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#101 - What Really Works: The Latest Fitness Breakthroughs
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In this episode, I’m sharing some of the biggest lessons I’ve learned that have changed the way I think about fat loss, metabolism, and overall health. These aren’t just the usual tips—they’re deeper insights that can help you get better results and feel your best.
Key Takeaways:- Fish for Better Metabolism
- The Huge Role of Muscle Mass in Metabolism
- How You Can Train Your Brain To Do Hard Things
- How Sunlight Improves Sleep & Lowers Your Risk of Getting Sick
- Creatine’s Effects on Mental & Brain Health
🎧 Tune in now and start making small shifts that lead to big results!
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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.
Celebrating Episode 101
00:00:11
Speaker
We have a weekly episode coming at you, just like we have been. This is episode number 101, had number 100 last week, so just keeping this momentum rolling.
Navigating Health Information Overload
00:00:21
Speaker
The topic this week, I wanted to talk a little bit about just some things that I have learned that have just stood out to me. And so I listen to a extreme number of podcasts about health, fitness. I read books about health and fitness. I follow tons of health and fitness people. Like it's, I can't help it. It's a problem, honestly. Like it's just something that I'm really interested in. I'm passionate about it. And because I like to learn about this stuff. But on top of that, I really enjoy being able to find things and make them practical for other people because I know not everybody, most people are not like me and they don't consume this stuff on a regular basis. They don't listen to all this stuff and dig through all the information and figure out what's true, what's not, what things should I actually be focusing on? What things should I ignore? Because
00:01:08
Speaker
With social media now, like you hop on there and it's like free for all. Like you never know what's actually true, what's not true, what's actually backed by science, what things are actually going to help you versus hurt you. And so it can be very, very confusing. And if you don't have some sort of like background or if you don't have people who you trust, or if you don't really actually know the science, like all that kind of stuff can just make your head spin, honestly, like, you just don't know what to do, what to trust, what to actually focus on.
Simplifying Health and Fitness Complexities
00:01:33
Speaker
So I really enjoy that being able to kind of be that bridge for people and explain these things in really simple and practical ways, things that are actually worth your time, because a large majority of this stuff out there
00:01:45
Speaker
just really isn't worth your time. And it's never really broken down into a good context on how you can actually practically use these things, how you can implement them in your life. And so we're all busy.
00:01:55
Speaker
We all have things going on. And I want to make sure that you're actually focusing on things that can actually help you today. And so that's exactly what I wanted to talk about. Every once in a while, I'll come across things. A lot of this stuff is just, you know, the basics like fitness and health is a lot about the basics. And it's just repeating those things over and over being consistent. But every once in while, I'll come across something and I'll be like, dang, like that was like that's something that I learned. And that's really interesting. How can I implement this into my life? And typically what I'll do when I hear something like that, I'll try it myself for a while.
00:02:27
Speaker
see how it goes, get some actual practical experience with it, which is exactly why I'm doing 75 hard right now. um I wanted to have my own experience. And so I typically like to try things first before I ever talk about them or before I ever recommend them to things are like on my podcast and my newsletter recommended to clients. I want to try it first and see like what my results are and how I feel about it, what things could be better, all that type of stuff. And then after that, if it's something that I'm like, I think this could actually be practical, it's something worth thinking about or worth implementing, then I'll start to recommend those things and talk about those things to other people.
00:03:02
Speaker
Once I know that they've been proven to work for me, and they're also backed by science and have some good validity to them. So when I was thinking about this, I came across, I came up with six different things that I've learned or maybe even like changed my mind on in the past couple of months, I would say probably in this last six months or so, just things that I've learned that have really stuck out and things that I've tried to implement into my routine.
Understanding Metabolism with Age
00:03:24
Speaker
And so I wanted to share those things with you. And so getting right into this, the first couple are directly about metabolism, which I know a lot of people are always interested in asking about metabolism. Like how can I increase my metabolism? I feel like my metabolism has slowed down. What's actually going on? Well,
00:03:40
Speaker
background to make a long story short, your metabolism doesn't really slow down all that much throughout most of your life. Once you get into like your 60s, like mid 60s up into your 70s, your metabolism will slow down a little bit.
