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#154 - Losing 20 Pounds Before Summer, How To Make Lasting Fitness Changes, Is Fasted Cardio Better & More
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Q & A episode where we cover the following topics
- Why is changing so difficult, and what traits do you need to make lasting change
- Is fasted cardio better for fat loss
- A step-by-step plan to lose 20 pounds before summer
- How to know when you should push through or when to pull back with workouts
- Tips for improving your cardio and lowering your heart rate over time
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Promotion
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. We have our weekly episode as we always do. Before I get into that, just a reminder if you can leave a review if you have not done so.
00:00:18
Speaker
continue to share this with other people who you think could get some value from this share it on your social medias if you would like continue to get this show out to more of the people who need this type of information so that we can help people feel better look better live better lives by improving their health and fitness that is the entire goal of this show so i appreciate you helping me in doing that and helping to just make people healthier and make this world a little bit better The topic for this week, it is time for another
Q&A Session Introduction
00:00:48
Speaker
Q&A. We have five questions that we will get into. So questions that I get from you guys, questions that I get from online clients that I have, questions that I now get from just people that I have conversations with since working in a gym again, and just questions that I see or get on social media as well. So diving into some of the topics of this podcast. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about knowing when to push through versus pull back when it comes to workouts.
00:01:15
Speaker
What advice would I have for someone who wants to gain weight? So a little bit out of the normal type of questions that I answer, but some people do actually struggle with gaining weight. So we'll talk about some of that. Are there any benefits to fasted cardio or does it not matter?
00:01:30
Speaker
what you can do to lower your heart rate and get better at cardio. And probably the most interesting question is how to change. So we'll get into some things that I have seen work very well for people and things that I think are crucial to changing.
00:01:46
Speaker
And the last question that I have is about what I would do if I wanted to lose 20 pounds before summer. Let's get right
Workout Intensity: Push Through or Rest?
00:01:53
Speaker
into it. Question number one, sometimes I struggle with knowing when to push through versus when to pull back when it comes to working out. Any advice for this?
00:02:03
Speaker
So I think when we think about this question, there are two separate avenues that we have to address. First, when it comes to knowing when to push through or pull back, I think you have the topic of are we talking about like pain and injury type of push through or are we talking about like maybe being a little bit tired, lack of sleep, sore, and knowing when to rest and recover or when to push through in that aspect. So Let's talk about the pain and injury side first. I know football coach who used to say it's really important to know the difference between pain and injury.
00:02:34
Speaker
And when you're coming up in sports and especially in a sport like football, you're going to be banged up a little bit. You're going to have some aches and pains. You're going to get some bruises. You're going have some jam fingers. You're going to have pain. You're going soreness. That's just part of the game of football.
00:02:48
Speaker
And when it comes to fitness, this is also pretty relatable because you're just going to have things that happen. Like your body is not going to feel 100% all the time. You're going to have little nicks and bumps and bruises and some soreness and different things like that. And so figuring out when to push through versus when to pull back and rest and recover is an important part of this process. So when you're thinking about this, you never really want to train through an injury. Like if you're training through an injury where you're going to make things worse, that is probably not something that you want to do. But there are different times where you can train around an injury.
00:03:21
Speaker
So you find different ways to work out or you find different ways to move or you find different ways to still work towards whatever goals you have while not making a certain injury worse. And there are tons of different ways that you can do this. And it's also not the worst thing in the world if you're training through a little bit of discomfort or even a little bit of pain.
00:03:40
Speaker
I'm not a pain expert or a physical therapist or anything like that, but I've heard a lot of smart people talk about pain in general, and it's a very complicated topic. And having a little bit of pain or training through a little bit of pain, let's say like a two or three, maybe even a four on a scale of 10 when it comes to pain is not the end of the world.
00:03:58
Speaker
having some pain is okay. And obviously some people have higher pain tolerance than others. But I think the question that you just need to ask yourself is, is me training or working out in this certain way going to make this thing worse? Or am I going to be better tomorrow when it comes to it? So if you're training through an injury, like let's say you have some sort of messed up knee or lower back or some joint is really giving you trouble or your shoulders really aching and then you go and you push really really hard in a workout and you feel worse the next day that's probably not a good thing but if there are ways to train around it there's ways to get through a workout and manage that pain a little bit and you're going to be better off because of it then i think that gives you a good clue as to what your answer should be when it comes to trying to figure out should i push through or should i not And I think this is something that you get better at the more that you do it. I know, especially for me, this is a lesson that I've learned many of times, but especially as you get older, you realize that this whole fitness thing is a forever game.
00:04:57
Speaker
And so trying to push through some sort of type of injury is not really smart. So if I go through and I end up hurting myself and now I'm out for three weeks when I could have maybe just taken an extra day or two off to give that time, to give my body a little bit of time to heal,
00:05:12
Speaker
It makes a lot more sense to be out for a day or two or pull back for a couple of days rather than push through and get hurt and be out for multiple weeks. And so you have to start thinking about this through the long term lens, especially as you get older. Maybe you do start to notice some of these types of things that are happening
Flexibility in Workout Schedules
00:05:30
Speaker
to your body. or Your body maybe isn't. bouncing back quite as quickly. you have other things going on with life happening, like lack sleep and different things that all contribute to whether or not you get injured or whether or not you're dealing with certain things or whether or not your body just feels ready to go. So the cliff notes on all of that, especially when it comes to the pain and injury, if it's going to make you substantially worse the next day, probably makes sense to either relax a little bit, recover a little bit, or find a smart way to train around that certain pain or injury that you have going on.
