Are you losing fat or muscle!? Find out
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the one day at a time podcast. Now then. As always in this podcast, we wanna walk away, finish it by taking action on tracking, organo steps and whatever, but hopefully learning one thing or maybe two things. Now today I want to talk about the general purpose of why specific targets are given.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're confused as to why targets are higher than usual. Maybe you've been part of the process for a while and still think, well, when I did drop my calories a bit, I lost more weight. Like, my weight loss started to move again, so why shouldn't I just drop my calories? Now the obvious simple answer is if you wanna lose weight quicker, you create a larger calorie deficit. Because you will then create a large deficit, you will lose more fat, but also you risk losing more muscle.
Speaker 1:So that is the golden lock zone. Just like earth is in the golden lock zone from the sun in terms of distance, there is a golden lock zone in terms of the the the size of your calorie deficit and the protein intake you have. This golden zone is basically what the app puts you in. Now the golden zone doesn't mean it's the quickest route, even though long term it is. It doesn't mean it's the route that's gonna provide you with rapid weight loss in the first few weeks, which other crash diets do.
Speaker 1:But it is the route that reduces your muscle loss by nearly up to 100%. So if we cover the research on this topic quickly, I don't want to bog you down in the nitty gritty, but if you look back at some of the studies that cover this question, we want to find out how big of a deficit can we do. So if you eat so just to make it make sense, if your maintenance is or your total daily energy expenditure is 2,000, right, that's what you need to maintain your weight, and you had a deficit of 500 calories, that's about, without my maths being wrong, about 20 to 25% deficit. 2,000 minuteus 500 is 1,500, which is 25%. You've reduced your calories by 25%, so you got a 25% deficit.
Speaker 1:Hope I'm making sense here. So we want to find out what if we went to 1,000? What if my maintenance was 2,000 and I went to 1,000, which is a 50% calorie deficit, what would happen? Would I just lose weight quicker and then get to my goal quicker and then happy days or would not? So what does the research say?
Speaker 1:Let's go all the way back to 1940s, 1950s, the Minnesota Starvation Experiment where they were in severe calorie deficits, 1,000 plus calorie deficits. So we're looking here at 30 to 55% calorie deficit. So eating half of the calories they need to maintain. What happened to their bodies? Roughly around 40% of the weight they lost was lean tissue, which is compromised mainly of muscle, which to be simplistic, 70% of it is muscle.
Speaker 1:10 to 15% organ tissue, and then the rest of it glycogen water connective tissue. So for every 10 pounds that person lost, four pounds of it was lean tissue, likely three pounds was muscle, and one pound was organ tissue and stuff like that. So if you lose 50 pounds, 20 pounds of that is lean tissue with 15 pounds ish coming from muscle. That's a disaster. So when you see people walk around saying, I've been on Mounjaro, I've been on Ozempic, I've been on this for the last twelve months and I've lost 100 pounds or I've lost six stone.
Speaker 1:That's not a celebration yet. They're celebrating too early. What percentage of what you've lost has been muscle? Because for most of these people, unfortunately, it's going be a huge amount. And there's another study.
Speaker 1:So we got the Minnesota Starvation Experiment a long time ago, but we also have recent studies on these GLP-one medications. The reason these studies are great is because they reduce people's appetite so much that we know that their calorie intake is low and is probably as accurate because they find it hard to eat. So we can compare the results from the GLP-one studies with older studies done on on very low calorie diets, like five to 800 calories a day, and we see the same outcomes. We see this 30 to 40% of the weight loss is lean tissue, whether it's GLP one or just super low calorie diet. So we know that's the norm.
Speaker 1:We know most people who've been losing weight over the last few decades have tried crash diets, have tried super low calories, have tried super high aerobic training on top and we know for sure that the majority of these people whilst they've been losing weight, they've been losing their muscle mass and unfortunately they regain more fat back just because the body needs to regain their muscle, probably doesn't regain all the muscle it lost. So they go back to square one with less muscle but more body fat. Does that make sense? That's the traditional diet. What most people think, let's rush, let's do it, let's do low carb, let's do keto, all this stuff.
Speaker 1:They end up in this deficit size so large that you risk a huge amount of your muscle being lost. And when I talk about organ tissue, organ tissue loss mainly comes from the kidney, liver, and heart. And organ tissue is 30 times more demanding for energy than fat tissue. Organ tissue, if you lose five-ten percent of your organ tissue, you could be losing 100 to 300 calories a day on your maintenance because it's so metabolically active. So if we lose a bit of organ tissue, we lose muscle tissue, which is also very metabolically active, our maintenance goes down.
Speaker 1:So then when we do tend to overeat, we overeat beyond our maintenance far easier because we don't even have those calories. Like, we might drop it by 500 calories a day just because we've been a bit silly and rushing our plans. Does that make sense? I hope you're all with me right now because this is an important factor behind the system. What other studies do we have?
Speaker 1:Then we have studies looking at alright. Okay. Calm down. What if we did do a severe calorie deficit, like 35%, 40%? But what if we added in high protein?
