'Drive for thinness' study + lessons from 'the biggest loser' study
Good morning everybody. Sorry for no podcast yesterday, but today let's get down to business and I want to welcome all the new people who joined the monthly or annual, Macros app subscriptions. Welcome on board and to everybody nearly coming to the end of Octagon two, three weeks away from finishing and the end of challenge event is coming up which is a bunch of pumped for I got some stuff in today from it so I'm excited to give it all to you. But yeah we've got three weeks till our challenge is finished as people are just on their new journey with the macros app and this lifestyle change mindset change. So what I'm going to talk today about is two really important studies, and some insights for you guys because I saw a comment to one of the groups saying, I understand that we aren't looking to lose weight right now and that fat loss and weight loss aren't the same, but should have lost weight by now.
Speaker 1:It's like that but means that you whatever you said beforehand hasn't clicked yet. And how I see it is very clear. It's like if I said if you were after a thousand pounds and I said, look, I want you to do this and I'm gonna give you a thousand pounds, right? And you'd be you'd be quite, you know some simple task you know run down there and back and I'll give you a thousand pound cash. Here's the cash you're like yeah you know you're motivated to do it you believe it and then before I say actually I go do you know actually hang on this cash is fake I just printed off earlier.
Speaker 1:That's it. You're not gonna do anything for it. It's fake, it's done, it's gone, there's no more thinking oh should I do it, it could be real and that's what I think a lot of people are still out and sometimes it takes time, sometimes it's instant, but when you see the falseness of going after lots of weight loss to start with and understanding that's not fat loss and that that is the entire game these like extreme diets go on. They know if you go low carb, low calorie in the first three weeks, you lose a lot of water weight and then you get motivated and you think it's fat loss. And then you once the fat loss has come off and there's no fat, once the weight loss, water weights come off and fat loss then you just have no clue what to do next then they drop off you know.
Speaker 1:They prey on the fact that the first three weeks you go low carb and, you know, drop all our water weight, and I'm trying to tell you the falseness of it. Can you see the falseness of that approach? And if you can, there is no but should have I lost weight by now, but this, but that. There is simply that I understand. We're gonna be losing fat at a consistent rate every week I'm gonna be hitting my macros coming within my calorie target, you know, get my steps in.
Speaker 1:That's just a fact. You know, fat loss of one pound a week is typically where there's other studies on here, and it's quite quite accurate to be fair. You know, it might not be exactly one pound of fat, might be a bit less. Sometimes it might be bit more. And as you lose weight, your deficit might get smaller, but luckily we've got very smart app out there that's gonna automatically change your macros over time.
Speaker 1:So you you're always maintaining that deficit of above 500 calories. You know? A lot of people with that deficit deficit stay the same calories and macros. And then after, like, eight weeks, you know, weight loss or fat loss comes to a a stop. And then, well, what do I do now?
Speaker 1:It's like, well, you haven't really understood that as you get lighter, your maintenance is dropping and your exercise, we're not going to ask you to do more exercise because it's not sustainable. So you know your maintenance, your deficit gets smaller. So we have to be proactive in this approach and you know make sure that it's a steady process, minor changes over time that you don't really notice and that's what happens. That was just a side note because I think it's important that we see the falseness of the dieting industry and we forget about it now. It's like fake money.
Speaker 1:Once you know us fake money you don't want to touch it because it's pointless. It's not worth anything. Same with this thing. Does that make sense? Anyway, one of the top of research is a very interesting research actually and it says and it's about do attitudes about thinness matter.
Speaker 1:Okay and let's define this thinness or drive for thinness. So this is measured clinically, drive for thinness is correlated with dieting behaviors and highly correlated with body dissatisfaction. However, how you drive for thinness is different for wanting to get in shape. It's wanting to be thin, not necessarily healthy is so important that they're having lots of negative feelings about it. They think about it all the time every single day, they're probably restricting everything, eating some bits of food, not feeling great about their body, and they're likely to have a higher BMI in the study.
Speaker 1:And basically this drive for thinness over health, fat loss tablets, extreme cardio, yo yo dieting this is all associated with it. Right? So that's what we mean by drive for thinness. So they looked at this research, they the very so ironically those very eating behaviors can make harder to meet the thin ideal in terms of like the yo yo diet and stuff that comes around with a high drive for being thin. This isn't a speculation either this is published in a new study in obesity journal.
