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#162 - Staying Lean During Summer, Losing Fat Without Losing Muscle & More
37 Plays9 days ago
This Q&A episode is all about helping you lose fat, build muscle, using cardio to improve health and recovery faster, manage hunger, and navigate summer in simple and practical ways.
• How to lose 10 to 15 lbs while keeping muscle, and why getting leaner requires more intention the leaner you already are.
• How to balance lifting and cardio so you can improve your health, endurance, recovery, and still keep getting stronger.
• The best exercises to focus on when you want to build strength and muscle without spending hours in the gym.
• What to do when your hunger goes up from more activity, and how to manage it without feeling like you need to eat everything in sight.
• How to handle summer after a fat loss phase so you can enjoy life, maintain your progress, and avoid completely falling off.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Fit-ish Project
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome back to the Fit-ish Project with your host Lathan Bass, where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I.
Monthly Q&A Announcement
00:00:10
Speaker
It is that time again for Q&A episode. like to do these about once a month before we hop into these five questions. If you can continue to leave reviews, share this with people who you think could get some value out of this, just help to spread good information to people who need it the most to help them live better, feel better, all of those good things that we want to get from a solid foundation of fitness and health.
Episode's Key Questions Overview
00:00:35
Speaker
But for this episode, let's get right into it. Five different questions this week. These are the topics that we will be hitting on. Maintaining muscle while trying to lose 10 to 15 pounds, pretty specific question. We'll dive in with a lot of context around that one.
00:00:49
Speaker
adding more cardio into the routine without killing your gains. So some tips for that. What exercises are most efficient to work out multiple muscle groups at a time when building muscle is the goal? So basically how can you have the most efficient workouts possible when you don't have lots of time?
00:01:07
Speaker
Fourth topic, ways to deal with hunger when increasing your activity. That's a good question. Had that from a client that I'll get into. And then fifth question, tips for preventing weight gain throughout the summer.
00:01:19
Speaker
Let's get
Muscle Maintenance During Weight Loss
00:01:20
Speaker
right into it. Question number one, I'm currently around 190 pounds and wanting to drop 10 to 15 pounds while maintaining as much muscle as possible. Any insight on this?
00:01:30
Speaker
yes let's dive right into it so some context for this this is a guy who is looking to feel and just look a little bit bigger and more muscular so he's already relatively lean but he wants to drop 10 to 15 pounds of body fat in order to look bigger and so obviously the whole goal here is as you're dropping that body fat is either to build a little bit of muscle if possible or at the very least maintain as much muscle as possible to give you that more toned more muscular type of look When thinking about getting leaner, I think one of the things that people don't take into account is what is the cost of maintaining this leanness going to be? So I came across this graphic quite a while ago through Precision Nutrition.
00:02:13
Speaker
called the cost of getting lean. And it was this graphic that showed you at different levels of body fat, what that would entail in order to maintain that level of body fat. And so for a lot of people, like a lot of guys specifically getting to around 15% body fat is pretty manageable year round. When you start getting into lower body fats, like 10 to 12% becomes a little bit more difficult. It takes more effort. It takes more intention. It takes being more detailed. And then if you try to go below that, say below 10%, like where you're getting really, really lean, you're going to start to feel some of those effects. You have to spend more time on activity. You have to make sure that you're not missing workouts. You have to give up some things like eating out, like sweets, like just being more detailed and more dialed in with nutrition becomes paramount if you're trying to get to, let's say, below 10%.
Personal Weight Loss Journey
00:03:08
Speaker
The whole take home message about this is that understanding when you're going from one body fat level or trying to drop weight, the things that you're going to have to do, they have a cost to them. Getting to a certain level of body fat or leanness level may or may not be something that you want to put time and effort into. And to give you a more tangible example of this with my own journey,
00:03:32
Speaker
When I went from about 300 pounds to 250 pounds, losing 50 pounds and dropping a decent amount of body fat, that was relatively easy for me. Like once I actually started to figure out nutrition, once I started to dial in calories, once I really started to focus on portion sizes and different things like that, dropping that initial 50 pounds wasn't all that difficult. That weight came off pretty easily.
00:03:57
Speaker
Then to go from about 250 pounds down to about 225, which was my first original goal was to lose 75 pounds was harder. Like to lose that next 25 pounds was more difficult because I had to be a little bit more intentional about things. I had to put a little bit more effort and detail into things like tracking food, making sure that I'm hitting enough steps, staying active, hitting my workouts, all that different stuff.
00:04:23
Speaker
And then to go from 225 down to 215, again, took another level of discipline, another level of detail, more activity, paying more attention to food, those sorts of things. And that was just 10 pounds. So to lose that first initial 50 pounds and then to lose that 10 pounds when I was leaner was more difficult. So losing that 10 pounds was probably more difficult than losing that first 50. And then to go from that 215 to about 205 where now, that was even more difficult. And it required me to live a little bit different lifestyle. And so now I'm relatively active, which I really do enjoy. It doesn't feel like a chore to me.
