Maintenance or Fat Loss?
Welcome to the one day at a time podcast where we forget about yesterday. We don't worry about tomorrow. It's what are we going to do today? This all matters because you've only ever had or will ever have the fantastic twenty four hours a day you're about to embark on. So hopefully this episode is going to give you some daily dose of wisdom that you can take action on today to improve your life.
Speaker 1:And remember, all it takes is one day at a time. Good morning, you valley of despairs. How are you? You in the valley. Get out.
Speaker 1:I'm joking. I'm in the valley as well. It's it's tough place to be. Tough place to be. Christina last night in the martial arts was saying she's in the valley of despair, she did the martial arts, she felt she was out of it.
Speaker 1:So we have to keep going, but this is the only thing we gotta do, gotta keep going because we're on week four, we're halfway through week four, so when we know we're nearing week five, we're nearly there, Okay. And you can only connect the dots looking back. So I don't care if you if you haven't lost as much weight as you wanted to because that's probably going to be some unrealistic because you've been reading too many magazines anyway. But you want to keep going at the end of the six weeks we celebrate pushing through lockdown whatever lockdown three it is like you know it's in Feb and I was fed up and it's like we've had terrible cold weather and it's getting better now like you know gone through it, we've grinded through it, we'll do a review and I'm sure you're gonna find amazing stuff right you're not gonna be like, I guarantee you who are any of you who've if you lose like 10 pounds if your goal is to lose 10 pounds say and you lost 10 pounds in this challenge, I guarantee that won't be the number one thing that you're happy about at the end of the challenge because you're gonna say stuff like, do you know what, my mindset is much better.
Speaker 1:Do you know what, I found my tribe, you know what I found a new hobby in yoga or martial arts, you know what I feel so much stronger and more flexible and agile in my skin that it just feels amazing Like those are the benefits that are gonna come triumphantly at the top, not the fat loss. Fat loss great, that's gonna come over time based on your habits. But finding a new hobby and a new tribe is just amazing, right? You found your tribe, found your hobby. No more searching.
Speaker 1:You can get you can get here. And it's a lot like less mental strain. I I remember seeing a post on the main Live Like Louise group. Was it on the weekend someone was saying something like, know, I did macros like a year ago, I lost like a lot of weight and then I did the Shreddy by Grace Fit and then I did this by this other guy and I did this by someone else and this by someone else and now I'm looking for a PT. Was like, woah.
Speaker 1:The problem is this person is jumping about so many different people thinking that's what the answer is. The answer isn't that the answer is finding the truth yourself. Calorie deficit is what you need to lose weight. Yes okay but it's not as easy as that right there's loads of things that impact calories in right so there's loads of things that impact our hunger levels, satiety response, know the the pill can make you want to eat more like put part of your menstrual cycle, stress at work there's so many things that impact our calories in like environments, and then calories out is the same. You know, you could be on you know, four time of the month and you don't want to move, could be injured, could be dark outside and winter and raining, don't get steps in.
Speaker 1:The food you're eating, macronutrient split, like there's loads of things that impact both sides of the equation. But the thing is you need to find the fundamental truth for science. So going around different people hoping for this magic bullet is just not possible. We're telling you as it is straight now. Doctor.
Speaker 1:Paul tells you as it is straight on his Wednesday Q and A's. I'm telling you as it is straight now. There's a consistency and understanding your own body and working with that over time with a a team that cares about you. And hopefully that's shown through that we do care about you and your results and we wanna make sure that you're not just losing weight or gaining muscle. You're you're getting a better life lifestyle out of it, you're being a better human being.
Speaker 1:So there's no jumping about. Okay, that's just a side note. Just remember seeing as like, look, you need to see just need to learn you need to be like Bruce Lee would say self knowledge is true knowledge is the only knowledge. Anyway, so a lot of questions coming in as well. So a lot of you are going to be in a week loss phase.
