value of daily weigh-ins for consistent data collection. We provide actionable steps to overcome plateaus, including the importance of daily movement beyond just workouts and how adjusting your macronutrient intake can support your fitness goals. Tune in for expert insights and practical advice to ensure you stay on track and see the results you’ve been working for.
uh, welcome to episode 30 of coaches. Corner the dirty 30 we're heading.
Speaker 1:We made it, man, I know high five yeah, that's 30 weeks of uh sitting here talking about how you need to eat. A calorie deficit exercise is good for you. So on today's episode, we're sitting here talking about how you need to eat a calorie deficit Exercise is good for you. So on today's episode, we're going to talk about weight plateaus, the dreaded plateau, weight spikes Assuming you're trying to lose weight. Sometimes that weight spike and that weight plateau is like the most disheartening, frustrating thing for people because they feel like I'm eating well, I'm exercising, and the fucking scale just went up by a pound.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just fluctuating in the same two pounds for a month, or you're just stuck right, yeah, and it's one of those things we see all the time, and I think it's one of the biggest reasons why people quit dieting. Is they just they're under this impression that it's not working anymore? Yep, they've plateaued. So we want to do in today's episode is just kind of lay lay out all of the reasons and of which there are many that your weight would not if but when it's going to plateau, because it's really important to understand that weight loss is not linear.
Speaker 1:It's not.
Speaker 1:It's going to happen in one way or another and so all the reasons and ethan has some really cool data on just like what, what we can control in terms of, like, our metabolic rate, because I think people instantly think that something's wrong with their body. Yeah, and it's usually not the case. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Um, this is something that I personally talk with clients about almost every day. Yeah, is walking them back on why their scale is plateaued and and, uh, why it's not as big of a deal as they think that it is yeah, I mean I'm working with my little, my little star weight loss guy right now.
Speaker 2:You know he's lost almost 50 pounds in the year. It's amazing crushing it. But you know just been consistent, like solid, nice, easy weight loss, no crazy spikes, super meticulous and he is like he like will measure a bite of French fries, like he is on his calorie intake measurement, but he's probably been at the same weight for like a month and he's just, you know he's getting frustrated. He's like backtracking and looking at dates. You know this is his mind. He's so invested he just can't help it. And it's just been interesting because he's still on board, but it's just fundamentally nothing.
Speaker 1:You feel like you're seeing him lose the zest, for he's just.
Speaker 2:No, it's anything. He's diving in deeper but he just wants to see it move Because he's patient. But a month in I get it. I get it Totally. You have completely wrapped your efforts and identity in this and it's just not quote working like you think it is and you're so used to seeing such consistent progress for so long that you know and he was quite you know he's definitely on the more heavyset side and unquestionably, I think when you're more heavyset the loss is easier. Did you adjust?
Speaker 1:his calories downward at the last weight.
Speaker 2:Well, we did a refeed right now, okay. Well then that would explain it well, because he was in a caloric, a pretty strong caloric deficit like definitely more than 20 for a very long time. 20 calories, yeah, just 20 calories. That's crazy, bro. So just one more bite, that quarter of a french fry. But yeah, so it is.
Speaker 1:It is interesting to see because I can understand how it'd be very frustrating, you know I mean listen, when I did my big, you know transformation um a couple years back, I lost like 30 pounds quick, yeah, and like got shredded quick, and then it was just like I think six months went by and it was just like this.
Speaker 1:It was like up, down, up down, up, down, up down, but like basically, the trend line was straight across for six months but I think it's important that people just understand what's happening, and so what I want to do is let's just let's just break down the difference between fat loss and water weight retention, because, fundamentally, the reason most people are quote-unquote plateauing is some form of weight retention, water retention theoretically not even theoretically, I think, very empirically, like if you are in a calorie deficit, you are burning fat, unless you're some like one percent of one percent anomaly, with some crazy disease or disorder, dysfunction.
Speaker 1:But for the most of us it's usually just because we are, our body weight has dropped and we have not adjusted calories downward to compensate for our lower metabolism, which I think we're going to get into a good bit. That's that. That's a big one. So you know, if you're 200 pounds, right, and then you lose 50 pounds, and now you're, now you're 150. A 200 pound person requires more energy in the form of calories to move throughout space and time, right there's more their bodies there's more mass to move.