00:05:01
Speaker
Like I like running now. i like being active more than just being in the weight room. I like playing basketball. i like doing all these things, which allows me to stay fairly lean. But with that, obviously comes the nutrition side of things too. And so I'm pretty dialed in with my diet. I've spent a lot of time tracking food, tracking calories, figuring out meals that fit me really well, that allow me to hit my goals and still stay relatively lean.
00:05:26
Speaker
But to get to this point today where I'm at 100 pounds down and the best shape I've ever been, the leanest I've ever been, the most muscular I've ever been took me quite a while, like years of really dialing things in with nutrition, with lifestyle habits, with exercise habits. And for a while, getting to this point that I'm at now, it just wasn't worth the cost to me. Like I wasn't willing to do the things that I needed to do to get to this level of leanness and just this level of health and this level of fitness. But at this point in my life, it is something that is worth
00:05:59
Speaker
putting that time and effort into. And if I wanted to lose even more weight, let's say get down to 200 pounds or below, which is something that I've played around with a little bit, thought about doing that, maybe getting a little bit leaner and just seeing how I feel.
00:06:13
Speaker
I've been in a deficit and tried to lose a little bit more fat. And when I get down around that 200 pounds, it starts to get much more difficult to maintain that. And so my body right now with just my current routine and the amount of effort and time and intention that I'm willing to put into that stuff, I've kind of settled around 205. If I really wanted to, i absolutely could be more strict, dial things in even more, get under that 200 pounds and then maintain that for a while.
00:06:37
Speaker
But right now, as it stands, that's not really something that I'm trying to put time and effort and attention into. And the reason I give you all this context is because I think the expectations going into this matter a lot. Just because you can lose weight, that does not necessarily mean that you're going to be able to maintain that weight. And so I think Lots of times when people go in with some sort of weight loss goal, like I want to lose 10, 15 pounds, they don't really have any real expectations around what that's going to look like in order to not only lose the weight, but then be able to maintain that weight. And that matters a lot. Are you willing to do the things that it's going to take to maintain that
Sustainable Weight Goals vs. Bodybuilding Ideals
00:07:12
Speaker
level of leanness? And so people often have like a goal body weight, or they have some sort of image in their mind about where they want to get to. And it's not just getting to that body weight. It's like, are you getting to that body weight or are you getting to that level of leanness or are you creating that body that you want in a way that's actually going to be sustainable? And if you're not, then you need to understand that you're probably not going to be able to maintain that for very long.
00:07:35
Speaker
Really super simple example is like you can look at bodybuilders with this, right? Like they get crazy lean and they're able to drop 20, 30, 40, sometimes 50 pounds when they're going into their competitions in order to get super, super lean. And obviously the leanest level that they get to is not manageable. It's not sustainable. And a lot of those guys will put on a good amount of that weight back on after their competition because trying to maintain some sort of level of leanness at that level particular body fat or that level is just not healthy in general. But even like at higher body fat percentages of around maybe 10%, 12%, maybe even 15% for some people. I know that for a lot of people, 15% is pretty manageable. But if you're somebody who's been overweight for
00:08:19
Speaker
quite a while, getting down even to that 15% body fat is probably going to take some time and it's going to demand a different level of attention to detail, a different level of discipline, a different level of lifestyle habits to get there and then to be able to maintain that.
00:08:35
Speaker
If I'm thinking back to when I started getting down to 15% body fat and being able to maintain that, going straight from 300 pounds all the way down to 205, I don't think I would have been able to do that. Actually, I know that I wouldn't have been able to do that because getting down even from 300 down to 225, it wasn't like I just maintained strictly at 225. Like I got to 225 and that was hard because that was a very new level of detail, of effort, of intention on being able to try to be at that level of leanness, which ultimately I ended up gaining some of that weight back. i ended up gaining around 20 pounds from that 225. And then I had to recalibrate kind of where I was at and different things that I was going to have to do in order to maintain that. And so dove back in lost some of that weight, got back down to that 225. And then from there,
00:09:22
Speaker
went to that 215 down to that 205. But that wasn't like a, okay, I'm doing this in a couple of weeks or a couple of months or anything like that. Like that was a multi-year process to get from that 300 pounds down to where I'm at now. Like that was not a one-year process, not even a two-year process. That was a multi-year process that I did in phases. And so understanding when you do have goals around this, you are trying to get to a new level of leanness.
00:09:47
Speaker
that you really need to have a good picture about what the things you're going to have to do in order to maintain that level of leanness. And if you've never been there before, you don't really know. So I think a really good thing that you can do is find people who are or have achieved those goals that you want, maybe have a similar body type. that you have or started with and now they're at a new body type that like you want to get to or just talk to and experienced coach. Like if you have questions, ask me about this. Like I can give you a pretty good example about the things that you're going to have to do in order to get to a body fat level percentage or get to a space where
Effective Fat Loss Strategies
00:10:20
Speaker
you like feel really good about your body and the habits that that's going to require in the level of detail and all those different things. But just understanding it takes different levels of this and you just have to be willing to accept those things if you want to get to that body that you actually want. But putting this into more practical terms, after you've kind of looked at the whole big picture about the expectations that it's going to take, practical things that you want to do when you are losing body fat, especially if you're already lean, but for anybody in general is the biggest thing is going to be strength training. Like you need to be strength training three, four, five times per week, somewhere in there is going to be good. And you have to focus on staying as strong as possible, focusing on that progressive overload.
