Popular questions from the community, answered!
Welcome back to another episode of one day at a time with me, Scott Fleer, am I AI? So I want to test out, right, the AI agent. So in the app, in Power you can speak to me as a conversational AI. It's cloned my voice, which sounds like me. I think it's quite close.
Speaker 1:And it's basically trained on all the podcasts I've done. So I've done about 800 plus of these podcasts covering research studies and so forth. And some people talk to me. The AI me ask very interesting questions. I don't know who the users are.
Speaker 1:We don't track that stuff, but we do track kind of the themes that I spoke about to make sure nothing dangerous is spoke about as well for safety reasons, but also to help form content to help you guys. So I got a list of like really good questions that have been asked to AI me and I want to address them myself. But first, let's actually chat to AI me and see if it knows the podcasts that it's been trained on. Listen to this now. Hey Scott, I'm currently on the one day at a time podcast and the users are asking how do they lose weight quickly?
Speaker 1:Hey Scott, are you there?
Speaker 2:Hey there, great to have you tuning in.
Speaker 1:Hi, Tammy Mo. Hey Scott.
Speaker 2:Hey there, I'm here. It sounds like a lot of people are eager for quick results. And I get that, it's a common desire, you know? But like the Stoic Archer, we need to focus on what's truly in our control and what leads to lasting success, not just a fleeting win. While the idea of losing weight quickly is appealing, true and sustainable change often comes from consistent, small, actionable habits one day at a time.
Speaker 2:Trying to rush the process with extreme measures usually leads to frustration and can even be counterproductive in the long run. Think of it this way, like the story of the tortoise and the hare, the slow and steady approach often wins the race. We focus on the fundamentals, hitting your protein and calorie targets, getting your steps in and being honest with your tracking. These are the things that build resilience and lead to lasting results, rather than chasing a quick fix that often doesn't stick.
Speaker 1:Thanks Scott, legend. Very good, very, very good. So you can see it's me basically, and you can get answers from me at any time. There's a few things I want to cover in all seriousness now that are very interesting questions okay. First thing, I'm 70 years old, want to lose 25 pounds without losing muscle, what is the most weight I can lose per week safely?
Speaker 1:Very important question and actually something I've been working deeply on in the last few months with LeanShield, with speaking to Professor Wareham from University of Cambridge and other experts. Basically, the larger the deficit, the more catabolic your state is, the more chance your body is going to break down muscle. That's kind of like a quick one. If you want to lose weight quickly, and you mean fat, the larger the deficit, the more strain, essentially, the more stress in the body, likelihood is muscle is going to be used for energy, not just fat. How can we stop that if we want to go fast and I'm not saying this is the best way but if you wanted to go quickly and you've got a big deficit you need to ensure your protein target is being hit but your protein target will actually go higher the larger the deficit so imagine you can't have everything, You can't eat dollar cake, can't have all of them.
Speaker 1:If you want to go faster, you're gonna have to make sure your protein is even higher than what we would suggest normally in the app, just to ensure you've got those building blocks of protein and muscle there. The way to realize this is there's two energy kind of pools, there's the fat pool or the fat bank. And when you're in the deficit, the body will use energy, will get energy from the fat bank, and that's how you lose fat. But when it comes to muscle preservation, the body will break down muscle for energy, unless there's enough amino acids or enough proteins circulating to kind of stop that happening. So instead of going, hey, we need energy from the muscle, you go, no, no, there's enough here, there's enough body here to get to work, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1:And that's coming in from your intake, right? So that's a very simplistic way of explaining it. So you need to make sure that even if you are in a big deficit, your protein isn't, you haven't got a huge protein deficit because your body is building and breaking down muscle, it's like a turnover. And then you will have to add in resistance training. If you want to lose maximum amount of fat without muscle, adding in resistance training is nearly a necessity at that point if that's the goal because adding in a stimulus, telling your body to put up signs around the muscle do not demolish is basically what you're doing when you're doing resistance training.