00:03:54
Speaker
But it really is not that much. What actually happens is people just start to eat more without ever really realizing it. And they're more sedentary than they were when they were younger. so a lot of times you'll hear people will be like when I was young like I could eat whatever I wanted do whatever I wanted I never had to pay attention to food and I was super slim I was fit I felt good never gained weight and as I get older like I'm just really struggling to like gain weight like I feel like I gain weight like nothing I eat and then it's just I gain all this weight and I don't really know why well you really think about it if you look back to it you were probably way more active when you were younger
00:04:28
Speaker
Maybe you were walking a lot more. Maybe you were playing sports. You were just more active and you probably didn't eat as much either just because now we have so much more hyper palatable stuff. That's just a normal, regular part of our routine. We have Uber Eats and fast food and we just eat a lot more calories than we ever used to. i mean, the studies show us that the average person here in the U.S. eats around 3,600 calories and gets less than 20 minutes of exercise per day.
00:04:54
Speaker
And so when you think about that it's like okay obviously we're over consuming we're overeating and we're moving less than we ever have so. What's going to happen when we mix those two things well you're going to have a lot of people that are gaining a lot of weight struggling with their weight.
00:05:08
Speaker
And feeling like things just aren't going their way and in reality it's not really your metabolism it's things that you can directly control. which is good news. Like that means that your metabolism isn't broken, your hormones aren't screwed.
00:05:21
Speaker
You're going to be able to reverse these things as long as you take the proper steps. And so these first couple of things are things that directly affect your metabolism. And this one was, this first one was one that I had recently come across that was news
Impact of Fish Oil on Metabolism
00:05:34
Speaker
to me. So taking fish oil actually speeds up your metabolism by as much as 14%.
00:05:40
Speaker
And it can also help to increase muscle mass, which, I did not know that. Like I've been taking fish oil for quite a while and it was just something that I started taking probably a good four to five years ago.
00:05:51
Speaker
And there was some research around how it could help with brain health, how it could help with heart health. And then the big thing, the big reason why I took it was just with helping with like lowering inflammation and with like joint health.
00:06:02
Speaker
And so those were some benefits that I know about. Those are the benefits that a lot of people talked about. But recently I was listening to a long podcast all about metabolism and there were some new studies that were coming out.
00:06:12
Speaker
about how taking fish oil, three grams of fish oil per day could speed up your metabolism. And so I thought that was really cool. I'm not a huge supplement guy. I'm not like a person who takes tons of different supplements, but this is one that I've always taken.
00:06:27
Speaker
And so just to hear these new benefits and just to hear these new studies and this new data coming out about fish oil, I thought was really cool. And so if that's something that you wanna implement, it can be an easy way to start increasing your metabolism.
00:06:40
Speaker
Obviously, like with anything else, a supplement is a supplement. And if you don't have the other things in order with like exercise, sleep, nutrition, something like fish oil probably isn't going to make any kind of difference at all. But if you do have those things in order and you want just a little bit of extra boost, thinking about getting some fish oil it could be a super simple way to increase your metabolism.
00:07:01
Speaker
I use a couple different brands. The one that I've used the most is called Barleen's and I just get it off Amazon because when it comes to fish oil, they're not all created equally. And if they're stored wrong, if they're not in the right containers, if they're not coming from a quality source, the fish oil might not be as good. And so I try to make sure that I go with a trusted brand. And after doing some research quite a while back, like this was a company and this was a brand that was pretty clean and looked pretty solid. So that's the one that I've been rocking with for quite a long time. So fish oil has some benefits, something to check out if you're interested.
Role of Muscle Mass in Metabolism
00:07:35
Speaker
Number two is 80% of your metabolism is based on how much muscle mass you have. And again, this is news to me. Like I knew that muscle mass was important for your metabolism. You know, everybody talks about how having muscle mass is important for how many calories you burn. And if you put on more muscle, you're going to burn more calories.
00:07:55
Speaker
The amount of calories that you actually burn from putting on like extra muscle isn't nearly as much as people think. Like people used to say you burn like an extra 30 to 40 calories for every pound of muscle that you put on. That's not true. It's more closer to like six to 10 calories per pound of muscle, which isn't a crazy amount, but it also isn't nothing either.