00:11:02
Speaker
getting that one to two reps shy of muscular failure on most of your sets. Because if you start to let that intensity drop off, if you're just focusing on things like just getting a pump or like super high reps, or you're just lacking in effort or intensity in the gym, you're going to start to lose strength, which is typically a sign that you're also going to start to lose some muscle mass. And so you want to make sure that you're keeping your strength levels as high as possible. So you go into your gym sessions, you go into your exercises with the whole goal to continue to build strength.
00:11:31
Speaker
That might not always be the outcome. Like you may lose a little bit of strength, especially if you're starting to get into that like really lean territory. You might start to see some of your strength go down, which is pretty common, especially with people like bodybuilders getting really lean. Like they'll start to see some losses in the gym just as far as strength goes and start to see a little bit of muscle loss. But the intention should be to continue to build as much strength as possible or at the very least maintain as much as possible for as long as possible.
00:12:01
Speaker
second thing no surprise high protein diet at a minimum 0.7 grams per pound of body weight one gram per pound of body weight is probably going to be a little bit better especially if you are on the leaner side and you're trying to make sure that you're maximizing muscle a little bit of protein is probably going to be the better solution so if you weigh 190 pounds like in this instance that comes out to at least 130 grams of protein but probably even a little bit better would be 190 of protein So making sure that you're prioritizing that. Third would be to dial in your calories. So figure out how many calories you need to be in a calorie deficit. You can Google calorie calculators. You can ask AI or you can even track your calories to see where your current maintenance is for a week or two and then adjust from there, putting yourself into calories. somewhat of a moderate deficit, so like 20 to 30% of your calories less. And so for this example, somebody who's around 190 pounds and who's fairly active is lifting a couple times per week, probably going to be somewhere in that like 2000 to 2200 calories per day. The big thing here is that you just don't want to cut your calories too low. So you don't want to do anything like crash dieting. because then your energy is going to suffer. Your workouts are going to suffer. You're going to start to lose muscle mass. So get into some sort of a moderate deficit, focusing on about 0.5 to about 1% body weight loss per week, which would put you in the range of around one to two pounds per week is pretty solid. You don't want it to be too drastic because then you run the risk of starting to lose more muscle mass.
00:13:33
Speaker
And then with this, just making sure that you're tracking things so you can actually make sure you are maintaining strength, you aren't losing at too fast of a rate, you're getting in enough protein, all those good things. So tracking your body weight daily would be my recommendation. Tracking your daily calories, tracking your daily protein, and then tracking your lifts to make sure that you're getting stronger or not dropping off too much. And then you could run this for 12 to 16 weeks and see where you're at after that if you have lost that 10 to 15 pounds.
00:14:01
Speaker
then you're good to go. You go back into a maintenance phase and you've hit your goal. If you're not quite at your goal after that 12 to 15 weeks, you may have to reevaluate, maybe take a diet break or see where you're at with those things. But I think if you can do that for 12 to 16 weeks, you'll probably be right around that goal and you should be in good shape.
Benefits of Cardio for Health
00:14:18
Speaker
And then the last thing that I would throw in there is just to make sure as you're going through this whole process, just to prioritize getting good sleep, because that's going to help with fat loss as well, which I've mentioned. quite a bit on the last few podcasts so i won't dive into too many details about why that's important for this specific question
00:14:35
Speaker
Question number two, I've been lifting pretty consistently for multiple years now and wanting to add more cardio, mostly for the health benefits as I get older. Any tips for figuring out how to balance the two?
00:14:47
Speaker
Yes. So this is great. I think that adding cardio into your routine is a really good thing to do. And it doesn't take adding hours and hours of cardio to start to see some really good benefits. But there are quite a few benefits that come along with cardio. When you think about it from a longevity perspective we know that having a higher vo2 max having better cardio is correlated with living a longer life which is obviously a good thing having better endurance and energy both inside the gym and outside the gym is something that you can get from cardio which is great like not only are you feeling better in the gym but you have all the energy to do all the activities that you want to do outside the gym because your cardio and your endurance is better which is obviously going to be better for just your overall life and quality of life you recover faster which is awesome like you recover between workouts better and even during your workouts you recover a little bit better as your cardio starts to improve that's something that i personally noticed quite a bit from all of this is like since adding in running and adding in cardio and increasing my cardio fitness, I recover much faster day to day. And then I'm also able to just do more in general. So like in workouts, I'm able to do more, I'm able to push myself more, I'm able to lift more weights, do more reps, all those different things, because my body's ability recover is better.
