Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to the Fit-ish Project with your host Latham Bass, where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I. Just a reminder before we get into the episode for this week, continue to leave reviews if you have not done so. I greatly appreciate your help in continuing to grow this show and to just get this information out to the people who can use it to look better, to feel better, to live longer, happier lives. That is the entire goal of the show. And it only happens with your help. So I greatly appreciate guys who have done that and people continue to listen and support.
Speaker: The topic for this week, I came across a underrated, overrated podcast episode a couple months back. And since listening to that episode, I really wanted to do my own spin on it, specifically about fat loss. Maybe in the future, I'll do some about training or fitness or different health topics. But I really wanted to do one on fat loss. And the reason being is because I've been doing this whole fat loss thing and putting out content and coaching people and training people and my own journey of 10 plus years of doing this stuff. And I have found that a lot of people understand that you need to be consistent. And that is one of the biggest parts, if not the major foundation of all of getting good progress is to be consistent. But way too often, I see people focusing on the wrong things and consistency only really matters if you are focused on the right things.
Speaker: We want to put our focus and effort and attention on a handful of things that are going to move the needle the most. That way we can actually make progress, focus on the things that are going to give us the results that we want and live healthier, live better lives, be fitter, look good, all that different stuff. so i wanted to do my own version of an underrated overrated fat loss edition so i have 14 topics things that i get asked on a pretty frequent basis about if i should be focusing on this thing or should i be focused on this other thing is this actually worth my time and so let's get right into it number one i split this into different topics so we have nutrition then we have training and then we have fat loss tools so getting into this first section is nutrition
Speaker: Number one on the list, fasting, overrated or underrated. I would say this is highly overrated. There's two different types of fasting that people often use when it comes to fat loss. So you'll hear people doing either intermittent fasting or like what other people will call time-restricted feeding. Basically, you're just shrinking the amount of time that you were eating. So common one is to eat in an eight-hour window and then not eat in that other 16 hours of the day. Other people do like a six-hour window or a four-hour window. And the whole goal of this is just to shrink the amount of time that you were eating in a day.
Speaker: with the hopes that you are going to eat less within that window and that is going to help you lose weight. The other really common type of fasting that you'll hear people talk about when it comes to fat loss is to do like longer fast of 24 hours, couple of days, three days, that sort of thing. Both of these things can work for helping you to eat less. But specifically when talking about like intermittent fasting or time restricted feeding, there's nothing special about these And that is why I think that it's overrated is because people think that they're getting tons of extra benefits by fasting because it has been marketed to have all these extra benefits. But there's not a ton of extra stuff that comes with fasting. If you just eat in a calorie deficit and lose weight, you're going to get a lot of the same benefits as you would through fasting. Now, if this is something that helps you, like if you find this to be a very sustainable approach and you want to do intermittent fasting and you just find it really simple and it helps you to lose weight or maintain weight, and it's something that you can see yourself doing for years at a time, then it can be a good strategy. So for example, some people just don't eat breakfast.
Speaker: So they are essentially intermittent fasting or you'll see people who They only eat one meal a day and that works for them. And that's what they do on a consistent basis. If that is you and that helps you to control your calories, then it can be something that is worthwhile doing. But I think for a very large majority of people, that's not really the way that they're going to eat on a consistent basis.
Speaker: most people are going to eat three four or five meals a day they're going to have some snacks they're going to be eating in a much larger window throughout the day and so for me the way that i have thought about fasting is to use it as more of a tool so there are certain instances where maybe like on vacation or you're going out to eat or you just want to reduce your calories for a little bit so you just like skip a meal so if i'm going to eat out for dinner then maybe i'll just skip breakfast or skip lunch and only have two meals that way that way i'm just banking a few extra calories and i don't have to worry about overeating as much i've also had clients who have used the omad method so just one meal a day if they know that they're traveling and they're going to be eating quite a bit of food when they do go out to eat they will just only eat that one singular meal so that way they go out they have their meal that's a little bit higher in calories maybe they have a couple drinks they have a dessert They have all the things, they enjoy themselves fully, but they only eat that one meal throughout the day. That way they're not eating tons and tons of extra calories that day. And so for me, and for a lot of people that I've worked with, we have found that this fasting thing can be a good tool, but it's not necessarily the best long-term strategy because with all diets, with all protocols, all those different things,
Speaker: If you want to lose the fat and keep it all for good, you need to find something that you can adhere to for a very long time. Adherence is the number one factor in long term results. So basically, can you do this thing for a long period of time? Fasting is not something that a lot of people are going to do for a very long period of time. And so for that reason, I think it's overrated.