00:08:14
Speaker
But when it comes to just your overall general metabolism, the more muscle that you have on your frame, the more calories that you are going to burn, which is a good thing. And so when you think about this from just like a practical standpoint, if we take two people and they weigh the exact same, but they have very different body compositions. In other words, one has a lot more fat and one has a lot more muscle.
00:08:35
Speaker
The person that has a lot more muscle is just going to burn more calories, which is a good thing because that gives you more flexibility with food. It allows you to eat more. It's going to keep that metabolism revved up. You're not going to struggle as much with like gaining weight or even like regaining weight if you lose it.
00:08:50
Speaker
And so I've seen this with people now that I've had the chance to work with multiple different people and just different people of different sizes and body compositions and things like that. Because I used to think it was more so about just like how big a person is versus how small another person is. So if you look at two people, you look at the bigger person, typically the bigger person is going to burn more calories. Like that's true. That's normally going to be the case.
00:09:12
Speaker
But when you have these people who are bigger, but they also have really, really high amounts of body fat, they're probably not burning as many calories as they think. And again, this is problematic for some different reasons, because then you struggle with your metabolism being not quite as fast and it's easier to gain weight because if you don't have as big of a range,
00:09:33
Speaker
It's easier to put weight on. Let's say, for example, if you have somebody who can eat 3000 calories without ever putting on a pound of fat because they can easily stay under that 3000 calories per day, it's going to be a lot easier than somebody who only can eat 2000 calories per day. And if they go over that 2000 calories per day, now they're in a calorie surplus, they're gaining weight.
00:09:53
Speaker
based on that 2000 calories. So if you have 2000 calories versus being able to eat 3000 calories, the person who has that 3000 calorie limit is going to be a lot better off. It's the same thing for like a budget. Like if somebody has a budget of $3,000 and somebody has a budget of $2,000 on something that they want to buy, like the person that has 3000, they can buy more things.
00:10:15
Speaker
And so when you think about it from that standpoint, this is why a lot of people who lose weight end up gaining it back because they don't focus on muscle mass. They try to lose weight as quickly as possible.
00:10:25
Speaker
They don't really think about how much muscle mass they're actually losing. And this is something that a lot of people are starting to see with like the GLP-1 medicines where people are losing a lot of weight very quickly.
00:10:36
Speaker
Well, the problem is they're losing tons of muscle mass as they are losing this weight because they're not prioritizing protein. They're not getting enough calories. They're not strength training. And so they're losing a huge portion of muscle.
00:10:47
Speaker
And now as they're losing this muscle, they're also reducing their metabolism because again, metabolism, a big part of that is based around how much muscle you have. And so if you don't have a lot of muscle,
00:10:58
Speaker
Now your body is not burning as many calories as you want. And so you losing this weight, but you get to this weight. And now it's like, oh, I can only eat 1500 calories. And if I eat more than that, now I'm gaining weight, that's going to be a problem. Because now you don't have as much flexibility, it's much harder to stay underneath those small amount of calories that you can eat per day. And this is where you start to see people who actually start to regain weight. So now,
00:11:21
Speaker
you're doubly messed up because you lost weight, you lost a muscle, you can't eat as much. So now you're putting on weight, but you're not even putting on muscle, you're putting on extra fat. So you could end up putting on more fat than you than you even started with.
00:11:35
Speaker
And so this is why approaching weight loss with the right mindset and making sure that you incorporate those lifestyle things like strength training, a like eating high protein, like losing weight at a normal, sustainable rate is so important.
00:11:48
Speaker
And so again, I thought this was just super interesting and just another reason why you want to continue to prioritize things like strength training and those other things that I just mentioned.
Importance of Sleep in Weight Management
00:11:57
Speaker
Number three, sleep and its effects on fat loss.
00:12:01
Speaker
I've talked about sleep before on here multiple different times and the more and more that I learn about sleep, the more and more I think it should become a big priority for people. Because I was always in the thought process of like, when you want to lose weight, the main focus is a calorie deficit. And that is true. Like you need to be in a calorie deficit in order to lose weight. And since I lost a lot of my weight in my early 20s, my sleep was not great. And I never really focused on sleep.