00:16:07
Speaker
And then lastly, just the cognitive benefits that you get from cardio are pretty awesome and worth it, I would say. I mean, you like your long term things like better brain health, better mental health,
00:16:18
Speaker
less risk of depression. And some of those diseases that we get with the brain are less likely to happen when you have good cardio. And then some of those short-term benefits are awesome too, just with better clarity. Cardio is a mood booster. You have better cognition in your day-to-day. You're more productive, all those different things. So there's a lot of reasons to start adding in cardio. And if it's not something that you're doing, I think even starting to add in a couple sessions per week can be worth your time and getting you to just feeling better and seeing a lot of these
Balancing Cardio and Strength Training
00:16:48
Speaker
benefits. So when it comes to balancing these two things, I would say a good place to start is if you were already working out, like you're working out three, four times per week, you could start by adding in some cardio, like two or three times per week is a pretty good place to start. I think the simplest thing that you could do is just go in and just go alternate days. So like if you're lifting three times a week and then your goal is to also get three cardio days per week,
00:17:12
Speaker
you're just going to alternate days and then you'll have one day in there where it could be just a complete rest day. So let's say you lift on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then you do cardio on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, or something like that. That would be a really simple way to set it up. But obviously your schedule and your routine are going to dictate these two things. If you are somebody who needs to do these things in the same day, then it becomes a little bit more technical in some things for you to think about. So If you're doing them in the same day, or let's say you're even doing them in the same session, if it's possible to split those two things up, the research says, the science says you may get slightly better benefits by being able to split those two things up. So let's say, for example, maybe you do your cardio in the morning and then you lift in the evening after work or whatever.
00:18:01
Speaker
That would probably be best case scenario. But again, that's not always practical for everybody. And sometimes maybe you're just going to need to do both cardio and lifting in the same exact session. Maybe you have 90 minutes to get into the gym three times per week. And outside of that, your schedule is pretty busy. It's not a big deal. You don't need to stress it too much. You're still going to get tons of benefit from getting those two things in.
00:18:22
Speaker
And it's not going to kill your gains or do anything crazy like that, that people used to think you can do cardio. You can lift in the same session and still get really good benefits. When it comes to setting those things up, a lot of people will say you should do your strength training first and then do your cardio. I used to think that as well, and I've changed my opinion on that a little bit. And what I think you should think about before making that decision is what is your main goal?
00:18:48
Speaker
And so in this instance, if you're just trying to get some of those benefits that you get from cardio, I think it would make sense to strength train first and then do your cardio after. Because whatever you decide to do first is going to affect the other thing. So like if you want to lift weights and then do your cardio, lifting weights first is going to have an effect on your cardio. Like your cardio is going to feel a little bit tougher. Like if you're running or something like that, you may feel the effects of that a little bit more in your cardio session if you lift before and vice versa. Like if you do your cardio first and then you go in and do your lifting, you are probably going to notice an effect on your lift. So you might not be able to lift as much weight. You might be a little bit more fatigued, a little bit more tired. And that could potentially affect your workouts a little bit in a way that's slightly less beneficial than if you were to do strength first. So for the general person who doesn't really care about cardio too much, like they're not trying to like get really good at cardio, they're not trying to run races or do anything like that. I think it does make sense to strength train first.
00:19:46
Speaker
Then do your cardio second. But if you're somebody who is like maybe you're training for a race, a marathon, something like that, there could be instances where cardio actually makes sense to do first. And this is something
Gradual Cardio Progression to Avoid Injuries
00:19:58
Speaker
that I've actually recently started to play around with myself as I've tried to just become a better runner and put a little bit more focus on cardio. I've been lifting weights for 17 years now. And so I'm not really focusing as much on lifting weights. I'm still pushing myself in the gym and wanting to build muscle, build strength, all those good things and get all the benefits from strength training. But I've tried to put a little bit more emphasis on my running and just getting better at running. So there are times where I'll actually do my cardio first in a session and then lift after that session or do my cardio in the morning and then lift later on in that day. And I do slightly feel the effects Like for example, yesterday I ran in the morning and then I did a leg session in the evening.
00:20:39
Speaker
I do feel some of the effects of that run in my leg workout that day. It's it's a little bit tougher, a little bit more challenging, maybe aren't quite as able to lift as much weight as if I came into that session, like completely fresh with no cardio in the morning. But to me, the the benefit is still there in both of those instances. Like I'm still getting really good benefit from the running. I'm still getting good stimulus from the weight training so i don't overthink it too much it really just comes down to what is your priority and then do that thing first and then whatever the second thing is you can go ahead and do that you're still going to get tons of benefit from those things when it comes to like practical recommendations about implementing this i think there's two different cardios that you want to look at here so like if you're thinking about low impact cardio, so things that are a little bit easier on the body, just as far as like easier on the joints and things like that, like rowing, maybe using an elliptical or like biking, swimming, things that are just a little bit less impact on the joints and things like that.