00:06:01
Speaker
The other part of this, which I think is the more common part, maybe ah even a little bit more complicated part, is when we talk about being maybe a little bit tired, maybe you're not having as much sleep as you're used to, maybe you're a little bit more sore.
00:06:15
Speaker
Then you ask the question of like, should I rest recover or should I push through? Again, I think it goes back to a similar question, but how is this going to make me feel both mentally and physically tomorrow? So if I'm a little bit tired, I'm a little bit sleep deprived, I'm a little bit sore, you can probably push through in many of those situations. But if I'm so fatigued, or I'm crazy sore. And I know that if I do this workout, I'm just digging myself in a deeper hole or I'm going to just not get a whole lot out of this workout. Maybe I only got two or three hours of sleep. I know like new parents, this is something that they deal with a lot. I've worked with some people who have been in that situation.
00:06:54
Speaker
Maybe it makes sense to take that rest day or take that recovery day. And so there's different things that you can do when it comes to figuring out ways to train around this and figuring out ways to still get some productive work and still continue to progress towards your goals without completely just derailing yourself. So some of the things that you can do.
00:07:14
Speaker
let's say you do have a night where like you get very little sleep well if you have the flexibility to maybe sleep in a little bit and then work out later in the day that's always something that you can do or maybe you just change the plan a little bit so maybe you're crazy sore from your workout the day before and you are going to hit another workout today but instead of doing that you shift the plan a little bit so today is going to be more of a walking type of day, maybe some light cardio, maybe some yoga. so you're still getting some sort of activity in, you're still getting that stimulus, you still feel good about keeping that momentum rolling when it comes to just sticking to your goals, but you're not digging yourself in a deeper hole. And then the third thing that I would tell you and something that I have really liked to do
00:07:57
Speaker
is just have a little bit of flexibility when it comes to your things that you want to get done. So rather than looking at it on a day to day basis, like i need to work out on this day, this day, this day specifically, or I need to do this certain thing on this day, I look at it on a weekly basis. So like when I think about getting workouts in when I think about getting cardio in when I think about even like food and nutrition type of stuff I have certain targets that I want to hit a majority of the week but I'm flexible in my approach when it comes to like which days I do those in or which times of day obviously it depends on what your schedule looks like and some people are going to have a little bit more flexibility than others when it comes to just their outside responsibilities with work with kids with social life and all that different type of stuff but Learning to be a little bit flexible in your approach and in your routine, I think can be super helpful. So personally, like my goal is to work out, hit the weights at least four times per week.
00:08:52
Speaker
A lot of times I go into that week having an idea of what days I want to work out. Like I enjoy working out. I like the routine of working out on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday for my lifts.
00:09:03
Speaker
That doesn't always happen though, or maybe something comes up where I have to shift that around. Maybe one day I wake up and I feel like trash and I know the workout's not gonna be very good and I get more out of it if I can push that workout back. So maybe instead of working out on Tuesday, maybe I push that to Wednesday, which would typically be a day that I didn't lift weights. But if that's going to fit into my routine and it's also going to help me just feel better and get more out of that workout, it makes sense to be a little bit more flexible within that approach. And so that's something that you can do as well.
00:09:31
Speaker
When it comes to your workouts, it's just having a little bit more flexibility within your approach and looking at the week as a whole versus things that you have to do day to day and being so rigid within that.
00:09:43
Speaker
So the bottom line is like pushing through today, like if it's going to put you in a better spot tomorrow, then I think it's a good idea. And I think that as you reflect over this, you get better at this as well. And you start to figure out what type of person you are. Are you the person that tends to push through a little bit more? And maybe that has led you to getting injured or burning out or needing to take some time off?
00:10:05
Speaker
Or are you the person who has no issues with talking yourself out of certain things or giving yourself a little bit too much leeway, maybe making some excuses for things? and you figure out which type of person that you are right now and then start to lean into that other part a little bit more so if you're the person who tends to push through and you've gotten injured in the past and maybe it's actually led to your detriment then maybe you are the person when you are thinking and should i take this day off like would this help me a little bit more if actually took some recovery time maybe you start to lean into that a little bit more or if you're a person that likes to just find an excuse or maybe you take it too easy on yourself well maybe there are some certain days where you do want to push through a little bit harder and starting to just figure out which type of person you are and just leaning into that other side i think can be super helpful so if it's going to
00:10:50
Speaker
hurt you and make you feel worse, or it's just not, you're not going to get a lot out of it. Maybe it makes more sense to be a little bit more lax. If you think it's going to put you in a better position and make you feel good about your decision, both mentally and physically tomorrow, I think that's a good way to gauge whether or not you should take some time off or whether or not you should push through.