Speaker 1:The researchers wanted to know does value and thinness as an adolescent make a difference when we become adults? Turns out yes it does. Okay, so the paper looked at a group of women who'd been studied from the ages of nine nineteen starting in 1987. By the time the study rolled around they were women aged 37 to 43 years old. The researchers took in for like the women's drive for thinners which I just defined, BMI and eating habits across adolescence and adulthood and looked for correlations.
Speaker 1:In particular they looked at the relationship between their drive for thinners and reward based eating drive. In other words they wanted to find out if a strong desire to be thin made the women more or less likely to struggle with compulsive eating. Here's a key here are the key findings from the study. Higher drive for thinness was associated with higher BMI. Participants with higher drive for thinness as adolescents were more likely to have it as an adult.
Speaker 1:Cumulative drive for thinness both in adolescent and adult was associated with higher rates of reward based eating drive. The researchers say that drive for thinness in adolescence is an indicator that a person would probably struggle with preoccupation with food, feeling unsatisfied and feeling out of control and based on these findings they'll probably continue feeling that way as an adult. Okay, so this is vital and we've kind of been teaching it you know your attitude towards the fat loss and this entire health thing plays a huge role you know. The more you try and, like the more you try and get thin or lose weight the more they would elude you. And I think like let me just get a quote from Viktor Frankl again and he says this right Viktor Frankl man searched for meaning escaped Auschwitz psychotherapist all this stuff.
Speaker 1:He says and his quote always stays with me, For success like happiness cannot be pursued, it must ensue and it only does so at the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself was the byproduct of the person's actions. Happiness must happen and the same holds for success. You have to let it happen by not caring about it. And like kind of is the same here like you have to let go of wanting to lose so much fat so fast. You have to let go of this perfect aesthetic look you're all chasing.
Speaker 1:You have to let go of all of that and focus on the day to day healthy habits that the byproduct of that is that you are this person who is leaner and stronger and happier and more fulfilled. It is a side effect, it's a byproduct of someone that focuses day to day on the one day at a time philosophy. So the attitude you have towards losing weight and stuff, it has to start with seeing the falseness, know, the first ever podcast on the fourteen day masterclass and all these challenges do is the risks of your diet and always, you know, in my opinion, just as bad as smoking, if not worse in a sense. You know, can you see how dangerous it is? You're not gonna walk into fire.
Speaker 1:Like would you walk into a fire? You know, is that an extreme example? I don't know. I wouldn't walk into a fire just to let you know but like, is that what yo yo dieting like, you know, potentially it is, you know, can we see that? And our attitude is towards being thin, like, do you want to be thin over health?
Speaker 1:And like, being thin doesn't make you happy so, you know what's the point? Going down that route, route we go down slow and steady and we improve one day at a time, get stronger, we get fitter, we get free from food prison and we free this energy and focus on other parts of our life. Then the byproduct is the result you want. Paradoxically, that's how it works. Again, like childhood experiences make an impact here.
Speaker 1:Of course, we've heard a lot of these things before about how being in your teens and stuff and your upbringing can really shape how you were as an adult and it doesn't mean it has to 100% shape you but it might be worth you know looking back and being like you know let's have a look at what forces are on me right now, what conditioning am I under to believe in these things and sometimes we think it's just how we are so that's what we think. You know changing our beliefs and stuff you know for most people it doesn't happen overnight. It can happen in a short space of time I think when you see the falseness of it. But when we look at total health, when we look at total health in the long run, right, it's important to look at these studies that I've looked, you know that's a long, that's a lot. 1987 guys that's a long study you know, and I think it's important that we take this into consideration.
Speaker 1:Now the second study I want to mention is, but before that actually I mentioned earlier reward based eat and drive, me just define it. So reward based eating drive is a phenomenon measured by feeling one cannot stop overeating, eating rapidly or mindlessly without perceiving fullness or satiation and excessive thoughts of food and eating. So you know there was a relationship between that type of behavior and the desire to be thin. But the drive for thinness over health. Another second research is I don't know if any of you come across the studies on The Biggest Loser which is our show in America, they lose loads of weight over time and then they looked at studies and like the most of them gained it back and you know whatever, there's an update on this study, and you know it's interesting so they looked at their starting weight, they looked at their week at the end of the thirty day competition which they massively increase their exercise, control their nutrition.