Speaker 1:And there's going to be the time when you think should I go to maintenance? And there's going to be time you go should I focus on muscle building? So there's a lot of questions in this like do I go to maintenance, do I go muscle building and there's a few things you need to ask yourself first and I don't think anybody should bounce from a straight from a deficit in tools like full maintenance. There's no okay there's a term called reverse dieting and you know when it first was coming out and you know people are talking about it and it made sense that there isn't like really any research to back it up. Speaking to Lyle and Doctor.
Speaker 1:P, it seems as if the benefits of reverse dieting are not any magical metabolic benefits but I think the benefits of reverse dieting or like slowly going to maintenance as we should say is the psychological thing of it. It's like you're not yo yo yo and back, you're going boom boom straight back. I think that's important because you look at people who do competitions and I did one before where you go on a deficit for so long, competition days over, boom, you go straight up into a surplus and good night that fat is coming right on. So we don't want that so if you're going from deficit to maintenance and you've just reached your goal weight or your goal desired level of body fat percentage you're really happy with what you look like in a mirror. Let's hold that for a week or two, slowly increase the carbs, slowly increase the fat right until we get to a place where you're comfortable and you're eating a good amount of food and you're bloating too much and we find what foods work for you.
Speaker 1:That's where you want to be at right. So there's no rush like don't rush into back into maintenance. Let's go over there slowly, not because it's metabolically going to do much difference. Well, I'm yet to see all the science to prove that point but you know that's where you want to go to and then you're thinking right well I want to gain muscle so what can I do right? You can gain muscle in the deficit right but it's not optimal right?
Speaker 1:The reason why there's more muscle built in maintenance and there's more muscle again built of a surplus is you need an energy surplus for maximal protein synthesis to happen, need to be in a surplus, to not be in a huge surplus or maintenance for the energy to do your workouts and feel like you can smash your PBs and actually get stronger and challenge your muscles group your muscle will grow due to stimulus. It's more important to get good workouts in right than like maybe maintenance or surplus argument. If you're like if there's two people, one's in a maintenance, one's a surplus and then one of them is training really laxie daisy like not even doing much but the other one has got a good training plan follows it is doing progressive overload and sticks to the plan. That person even though if they got less calories in a maintenance would probably build more muscle than someone in a surplus I would say. So there's studies, there's very little studies on this where they compared bodybuilders at maintenance and bodybuilders in a surplus.
Speaker 1:But these thing bodybuilders they could be on anabolic steroids and stuff is very hard there's a lot of variables anyway and they're veterans like so they've their muscle building stuff will be different but the group that were in a surplus gained double the muscle mass over four weeks than the group that were at maintenance but they gained more fat mass as well. They gained one kilo of muscle mass, the group at maintenance gained 0.4 kilos, something like that. So you know like is that a huge amount? Well it's double and what does that look like over twelve-sixteen weeks? Well, would the group maintenance catch up?
Speaker 1:Would the rate of muscle growth in the surplus still be double every four weeks? Like we don't know because the studies are not really saying anything about that, but it'll be interesting. But the good news is maintenance muscle building definitely happens as long as the protein is there and the training is there. At the deficit, it's likely the same, but you do risk like the body is not in an anabolic state all the time. It's not enough of an anabolic state to take advantage of muscle building because you're actually not giving the body enough energy to basically function because this needs to find that energy from your fat stores using a deficit.
Speaker 1:So it's a conflicting goal in a way. So you know the term that comes up is like I want to tone up. Like the word tone like is this the industry like that it's just frustrating it's a frustrating term by the industry not people to use it because when people say the tone they mean they want their muscles to look more defined. For your muscles to look more defined you need to have a lower body fat percentage you need less fat covering a muscle doesn't matter how big that muscle will get if it still has that layer of fat around there a certain body fat percentage it's not going to look more defined. The biggest difference and the biggest change you see in people's faces and their body structure in there like how big they look is body fat percentage by like without a question.