00:21:37
Speaker
It doesn't really have to be that complicated. Like you can start with two to three sessions per week, anywhere between 20 to 30 minutes and just go at easy, moderate, could even add in some harder tempos in there, but just focusing on getting that time in there. And then the next week you can build that up. So you could add five to 10 minutes to one of your sessions or multiple of those sessions. you could add even an extra day like when it's lower impact cardio you don't have to overthink it too much your body's going to be able to handle quite a bit of that without worrying about like an overuse injury or getting hurt or being too tired or things like that just pay attention to how you're feeling your recovery yeah you're probably going to be a little bit more tired and fatigued than you otherwise would because this is a new stimulus to the body it's going take a little bit to adapt to that but once you start doing it for a while like you start lifting and doing cardio together
00:22:25
Speaker
Again, you're going to see your body be able to handle those things better and your recovery will actually start to improve and get a lot faster. So you're able to handle more and more and your body has a crazy, crazy capacity to just do things. I mean, when you think about some of the things that the human body can do, like There was just a race in the ultra marathon world, which is called the Cocodona 250, where you run for 250 miles in a row.
00:22:53
Speaker
And it's just nuts that the human body can do stuff like that. And so you don't have to worry too much about like getting overly fatigued or different things like that. Like your body has a crazy ability to adapt as long as you're doing it in a progressive manner where you're not just throwing too much at your body too soon. You're going to be just fine. You're going be able to adapt and feel good and get all those benefits that you want to get. The other kind of cardio, which is a little bit like higher intensity or something that's a little bit higher impact like running, you're gonna wanna to build this up a little bit more slowly. So if you try to add in a bunch of high intensity cardio, like think of like HIIT cardio, something like really like CrossFit heavy or high rocks heavy or something like that, and you just add in two extra hours of that into your week, you're going to feel trashed. Like your body is probably not going to handle that very well on top of all the other lifting that you're doing.
00:23:42
Speaker
And so you want to add this in a little bit more slowly just so your body is able to recover from that wear and tear that you're putting on the joints and different things like that. So just be a little bit more cautious with that. Again, I'd start with the same kind of baseline levels of two to three times per week, 20 to 30 minutes if you're adding in something like running. Or if you're doing something like high intensity cardio, it could be even a little bit less. So maybe it's 10, 15, 20 minute sessions, two times per week, maybe three times per week. And then you can stay at that level for a couple of weeks, two weeks, three weeks. And then as you start to recover better, your body starts to feel good. You can start to add more volume or add a little bit more intensity.
00:24:19
Speaker
into these things. Maybe you add an extra session or you just add an extra five minutes onto your running or your workout, that sort of thing. Again, the whole goal is just to be progressive. Your body will adapt. You will get stronger. You will recover better. You will feel better. You will get all those benefits, but only when you do it in a smart
Effective Muscle Training with Compound Exercises
00:24:36
Speaker
way.
00:24:36
Speaker
Listen to your body, get tuned in, and you'll get to reap all those benefits. Next question is, I understand the importance of lifting weights, but I don't want to spend hours in the gym. So I'm wondering what are some of the best exercises to focus on to train the most muscles at the same time? This is actually a really good question. I think this is very practical for a lot of people. I think tons of people have good intentions around getting the benefits of strength training and they know the importance of it, but then oftentimes people think I need to be in the gym four, five, six times a week to get the benefits and that's just not the case. You can get a ton of benefits. you In fact, you can get most of just the overall health benefits from two good strength training sessions per week. Now, that's not to say that if you're getting a gym three, four, five times per week that you're not going to get better results because you likely will. But to get a bulk of the benefits, like to get a good majority of the benefits, you can get that in two really good quality sessions per week. And when you're thinking about being more efficient with your workouts in general, I think this is a good way to think about it. Like what are the best exercises that I can focus on to give me the biggest bang for my buck? So what things can I do to train a lot of muscles at a time and get really strong, build some muscle, get those benefits of building stronger bones, stronger tendons, getting better mobility, better strength, all those different things that are going to give us those benefits. You can do that through focusing on a lot of compound exercises. So when we think about
00:26:02
Speaker
exercises that are compound versus isolation compound just means we're training lots of muscles at the same time so well think of something like a squat a deadlift in rdl things that are training multiple muscle groups at the same time versus a isolation exercise which would be just focused on one single muscle at a time so like a bicep curl or tricep push down or a lateral raise something like that Both of these types of movements have tons of value.