Speaker 1:But now 150 pound person doesn't require that same amount of of energy and so maybe 1800 calories got you from 200 pounds to 150, but now 1 1800 at 150 might be more like maintenance, yeah, and now you have to go like 1500 to continue off and that's, I think, one of the biggest, not biggest, mistakes. But it's definitely a hiccup that people on fat loss don't don't adjust downward when they lose significant weight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the thing is, I think, when you have more mass to lose, you have the ability to lose it quicker, but then it's like, as you get more and more to what would I would say like a healthy body composition, or you get leaner, basically the the margin for error becomes a lot less. Yes, so if you're a very large person, you're going to have a lot change your food choice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and it's you're just going to have that much more. If you weigh 350 pounds this is an example your daily caloric expenditure is pretty high, Right? You know, even if you're sedentary, you just you have all that body to keep alive and it takes a lot of energy, and so as you kind of come into a leaner state, the margin for error is going to be a lot less, and so you have to get more detailed, you have to be more strict, and you just have to really dial it in in order to make sure you're still appropriate with your numbers.
Speaker 1:And I think that touches on how psychology, the way our minds work. It's very binary Like well, no, because this is what worked before, and one plus one equals two. And I worked out and I ate well. Therefore, I should continue to see the same.
Speaker 1:But that's actually not the way it works and biology is much messier and much more reactive on the way we're eating, how we slept, how our stress levels are, you know our sodium levels, where psychology is much more binary of like no one plus one equals two, period, but but so it's. It really is a mindset shift when you hit these plateaus and we're talking strictly calories and then we're going to talk into other reasons why your skill might not be moving. But if in fact it's like you're like your guy here, he's frustrated because he is doing everything right, not seeing it, but then also you did a refeed and you're probably going to adjust calories down afterwards and so it's just like that mindset of seeing the bigger picture and shifting it to like we all want to eat more food, but we also, big picture, want to lose weight and in order to continue to weight loss, we have to adjust food down to compensate for our smaller bodies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you just have to, and I think, pay, you know, patience, patience, patience. Like it's, you know, I think even like a month.
Speaker 2:It's like you see the scale not moving for a month and you're just like, oh, this is like so long, like I'm so stuck and it's like it's really not that long of a period of time and I think it's just like taking the step back and understanding that like this is a process of a lifestyle and fundamentally that's something I keep saying to him like it doesn't matter, like nothing, nothing really should change, and you're like your your workout shouldn't change. You paying attention to what you eat shouldn't change and regardless of what the scale is saying, like this is, this is the way forward and through this process of continuing to participate vigilantly, it will move again, whether or not we have to drop the calories a little bit more or pay attention to how many steps you're taking and making sure you're moving more throughout the day, or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:It will eventually move, but you can't. Just giving up is not going to be the answer. That's just the fundamental truth is that the avalanche effect, as they call it, of like once you hit that plateau. You know it's not working anymore. Ah, fuck it. And then all the patterns go out the window and it just doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:You the, the lifestyle stays the same and it's like the, the reason that you're frustrated, because you don't want to fail. But then, in your efforts to of the fear of failure, you then quit, which ensures the very thing that you're so afraid of of of happening, which is failure exactly yes, and then that's exactly it, the juxtaposition that occurs, right.
Speaker 1:So that's like one way that you could be seeing weight retention. Another way, and I would say more common, on a, on like a more of like. So that's like big picture like let's, let's assume you've already lost 20, 30, 40 pounds and you've dramatically shifted you, you're the size of your body and now you have to regulate downward to continue seeing weight loss. But that's like a good problem to have because that means you've probably made some really good progress. But now in the interim, like on a day-to-day basis, people get really frustrated because they can just shoot up kind of out of nowhere, two or three pounds in a day, and this is what I see most common in that there's some obvious ones like for women.
Speaker 1:It's like your menstrual cycle, like you know, like, yeah, like you're probably going to see a weight spike when it's that time of the month. The problem is is that most people do not weigh themselves frequently enough to have enough of that data to see these trends over time and then just like sort of get that exposure therapy to it so that way, when they do spike up, they're like, oh yeah, well, that that explains it. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:This correlates month after month right so they might start a program. They're two weeks in the program also, they get their period and all of it, but like they don't they know it, but like there's like that, not that like quick association with it. They're just like what the hell? I'm up three pounds. This is so frustrating. And it's like the time of the month.