00:12:26
Speaker
And I was still able to lose weight. So I think that's why I just was like, that's probably not that big of a deal But as I've gotten older and as I've learned more, as I've read more books and listened to podcasts and actually had the practical experience of working with people, I'm starting to realize how important sleep is and its actual effects on fat loss. And here's the deal. Like you can absolutely lose weight while you have crappy sleep. People do it all the time. I've had clients who have done it. i have clients who are like newer parents who aren't getting as much sleep and they're still able to lose weight.
00:12:55
Speaker
But It makes it more difficult and it also just has effects on different health areas as well. So from like a short term perspective, let's say like you just get one crappy night of sleep. That one crappy night of sleep can lower your metabolic rate for the next day. So you're burning less calories.
00:13:12
Speaker
It affects your ghrelin and your leptin hormones, which are basically the hormones that control how hungry you are and then also how satiated you are. And then on top of that, if you have crappy sleep, you're going to want to move less because you just don't have as much energy. So now you're moving less.
00:13:28
Speaker
Maybe your workout's not great. Your energy's kind of low. And then to top it all off, you've probably had one of these nights where like you just had really crappy sleep. And then the next day you were craving like all the sugary, salty stuff, the high calorie stuff. And from An evolutionary perspective, this makes a lot of sense right because your body is stressed out it's thinking what's going on here like what's the deal we're not getting a lot of sleep, we must be in trouble, we need to find calories, we need to find energy to.
00:13:55
Speaker
boost our energy back up, and so this is why a lot of times when you have that crappy sleep you'll find yourself just like making poor choices or reaching for those things that you normally wouldn't even be craving. normally wouldn't even be reaching for. it And so those are the short term effects. And again, like, it's life, right? Like, we're all going to have those days where like, just, you know, we have a long work day, we have some sort of life event that comes up, like we go out on the weekends, like, whatever the case may be, you're goingnna have those days. But I think just understanding the effects of what happens on those days, you can kind of prepare yourself a little bit better, and maybe, you know, take a nap, or just make sure you focus on getting some better sleep in the next couple of days to help reduce some of those effects that might be happening.
00:14:35
Speaker
It more so becomes a problem on a long-term scale. This is the part that really shocked me when I found out about this. So let's say you take two different groups and this was an actual study that they run. There was two different groups. They measured the sleep in these groups and they had these groups.
00:14:50
Speaker
Both of them were trying to lose weight. Both groups lost around the same amount of weight, but the group that only got five and a half hours versus seven hours lost less fat mass and they lost more muscle mass. So they lost the same amount of weight. I don't remember how much it was exactly. Let's just say they lost 10 pounds.
00:15:08
Speaker
But of that 10 pounds, the group who got less sleep actually lost less fat and more muscle mass. And again, as I just talked about, we know why that's problematic. Number one, you're not going to look the way you want to look if you're losing more muscle mass and fat mass.
00:15:21
Speaker
And number two, like from a metabolism standpoint, from a quality of life standpoint, from a strength standpoint, like muscle is just really important. So we want to make sure that we are losing as much fat as possible, retaining or gaining as much muscle as possible. And when you have these sleep issues going on for a long period of time, it can start to affect that.
00:15:41
Speaker
So again, sleep is important. We all know sleep is important. But I think when you hear some of these things, it's like that little thing goes off in your head. You're like, okay, maybe I do need to prioritize this a little bit more than I think I I have been in the past and I've talked about a bunch of different tips with that. I mean, probably one of the easiest things you could literally do today to improve your sleep.
00:16:00
Speaker
If you sleep with your phone in your room and if you're on your phone before you go to bed, just get off your phone like 30 minutes to an hour before, plug it in a different room. And I promise you, you will see differences in your sleep over time. It's just, it's such an easy thing to do. I've been doing it all since the start of this year and it has made a huge difference just on getting into a better routine, falling asleep quicker.
00:16:21
Speaker
getting better quality sleep. And it's just one of those things. It's like you set up your environment, you start doing it, you make it a habit, like you're going to see the benefits pretty quickly. And so if nothing else, that'd be easy, easy place to start with. And then you'll notice that you start to get some better benefits with your sleep over time.