Speaker 1:What if one group was low protein, like normal, and one group ate high protein, like you get in the app? What actually happens to the results? The good news is the lean body mass loss is reduced between 40 to 80% depending on the studies you look at. So you drastically limit your lean tissue loss by increasing your protein a lot when you're in a deficit. Now when you're in maintenance or in a surplus, adding more protein doesn't have this like huge additive effect because of muscle gain because you've already got the energy and the calories and stuff right there.
Speaker 1:And then when you do some resistance training which stimulates muscle growth, there's a threshold on protein where it doesn't really do much beyond like 1.6 grams per kilo of body weight. And then people will say that as our protein is not that important when it comes to building muscle. But in a maintenance and surplus, it's important but like it's not like huge, oh my god, if I donate that, it's the end of the world. But when it comes to being in a deficit, which means your body doesn't have enough energy for what it needs, protein, there was a study done on how can we spare protein in a deficit. They did many different things.
Speaker 1:They looked at what if we gave them more carbs? Didn't work. What if we give them more fats? Didn't spare more protein. What if we made them eat more protein?
Speaker 1:Spare protein. Think about it. If you're in a deficit and your body is gonna break down fat tissue for energy and it's also going to go and break down muscle tissue, if you're supplying the body with enough protein and amino acids, that breakdown is limited because it's bringing in that supply. And there's two factors here. There's muscle there's muscle protein breakdown, which is the breakdown of it to get the energy, and there's a muscle protein synthesis, which is the growth part.
Speaker 1:The when you're in a deficit, the more protein you can eat the better because it limits the muscle protein breakdown part. Does that make sense? We limit the loss of it a lot because we're giving the body enough protein to be protective. But when the body has enough energy and it doesn't need to be that catabolic to take energy from our muscles, adding more and more protein isn't like a super additive effect. Otherwise, you know, you could just eat five grams per kilo a day and you turn into a monster.
Speaker 1:You know? Right. So let's circle back. Where the hell are we right now? So we wanna figure out we know high protein helps.
Speaker 1:So say now for argument's sake, lose a 100 pounds and the standard diet, you've lost 40 pounds of lean tissue, 30 pounds is being And instead of losing 30 pounds of muscle, you've now reduced on half. You're now losing 15 pounds of muscle. So you've lost a 100 pounds of total body weight. And instead of 30 pounds of muscle, it's now 15 just because you've hit your protein targets. That's a huge win.
Speaker 1:15 pounds of muscle is massive. To regain that would be a tough job. How can we improve this even further? Right. Well, luckily, got the studies.
Speaker 1:What What if we made the calorie deficit less? What if we didn't have such a large deficit, which is what most people do and rush into? What if we made the calorie deficit 10 to 15% or, like, 500 calories roughly for most people? What happens? The rate of lean body mass tissue further diminishes.
Speaker 1:So now instead of losing 15 pounds of muscle, you're down to five pounds of muscle lost from the 100 pounds. So we've gone from losing 30 pounds to five pounds just because we're eating more protein and we're not being too severe with our calorie deficit. This is what happens. Now you might be thinking, but what if you are in a severe calorie deficit and your protein's high but you do a lot of weight training. What happens then?
Speaker 1:Luckily, some studies show when you are in a huge deficit, say a thousand calories extra, you know, big deficit a day, and your protein is very high, you can actually maintain muscle mass with a good amount of workouts. Like one of the studies looked at six workouts a week intense, high intensity. Okay. That's not something most people can stick to. It's not realistic.
Speaker 1:But if you could do that, the stimulus given from those workouts means that the muscle is maintained even in a severe deficit and high protein. Okay? It's difficult, though, because it means you have to train a lot every day, high intensity. And for most of us, it's not a lifestyle we wanna lead. It's an easier route here.
Speaker 1:We don't have to go down that route because we can go down a route that makes everything better for us, which means we can eat less, we can make the deficit smaller, so we gain more calories back a day. We move a bit slower in terms of our goals, but we make sure that most of the fat loss is most of the weight loss is fat and we maintain in our muscle. But you might be saying, yeah, but Scott, you said high protein, moderate deficit. You still for every 100 pounds of weight you lose, you're still gonna lose 15 pounds, 10 pounds No. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:Five pounds to 10 pounds of muscle. What can we do to stop that? And that's where resistance training comes in. If you can do one or two basic workouts a day, whether it's body weight with resistance bands, dumbbells, barbell machines in the gym. If you can do one to two a week at when you do the sets, they need to be tough.
Speaker 1:So at the end of a set, say say, Scott, go and do 10 air squats. I'm here now. 10 air squats. One, two, three. Blah blah.
Speaker 1:I get to 10, and I'm like, oh, could I do three more? Oh, yeah. Maybe I could do two more. If I get to the point where I could only do two or three more, that's the intensity you need to train at to get the stimulus from the muscle. Does make sense?