Speaker 1:They're like yeah like oh, there you go, you know. So it's like that's another one. Probably the biggest, though, is just sodium salt. It's just, it's just water weight from salt, and this is why, when you're on a fat loss program, food choice is so important, because, like for sure, if you know that you're under calories but you're eating out, then you are losing fat.
Speaker 1:You are, yeah, but the rate at which your body burns fat is like a fraction of the rate at which it can retain water, and so, hypothetically, you could put on like it might. Like, let's just say, you were on a very moderate fat loss half pound to a pound a week. So that means it would take you, let's just say, a pound a week. That would take you three weeks to lose three pounds of fat, and that's actually recommended. Yeah, that's solid. You could have a thai food tonight and be up three and a half pounds tomorrow, yeah, and so it's like it has nothing to do with your fat loss. It's just that your body's retaining water, weight from sodium levels being elevated A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:And I think people know this that are, if you have a coach or if you kind of pay attention to that, you can understand this, but I still think it's challenging psychologically and I think you know the thing to remember is that this is more mental battle than anything else. It is mentally and emotionally challenging to potentially be hungry and to make you know food choices that aren't as exciting as going out to eat or to say no to having a drink with your friends or whatever it might be, and that the mental battle will wear down on you potentially depending on your personality and how you're going about it. And so, even if you are understanding that this is happening, to see that scale shoot up two and a half pounds, three pounds and take three or four days to go back down is challenging.
Speaker 2:And even if in the back of your mind you know your fat loss is still occurring and you know that it was just water weight. It's still challenging and you know, I mean I even went through it earlier this week. I mean I'm going on, I'm paying attention to my weight, I'm looking to drop my body fat a little bit and had a nice steak and salty meal with Amanda's friend was in town and I was definitely under calories but I went up like 3.2 pounds.
Speaker 1:The next day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you look at it and like I know that unquestionably I was still in a caloric deficit steak and all. I just made sure and it still was just like oh man, man, all my progress, like all this a week I was doing so good, yep, you know, and a couple days later I was back down two pounds, two and a half pounds, like I didn't lose a hundred percent of it, but it did go back down. I'm like okay, cool, reassuring, it's not, it was just water rate, but it is. It was still challenging, even, even for me who?
Speaker 2:knows it, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:I was like totally in, in, in. In your case it's like you ate a probably a larger meal 100 a little bit later in the day, 100 that was loaded with salt and so you have more undigested food in your stomach, you know, and sodium levels were elevated and it was probably maybe some ingredients that you don't eat on the regular that could have potentially caused some sort of water weight retention, like all these factors you know, and that's it. And so it's like everybody wants this lifestyle where you can do that, where you can, you can go and you can have a nice dinner out a couple times a week and you can have a couple of drinks, and but you're still keeping an eye, like everybody wants that. But my argument is cut once, cut deep. Let's get you there first.
Speaker 1:Because I look at, fat loss is kind of like incarceration, right, like you're, you're paying, you're, you're, you're paying your time for your crimes, right. And but what do we know about jail? How do we get out of jail sooner than our schedule, than our sentence? Be a good little good behavior yes, good behavior.
Speaker 2:How do?
Speaker 1:than our sentence. Be a good little barcode. Good behavior, yes, good behavior. How do we extend our sentence? Bad behavior, bad behavior.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if you keep shanking people at yard time in the form of, like snacking at night in the kitchen or ordering takeout too much, you're extending your jail sentence and so I say I will get you to the promised land. You will get there. We've built calories back up to maintenance. You understand how to incorporate your favorite indulgences. You have this great repertoire of like what to order at restaurants. You've settled your mind and not like only want more, more, more. But you've kind of got to like we'll get you there.
Speaker 1:But if we, if we, start cheating too soon, then it, these frustrating things, start to pile up and then almost like reaches this critical mass where enough weeks stacked on end where you haven't seen any progress because you keep ordering thai food, you keep going out or you just you're you you track for one day, then you don't for a day, then you're kind of wishy-washy and you're just, you're just kind of in no man's land and like that's people just kind of ah, they just decline and it's like we just got to push through and for some people that might be 15, 20 pounds so it might happen in a couple of hard months For other people that might be better part of a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah that might take time you have significant fat year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have significant fat, but get there so that when you build back up and you're all of a sudden you've trained yourself to only eat, let's just say, 1500 calories a day, and now 2000 feels like a treat.
Speaker 2:Oh, my god, am I doing something bad?