Speaker: Number two, specific diets. So for example, carnivore, keto, low carb, I would say these are also overrated. These type of things can be very appealing because they're pretty simple to understand. When you think about carnivores, basically you just eat meat. if You think about keto, you just eat a super high fat diet. When you think about low carb, you're just cutting out your carb sources. So they're very simple to understand, which is very appealing to a lot of people because they don't want to do something that is confusing or super complex.
Speaker: also with these things in the same way that fasting has been marketed to have all these extra benefits a lot of these named diets keto low carb carnivore have been pushed on people with certain agendas who really like these styles of dieting and so they will tell you they have all these extra benefits in reality a lot of that is not true if you are losing body fat and you're in a calorie deficit you're going to get quite a few health benefits and this has been proving with lots of different styles of diets as long as you are losing body fat you are typically going to be getting healthier so that's the way in which you lose it i don't think is as important of a thing to focus on about like all those extra health benefits more importantly it would be to focus on is this something that i can see myself doing for a long period of time do i like this style of eating does it fit with my lifestyle because if you're able to again do this for a long period of time you're going to see those long-term benefits and with these Specific diets like carnivore, keto, even low carb. These are things that most people aren't going to be doing for a very long period of time.
Speaker: I think if you want to try these things for a period of time to see if you can learn some things or maybe get some good takeaways from these things, I think that's a much better way to approach these things than going into these things. thinking i'm going to lose a bunch of weight on this certain diet and then i'm just going to go back to eating the way that i was because if you do that the weight is going to come right back if you use these things as a tool to learn they can be pretty useful when i was going on my weight loss journey i did try quite a few different diets i remember trying some paleo stuff i tried low carb i tried low fat I tried different diets. I tried some fasting for a while just to see if these were certain things that I could like and maybe use in certain instances or situations.
Speaker: And when you take that approach and understand that this isn't going to be your long-term solution, you can actually find some value in these diets. So for example, if you are somebody who wants to try carnivore, You're probably going notice that when you eat a lot of meat and protein, you are less hungry.
Speaker: You're more full, you're more satisfied after meals. You tend to eat a lot less when you have a high protein diet. Well, that probably tells you that if I want to be less hungry and have all those benefits, I should probably eat just a high protein diet with my normal diet.
Speaker: If you try keto, maybe you notice that when you have decent amounts of fats, you tend to eat less. You tend to feel more satiated. You tend to feel better. So maybe that means that you want to make sure that you're getting enough fat in your diet.
Speaker: you try low carb maybe you find out that i do feel great on a lower carb diet or if you're somebody who's very active you're doing a lots of cardio that sort of thing you find that maybe low carb isn't something that you want to do so you can find things to learn and to apply to your normal diet both good and maybe not so good things from trying different diets so just a practical tip is to try different things but understand that If the things that you are trying aren't things that you can see yourself doing for a long period of time, then that's not going to be your end solution. Take the things that work, apply them to your own diet, and maybe even start to create your own diet with different pieces of different styles of diets. And that way you can find something that you can do for a really long period of time.
Speaker: Number three on this list, tracking calories. I think this is underrated, especially from a fat loss perspective. And you might just think that from all that stuff that I was just saying about it needing to be sustainable, well, tracking my calories forever isn't sustainable. And again, i think this is a tool. I don't think most people are meant to track their calories forever, and that's not really... a practical thing that most people are going to do. You'll find some people who track every single bit of food that they eat and they really enjoy it. They like doing that. And that's their thing. That's not me. And I don't think that's most people right now, the way that I use it after spending a bunch of time tracking food a couple of years when I was really trying to get this weight off, I will now track calories for a period of time, like one to two times out of the year when I want to lose a little bit of fat. So different times throughout the year, i'll want to lose five to 10 pounds. So I'll track my calories. It's just a way for me to dial things in and make sure that I'm in a calorie deficit. Just kind of recalibrate everything, get some fat off, and then I go back to not tracking calories.
Speaker: But the things that you learn when you initially start tracking calories for a longer period of time, whether that be a couple of months or even a year or a couple years, like in my case, it will provide so much value and so much knowledge about food that you probably don't realize right now that will help you to lose fat and keep that off for good. So some of the things that you learn through tracking food are what actual portion sizes look like. So many people overestimate what portion sizes look like. And if you've ever spent any time at all tracking food, like looking at a portion of peanut butter or looking at a portion of ice cream, a portion of even protein or a portion of fruits and vegetables, like people would just assume that they know what these things are. But then when you measure these things out and you start tracking these things, people are off by a lot.