Speaker 1:You're telling the body this is needed, do not let this be broken down into energy or get it from fat, don't worry about this, but you need the high protein as well. And there's research on this. Okay, I'm going to cover all of this in one of the podcasts soon. But there's research studies on what happens if you're in a huge deficit, 40% calorie deficit, and you're on low calorie low protein versus high protein. Now the low protein did lose lean body mass and majority of lean body mass is muscle tissue most of the time.
Speaker 1:The group that went huge deficit 40% plus high protein 2.3 grams per kilo of body weight which is enormous, they actually gained a bit of lean body mass, so let's call it maintenance as they've maintained muscle mass. There's a few other studies along the lines similar lines where protein by is protective up to like between 50 to 80% of lean body mass can be protected in a moderate deficit with protein higher, but you can't guarantee that if your deficit is higher. If your deficit is in the big range, 40% range, your protein even if you hit your protein targets bang on, are you going to see some lean body mass loss? Probably, probably. And what does it mean to do resistance training?
Speaker 1:What are you on about? What does resistance training mean? It's any type of training that's like body weight, dumbbells, kettle, anything that's resistance, you know, that you're using against your body. You can do it at home, you can do body weight, your body weight is a resistance, you're doing squats, if you've never done stuff like that, it's gonna be difficult. Our easy, very, very basic rule of thumb, if you can do 10 reps, but then you can do three to four reps more easily, you're probably it's probably a bit too easy.
Speaker 1:You wanna get to the stage where if you do 10 reps, doing three more reps is gonna be difficult after that. So say to yourself, could have I done three more reps or would have I collapsed like a deck chair? And then you say it probably would have collapsed like a deck chair. Good intensity. I need to make most of my sets like that.
Speaker 1:But obviously, you know, mixing easier sets if you're starting off and you're a beginner. And especially as as a topic, if you're a newbie, beginners gains, you have never done resistance training before, and you start doing resistance training, the first twelve months, you're going to be in a state where you can be gaining more muscle than the advanced trainer and losing fat. And we call this body recomposition. This is kind of the ultimate state we want to be in. So yeah, to do it safely, would recommend sticking to the targets in Parapal.
Speaker 1:It's a moderate calorie deficit. It's a high enough protein backed by the research to be protective, and your steps are going to be great. Then obviously, if you just add in one workout a week or two resistance training workout a week, you are doing everything you can to lose fat. Don't try and speed it up, just do it as that timeline and then you'll be losing mainly fat and a muscle. A crab cake, is that healthy?
Speaker 1:Is a crab cake healthy? That's what someone asked. Well, in the context of what? Like, is a fried crab cake added fats and stuff healthy? Depends if all your other all the foods that you're eating are similar, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:If you're eating all fried foods and obviously that all combined is not great in the context of a balanced intake of food, is it healthy or not? Foods are not good or bad, foods are more nutrient dense than others, that's for sure, we're not going to say no to that, but if you said to me Scott I'm having a crab cake but I'm eating my veggies and fruits and high protein and I'm drinking my water, I'm like, oh, happy days. Enjoy your crab cake. But if you're saying I'm having crab cake, McDonald's, frying it all, well, I'm saying listen, you need to cut out some of this, bring in some whole foods, bring in some good quality nutrients. So you can't pinpoint one food as bad, You have to look at the context of the full intake.
Speaker 1:That's the key thing with all this stuff. You can't just look at one food and go, that's bad. That's what people do all the time. Remember when I used work in an office after university, I'd be eating fish and asparagus, all that stuff, I went through that phase, and then I'd come in one day and have bagels and then straight away, oh my god, so bad for you. In the context of, it's bad for me because I'm now having a bagel and it's not the fish and the asparagus, about the other things I'm eating?