00:26:27
Speaker
Compound movements are obviously going to be really good for efficient styles of training. And you can gain a really good amount of just total body strength, which I think is ideal for most people. And then isolation, you'll see a lot of people use these when the focus is more like purely hypertrophy or just building muscle like you'll see this a lot in bodybuilding because you can put more tension on a singular muscle so you're getting a little bit more out of that exercise on that specific muscle and this is something that a lot of people will use like if they really want to like let's say bring up a lagging muscle like maybe you have some shoulders that you want to get bigger or some biceps or glutes or whatever then you would think about okay what are some isolation exercises that i can also add on top of some of the compound exercises to really squeeze a little bit more juice out of that muscle so when we're thinking about compound exercises i think the easiest way to start to get into some of these exercises or a good way to think about this is just to think about it by body part. So we'll just split it up into lower body and then upper body. So when you're thinking about lower body compound exercises, some of your biggest bang for buck type of exercise are going to be any type of squats. So this could be barbell front squats. This could be barbell back squats. This could be goblet squats, depending on where you're at in your fitness journey. Those are all really good options. Any kind of lunges are going to be good. So forward lunges, reverse lunges, walking lunges, bulk area and split squats, any of that single leg stuff is going to be really good. Step ups are going to be awesome.
00:27:57
Speaker
Leg presses, those are going to be really good as well. You're going be hitting lots of glutes and lots of quads within these exercises. So you're getting a good portion of that lower body.
00:28:08
Speaker
Some other really good lower body exercises, your RDLs, your deadlifts, your stiff legged deadlifts, those are going to be hitting a lot of hamstrings, a lot of glutes. some areas in your lower back, you're gonna be getting some good muscle benefits in those areas. You're also gonna be getting some good core strength from these lower body exercises as well because you're having to brace really hard and keep that core nice and stiff. So you're getting some good benefits from strengthening that core as well. Those are all really good, highly effective train multiple muscle group at at the same time type of lower body exercises. And then upper body, think about your presses. So your bench press, your dumbbell bench press, incline bench, machine presses, dips, pushups. Those are all going to be really good about hitting the chest, the triceps, some of the front shoulders or the front delts.
00:28:58
Speaker
And then we think about hitting like some shoulders, some dumbbell shoulder press, military machine presses. Those are also going to be hitting triceps and shoulders. So you get multiple muscle groups there. And then we think about our back pull ups, pull downs, barbell rows, dumbbell rows, cable rows, machine rows. If you're picking a couple exercises in that group, you're going be covering a lot of those bases to build up a nice, strong, thick back. So to put this into a practical standpoint,
00:29:25
Speaker
One of the strength coaches that I learned quite a bit on that I really liked to when I really started diving into a lot of this stuff was a guy named Dan John. And I really liked him for his just simplicity around strength training and fitness and just the practicality of it. And one of his workout formats that he would always suggest and something that i actually still use to this day like if i'm in between workouts or like if i'm traveling or i'm just wanting to do some sort of random random workout where i get a good full body lift this is the format that i use
00:29:56
Speaker
He would say to do two to three workouts per week focused on full body. And you're going to pick one pushing exercise, one pulling exercise, one hinging exercise, one squat exercise, and then one ab exercise. And if you do all those things, five exercises, you can hit your total body. You're hitting two sets.
00:30:15
Speaker
per exercise somewhere in that five to 10 rep range. And the whole idea is to really push these sets really hard. You're only doing two sets. So pushing them close to muscular failure, that one to two reps shot a muscular failure. And when you're doing this with compound exercise, you're getting a ton of good benefits from this and the workouts don't take very long. So they're super efficient.
00:30:36
Speaker
You're hitting a lot of different muscle groups. You're getting stronger, building some muscle. You're getting all those benefits that we want to get. by doing something with this simple format. So to give you an actual example, let's say you're wanting to get in there for two days per week, maybe three days per week, you could have two different workouts that you just kind of rotate through. So on day one, you could come in there, you, for your push exercise, you do a bench press. So you're gonna do two sets of that. You're gonna do maybe a heavy pull-up, like a weighted pull-up, or if you can't do pull-ups, you could do like a lat pull-down, two sets of that, five to 10 reps. Then for your squat, you could go in and do like a front squat. Then for your hinge movement, you could do an RDL. And then for your ab movement, let's say we do a weighted sit-up. Five exercises, two sets each, five to 10 reps. You're in and out of there in like roughly 45 minutes. So super time efficient. Then on day two, let's say you come in there for your push exercise, you're going to do a dumbbell shoulder press. So now you can get a little bit of shoulders in the mix versus the bench press where you're hitting more chest.
00:31:36
Speaker
For your pull exercise, let's say we do a barbell row. So now we're just slightly changing that stimulus for our back, hitting the back and the biceps with that. For our squat exercise, we're gonna go single leg with it. So let's say like a dumbbell split squat.
00:31:50
Speaker
And then for our hinge exercise, we could go a stiff legged deadlift. So getting a lot of good muscle gains from the hams, the glutes, the lower back. And then we'll finish off with a cable crunch for the abs. Again, five exercises, two sets per exercise, five to 10 reps.
00:32:08
Speaker
Super simple, super effective. And then you could just rotate through that. So let's say you're going three days per week. You go and you hit workout a on the first day. You go maybe have a rest day You come in on Wednesday, you hit workout B. And then when you come back in on Friday, you're back to workout A. And you could alternate between those two workouts and run that for four weeks, eight weeks, even 12 weeks with just a focus to get really strong in those exercises. And then you could just swap those exercises out.