Challenges and Strategies for Gaining Weight
00:11:09
Speaker
Question number two, what advice would you give for someone who's looking to gain weight? Somebody asked me this question recently, and it was a person who's very tall and very thin. And believe it or not, some people struggle to gain weight. When I was a high school football coach, this was something I ran into quite a bit was just high school boys wanting to gain weight and feeling like they could never gain weight. Like coach, I'm eating all the time and I just can't gain weight. I really want to gain weight. I want to get bigger. I want to get stronger and I cannot do it.
00:11:38
Speaker
The thing is, some people really do struggle with gaining weight. I know that's not a problem that most people have, but some people struggle to gain weight and it comes down to a lot of different reasons. So some people just have a tendency to eat less, like they're just not as interested in food. Again, I know a lot of people cannot relate to that, myself included. Like sometimes you'll run into people who just say things like, I forgot to eat. And I'm like, I have never forgotten to eat a meal in my entire life. I don't understand how people forget to eat.
00:12:05
Speaker
Or you just have people who just think about food less. Some people even talk about like eating as like a chore and like they just don't like eating. Some people have higher levels of NEAT, so non-exercise activity thermogenesis. So they're like more fidgety. They have higher energy, which causes their metabolism to be a little bit higher. So they burn more calories.
00:12:24
Speaker
than other people who have less tendency to just be more physically active or just move around or burn as many calories. So if you're a person who's burning a ton more calories than the person who does not without even realizing it or thinking about it, it's probably going to be a little bit more difficult for that person who burns more calories to gain weight.
00:12:43
Speaker
With all that being said, if you do want to gain weight, you think about doing a lot of the things opposite that you would when it comes to losing weight. So especially when it comes to gaining weight, I've seen this time and time again, most people just don't eat consistently enough. They will say things like, oh, i eat a ton.
00:13:00
Speaker
But when you look at those people, they may eat like one or two big meals a day, but they're not eating three solid consistent meals every single day throughout the entire week. Or you'll have a person who like On one day, they barely eat, like they have a coffee and maybe like half a meal. And then they'll have the next day where they eat a ton. But when you average those things out and you start to look at their meals, when you start to actually count up their calories, they're really not eating that much because the only way to gain weight is to be in a calorie surplus. So if you're not gaining weight, That means you are burning more calories than you are consuming. And you need to find ways to get that calorie total up so that you can gain weight. And one of the simplest things to do is to start to eat more regularly. Some of the other things that you can do is similar to some of the opposite things that you would want to do if you were losing weight.
00:13:46
Speaker
When you're wanting to lose weight, it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to consume a lot of liquid calories because they don't fill you up quite as much as like chewing your food and eating your food and satiating you the same way. But if you're struggling to gain weight, then it makes sense to have more liquid calories. So protein shakes, maybe even some like some juices and different things like that.
00:14:04
Speaker
It's super common and it was super common. I think a lot of people still do this when they want to gain weight. They were like these mass gainer shakes or like bodybuilders will do this sometimes when they're trying to put on muscle or just trying to put on masses. They will blend up a very high calorie type of shake. So maybe they put a couple of scoops of peanut butter in there. They add in some yogurt. They add in some whole milk. They're just using things that are very calorie dense and it's easier to drink 1500 calories than it is going to be to eat 1500 calories of whole food.
00:14:36
Speaker
Second thing I would say is right along with that point is just like having less whole foods and actually eating more highly processed things, which again is probably the opposite of what you want to do if you want to lose weight. But you'll see this a lot with athletes. So you'll have athletes who eat maybe more fast food, they eat more processed food, they have more sports drinks, because if they were trying to strictly get all of their nutrition from whole foods, like more whole dense nutrition type foods, like just things with a lot of nutrients, like your fruits, your vegetables, your proteins, things like that, eating 5000 calories worth of whole foods is a ton of food.
00:15:13
Speaker
So it makes more sense to have some of these more highly processed things and to make sure that you're actually getting the amount of calories that you need. Because again, athletes will do this all the time. Like people who are super endurance based or just burning a lot of calories, it's also super common for them to do this as well. So you'll see people who are like long distance runners who will do things like just eat tons of donuts or they'll just have meals that you wouldn't look at and be like, oh, that's super healthy. Like I probably shouldn't be eating that, but they just need the calories.
00:15:41
Speaker
And in order to get all those calories, they turn to more of these high sugar, high fat, more highly processed type of foods. And not that you want your entire diet to be made up of these things. But there is a time and a place where you can start to utilize some of these things if you do have the goal around gaining weight.
00:15:58
Speaker
less fiber, so actually eating like less vegetables and fruits. Again, those things are great when you're wanting to lose weight because they're gonna help keep you filled up. Fiber is good for you. But if you're trying to eat tons and tons and pounds and pounds of vegetables, it's just going to be hard to get as many calories as you need to. So eating less fiber, less fruits, less vegetables, and more of that other stuff is going to be helpful. Using like condiments, sauces, olive oil, butter, things like that are easy way to add some extra calories to your dishes. Again, at the opposite of what you want to be doing if you want to lose weight. But in this instance, when you're trying to gain weight, using some of these things can be a good way to get some extra calories.