Speaker 1:yeah, and now it's like okay, cool, like that you are a hundred and let's just say 200 pounds and we lose 10 pounds. But then you fluctuate three pounds, like like your dinner out, for example. So now you've just you've lost 10 pounds, but now you went down to 190. But now you're back up to 193 and a half 194 and you lose that again. Now you're back up to 192. It's like it's it's so much more frustrating in the beginning because it's so fragile still. But let's just say your goal was to get to 150 and now you go from 200 pounds down to 150.
Speaker 1:Man fluctuating, going from 150 to 153 and then back down to 150 to 153 is not a problem, but when you're 190, when you're, you go down to 190 and you're back to 194, that's annoying. And that feels like you've just erased so much progress and so get there first.
Speaker 2:and then the fluctuations are so inconsequential that it's like whatever it's, just you're surfing the waves at where you want to be, versus not ever arriving at your destination and just kind of meandering in between the no man's land, the no man's land.
Speaker 2:The no man's land, the valley of despair, yeah. So I mean, I think one of the things to drive home which you might have heard this on our podcast before, if you look around is that fundamentally, if you're in a caloric deficit, you're going to be losing body fat. It's as simple as that. There is no way around it.
Speaker 1:There is no way around it. There is no unless you eat past seven.
Speaker 2:Then you'll never lose, of course.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you have few carbs, though, then unless you're eating carbs, it doesn't matter at all.
Speaker 2:So the thing to keep in mind is that there are going to be often accountable reasons. If you are on a weight loss journey, let's say outside of the sodium conversation, so let's say, you've been stuck for a month. Salute, excuse me that, that are going to be there. So I think that's the first and most important thing to remember is that your, your hormones aren't changing to some degree. Your thyroid is okay, you're not broken, you're not special, you're just probably somewhere. The numbers aren't lining up.
Speaker 2:And that when your caloric expenditure and the calories you eat start to level out, for whatever reason, the weight loss is going to stop. So I think that, like, that is an overarching truth that just has to be recognized as the first and foremost thing. So, like, what do you find is one of the reasons that often contributes to a person hitting a plateau?
Speaker 1:Well, okay, A human error side. Yeah, human error it's. You know, and this is just from like years and years of data and looking at these patterns and trends. It's always around week six to eight we call it the six week itch where it's like you've been really good and you start out the program with a bang. You start your fat loss cycle with a bang. You're weighing everything. You're weighing in every morning, you're saying no to like dessert, you're really on it and, of course, then you see results.
Speaker 1:You weigh every ounce of food, you're weighing, everything right, you're not snacking, and then all of a sudden, like you get that initial win and there's this like reward behavior, this like premature sense of accomplishment, like the job is done now, mission accomplished, and people just naturally start to.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's human nature, you got to remember, like our brains are like little computers and it's always looking for efficiencies. And so once we've repeated the same process a hundred times, we kind of go on autopilot. And now, instead of weighing the cream in our coffee, we just kind of eyeball.
Speaker 2:I think that was about two oh, I've weighed this so many times, I know what it looks like, I know how much rice that is, and I'm just as guilty as that of that, that's the easiest one, and so that is called unintentional underreporting.
Speaker 1:We just naturally start to eyeball things round corners, guesstimate, you know, like I mean just little things that we think we're gonna track later, that we forget we ate. Yeah, I do that constantly. Like I have gummy bears in the cupboard and I like to eat them before a workout just to get that quick little like 100 calorie jolt of carbs in my body before I lift weights. But it's 100 calories and it's just like I'll eat it and I'll think, oh, oh, I won't forget. But then, like I'll be laying in bed and I'm like I did it again. I forgot to add it.
Speaker 1:And you guys are probably thinking like you, fucking meathead, you're laying in bed. That's what you worry about when you lay in bed is the 100 calories of gummy bears. You didn't log, no, but the idea is that I'm a 20 year veteran and I'm still doing that shit. So what are you doing? Right, like what do you think you're doing that? You're? You think that you are more keen than me? Doubt it? Yeah, so it's like if I'm doing that, then you're probably forgetting a couple hundred yes and I yeah.
Speaker 2:The not measuring and eyeballing is something I just run into all the time totally you just do it so much day in and day out, you get, you get so dogmatic with it that all of a sudden you're like, oh, that I think that chicken breast is about right. I'm like, well, you measure it, you weighing your food. Still. I'm like, no, no, I'm just eyeballing it. But I, I, I know what, I know about that. And you're just like you know, there, I've much it is. And then you actually weigh it to see what it is and you would be surprised.