Speaker: portion sizes will be something that you actually learn and can use later on so that you're not overeating all the time you'll learn things about calorie density which basically just means what are the foods that i can eat a lot of that have fewer calories so things like lean proteins fruits vegetables and then what are things that if I eat a lot of these things, I'm going to be getting a lot of extra calories. So things like liquid calories, things like oils, things like sauces that are higher in calories, those sorts of things where you eat a very small amount of these things, but you're getting a ton of extra calories. It's really good to know
Speaker: which end of the spectrum foods lie on so that you can make better choices you'll learn a lot more about hidden calories which i think is something that really sneaks up on a lot of people calories and sauces and liquids and cooking oils and takeout food in restaurant food in desserts all those things that you would look at and you wouldn't really think that it has that many calories when you start actually tracking food and you look at certain things you'll notice that Some foods and some meals have way more calories than you would ever think of. I'll never forget the first time that I had a ch crumble cookie.
Speaker: I ate the cookie and then I looked up the nutrition of value because I was like, let me look at this food label and see how many calories are actually in this cookie because I know this has tons of sugar. There's no way that a cookie like this can be super low in calories. And I was surprised even for how much sugar that I knew the cookie had.
Speaker: it had way more calories than I thought it would. So when you look at the original label, it says 250 calories or 300 calories, something like that. I don't remember. But then you look up at the serving size and you realize that that was for one fifth of the cookie.
Speaker: Nobody in the right mind is eating one fifth of a crumble cookie. You're either eating that whole thing or you're getting dang close. And so what I thought was 200, 300 calories initially, then I look up and see that it's, oh, it's actually five servings worth.
Speaker: Okay, so this cookie is actually 1500 calories or 1000 calories or whatever it was specifically. i don't remember exactly what it was, but it was somewhere up around 1000 calories for a single cookie, which is absolutely nuts. But you would never know that unless you start looking at food labels, unless you start tracking food and those sorts of things. You learn some things about energy balance, which will help you to understand how to lose weight, maintain weight, gain weight. Just by tracking calories, you get a better understanding of these things.
Speaker: You can learn some things like flexible dieting, which for me was a huge light bulb moment and probably a cute really big turning point with me knowing that I was going to be able to keep this weight off forever. Once I realized that I could have some desserts, I could have some alcohol, I could have some of my favorite foods and still continue to lose weight with the flexible dieting approach, I knew that this was going to be sustainable because too many people think that I have to eat clean 100% of the time and that's just not sustainable for everybody.
Speaker: a large majority of people but when you understand calories when you understand tracking food those sorts of things you understand that you can have these things in moderation and still continue to lose fat feel good all those different things you get better food awareness through tracking calories which you just get more mindful about eating because whatever things that you start to measure you just start to take more notice of this and this happens a lot in studies where they ask people to start tracking calories or even just paying attention to their food. People will typically make better choices when they are tracking things.
Speaker: And the last thing i would say about this is just the macro and food knowledge that you get around these things. you'll learn so much more about food. It's kind of funny because we've been eating since the day we were born and you're going eat for the rest of your life. But most people don't actually know how to eat in a way that makes them feel better, look better, have better energy, and is something that they can do sustainably for a really long time. Tracking food forces you to start to learn about macros, about proteins, about carbs, about fats, about fiber,
Speaker: All those different things. And when you start to understand what these things are, because they all have different functions, you can start to make better choices. So if I'm really hungry all the time, I know that if I start to up my proteins and start to include more fruits and vegetables, I'm going to be less hungry.
Speaker: If I know that I'm doing a bunch of cardio and I'm exercising more, I know that if I start to increase my carbs, then I know that I'm going to feel better and have more energy. And if I know what foods have lots of carbs in them, then I know exactly which foods to start including more in my diet.
Speaker: My digestion is kind of off and maybe my gut health hasn't been feeling that great. I know that maybe if I start to increase some fiber, i can start to resolve some of those issues and start to feel a little bit better. If I know what foods are high in fiber, it makes it easier for me to make those simple swaps. And so you start to learn a lot more about food, which can be really helpful with your goals, with feeling better, with looking better, all those things. And for that reason, I say tracking is definitely underrated.