Speaker 1:So their weight before the competition on average 148.9kgs, their weight at the end of the thirty weeks was, ninety point six kgs you know, that's a big drop, and then they wait six years after it was one hundred and thirty one kgs so they went from one hundred and forty eight down to ninety back up to one hundred and thirty one on average. Their body fat percentage was 49.3 dropped down to twenty eight then went back up to forty four point seven six years after this competition, the biggest loser. Their predicted, resting metabolic rate or BMR, actual resting metabolic rate. The predicted was 2,577 calories that was predicted before the competition, the actual was 2,607 so very, very, very close and that's what I'm saying with the calculation we have as well as always updated for our data so the initial macros you get pretty bang on in a sense sometimes if it's not the tweaks are made. Their predicted, resting metabolic rate at the end of the thirty week competition was to be 2,272 but their actual was nineteen ninety six, right.
Speaker 1:Six years after they predicted resting metabolic rate. So resting metabolic rate is based on age, gender, weight, lean body mass, okay that's all our stuff so it doesn't survival calories essentially. So the predicted resting metabolic rate six years after was 2,403 calories a day based off their weight and stuff yeah, but their actual was nineteen oh three. So the metabolic adaption happens here. So before the competition they were just 29 calories off a day in terms of their predicted versus actual.
Speaker 1:At the end of the thirty weeks the difference was two seventy five calories they predicted 2,200 but it was actually 1,900 so as they were losing weight you know they thought their predicted RMR would be a bit higher but it dropped down and then you know even six years later they thought it would go up a bit due to the weight going up but actually it kind of went down. So and there was a 500 calorie difference between the predicted model versus the actual and this is based off what they term now as metabolic adaption. So metabolic adaption basically when you lose weight over time, your body doesn't want to lose weight, it doesn't want to gain weight, doesn't lose you and sustain balance okay, but because we are living you know like I've mentioned in the yo yo diet and stuff, when you go extreme lose loads of weight, gain loads of weight, you lose your inner deficit for ages and ages and ages or you go really really high exercise, really burn a lot of calories, you know these things are gonna go haywire basically you know and I think the you know the 21% difference in the calculation versus expected is due to metabolic adoption.
Speaker 1:So what they were looking at is like why does this actually happen? Why does it happen? And they looked at something called energy compensation and Doctor P actually touched on this in one of the Q and A's and I spoke about it as well. This is another fact why you shouldn't think just because you're exercising more you're gonna burn more calories. Basically they looked at the biggest loser they maintained their activity after the show finished but their activity they were burning 1,200 calories a day from exercise so like they were doing a huge amount of exercise, huge amount of activity you know compared to what they were doing before and that's too much movement basically, it's too much movement and when you do too much movement right and you know you're not quite in the deficit sometimes maybe your maintenance, your body is more stressed, the other parts like hormones go down.
Speaker 1:So looking at the research here, reproductive, let's have a look, so irregular painful missing periods, sperm count goes down, libido goes down, we've seen all this, we've seen it in natural bodybuilders their testosterone levels go drop down 75% after sixteen weeks of going on, in a deficit. You combine that with high levels of activities such as exercising for one to two hours a day and you've got the perfect environment for the body to be completely different zone than it was before. So we shouldn't look to do extreme movement and exercise like I've mentioned this Doctor. P was saying, if you do a lot of exercise, your body will compensate for that throughout the day, reduce the energy burned from your base metabolic rate, it will reduce your non exercise activity thermogenesis. So basically you'll say you won't even notice it but you will sit down more, you won't fidget as much, you won't be as alert, you won't move as much and overall your total calories burned will be less.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? So the body's adapted so we want to be in the middle zone. We're training just about right, you know we're doing three, four workouts a week you know focusing ideally on strength, getting a few different types of workouts in. We're getting a decent amount of, steps in you know six ten thousand steps a day you can go up more obviously if you're used to it but you know don't go extreme. And then the other side as I mentioned it before in the first day of a seminar on you know the Octagon and on, the fourteen day masterclass was if we don't move enough, so if we're very sedentary we don't move enough right our appetite regulation system doesn't work properly so we actually become hungrier right, than we need and that's why a lot of people start office work and stuff they gain a lot of weight to start with because they're sitting down eight to ten hours a day, you're always feeling hungry, you're always looking to snack, you're eating way too many calories for your body needs you putting weight on.