00:16:37
Speaker
And then focusing more on like a high fat diet. So when we think about food, fat per gram is nine calories. Protein and carbs are four calories per gram. So on a gram per gram basis, you're getting a lot more calories out of fat than you then you are out of carbs or protein. So it makes sense to have a higher fat diet because you're going to be able to eat less volume of food and be able to eat more calories, which again, in order to gain weight, you need to be in a calorie surplus. So getting more calories is a good thing The takeaway here is a lot of the things that you would typically do to lose weight, you want to do the opposite of those things. And so just finding ways to get that calorie intake up so that you can gain weight is going to be helpful in this situation.
Fasted Cardio: Does It Affect Fat Loss?
00:17:20
Speaker
Question number three, are there any benefits to fasted cardio or faster workouts? So I'll keep this one pretty short. We used to think that there was benefit to doing like fasted cardio and this came from the bodybuilding world.
00:17:34
Speaker
This is like still a very common thing that people will swear by, but We've been able to test this through science and when your calories are equated, at least for a fat loss goal, it does not really matter if you do your cardio fasted or not. You're not necessarily going to burn a bunch more fat if you're doing fasted cardio, which was the thought process before. So let's say you're eating a 2000 calorie diet and your goal is fat loss. If you have some calories before you do your cardio, rather than doing it fasted, as long as you're eating that 2000 calories in both of those scenarios, you're going to lose the same amount of fat.
00:18:08
Speaker
So again, it just comes down to personal preference when fat loss is the goal as long as your calories are equated throughout the day. it doesn't really matter if you do faster or not. From a performance perspective, especially if you have like goals around like running or like you're actually doing cardio because you want to get better at cardio and not just to burn calories. It probably makes sense to do most of your cardio with some sort of fuel in your system because you're just going to perform better. So you need carbs and carbs are super helpful when it comes to cardio, especially. But even like for a hard workout, maybe a leg workout, if you've ever
00:18:43
Speaker
done a leg workout fasted and like really pushed yourself and you feel kind of like weak or you feel like you can't really push through to the end of the workout, there's probably a reason for that. Your muscle needs carbs. You do better when you have some fuel in your system. So if you're really pushing the intensity or if you're trying to maximize performance, it probably doesn't make sense to do a ton of fasted type of exercise, workouts, cardio, that sort of thing. But if you're just doing like some low intensity cardio or maybe you're doing an upper body workout where you're not going crazy hard,
00:19:12
Speaker
It really just comes down to personal preference. So if you enjoy having some food in your system, you like having some carbs in your system, you feel like you get better workouts, you feel like you feel better, perform better, all that type of thing, then have some food.
00:19:25
Speaker
But if you don't, you prefer to be fasted, you prefer to maybe you feel a little bit lighter when you're training and you're doing more low intensity type of stuff, then you don't necessarily have to eat. So really just comes down to personal preference.
00:19:37
Speaker
Question number four.
Lowering Heart Rates Through Cardio
00:19:40
Speaker
Anytime I do cardio, my heart rate is super high. What things are most important to see my heart rate lower over time?
00:19:48
Speaker
I have quite a bit of experience with this over the last three years since I've gotten into running. I've seen my own heart rate drop quite a bit, not just my resting heart rate when I'm doing nothing, but now when I'm running and doing more cardio type of things or even lifting, I've seen my heart rate drop a considerable amount because of the things that I've been doing. And so the first thing you have to understand is that your heart is a muscle.
00:20:10
Speaker
I think people forget that, but your heart is a muscle. And the more that you train it, the more efficient it becomes, the stronger it becomes. And just like the muscles in your legs or your biceps or any other muscle in your body, the more that you train it and the stronger it gets, the more efficient that it gets, the more work that it's able to do. So you're able to lift more weight over time with your muscles because they get stronger. Same thing with your heart. When your heart gets stronger, it's able to perform better. And when your heart is stronger, it's able to pump out more blood into the muscles, it's able to deliver that oxygen that we need, and then it makes cardio activities become more efficient and feel easier, and you start to see that heart rate drop over time.
00:20:49
Speaker
The other thing along with this is just as you start to do more cardio in general, you start to become better at those things. So let's say the more that you're running, the more that you're swimming, the more that you're biking, you become better at all those things. You become more efficient at all those things. And so it takes less effort.
00:21:07
Speaker
Whenever you try a new activity, you're not very good at it yet. And you don't have the skills, like you're just not super efficient at it. It's going to take more energy to do that certain activity. But the more that you do those things, the better that you become at it, like the better you become at running and your form improves and Your technique, if you're swimming improves or you get better on the bike, like all those things allow you to become more efficient and to become better and to use less energy. And when you're using less energy, you're able to just be more efficient and your heart doesn't have to work nearly as hard.