00:16:37
Speaker
The next one. So those are three on metabolism. The next one that I came across, and this was something that I'd heard in a podcast with ah Andrew Huberman. He's big science guy, fitness guy, just all things science. And so I learned a lot of things from him. I like his podcast, but he was talking about this one thing that I thought was really interesting when it came to fitness. So you actually have the ability to improve your willpower and not just from like a, yeah, like we all know, like we can do things and we can get better over time and stuff like that. But no, there's this actual part within your brain.
00:17:10
Speaker
that grows when you do things that you don't want to do. It's called your anterior mid cingulate cortex. This area of your brain grows the more often that you do things that you really don't want to do. So like when you do hard things, this area grows and it increases your ability to tap into that. So essentially you can increase your willpower and discipline over time by doing difficult things. And I think when you think about these things from a fitness aspect, it's pretty powerful because it's like,
00:17:38
Speaker
You may not like doing things right now, or you may like feel like the person who I struggle with discipline, I struggle with willpower, I struggle with like being motivated or just doing hard things, even though I know that I should be doing them. Well, when you think about this, it's like, okay, I know that I can actually train that over time. It's not just something that like you're born with. or like You look at people who are really successful or people who are like lost a bunch of weight or got really fit or whatever, and you look at them and you're like, oh, they're just different. like They're just different than me.
00:18:05
Speaker
like, no, you can actually train this in yourself to get better at those things. And I think when you know that, that's really empowering. And that's something that you can start to focus on. So like on those days when you really don't want to do those things, like and you don't want to do the hard things, like focusing on that and just realizing like, okay, this is just a muscle, just like anything else. Just like I go in the gym and I train my legs or my arms, or, you know, I want to get bigger biceps or bigger glutes, like You train those and you put stress on those things. You put tension on them. You progressively get better at those things and they improve. The same thing goes for your brain.
00:18:36
Speaker
And so knowing that you have this ability to increase that is really cool. And I think about this from like, like for me, like running a marathon freaking sucks. Like I hated it at the beginning.
00:18:46
Speaker
And now it's something that I actually enjoy. But like at the beginning for the first three and a half months, like I hated it. Like I, every time I had to go on a run, I was like pissed off. Like I did not want to do it. But then like you start to run into these other things that go on in life. You start to like, you know, things happen, like,
00:19:02
Speaker
something goes on with like a family member or like you have some sort of situation going on with like your finances or like you get hit with something that's just hard to deal with in life. And you realize like you have this ability to just bounce back because you've done these hard things and you know that these things that you've done, you're able to handle them. So it's not even just from a fitness perspective, but just from a life perspective, just being able to like build up that willpower, that discipline, that ability to handle hard things is such a beneficial thing to do.
00:19:28
Speaker
And so I just thought that was pretty cool. So I had to share that one as well. ah Number five, creatine and its effects with our mental health as well as our cognitive health.
00:19:39
Speaker
And so I've talked about creatine before. It's one of the very few supplements that I recommend to everybody because it's the most widely studied supplement. It's something that we actually produce in our bodies. And so like our body needs creatine and uses creatine, but we don't make enough in our body to get the full benefits. And so that's why people supplement it in order to maximize those benefits and get more benefits.
00:20:01
Speaker
And it's something that we've always known has really helped with like physical physical benefits. So basically it just allows you to push yourself harder. It allows you to recover faster when it comes to like physical fitness, which is obviously going to help you make better progress when it comes to growing muscle faster, when it comes to increasing your strength and your power, when it comes to improving your endurance, like better recovery during workouts and even between workouts, all those things are going to be beneficial.
00:20:27
Speaker
But now we're starting to learn as they continue to study these things that creatine may have quite a bit of a benefit on like not just our mental health, but like our brain health as well. So like from a cognitive standpoint and how well our brain functions, they're starting to realize that creatine has been shown to increase memory.
00:20:45
Speaker
And the even cooler part of this that I thought was just crazy is now they're starting to think that creatine has antidepressant properties. So like people who struggle with mental health, Supplementing with creatine has starting has been starting to show benefits, which is super cool.