Speaker 2:You know and it's also like we were just talking about, like, little snacks like you're cooking dinner and all of a sudden, you're, you're, you're tasting your little fajita steak as you go yep, you know, and you're having some bites of this here and some bites of that there and you're just like oh, it's just a couple bites, I'm just doing it, or you know, you have a handful of chips like your partner's got a handful of bag of chips.
Speaker 1:A little pop of chip here, Like oh yeah, let me try those.
Speaker 2:Those are good and, depending on how many calories you have in a day, if you're eating 300 calories that are kind of sneaking in there can make a difference For sure.
Speaker 1:Like thinking of it this way, right, like if you're a small, especially like if you're already a smaller person and you know your margin for air is so small, it's like your, your maintenance might only be 1700 calories a day, and so then to like see fat loss, it means that you're eating 1400 calories a day, or 1300 calories a day, yeah, that means there's only a 300 calorie margin for air. Right, and everything that you and I just described, the couple of chips here, a little dash of that there you know, oh, I didn't log the olive oil that I had.
Speaker 1:That could be 300 calories and that might seem like annoyingly specific, but you just have to trust us that that is the margin. That is your deficit, because what's 10, what's 20 off of 1700? 300 calories, 300 calories, yeah. So if I put you in a 20 deficit, which would be on the higher end, that's it that's your, that's your, that's your fat loss window.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so if you, if you squander that by not measuring your olive oil and not measuring the sugar in your coffee, like it can add up, like real quick and it's not to say, you know, it's not like we were just calling people lazy or slackers when they've been in it for a game, and sometimes it's really just kind of like an aloofness, like when the sugar in your coffee. You've been doing it for 10 years. You've just been making your coffee with putting sugar in it. You're an autopilot when you're tired in the morning. It's not like you're like oh, I'm not going to report this sugar, or like I was measuring my sugar before and now I'm going to not, because I know what's best.
Speaker 2:It's like yeah, you just forget, it's just unintentional, yeah you just don't mean it, and so it is because that ounce of olive oil can be or however much olive oil you put on your salad can be 150 calories and you just don't realize it.
Speaker 1:so I think that's probably one of the biggest things, and especially, like you said, as people go on, they just loosen the reins. It's hard to maintain that kind of diligence over a long period of time. Exactly, and it's like often, what we champion with our members is that before we reduce your calories more, I need you to recommit to accuracy, because you say you're eating 1,500. I can bring you to 13. Let's make your life miserable, but you're probably eating more, like 16 or 17 and just not realizing it, and that's okay. Like I said, I did the same thing. So, instead of dropping calories unnecessarily, why don't we just recommit to accuracy? Yes, and really just make it? It's gamified in your head. I'm gonna wait fucking everything for a week and let's just see if that helps nudge the scale down a little bit. Yeah, right, so like I think the first thing is is sodium eating out like I hate, like it sucks? This is the truth, but it just is. Even the best restaurants are loading up your food with salt, like there's so much more salt when you order takeout and eating it doesn't matter what it is
Speaker 1:doesn't matter like you're, I'm always up, no matter what I'm. Whenever I eat, I eat out. I am always up. At least a pound the next day never fails. So that's.
Speaker 1:Step one is just try to eliminate takeout or eating out the best of your ability. Just reduce it as much as possible. Step two is start weighing every day, because if all you're doing is these periodic weigh-ins two, three, four times a month you're missing the all this data from the cause and effect of the daily food choice. And so it's like standardize your way. It's first thing in the morning empty your bladder, hop on the scale naked. First thing in the morning empty your bladder, hop on the scale naked every morning, because the more data you have, the more those spikes start to level out and you see much more of an accurate trend of the cause and effect of your food choices. And so reduce eating out best you can. We're talking strictly on a fat loss phase. Weigh in more frequently, so more data points, because it's clear messaging or clear information, excuse me, and then after that just recommitting to accuracy.
Speaker 2:So that would be like the three-step approach to really dialing in any sort of plateau that you might be experiencing well, I mean, I think there, I mean I well, that those are three most important things, because I think the, the, if you're not accurate and you're, you're getting all these crazy fluctuations, then you don't really know if what you're doing is being effective, is the way I see it.