Speaker 1:Like you can have someone at 15% body fat as a male put on two stone of weights. I think rugby player build, big and bulky and beefy and you're like yeah looks big. If you got that person to drop to like 7% body fat they would look like a completely different human being. Like it's actually crazy the difference it is. Face is the main thing.
Speaker 1:So you need to understand what is the goal you got like do you want to be more defined around your body like if you say yeah I'm happy with my arms but I want to lose know fat on my belly well you're gonna have to stay in a deficit because you need to be in a deficit to lose that fat mass and then once it's gone you can look at maintenance and so forth, but you can't like you can't just like tone a muscle at a surplus, do mean? You can make a muscle bigger but I believe people are after when they say tone in is to have more definition which is to be leaner. Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense. So you know many of you will be like what are we going to do after the challenge?
Speaker 1:There will be a webinar on the turtle membership and how you can join and all the juicy benefits and the extras we bring into the turtle membership afterwards. For some of you who are going to go solo and stuff, it is to make sure you know my job is to make sure that you do leave regardless with a clear goal in mind and what that does mean and not be confused with you know what does this, will this get me leaner when actually being in a surplus is not going to get you leaner, do know I mean? So that's important, but yeah if you're still in the valley you've just packed guys I'm with you we're gonna climb out of it this week focus on what you can do today that is yoga today, which is great. I can't wait to do it. Go for a walk.
Speaker 1:Like yesterday, for example, I'll finish on this as like, you know, I woke up, bang in the valley of despair, list of stuff to do, things in the back of my head that I have to do that I've put off for ages. And I've been telling you guys do the thing that's been in the back of your mind. And I've had a few of those things. So today, I was staring at my computer and I was doing the tasks and I was looking at my to dos and I was like, oh my days, it's huge. And I had calls and stuff as well and I just they can drain you.
Speaker 1:I was like, fuck it. I'm gonna do my corporation tax now. I'm gonna do it now. It's overdue by months. And I need this all out.
Speaker 1:And I phoned them up and I thought I'd be on a phone line for ages because that's why I didn't do it last time because the phone lines were like so oh my god. Like, hours. I was like, I'm not doing it. Anyway, got through, sorted it out within like ten minutes, don't know why it went minutes and I felt amazing after it, like oh my god just that's all it took was ten minutes, building it up in the back hiding it away just get it done. So yeah, what is that task in the back of your mind?
Speaker 1:Because if you're in the valley of despair these things are gonna pull you back, you know, you're climbing up the hill, they're pulling pulling in your backpack and you're like, ah, get off. You're gonna snap them off and you can free yourself to the hill and then I'll meet you at the top of the hill when we're out to the valley of despair looking at the last two weeks of this challenge, conquered it, happy days you'd all be chuffed you conquered it. So keep going everyone focus on what your one big thing is today if that's an annoying thing do it see you in the yoga tonight track your macros be honest with yourself don't lie to yourself no one's going to gain from that we're never going to judge you, if you go over new macros and stuff like it's never the case whether you're to support you we're here to help you. And, if you go over, you go over. And if you're in a bad place, like, get in touch as well.
Speaker 1:But tomorrow night in the book club, we're doing a Q and A with Ryan Williams, who is a mental health nurse who came on to our annual turtles call last week and had insane feedback people loved it so we're bringing him to the book club on Thursday we're going to talk philosophy of life, mental health, anxiety, the world opening back up and what we're going to do about it. So a lot of things to look forward to so I'll see you soon. And that's it. Thank you for listening to the one day at a time podcast with your host, Scott Fleer. Hopefully, you understood something I said.
Speaker 1:I hope that some wisdom kind of distilled through into your mind, and I want you to now action it today. I don't want you to think about tomorrow. I don't want you to think about yesterday. I don't want you to think about leaving a review on this podcast. I don't want you to think about going to another website.
Speaker 1:What I want you to do is as soon as this podcast ends, you will take action and make the most of today. Ground yourself today. Follow the one day at a time philosophy and your life will change.