Speaker 1:No, don't worry, that's bad for you. And you know the secret is all of us eat these foods, none of us are perfect, oh my god, the people that go on and on about you should never eat sugar, should cut everything out, inflammatory blah blah blah, They are eating those foods behind the scenes. Let me tell you. They are doing it from time to time 100%. They are these people are preachers perfectionist routine about food and stuff and low carb, low sugar, cutting everything out.
Speaker 1:They are deceiving themselves because we are all human beings. We are surrounded by foods that taste amazing. We have social plans and stuff like that. We tend to go down that path and eat those foods anyway. And then if you're in the camp of people who thinks it's really bad to do that, you're gonna feel guilty, you're gonna eat more, you're gonna have a really terrible relationship with food.
Speaker 1:If you accept, as humans, we are gonna eat those delicious foods from time to time, and I'm not gonna regret them and enjoy it, and the rest of the stuff, I'm doing good. We will have a far healthier relationship with food and just get on with our lives. Does that make sense? Okay, why am I not losing weight faster? Kind of covered it but losing weight isn't the goal, fat loss is the goal, fat loss can be masked by water weight being higher so your body is like 60% water so you know feel fluctuations and pounds up and down can make a difference there but losing weight faster shouldn't be the goal anyway.
Speaker 1:If I was not trying to lose weight what would my maintenance calorie intake be? You can do it in the app to find out, but maintenance is like a zonal thing, and it's gonna take time to figure out what your maintenance is. You're gonna increase your calorie intake, of course. You're gonna increase that from carbs and fats. Your protein intake doesn't actually have to go up for maintenance.
Speaker 1:It can can actually come down because your body's in a less catabolic state, maybe not even in the catabolic state of maintenance, but you need a bit less protein, you got the energy coming in, and you can increase your calories from carbs and fats and just try and figure out where your weight is averaging out and everything you do in there combined equals your maintenance in in short. Hey. Why am I allowed so many calories? Well, let me tell you. It's based on your statistics.
Speaker 1:So the calories you're given, if you're losing weight, is a deficit. Most people think the calories are too high, there's no way I eat those calories and lose weight. The fact is for you to be at the weight you are right now, you would have been eating more than the calories the app has given you by at least 600, 700 calories a day on average, because you would have had to be in a surplus. Instead of saying that's wrong, actually think back, have I tracked my food before? Have I tracked my weekends before properly?
Speaker 1:Most people haven't. And could this be right? Then should I look at it like a scientist and see okay let's check it out? Because most people think Monday to Tuesday is their kind of calorie intake. They kind of put the blinders on on the weekend.
Speaker 1:They don't have a clue. But I only eat 1,500 calories Monday to Tuesday. There's no way I could eat 2,001. I'm like, do you understand how many calories are in a meal out? Go to any restaurant now, any pub, 1,400 calories with pint chips, 1,300 calories with a burger and chips, two hundred two hundred calories a pint, six fifty calories a bottle of wine, starters, starters, sometimes called little bites on menus are 800 calories.
Speaker 1:Like, it is mental out there. And we think how can I eat 2,001? I can eat 2,100 calories in, like, five minutes. You know, it's not hard to do it. You think it's hard, but when you go out and eat and stuff like that, you realize it's not it's not hard at all.
Speaker 1:So when you actually factor these things in and snacks and things we eat, we're easily exceeding that. It's actually quite difficult to only eat an average of 2,000 calories a day over a week, especially for someone of my weight. And if I if I wanna lose weight at a moderate pace, and after eating around that, I find it difficult, find it's not much food for me, but obviously you can make it feel more with more wholesome foods and stuff, but sometimes I like to incorporate like the Oreo ice cream sandwich, Mars bar, grenade bar, Trek bar, I eat a lot of fruit, for example, yogurts, mulletup, protein rice pudding, which is amazing, you know, it adds up. Alright, I don't want to lose progress, I went from averaging 15,000 steps a day and doing kettlebells and abs every other day, all week plus working to just working, and I feel like a loser. Now it's important this one, you're never going to be able to be on all the time, you cannot be smashing it every single week, it does not exist.