Speaker 2:And if you do need to go into a deeper caloric deficit but you're not being accurate, then how do you know if what you're doing is actually working?
Speaker 2:And so you've got to get that bullseye with your macros in and then actually look at the daily data of your weigh-ins to see if the scale is moving appropriately. And then, if it's not, and you're doing everything right, then there has to be some type of adjustment in in some type of your behavior, whether it's more activity or eating less calories, because, again, if you're in a deficit, you're going to eventually lose weight pending the sodium and that kind of thing, right. And so one of the other things I think it's important for people to understand, especially if you're on a larger weight loss journey, is just kind of understanding what happens in terms of your metabolism and caloric expenditure and that kind of thing, right. And so TDE stands for total daily energy expenditure, and that's how many calories we burn in a day, including our activity, cleaning and exercise and that kind of thing. And so your BMR, or your base metabolic rate, how many calories you burn, even if you were just in a coma, is a majority of it. It's like 60 to 70%, 70%.
Speaker 1:I think is pretty much average.
Speaker 2:Of what you're burning and so, like we were kind of talking about earlier, if you are a bigger machine, you require more fuel, even if it's fat, even if just regardless. So that's why little people have much less calories to eat, and we were talking about that slight margin of error. That's why little people have much less calories to eat, and we were talking about that slight margin of error. So if you lose 50 pounds, fundamentally the machine is smaller and so it's going to require less fuel to run it, and so what might have worked for a caloric deficit in the past isn't going to work anymore, because your BMR is going down. And you know, there's this whole thing that people talk about with starvation diet and that your body starts to hold onto calories and doesn't lose weight if you're in a caloric deficit, and that's fundamentally not true.
Speaker 2:No, so there's the two reasons that your BMR changes. I will say this your body is really efficient and it doesn't. It is a form of stress to be in a deficit and it doesn't want to do that. It's afraid it's going to die. So there are certain changes that do happen, especially if your caloric deficits are very extreme. So you can have a three to 5% drop in your BMR, just in your body withholding its output, and also, like your muscles will export less, like will use less energy your skeletal muscles, the thing that requires the most energy when used and so those things can hold back. But that's only three to 5%. It's pretty minimal and that's if you're in an extreme deficit.
Speaker 1:And that makes sense. It's like you're eating less food. Your body is just instinctually conserving energy. Yeah, it's conserving energy.
Speaker 2:But really what happens is that it's like if you were to throw on a 50 pound weight vest right now and live your life do your dishes, vacuum, clean out the cups in your car, go for a walk. You're going to be working a lot harder, yeah. So the same thing would be to say if you lost like 50 pounds, you're working less hard.
Speaker 1:You're working less hard.
Speaker 2:So the things that you do throughout the day, the exercise, you do everything getting in and out of bed, taking a shower is all going to, yeah, just moving Cleaning the house, washing the dishes, walking the dogs. Yeah, is going to require less fuel, and so NEAT your non-exercise activity throughout the day.
Speaker 1:I believe is the second highest expenditure 15%.
Speaker 2:And so that's the thing, like we were just talking about doing the dishes, just living your normal life.
Speaker 2:So now not only is your organism less so, therefore requiring less fuel, all of your movements are easier and requiring less fuel, so now your caloric expenditure is going down and that deficit might not be there as much.
Speaker 2:And then the second thing, the other thing to consider too, is that when you're first starting out, most people are exercising, they're committing to some type of running and aerobic activity and a lot of time they're doing some type of weight training and, body being what it is, it adapts to those things as well, and so the efficiency at exercise goes way up.
Speaker 2:Your body just gets better at exercising, and so the kind of demands that a workout might have are now going to go down because your body's just gotten better at it, because you've been consistently exercising, and so now your workouts are more efficient and therefore less demanding calorically as a whole, and so, fundamentally, your body is just getting more efficient and easier to live. And so if you've lost 50 pounds, there's a good chance that the demands that your body requires are going to drop substantially. And, like we were talking about, if 2,000 calories was a deficit before, and then, all of a sudden, you plateaued for a month and a half, eating meticulously at that 2,000 calories, which has now lost. You lost 50 pounds on 2,000 calories and now, all of a sudden, you've just hit a wall.
Speaker 1:Well there's a good chance. It's because your body, that's maintenance now.