00:21:38
Speaker
the other part of this is just the sciency part which like again i'm not a super expert on this stuff but as you start to get better with cardio and especially with like longer endurance type of stuff you're building up more mitochondria and your body is just getting better at being able to handle the stresses that you're throwing at it and being able to just like deliver the oxygen and the blood to the rest of your body so that become better at this and this also affects your heart rate over time So the takeaway is if you're wanting to improve your heart rate with these activities, the first thing is just getting consistent with these certain things.
00:22:14
Speaker
There's also different levels of training that you want to start to utilize in order to really maximize these different benefits that you can get. So you have your easy type of training, you have your very high intensity, more VO2 max type of training, and then you have the stuff that's kind of in the middle, which is like your tempo or what's called like thresholds. With those things, you hear about like the low style of training. So zone two training, you probably heard of before where you're trying to keep your heart rate very low. And there's a lot of value to this, just getting better at cardio in general.
00:22:44
Speaker
In the general rule with this is the 80-20 rule. So you wanna do 80% of your cardio at lower intensities and then 20% at like those higher type of tempos. But I think there's a caveat with this. And this is something that I've noticed within just getting into running a little bit more heavily with myself.
00:23:02
Speaker
If you're really trying to maximize your benefits and you're not running a ton or doing like hours of cardio every single week, you can do more of this high intensity style of training and you're probably going to actually see better progress the more high intensity stuff that you were doing there will come a point if you start to do three four five six hours of cardio in a week which is not going to be most people where you do maybe want to focus on this 80 20 rule so a lot more of your training is coming um from these lower intensities and then you're not pushing it quite as much because then you're able to just allow your body to adapt a little bit better. Because if you're always on the super high end, and you're pushing your body, you're pushing every single run, you're pushing every single cardio session to the limit, you're probably not going to recover very well. And those workouts are going to start to get worse over time.
00:23:49
Speaker
And so it makes more sense to add in some of this lower intensity type of cardio. Like if you take, for example, a person who's running 50 miles a week, if they tried to run 40 of those miles really hard, they're going be crushed. Like they're going to get injured. They're not going to recover. They're going to feel like trash. They're going to start to get worse performance. So it makes sense for that person to include a lot of easy training. But for the average person who's maybe doing cardio once, twice, three times per week, and they're not doing it for longer than 20 minutes, 30 minutes, maybe 45 minutes at a time. you don't have to worry about this lower style of training nearly as much because it's just not enough stimulus for you to mess yourself up is really what it comes down to. So I think for most people, like the takeaway is if you're only doing cardio one, two, three times per week, like you can push it, push that intensity a little bit as long as your body is feeling good. And then if you want to mix in, you know, some of those days where it is a little bit easier or maybe somewhere middle of the road, then that makes sense. But I think also when it comes to cardio, it's just important to think about what are you going to be able to do consistently? Because for people getting into cardio, like if you're going out and every single run, you're trying to ah push the intensity crazy hard.
00:25:03
Speaker
It's just not that fun because like you feel like trash and it's just not super enjoyable. So one of the things that I did when I first got into running was After I finished my marathon and completed all that, I really dialed things back and I just focused on the habit of just showing up. Like I wanted to get in three runs per week at a minimum of 30 minutes each run. Sometimes I ended up doing a little bit more. So I do 40 minutes where I do 45 minutes.
00:25:30
Speaker
But I wasn't really worried about running super hard. I was really just trying to get time on feet. So like I was trying to get that 30 minute session in. Sometimes it was two and a half miles. Sometimes it was a little bit further than that.
00:25:43
Speaker
And I didn't really care about my paces too much. I didn't really care about my distances too much. I was just trying to get more miles in and get better at running and just practice the art of showing up and building that good habit. And as I've gotten better, I've been able to build on that. So I did that for...
00:25:59
Speaker
probably a good year or two of just like trying to be consistent with running. And then within the last six to seven months, I've gotten a lot more into it and just been able to build on that. And so now a lot of times I'm going out and I'm running five miles, six miles, seven miles at a time. I'll go on a long run now and go for 10 to 15 miles. And that's something that I'm able to do relatively easy now, but it's because I spent a lot of time at these lower intensities and just getting better at running and just getting miles in. And then once you get to that point where you have a really solid foundation, then you can start to worry about some of these details about how much should I be doing this high intensity stuff? How much should I be doing this easy stuff? How much should I be doing this temple work? And you can get into more of the details. But I think with cardio, with workouts, even with nutrition, a lot of times we get into the details or we get into the weeds way too early.
00:26:48
Speaker
that we never even focus on building up the habit. And when you start to get into the details, it can become very overwhelming. So just focus on the fact of just like, if I want to get good at cardio and I eventually want to get to a place where like I can lower my heart rate and like really get better at endurance training in general,
00:27:05
Speaker
Just focus on the habit of showing up being consistent. So what are you going to do consistently? Maybe that's three times per week, 30 minutes like I was doing. You don't really care too much about crazy high intensity stuff.