00:32:35
Speaker
Crazy simple and effective.
Managing Hunger from Increased Activity
00:32:37
Speaker
Next question, we got two more. I've ramped up my activity outside the gym recently and notice my hunger has increased. Any tips for managing this?
00:32:46
Speaker
Yes, so this is pretty common, especially if the activity that you are implementing is a little bit higher intensity or just the volume of activity that you haven't increased is quite a bit more than you are used to. And this happens with a lot of people, especially like when it starts to get warmer out, if you live in the Midwest like myself.
00:33:05
Speaker
It starts to get warmer and you're just doing more things. You're more active, you're getting more steps in, you're doing more activities, which is awesome. And this is just your body sending you signals to eat a little bit more so you can keep up with those energy demands.
00:33:16
Speaker
Understanding, like if you are adding in quite a bit more volume or doing maybe things that are more high intensity that you are probably going to be hungry. I mean, I remember when I started training for a marathon and just how hungry I felt. And sometimes you'll even hear people say things like, I started training for a marathon or I started running.
00:33:32
Speaker
And I actually started gaining weight. And so you just need to be cognizant of this. If you're adding in a ton more cardio or higher intensity stuff, more volume, you might start to feel more hungry. And then what you decide to do with your nutrition is going to have an effect on whether or not you're gaining weight, losing weight, maintaining weight. That brings me to my next point.
00:33:50
Speaker
If you are just trying to maintain weight, you can eat a little bit more. If you're more active, you are going to be able to eat a little bit more food. You have a little bit more freedom and flexibility when you're maintaining. You're not trying to be as strict with the diet. You don't have to worry about necessarily like counting all your calories or different things like that. Just understand that when you're adding in more activity or exercising more, you're not burning thousands of extra calories and every single day.
00:34:14
Speaker
In the course of a day, like if you're adding more activity, you may be burning a couple extra hundred, maybe 200, 300, maybe 400 extra calories, but you're not burning an extra thousand calories a day.
00:34:24
Speaker
Even if your fitness watch or your Apple watch or whatever is telling you that you're burning a lot more calories, you are not because that is a quick way to get into this trap of thinking, oh, I'm burning all these extra calories so I can eat all these extra calories.
00:34:36
Speaker
You got to slow it down because it's not nearly as many extra calories as you think. Yes, you could be a little bit hungry, which means, okay, maybe I add in a couple extra hundred calories, which could be just simply eating a little bit bigger portions at your meal. So maybe a little bit more protein, a little bit more carbs, a little bit more fruits and vegetables, or just adding in like a snack or two will likely meet those energy demands that your body is asking for by adding in a couple hundred extra calories.
00:35:03
Speaker
If the goal is fat loss here, this is where going to need to be a little bit more strategic about it and you're definitely going to want to stick to more lean proteins more fruits more vegetables things that allow you to add in a few extra calories but not adding tons and tons of extra calories so that you can still stay in that calorie deficit and so if you're feeling more hungry sticking to more whole foods lean proteins fruits vegetables adding in things like more fiber and water can also help to keep you more full and satiated big high volume type of foods that I talk about quite often can also help
Maintaining Weight Post-Diet
00:35:35
Speaker
with these hunger. Just understand whatever your goal is and then understand when you are starting to increase activity, you may start to feel a little bit more hungrier. But if you have good strategies in place like this, it's really not that hard to manage.
00:35:47
Speaker
The last question that we have for today, I've spent a good amount of time losing fat over the last six months and I've seen some good progress. I'm a little worried with summer coming up about putting some of that weight back on.
00:35:59
Speaker
What advice do you have for preventing that from happening? This is a really good question, because I think this is something that a lot of people struggle with and not necessarily only with summer, but just with when you come out of a diet, people often struggle with the idea of putting weight back on. So one thing to understand back to our conversation about expectations, when you do come out of a diet, like if you've been in a diet for quite a while, it's very likely that you're going to put on at least some weight pretty quickly initially, like could be three pounds, could be five pounds, could be even a little bit more.
00:36:32
Speaker
understand this isn't a bunch of fat that you're putting on. If you've been in a deficit for a while and then you start to introduce a little bit more food, maybe some more carbs, different things like that, your body is going to start to retain a little bit more water.
00:36:43
Speaker
And just by having more food in your system, you're likely going to see that scale creep up a little bit. It shouldn't be a crazy amount. Like it shouldn't be like 10 pounds or anything like that. But depending on how big you are and the things that you're eating, you could see that scale spike up three pounds, five pounds, maybe even six, seven pounds, like in my case, I've seen that happen quite a few times. Don't freak out because it's not like you're putting on a ton of fat.
00:37:04
Speaker
The scale will likely go up a little bit. What I like to do when going out of a fat loss phase or even going into a period of time like summer is decide whether or not this is going to be a maintaining phase or if it's going to be a fat loss phase, like which is your goal? Because how you approach this season is going to depend on what your main goal is. So if your goal is to maintain, my advice would be to give yourself a range.