Speaker 2:That's maintenance now, right, and so you have to reassess, and that's why I think the weighing in every day and what we were just talking about is so important, because you have to get to those steps first, to know if the numbers you're working with are correct.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 2:And if they're not, then it's when it's time to reassess. It's one of those things. And the other thing to consider, too, is that when we're in a caloric deficit and we're under that stress and we're working out hard, both things will tend to lead to us being lazier throughout the day. I know this is a big proponent for you, for your clients, and your program is to like get your workouts in, but don't go as balls to the wall, because often if you hit a crazy like CrossFit or super bootcamp workout, the odds that you're gonna be lazier throughout the day are much higher.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's an instinctual compensation and energy balance and so after effort, after extreme exertion, we just sink into the couch. Our bodies try to balance the scales by moving less for the rest of the day. Also, just keep in mind even that crazy boot camp that you just did, you think you're really doing some If the primary goal right now is fat loss and you go and you crush a hard boot camp or cross workout, that's only four or 500 calories. It's not as much as you think, and it's very easy for your body to just move less and increase appetite signals a little bit more and all of a sudden, at 24 hours late, 24 hours later, your body has balanced out that energy deficit 100.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exercise is actually the thing that accounts for the least amount of your caloric yes only five to ten percent, only five to ten percent, and so the actual food you eat requires more energy to digest and assimilate than exercise in general, unless you're like an extreme athlete or somebody who is training five to seven times a day or more than seven hours a week, you know. So it's like to think it's just that exercise really isn't going to be taking the big bite out of your caloric expenditure and to your point it's so.
Speaker 2:I mean I've been training really really hard lately. I've been on this extra kick. I've been really wanting to just you know, he wore his.
Speaker 2:We Lift Heavy Shit shirt. I did. I got a shirt that says we Lift Heavy Shit Another homage back to me and Justin's strength RX days. But I absolutely noticed, man. First off, I get home and I'm ready to sleep. I'm just so wrecked. But I just want to get home and lay down immediately. I am just the end of the day Even walking up the stairs. I was walking up them so slow because my quads were so sore and I'm just literally like slunking up the stairs where normally I'm coming up to your place.
Speaker 1:You're skipping up there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm just charging up, you know. So it's just, I'm seeing it and I'm forcing myself to like, spin my staff and go on walks anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even though, to just when we look at activity, it's like we want to have our training, which is to improve muscle mass, to improve bone density, to improve a skill mobility, your vitality.
Speaker 1:Your vitality, your heart, health, all the good things that exercise. And like training like not just like you know walking, but like training does for us. And then we want to have like our baseline of daily activity, for all the reasons that Ethan just said, is like you're going to want to move less because you're eating less food. So you're going to be in a conservation state from that and if you're training hard you're sore, your body wants to recover. So all that is going to just instinctually want to make you move less throughout the day to try to balance that energy deficit out a little bit. So that's why having a standard 5 000, 10 000 steps a day, anything's better than nothing. Just pick a number that makes sense, but that's your standard. So there's a baseline of daily activity so that way you know that your body's not just gonna be catatonic for the rest of the day to try to compensate for your boot camp class that you did in the morning.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent, and it's. It's the one thing we have control over in terms of the, the TDE or the total daily energy expenditure. We can't control that our metabolism burns less calories because we're a smaller individual. We can't control that our muscles get more efficient at exercise because we're training consistently and therefore have less of a demand. We can't control that we're going to get hungry because our hunger hormones are up, because we're in a pretty hard caloric deficit and that we're working out Like. Those are all things that we can't really do much about, but the one thing that we do have conscious control over is how much we move outside of our exercise. You know, do you go on your daily walks, do you?
Speaker 2:play with your kids, Do you? Yeah, Do you have a walking treadmill? Do you do? Like you know there might be like you, like you might like to paint as some random example and stand by your easel and paint and that's still standing and you're still lifting your arm. You'd be surprised all that exercise activity yeah but you know, if you're totally exhausted you might be like, ah, fuck it, I'm not gonna paint today yeah, I'll skip it, but that and that's where you have to catch it.
Speaker 1:Be like oh, this is what they were talking about, where my body is trying to conserve energy because I'm eating less food and training it's like no, let me just get up and start moving.
Speaker 1:And like that commitment to daily baselines of activity, just ensure that the only variable for your fat loss will be calories at that point, at that point, yeah, because, if one because if, if, even if you're eating less food, but then you just don't move anymore, you, you know it's going to, it's going to affect you, it's going to affect your weight loss, and so having that baseline is just so important, absolutely, and walking is just one of those things.