Speaker 1:If you can do two workouts a week, one or two workouts a week, doing every body part, so four sets in every body part. So I'm doing air squats. That's one set on my quads. Air squats, two sets on my quads. I could do two sets today, and I could do two sets at the end of the week.
Speaker 1:Or I could do all four sets today on my legs. All four sets on my arms, my triceps, my biceps. Does that make sense? I can cover this more detail in in the future. If we do that, there's a chance, a high chance that you're gonna lose no muscle.
Speaker 1:So from the 100 pounds of weight you lose, 90%, 85 to 90 or even more is fat. The rest of it is water and glycogen. And then muscle is sped, organ tissue is fed. That is a real possibility when you do the right program. And that's why when people come and say to me, Scott, why is the calories you're giving this?
Speaker 1:Why is the protein this? The reason is is because we are doing it to make sure the most of weight you lose is fat, not muscle because that's not in your best interest to lose maximum weight. You want to lose fat. And that's why I've developed a new system. It's called LeanShield, and it gives you a LeanShield score, and it's going to predict over the next six months how much fat you're going to lose, how much muscle you're going to lose, how much organ tissue you're going to lose based on your current average intakes for calories, protein, steps, and if you're doing any training as well.
Speaker 1:So it's gonna give you this score like, hey, Scott. Your LeanShield score is 72 out of a 100. This means you're likely gonna hold on to most of your muscle. There'll be some muscle loss. What can you do to improve this?
Speaker 1:And they can say, Scott, your deficit was too big last week. It was 25%. Maybe make your deficit 20%, which means, say I was eating 1,900 calories a day, it says eat 2,100 calories a day, you're still gonna lose fat but minimize that muscle loss. So I'm building this lean shield system into the app that's gonna give you insight into where you're going in terms of if you're gonna lose fat muscle. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:We want to lose fat. I hope I've drilled this in. I've now gone over a lot and I hope it's useful for you guys to understand the concept. And then what's nearly ready is for all Pow Pow Turtle member that uses is a workout app. And this workout app isn't just a traditional workout app going to do this.
Speaker 1:It's all about LeanShield. So we're gonna say give you a questionnaire, ask what equipment you got, and say to you, do you know what, Scott, are there's level there's 10 levels to each body part. So for squats, there's 10 levels to squats. Okay? The first level is you're gonna squat to a chair.
Speaker 1:Once you can do 12 reps and you've got more than three reps left in a tank, so I do 12 reps to the chair, I get to the twelfth rep and I ask myself, could I do three more reps? I go, yeah, I could probably do four or five more reps. That's when you know chair squats are complete and you can move on to the next more difficult exercise, which is air squats without going to the chair. So you go to the same depth where you haven't got that chair to bounce off or that chair to sit on. And then you'll do the workouts.
Speaker 1:There'll be different exercises for them all. You progress in different levels for each body part, But the goal is to take you from level one up to level 10 for each body part so you can progress properly. You can progress without needing to always buy new gym equipment. It's going to be using AI. It's going to be giving you the workouts you can actually do at that time.
Speaker 1:And it's gonna give you a lean shield score for the workout part. So I'll say to you stuff like, hey, you did four sets of air squats, but you could have done five more reps on each of them, which means the intensity wasn't there to get maximum points for your lean shield. We're gonna give 60% points because, yeah, you still did air squats, five more reps left in the tank. Here you go. You get some points.
Speaker 1:But what's clever is after every set so it'll be like, hey, go and do the set, 12 reps of this with a video of how to do it. You finish the set, pops up and says, hey, how many more reps can you done? Well, first of all, if you're using weight, it'll ask how much weight you've used. But for body weight, it'll say, how many more reps could you done? I say, I could have done five more reps.
Speaker 1:And then the app says, well, you're gonna get 60% points for this set, or if you wanna get a 100%, you can do one of these four challenges. And one of the challenges is hold some weight and do another round. The other challenge is do another round again, but do the reps slower, like half the speed. The other challenge which is harder again is double the reps. And the fourth one, which is the most challenging challenge, is do a sixty second AMRAP, as many reps as possible.
Speaker 1:So you say, you know what? I'm feeling like I can do as many reps as possible. And you do the AMRAP sixty seconds and you can't do anymore. Then it asks you how many more reps have you done? You say zero and you go perfect.
Speaker 1:That's the intensity we need to get sometimes to stimulate the muscle to stay. Does that make sense? Anyway, what I want to say is I got your back. I'm looking after your muscle. I'm looking after your organ tissue.
Speaker 1:Stick with the system. We're gonna make it even better, give you more visibility on LeanShield. And we're not gonna turn into those people that have lost so much weight, but also lost a shitload of muscle and look skinny and weak and all that stuff. We're gonna strong and lean and that's what all of you are gonna get to if you follow the system. So have a good day guys.
Speaker 1:Hopefully that was a useful oversight for you and I'll see you all in the next podcast episode. Now go and track your bloody food, go for your walk, and put a smile on your face. See you back tomorrow.