00:21:02
Speaker
So like I said, it's the most widely studied supplement out there. There's the most research on this supplement over any supplement by far. And it's super safe. It's relatively cheap.
00:21:14
Speaker
And if you're eating like red meat and fish quite a bit, like you're already getting some creatine. If you're eating chicken, some dairy has some creatine in it. Like you're getting creatine already, but like I said, you're just not getting as much as you could be to be getting the maximum amount of benefits. So it's something super easy that you can start buying and start implementing and getting some benefits.
00:21:32
Speaker
I've been taking creatine for over a decade now and nothing but good things to say about it. So could be something that you want to look into if it's something that you don't regularly do right now. And the last one is Sunlight and its effect on our sleep and our sickness.
00:21:48
Speaker
So regular sunlight in your eyes, specifically in the morning, has been shown to help regulate your circadian rhythm and also reduce cortisol, so basically stress. And this has also been something that Huberman has been talking about a ton and it's something that's becoming more and more popular.
00:22:05
Speaker
And when you think about this, it's like, duh, like you get out in the sun and you feel better, right? Like we've all had those days where like, it's a super sunny day, you get outside, your movies your mood is better, you feel better. Like you spend a day at the beach or you spend a day at the lake, super sunny. It's like,
00:22:17
Speaker
You feel good. Like you just naturally, you just feel better. But now like we're so sedentary and a lot of us work indoors that we rarely ever get outside unless you really make an effort to get outside.
00:22:29
Speaker
I heard some statistic and it's like people spend, it's over like 95% of their time indoors. And when you think about like humans, thousands and thousands of years ago, we spent all our time outdoors.
00:22:40
Speaker
And so it's completely the opposite. And so it makes sense that we have these effects built into our body where it's like we rely on sunlight and we feel better when we're able to get that natural sunlight.
00:22:50
Speaker
And so starting to incorporate some of these things can be super helpful just from like a general health perspective. And the second part of this was just its ability. So sunlight's ability to improve our immune system and even how quickly people can recover from like illness.
00:23:07
Speaker
And so vitamin D, we all know is important, but there's a lot of studies and things that have been showing like people who are sick or maybe you're struggling with like some sort of like disease or illness. They see better effects when they have more natural sunlight and when they have access to the sun.
00:23:22
Speaker
So all that to say, like, get outside. You don't have to spend hours and hours outside. But like if you can even just get 15 to 20 minutes outside, get some sunlight on your skin, you're going to see some positive effects, both from like a physical standpoint, but also from a mental standpoint. point too, right? We just feel better when we're able to get outdoors, get some of that sun on your skin, and you'll start to see some of those benefits. So I thought those were all just kind of interesting things, things that I've learned over the last six months or so that I just wanted to share with you. And so just thinking about this podcast, like there's some really, really practical things that you can literally start doing today. If you want to start taking fish oil, start taking creatine, maybe you want to start focusing on getting a little bit better sleep, adding an extra 15 minutes, 30 minutes to your sleep schedule.
00:24:05
Speaker
So you can start to improve your metabolism, uh, strength training. If you're not already doing that, definitely something that I highly recommend everybody does. And then getting out in the sun is also super cool. And then just focusing on doing some hard things. So like realizing that your willpower isn't just set in stone, that's something that you can continue to improve and grow over time, which is cool. So hopefully you found these things as interesting as I did. And, uh, you're able to implement at least one of these things and start seeing some benefits. And, uh,
00:24:35
Speaker
With that being said, one-on-one coaching link is always in the show notes if you are somebody who wants a little bit of extra help with this whole fitness thing, specifically weight loss and wanting to get in better shape, feel good, improve confidence, all that stuff and having more and more people come on board into the coaching program and s seeing some really awesome results.
00:24:53
Speaker
So if you're somebody who wants a little bit of extra help, you want that one-on-one communication, that one-on-one support and guidance and accountability, some personalized plans, then Check out that link. We'll have a conversation, see if you're a good fit.
00:25:06
Speaker
But with that being said, I appreciate you listening. As always, if you got a little bit of value out of this and you want to share this with somebody, by all means, feel free. to Keep this show growing, but we will see you next