00:27:16
Speaker
You don't care too much about all the details or doing tempo work or doing this workout or that workout. Your goal is just to get that 30 minutes and three times per week. And then once you get to a good point. then you can start to build on those things. But I've seen, again, the most improvement over these last six to seven months by just getting more time. And so now I'm running 20 to 30 miles a week, where at first I was running those three times, 30 minutes a piece. And that was probably like 10 to sometimes 12 miles a week. And so essentially I've doubled that, sometimes even tripled that of what I was doing. So i'm doing a lot more volume and my paces have increased significantly.
00:27:52
Speaker
or decrease quite a bit so before when i was running like 10 30 11 minute miles at like a 130 140 ish sometimes even 150 ish heart rate now i'm to the point where i can run at an easy pace at an 8 45 per mile or 9 30 per mile and my heart rate can stay in the 115s or like and so you can see through just getting this volume in and through just the act of showing up and just getting better at running I've naturally started to see a lot of progress. And so you don't need to overcomplicate it. You just need to get in get your reps in. And then over time, you can start to play around with some of those details.
00:28:31
Speaker
Next question.
Sustainable Weight Loss Plan
00:28:32
Speaker
If I wanted to lose 20 pounds before summer, what would be the best plan for that? The first thing that I would say about this is you have to be very honest with yourself about what the goal is here.
00:28:45
Speaker
If your goal is strictly to just lose 20 pounds for summer, or sometimes this happens like maybe for a vacation or a wedding or whatever, you want to lose a certain amount of weight and you don't care whether or not you end up putting that weight back on.
00:28:58
Speaker
you can be a little bit more aggressive with it and maybe some of the methods that you use to lose that weight are not going to be the exact same as you would use if you actually want to lose that 20 pounds and keep it off. And the reason why I think it's important to think about this from the very beginning is because if you want to lose weight and you want it to be sustainable, it is probably going to be slower in your expectations around that weight loss. And just the way that you approach it have to be different.
00:29:21
Speaker
So if you want to not just lose some weight before summer, but then be able to keep it off, your approach is probably going to be a little bit different. If you don't care about putting it back on by the end of summer, you're like, I lost 20 pounds, but then it's all back on.
00:29:34
Speaker
within a month or two, if you don't care about that, then maybe the methods that you use are going to be a little bit different. But let's say you are a person who you want to actually lose this weight and keep it off. That's what we're going focus on here. So I would work backwards from this. So let's say I'm going into summer. i want to spend the next 12 weeks losing some weight.
00:29:54
Speaker
You don't necessarily know if it's going to be 20 pounds because it depends on a lot of different factors. For some people, they may be able to lose 20 pounds in 12 weeks if they have a lot of weight to lose. If they're a little bit more aggressive with it, if this isn't their first time that they dieted and they have some really good habits and a good foundation in place, if they're an extremely active person, they may be able to lose 20 pounds in 12 weeks. Some people are not going to be able to lose 20 pounds in 12 weeks just based on where they're at, how much weight they actually have to lose, all those sorts of things. so first have some realistic expectations going into this i think for a person to lose 10 to 15 pounds in 12 weeks is very very realistic for a majority of people losing 20 pounds in 12 weeks is not going to be as realistic for every single person but to lose 10 to 15 pounds in like a three-month span that is very realistic for people and also being able to maintain that over the summer would be a realistic goal to have so
00:30:51
Speaker
My plan of attack for this would be to figure out first how many calories I actually need to be eating in order to put me in a calorie deficit because that is the only way that you're going to lose weight. You can Google this. You can use a chat GPT or AI type of thing. There's tons of Google calculators out there that you can look for.
00:31:08
Speaker
You'll type in your information, your size, your weight, all that different stuff, your activity level, and it's going to give you a number. For most people, there's going to be about 500 to 700 calories under your maintenance calories that it's going to give you. And so over time, this is going to help you lose weight. Typically, a pound a week is where a lot of these calculators will put you at. And so you're losing a pound a week by the end of 12 weeks that puts you at around 12 pounds. Again, this isn't going to always be perfect, but it gives you some sort of GPS so that you can start making a solid decision for this. So you need a calorie target, you need a protein target, at least 0.7 grams per pound of body weight is a good target. If you really want to maximize all the benefits of a high protein diet, if you get a little bit more like one gram per pound of body weight. That's even a little better.
00:31:57
Speaker
I would track calories and protein. So once you have those two numbers, I would actually track those things, especially if you are wanting to have the best results within this 12 weeks, like being very methodical about this and just being able to track and measure things, you're going to get the best progress. Next on the list, after tracking calories and protein, I would make sure to get 8,000 steps per day. If you get a little bit more, that's even better. But I like adding steps in because it's very simple. And a lot of people can find some extra time throughout their day, 10 minutes here, 30-minute walk there, maybe some extra time on the weekends or in between meetings at work or whatever the case may be. Walking is typically pretty easy to start to fit in in different parts of the day and able to
00:32:40
Speaker
bring up your activity levels so that you can burn some extra calories. So walking is something that i would focus on. And then three or four strength sessions because building muscle is essential to this whole process of fat loss. So if you not just want to lose a bunch of weight, but you actually want to lose fat and making sure that you're hanging on to muscle and making sure that you look a little bit more toned and look a little bit more at lean at the end of this 12 weeks, you want to make sure that you are focusing on strength training as well. And then optional, I would throw in there if you wanted to do a couple of cardio sessions per week. Again, this is just going help to speed things up a little bit. I wouldn't go crazy on the cardio because then you might start to get a little bit hungrier and start to just want to eat a little bit more.