Speaker: Number four, high protein diet. I would say this is probably rated. i don't need to say a ton about this. Eating a high protein diet is super important. If you want to be less hungry, if you want to be more full and satisfied. If you want to build them muscle, which you also need to lift weights consistently, I think people sometimes forget that they stress the importance of a high protein diet.
Speaker: But if you want to build muscle and look a certain way, you also need to pair that with good strength training. But if you're getting that 0.7 to about a gram per pound of body weight, you're going to be in good shape getting that high protein diet.
Speaker: Everybody's been talking about high protein diets for a really long time. And so for that reason, I think it's properly rated. Get protein at each meal, maybe add in one to two protein snacks throughout the day, and you're going to hit at least that 0.7 grams per pound of body weight and get those benefits of eating a high protein diet.
Speaker: Next on the list, a high fiber diet. This one I think is actually underrated. It's starting to get talked about more, but there's still so many people who under eat fiber by a lot.
Speaker: It's thought that around 5% of people get enough fiber in their diet, which is about one out of every 20 people are getting enough fiber in their diet. And you hear about fiber, but I don't think people really internalize just how important this stuff is. And so having higher fiber diets is associated with so many good health benefits. So better digestion, better gut health, less hunger, better satiety after meals, lower risks of chronic diseases, better heart health, even associated with living longer lives. So there's just tons of really good research about eating high fiber diets, but
Speaker: as i said the stats don't really show people are getting enough fiber so this is something that i think a lot of people could get a lot of value from and it's really not that hard to do if you're thinking about adding more fiber in your diet and like how much you actually want to be getting 14 grams for about every thousand calories you're eating so for a majority of people who are eating somewhere between 2 000 to 3 000 calories depending on your body size how active you are all those different things Getting at least 25 grams of fiber all the way up to about 40 grams of fiber is going to put you in that range of getting enough fiber in your diet.
Speaker: Also, with that being said, if you are focusing on getting fiber, you're going to be eating more fruits, more vegetables, more whole grains. And if you combine that with eating a high protein diet, you're going in pretty dang good shape and have a pretty high quality diet if you are eating enough fiber and eating enough protein.
Speaker: I think that sometimes people focus on the things that they can't have, but I like to think about what are the things that I want to get more of and then After that, I can start squeezing in some different things. I can be having some moderation with some alcohol, with some desserts, with those sorts of things. But you'll often notice that if you focus on the things that you should be adding in, a lot of that moderation stuff starts to take care of itself. Because if you're eating 150 grams of protein, if you're getting 25, 30 grams of fiber, that's a lot of lean protein. That's a lot of fruits. That's a lot of vegetables. And it doesn't leave a ton of room for you to eat a bunch of other things that aren't going to make you feel great or align with your goals. And so you have to have that stuff in moderation. You're not going finding yourself overeating tons of calories when you're hitting those two goals consistently.
Speaker: And so for that reason, I think that fiber is underrated. Meal timing, overrated for fat loss. When calories are equated, it doesn't really matter all that much when you are eating.
Speaker: What matters more is finding a routine that you like and that you can stick to. So for some people, that's eating three meals a day. For some people, that's only eating a couple meals a day. For other people, that's eating four or five meals a day.
Speaker: Some people really like to have a couple snacks in between meals. Other people don't snack at all. The biggest thing is just to equate your calories. And as long as you're doing that, you can spread those meals out or spread that food out however you would like.
Speaker: I think this is one thing that a lot of people overthink. Am I eating too late? Am I going to gain fat if I eat late at night? Do I have to eat breakfast? Those sorts of things. The thing to remember that is if you can do it consistently and you like doing it, it is going to be a good thing for you as long as your calories are equated. So find the routine that you can do consistently. That's what's going to work best for you Next on the list, cheat meals and or a cheat days. i would say these are overrated.
Speaker: The reason that I don't like cheat meals or cheat days is because a lot of people don't really understand how to create a better relationship with food. And when you have this kind of weird relationship about, oh, I need to cheat on my diet or I need to have cheat days or different things like that, it starts to create just a weird dichotomy about food, about I want to have these things, but then I feel guilty about having these things. And so it's just not a really good place to be. I think a better strategy is learning how to build in foods into your diet.
Speaker: that you can do more long-term. And what I mean by that is like, I have ice cream almost every single night. I eat pizza on a pretty regular basis. I have burgers, I have tacos, I go out to eat. I have all the things that people would say are bad or things that people would typically have in cheat days, but I just build them into my normal everyday eating.