Speaker 1:So what is more important is when we're motivated and we smash the weeks, they're easy to do. It's easy to go to the gym, it's easy to eat well when you're motivated. When we come up against some adversity, that's the difference between people who stick with it and see progress that people envy and people that don't. Like, okay, you now can't go and walk as much as you could, you can't go to the gym as much as you could, that's out of your control, focus on what is in your control, and one day you will get back to being able to do the workouts again and walk more. You know, it comes in cycles, just do the basics you need to do to maintain progress.
Speaker 1:If your goal is to lose fat, then obviously make sure your deficit is still in order, and your protein is in, and keep the steps as high as you can, and then that's it, that's amazing. Those three things in themselves are unbelievably good, and people kind of discount that. If you just did calories, protein steps for fat loss, amazing. Add in one workout a week, unbelievable. Two, unbelievable.
Speaker 1:That's it. So if you can't do the workout part steps come down a bit, just focus on the other bits. And also the time you're not doing working out, is there other things you can do instead? Is there some light exercises you could do stretching? Is there some research you can look into into, I don't know, the work you want to do, the career path you want to do, whatever, utilize that time you were training into something else more productive, and it's not feeling like such a loser type thing, because you're not being a loser for not working out.
Speaker 1:Some cases, I'm taking a week off right now, I have to take a week off training, I injured my knee in jujitsu, and I know if I go back too early I'm gonna be out for longer, okay, I can't do any exercises on my legs, I did upper body workout fine, I'll do another upper body workout tomorrow, is it ideal, I'm missing jujitsu, no, it's very expensive, the membership, and you know you think oh the cost, is just how it is, but I've had a very good training streak before that, I take things as they come. Last one and I'll do the rest another day because I know I am going on and on here. Let's have a look which one this should do. Okay yes, I'm currently on GLP-one injection but I don't plan on continuing it. I have about three more injections before I end it.
Speaker 1:How will I alter everything as far as my calorie target? Does it even make a difference in my calorie target and also the amount of weight I lose per week? So the important thing is if you're coming off a GLP-one and you've built up the dosage and you come off quite fast, you're going to see probably a big rise in your appetite, and your calorie intake is going to probably go through the roof. So you need to be careful, one strategy that is spoken about now is tapering off, if you've got three doses left, not to just do them every week, is maybe do them every other week or every three weeks just so you kind of taper off and you can let it in your system and you can come down slower. Calorie target difference for GLP-one users and all, really in an ideal world, it shouldn't change, but because GLP-one suppresses appetite so much, eating the calories of just 500 calorie deficit is going to be difficult, so they probably will naturally be in a thousand calorie deficit roughly, if that kind of makes sense.
Speaker 1:So instead of being like you have to force eat up, which most people won't, really the goal is if you are going to be eating lower calories, you're going to be in a larger calorie deficit, larger catabolic state protein has to be really, really important, you have to make sure you hit that protein target and do some resistance training ideally. So there was one study showing an intervention after a GLP-one was stopped, what intervention managed to help people maintain their weight one year after. And one of the interventions that showed the success was just doing exercise and then working out. So if you are coming off the injections, and you haven't added in some resistance training, that's one of the most important things you can do starting now when the injection stop for you to start training, get your protein in. Yes, your calorie intake might go up a bit as well, but you'll have these kind of like newbie gains part where you'd be in a real good rhythm, and that is seen in the research after one year to maintain the weight loss after coming off a GLP one.
Speaker 1:There's not much research on this, so it's quite new. So, yeah, that's it for today, think. Hopefully AI Scott will be as just as useful, probably more useful to be honest because he remembers everything spoken about over 800 episodes. But yeah, go and speak to AI Scott in the app if you want more advice, own a WhatsApp group for me, and thanks for listening guys, I'll see you all soon.