00:33:21
Speaker
So I wouldn't go crazy or overdo it on the cardio. But if you wanted to add one or two, maybe even three sessions of like 15 to 30 minutes of low intensity type of cardio, that's going to help to boost this up a little bit as well. So In 12 weeks, if you did those things and follow that little plan, like you could expect to lose 10 to 15 pounds as long as you were pretty consistent about those things and really just nailing those targets. But again, I think it's important to just have the right expectations going in with this, especially if you want to lose that weight and keep it off.
00:33:50
Speaker
Do it in a way that's not going to feel crazy extreme. Otherwise, you're just going to gain that weight back within a couple of weeks or
Why Is Change Difficult?
00:33:56
Speaker
within a month or so of losing that weight going into summer. Last question of the podcast. Why do you think so many people struggle to change? And what have you noticed in the people who do change and are able to make it stick?
00:34:10
Speaker
I think people struggle because simply put, it's just hard. It's just hard to change things. The patterns, the habits, the mindsets that get deeply ingrained in us, sometimes from years ago, like in childhood or growing up or just things that we've been doing for years at a time, they get so ingrained in us and we are just creatures of habit.
00:34:30
Speaker
And so it's easier to continue to do things and it's easier to continue with patterns or habits or mindsets that we've used in the past because it's hard to change those things. And we just get used to what is familiar and we get used to what is similar. And it's hard to change that. And so in order to change that, you have to make a conscious decision about it and you have to just really embrace that it's going to be a little bit difficult. And some things that I've noticed from...
00:34:54
Speaker
people who have been able to change at this point. I've been able to help some people lose well over 50 pounds, 60 pounds, 70 pounds, all the way up to 90 plus pounds. And in those people, I see three similar things. And we also know through studies, like there's certain things that people do. But when it comes to change, three of the things that came to mind for me was people embrace it as a lifestyle versus a temporary change.
00:35:18
Speaker
Thinking about this long-term helps to do some things like you get rid of those timelines, kind of like I was just talking about in the previous question. When you have some sort of goal and having a timeline isn't always a bad thing, but I think a lot of times when we do have timelines and especially when the expectations around those timelines don't really line up, it causes us to use or do a lot of things that are just going to be unsustainable. And as I talk about all the time, if the methods that you use are unsustainable, the results are probably going to be unsustainable as well because you become... the sum of the habits that you're able to keep up. So if you're following a diet that you can only follow for a couple of months, when you go back to your other diet, that weight's going to come back. If you're doing an exercise routine that you hate and you don't enjoy and that you're not going to be consistent with, well, when you stop doing those things, you're going to lose a lot of those benefits.
00:36:04
Speaker
This also helps to just get you out of that all or nothing mindset, because when you realize that this is a long-term thing, that you're not just trying to get a certain result in a couple of months, and you're focused on doing this for years and decades, there's no reason to approach this with an all or nothing mindset, because anything that you're doing, anything that you are being consistent with, even it's even if it's very small things or very small changes, is all going to add up to make a huge difference over time.
00:36:28
Speaker
And so when it comes to making this a lifestyle versus just like temporary change, I think Putting your focus on figuring out a good system for you and what that looks like is critical to this whole process. So when thinking about things like a diet, I want to find a diet that I can do for years, not just a diet that I'm going to do for a few months. I want to find an exercise routine that I actually enjoy doing so that I'm consistent with it.
00:36:49
Speaker
I want to find good habits that I know that I can do on a daily basis versus things that I can only do for a couple of days or a couple of weeks. So really focusing in on figuring out what that system is going to look like for you, because if it feels good, if it feels like something that's sustainable, if it meshes with your lifestyle, you're going to be able to be consistent with it. And that way, you're actually going to be able to not only get the change, but be able to keep that change for the long term.
00:37:14
Speaker
The second thing I would say is to start small, especially when it comes to like big changes or having big goals. When you try to change all of the things at once, a lot of times you just end up not doing a whole lot at all. Or maybe you go hard for a week or two and then you fall off because it just seems too hard to stay consistent with.
00:37:34
Speaker
This is why I talk about the 1% better mindset so much because when you can break things down into small parts, it feels a lot more doable. You're able to actually see good progress, be able to build on it, and you start to see that change slowly over time and you just get a good chance to actually practice good habits and you get a chance to actually embrace this new lifestyle. It doesn't feel so hard and so abnormal because we already know that change is going to feel uncomfortable. It's going to feel uncertain. It's going to feel difficult at that time.
00:38:02
Speaker
And if that change feels so uncomfortable that you don't even want to show up, you will don't even want to do anything any of the actions that you need or just embrace that lifestyle, you're not going stick with it. But when you break it down into small little things that you can do on a daily basis, it's so much easier to stay consistent with that. and then as you start to see progress, it starts to be a little bit more motivating.