Speaker 1:Because it doesn't make sense, the body doesn't want to put weight on, it doesn't want to lose weight. So why is it doing that adaption? The reason that happens because it's not actually working properly because you're not moving as much as our ancestors used to move you know, 96% of human existence has been as hunter gatherers, we've just been on the move on the walk, moving about picking up areas you know, hopefully pairs, love a pair, you know, walking about And we've gone the extreme side where we don't move at all. So there's the extreme sides in both, there's where you don't actually move at all and you might do two or three workouts a week which doesn't mean you're active. Then there's where you're doing way too much activity, you might be doing 20,000 sets a day, six, seven workouts a week, that's too much.
Speaker 1:And the metabolic adaption on either side is not good. So the adaption on the sedentary side is that you get them way too hungry, and you eat too many calories for you need. And on the other side, because you're doing way too much, body actually burns less calories overall from the base function, 5060% of your calories burned per day is your base metabolic rate, is those functions the body does, then it's non exercise activity seconds so your body drops those two because you're doing way too much and therefore you burn less calories. And this study showed six years later even though they were training just as much keeping activity levels higher and the weight piled on 500 calorie difference between what they expected them to burn and what they actually burned due to metabolic adoption. This doesn't mean starvation mode is a thing in terms of like people confuse this they say well does that mean there's starvation mode and you gain weight.
Speaker 1:Like if you're in a deficit you're gonna lose fat, you're gonna turn into your muscle wastage, you're gonna lose muscle and you're gonna turn into an absolute nothing to you. Look at you know you clearly see these folds of people in Africa and stuff like that, there's nothing to them, skin and bones, people say starvation mode. You know there's adaptions that happen but that doesn't override that you know even though they've they're burning 500 calories less than expected, if they're still in a deficit they will lose fat right, it just means it's gonna be a bit harder for them now because the maintenance has dropped. And you say well is it dropped forever? No, because we've seen in countless studies once exercise levels come back down to like the mid tier good amount, and the calories and the carbs go back up and stuff like that, you see these processes, see hormones rebalance, see all these magnificent stuff happen like the bodybuilder study, sixteen weeks, 75% drop in testosterone.
Speaker 1:As soon as they went and back up to eating more carbs, more calories and brought their training levels way down to just normal levels they just rebounded straight away. So that's another idea, that's just another thing for you guys so don't, don't do too much and don't do too little. Oh, does it always come back to moderation guys? Does it always come back to the ancient advice of moderation? I don't know what they tell us two thousand, two, three thousand years ago that we still don't listen, you know?
Speaker 1:We need to listen, we need to listen to this. So whatever you're doing if you're following the turtle method which is the moderate approach, again more research to back up that this method is the best method if you're to optimize your health, happiness, your overall basic approach to life. So hopefully this is useful. I will get if anyone wants a link to all the studies then let me know. They usually come out in a Instagram post on the turtle Instagram after I speak about them so we make it a bit more, plain English.
Speaker 1:And yeah you can read it on there but guys let's bring her back now down to today. What's your one big thing today? Get that done if you haven't tracked and the weekend's gone just get back to it now as soon as this voice note ends you go and track your breakfast. Know if you've been tracking and you feel a bit lethargic get that walk in, weather is built this week and more steps you're gonna get in. If you've low steps you're gonna feel more energy 100% and if you haven't done a workout in ages just get that workout done today is a priority.
Speaker 1:And if it's work stuff, get the work stuff done you know. Just do something that's going to de stress you the most and it's going to give you motivation to do the rest of the stuff. So this voice note's coming to an end, get you one big thing done, have a good day and I'll see you on the radio.