Speaker 2:It's accessible, Like maybe you're one of those people that likes to wash your car yourself.
Speaker 1:Some people it's like one of their hobbies, but it's a day activity, but like that's why walking is just the easiest, because it's like, well, you can take a, you can call your mom every day or on the phone walking you. If you have dogs like me, you can just all right, we're committing to two 20 minute walks a day, no matter what you know. I just feel like that's just the the lowest hanging fruit, just the lower, lowest barrier of entry. 100 is just getting out for a standard daily walk.
Speaker 2:Yeah so I mean, I think those are the probably the the backbone reasons, and I think justin named a bunch of things to to fight your plateau is weighing every day. Cook your own food to fight over over consumption of sodium and also calories.
Speaker 1:You don't really have control just limit your takeout and you don't know what it is yep, and then getting really accurate with your measurements.
Speaker 2:And then all the cliches like 0.7 to 1 gram of protein this is an interesting point to touch on.
Speaker 1:So I just did this with a guy oh girl, excuse me, uh new client. So we, I, I brought her in. She's around 160 pounds. When she started she started down to like 150, so we're already seeing wonderful progress. But but then, you know, she did kind of plateau and I was like I don't want to lower your your, it's too soon to lower your calories. Yeah, but I but I had, I had her at 100 grams of protein a day, yeah, so like here's what I.
Speaker 1:I was like I'm not going to lower your calories, right, I'm going to increase your protein. Yep, because that is a backdoor way of lowering your calories. Allow me to explain. Protein is the most thermogenic macronutrient, meaning that it burns 30 of its calorie count by simply digesting it. So, without having to lower her calories, I can raise her protein, which is a double win, because it makes her feel more satiated, it makes her feel as though she's eating more food. Yeah, but after your body digests that extra 50 grams of protein, 30 of it goes. 30 of the calories of that protein just go to digestion alone, it's gone instantly.
Speaker 1:So it's a much more thermogenic macronutrient. So I was like I don't want to lower your calories, but I'm going to bring your protein up. Yep and voila, she's down two more pounds now. So to eat this point, make sure you're getting 0.7 to one gram of protein per pound, because it's just the best way to not have to lower your calories, your quantity of food, but still benefit from from a deficit 100 and, as justin said, it satiates you so much more, helps keep your lean mass on.
Speaker 2:It's just all there. There are just tremendous amount of benefits from eating a ton of protein, and look if that's got to come from some protein shakes and protein supplements or just you know. Whatever it is, you know if, even if it's a very convenient or easy way to do it, just get it in, make it happen. And so I think that paying attention to your sleep is going to be super important, right?
Speaker 2:You know if you're doing everything right and things aren't moving and you're just getting terrible sleep. You're messing with your metabolism and you're just not getting the chance to recover from your workouts. If you're exercising and I've read that a majority of weight loss actually happens in your sleep- yeah, your body temperature rises. Yeah, the same reason that a lot of your protein synthesis, or if you're building muscle, happens when you're sleeping.
Speaker 2:So, sleep is super important. It's just when we, when your whole body gets to do its thing and just make sure you're safe and sound. You know, I think also to the best of your ability, like avoiding I mean, it's hard to say, but you know another tip is like avoiding extreme emotional situations and high stress, so you don't fall to like emotional eating, you know and don't go visit your parents.
Speaker 2:I mean, sometimes life is just stressful but there, I think those are moments, especially when you're hungry. Yeah, that, that's just to keep that in mind. I don't know any other tips that you would say to help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's it. Sleep is a big one. I think. Stress management so like some breath work in the morning, just kind of set the tone for the day, don't get, don't drink too much caffeine later on in the day, so that way you're not overly anxious and then disrupting your sleep. So just like little. Like you know, prevention tactics are really helpful long term, yeah, but the big one's going to be food choice. So keeping it clean, getting that sleep in baseline of daily activity and then daily weighing to just get so many data points that you don't get disrupted emotionally by seeing one outlier because you haven't waited in a month, you're like, oh god. But just like every day, it's like you just normalize it. You're like, okay, I see up. That makes sense. I had sushi with soy sauce last night, I'm up a pound today, got it, no problem, and then you can just really see this pattern establishing yeah, yeah, all right guys. Well, that was dirty 30. Oh shit, coach's corner with justin and ethan. See y'all next time.