00:38:22
Speaker
You start to get a little bit better buy in. You start to get better competence within this certain area. You start to build up that confidence and self-belief. And then it just becomes this nice cycle of like, I'm doing these small little habits. I'm seeing progress. I'm getting more motivated.
00:38:35
Speaker
And then you just get into that good cycle and you just repeat that. And then that's how change happens over time. The third thing I would say is starting to shift in your identity.
00:38:46
Speaker
what I've noticed with people around changing, especially with like health and fitness is they start to just see themselves as this fit person or this healthy person. It's not like something that they're trying to do or something that they want to do. It's just who they are fundamentally like they are. They are a person who works out because they value their health and they want to stay aligned with that certain identity. And you can look at different examples and see this. So in life just outside of like health and fitness, some people have big parts of their identity wrapped up in politics or religion or even something like being like a sports fan or being like a good mom or a good dad. And when people have these parts of their identity so deeply ingrained in them, they are going to align with that and they're going to do the actions that fall in line to stay true to whatever that identity is. So take, for example, somebody who wants to be a good mom or a good dad and that's how they really identify.
00:39:41
Speaker
They're going to do a lot of things that allows them to continue to believe that they are a good mom or a good dad. Like they're going do the actions that a good mom or a good dad will do or somebody who's like really religious. And that's a big part of their identity. They're going to do a lot of these behaviors and think a lot about that. And they're going to do these little things. They go to church, read their Bible or whatever their religion calls for. They're going to do a lot of these things and they feel almost pulled to do those things because it's so deeply ingrained in their identity.
00:40:09
Speaker
And so when it comes to like trying to change and starting to get healthier and starting to just like make these things part of who you are, you can start to shift your identity in a way where you are that healthy and fit person. And there's two really simple things that I found to help with this. The first one is to actually just seek out people who've been successful in that thing that you want to do and try to get around those people as much as possible.
00:40:32
Speaker
Change is really hard by yourself because you're constantly feeling like you're in an uncomfortable position and you don't really know what it looks like to get to that angle or to be the person who loses 100 pounds or be the person who becomes fit and healthy. But when you get around those people who have done those things,
00:40:47
Speaker
When you get in those communities, when you get in those groups where that's just like the new normal, that will start to rub off on you and you'll start to see, oh, this is just how I can do these things. Like this is how this person does this and they have these habits and they have these thought patterns and this is the way they go about things. Like, oh, this is maybe this is just something that I can start to do. And the more that you hang around those people, you will start to do those things. Like if you hang around people who are healthy and fit, you will start to pick up their habits as well.
00:41:14
Speaker
So getting around people who have done the things you want to do and making that change in that new behavior, just part of your normal lifestyle is super helpful. And the other thing that I would say, and this was more of a personal thing, more of a mindset thing that I did that really helped me, especially with like the weight loss school, but really this can work with any kind of change is imagine whatever the thing is that you want to do.
00:41:36
Speaker
think about what that person would do in order to get that change. So like when it came to me losing 100 pounds, I just would think about if I was 100 pounds lighter, what decisions would I make in these certain scenarios? And I would try to think about that multiple times throughout the day. So when it came to eating, when it came to exercise, when it came to sleep, when it came to all these little decisions that I was making throughout the day, i would think about if I was 100 pounds less or if i had lost weight or if I was fit and healthy, which decision would I make in this scenario?
00:42:07
Speaker
And i would just try to make more of those decisions throughout the day. Obviously, this is going to feel uncomfortable at times, and it's going to feel unnatural a lot of the time. But the more that you can start to make those little things a part of just who you are and just make those decisions, especially just making them consciously, you start to slowly shift that identity because you are doing these things and you're backing it up with evidence and And on top of that, you're starting to see some progress. So you're starting to make better food choices. You're starting to exercise more. You're starting to sleep better. And so you're starting to see better progress within your health, within your fitness. You're starting to see changes within your body. And again, that becomes that good reinforcing loop of like, OK, I'm making these changes. I'm making my identity into this person that I really want to be. And it feels good. And like you see progress, you see the physical progress, you feel the mental progress.
00:42:52
Speaker
And you start to just do more of these things. And that starts to help to reinforce that identity and start to change you into this new person that you want to be. So it's not always easy. I mean, if it was easy, everybody would do it. But I think it's definitely worth it.
00:43:06
Speaker
And so using some of those tips to start to help you with those changes or help you with those big goals that you want to accomplish, I think can be super helpful.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:43:14
Speaker
And with that, that is the episode for this week, a little Q&A action. Hopefully you were able to get a little bit of value out of this if you were and feel.
00:43:25
Speaker
compelled to share it, by all means, go ahead and do that. Share it with people who you think can get some value out of this. If you have questions in the future, you can always shoot me a message. i always link all my social medias in the show notes of these. So if you have a particular question that you want me to dive a little bit deeper on in the podcast, you can always send those over to me. But with that being said, I appreciate you listening as always, and we will see you next week.