00:37:31
Speaker
If you have a goal weight, let's say you dieted down and you lost 25 pounds and you got down to 175, I would give yourself a range. Like if you got to 175, that was where you wanted to be. give yourself like a five to seven pound range depending on what you're comfortable with. And if you get up to, let's say 180, 182 from that 175, that's all right. Like it's all right. You might've put on a pound or two. Some of that's going to be water weight. Some of that might actually be fat gain, but that allows you to enjoy yourself and give yourself a little bit of leeway, a little bit of flexibility, a little bit of time away from tracking and different things like that, where you don't have to focus so much on
00:38:09
Speaker
food and nutrition and dieting and fat loss, which is important for this whole long-term strategy. And this just gives you some of that freedom from that. It also just allows you to practice maintaining, which is an important skill for sustaining weight loss. Like you're not meant to be in a calorie deficit or diet your entire life. Maintaining is actually what you should be doing most of the time. You shouldn't spend tons and tons of time in a fat loss phase. Once you get close to your goal or get around your goal. Like it's just, the goal is just to maintain. It's not to always be in a fat loss phase. So yeah,
00:38:39
Speaker
having periods of time like this is beneficial and allows you to practice that. So having some sort of range I found can be helpful. And then if you find yourself coming above that range, let's say you get midway through summer, or you've been enjoying yourself, you've been eating more foods, you've been having more alcohol, maybe a little bit too much. Like you've seen that scale creep up a little bit too much. Like you got down to that original 175, you gave yourself that five to seven pound range of, okay, I'm okay if I get somewhere up in that 180, 182, but I hop on the scale for a couple of days in a row and it says 185. All right, I've gone over that range. I need dial it back in. You can go into a quick two-week mini cut. This is not doing anything crazy, drastic, or just like completely cutting your calories. It's just dial it back in for two weeks. You go into a mini cut. Maybe you take off 500, 600 calories a day, lose a couple pounds of fat, and you're back in that range. So maybe now you're back down into that 180.
00:39:31
Speaker
So you're back in your range and you feel good about it. Super simple solution. it doesn't have to be anything crazy extreme. You don't have to stress it too much. But I find that doing this just holds you accountable while also still giving you some of that flexibility. So you don't feel like you're having to hyper focus on every little thing. But at the same time, you're also not stepping on the scale at the end of summer and you've gained all that weight back like you're 25 pounds heavier because nobody wants to do that.
00:39:59
Speaker
If you are going into summer with the goal as fat loss still, then understand what comes with that. Again, back to this expectations conversation, which seems to be a common theme today.
00:40:10
Speaker
If you're going into summer with fat loss as the goal, just understand what comes with that. with somewhere for a lot of people comes more social things there's a couple holidays in there maybe you're going to the lake you're going on trips you're going on vacations you were having more social events barbecues get togethers all that kind of stuff if that loss is going to be the goal just understand obviously you can still go and enjoy yourself and go to these social events but as far as like eating different things having more alcohol different things like that you're probably gonna have to be turning some of that stuff down like Eating out a bunch, extra food, extra alcohol, if fat loss is the goal, is not something that you're probably going to be able to fit in as much if you were maintaining, which is completely fine. It's just understanding what your focus is going to be. going have to put more attention and detail into how much you're eating, how much you're drinking, staying more dialed in with workouts, with activity, with getting your steps in, all those different things.
00:41:00
Speaker
There's not a right or wrong answer with this. Just understand what your decision is going to be and then have a plan set in place so that you can actually stick to with summer so that you feel good about it, so that you're not just going into summer like all willy nilly and I'll just do whatever I want. And then now you're not seeing any progress. You feel bad about it where you gained a bunch of weight back. And that's not where anybody wants to be. So have some sort of plan going in, whatever that's going to be. Maybe it's maintain, let loose a little bit, have a little bit more flexibility. Maybe that is to continue with a fat loss goal, but have a plan, stick to it, and then just understand that what comes with that plan. I will say for quite a few people, I think a lot of people find it easier to maintain or focus on on a maintenance phase throughout summer, just because for a lot of people, summer does bring a lot more opportunities and food and alcohol and different things like that so maintaining makes sense for them but again it just goes on an individual basis maybe you're the person who summer is a good time for you to dial it and you want to really stick to your goals and that's perfectly fine too either way works just have a plan going into it and you will be totally fine
00:42:04
Speaker
With that being said, that is our five questions for this week.
Connect with Lathan for Personalized Guidance
00:42:08
Speaker
I really like these questions, very specific, allowed me to dive in and get a lot of give a lot of context and just some specific advice for these situations. If you ever have a question in the future, you can always shoot me a message on any of my socials. That's probably the easiest way to get hold of me. the one-on-one coaching link if you do want some specific help. I mean, these type of questions are things that I help clients with all the time. So if you do want some hands-on help, want that accountability, you want a customized plan, things like that, you can always check out that link in the show notes.
00:42:38
Speaker
But with that being said, I appreciate you listening and we will see you next week.