Speaker: Like if I'm going out to eat, I'm just going to Think about not eating a crazy amount of calories that day. Like I might skip a meal earlier in the day. i might maybe budget some calories earlier in the week if I know that I'm going to be going on vacation or if I'm going to be going on a weekend trip and I know I'm going to be eating more. I just think about those things and I just build those into my normal diet. And that way I don't feel guilty about those things. I don't have to worry about eating too much or like having this just weird feelings about eating certain foods. And I think that's a lot more sustainable because a lot of people use these in a way that just doesn't really help them with their fat loss goals. For example, somebody might think, I'm going to six days super clean with their eating. And then on every Saturday, I'm going to have a cheat day. Well, if you're trying to lose fat and let's say you're in a 500 calorie deficit per day, by those six days you have banked about 3000 calories. But now let's say on that seventh day you give yourself a cheat day and you can have whatever you want. If you have, let's say you go and crush an entire pizza, that's 3000 calories.
Speaker: And then let's say you have a pineapple fat ice cream that could be a thousand calories. From those two things, you just added 4,000 calories. And now that 3,000 calorie deficit that you worked all week to get is washed out by two simple food items. And that's not even to say maybe you had a crazy breakfast, maybe you had some lunch. Like you could be having five, six, 7000 calories if you're really going nuts with these things, which I think people who have these types of programs who have like a cheat day, they're doing way too much damage on these days. And I think the better long term strategy is just to find ways to build these things into your normal diet. So it's not like this weird thing of like, i need to eat super clean. And then one day I'm just going crazy with it.
Speaker: Daily weigh-ins. I think these are underrated. The reason that I think daily weigh-ins are underrated is because weighing yourself daily allows you to track trends with better accuracy over time.
Speaker: The scale is going to fluctuate no matter what. And if you're only measuring yourself randomly, you don't really get a good idea of what's actually going on. And so if it's good progress to lose five pounds in a month,
Speaker: but your weight can fluctuate five, six, seven pounds in a single day, it's sometimes hard to know if you're actually moving in the right direction. But if you're tracking every single day, you can see that downward trend over time. You're still gonna have some days where that scale spikes up for whatever reason, but over time, you start to see that downward trend.
Speaker: of the scale but if i step on the scale let's say on a random monday and then four weeks later i step on the scale on a random monday and it's actually up two or three pounds from where i started because i had more salt or i had crappy sleep or i had a hard workout my body is holding on to water i might think that everything that i was doing over the last four weeks was wrong or that i need to cut a bunch of calories or that what i'm doing is not working when in reality If I was tracking every single day, i would just see that, oh, this is just one of those days where that scale spiked up and I'm actually trending down in the right direction.
Speaker: Too many people don't really understand how to use the scale as a good tool for fat loss. And so they use it the wrong way. They get super emotional around the scale. They let the scale dictate their actions. When in reality, if you learn to use it the right way, if you're tracking your weight each day, you know whether or not you're doing the right things and if you're trending in the right direction. And the last reason that I would say that it's super underrated is because one of the things that people who lose weight and keep it off for a long period of time do is what is called self-monitoring. And the simplest way to do this is to weigh yourself. So basically people have some way to hold themselves accountable and they have some sort of metric that they can track to make sure that they are not going too far off the path. So people who lose weight oftentimes will gain that back.
Speaker: But if you're weighing yourself every single day, you can start to get a good feel on if that scale is starting to creep up over time and you can self-correct a lot earlier in that process versus let's say i don't ever weigh myself. Maybe every couple of months I step on the scale. I've been eating more. I've been exercising less. I step on a scale and that scale is up 17 pounds.
Speaker: that's a lot harder to correct and get back on track versus if I notice that scale is creeping up over a couple of weeks and maybe I'm five pounds heavier than I normally am, okay, it's time for me to dial things back in versus if I step on that scale three or four months down the line and that scale's up 25 pounds, that's a lot harder to correct.
Speaker: So for that reason, I say daily weigh-ins underrated for fat loss. The next section with training and exercise, cardio number one. For fat loss, I think cardio is overrated.
Speaker: For general health, I think it's underrated. It helps you burn a few extra calories, but it's not nearly as many calories as people think. And it takes quite a bit of extra time if you really want to burn a substantial amount of calories. So your watch might tell you or your fitness tracker might tell you you burn 900 calories in your workout. I can promise you you're not burning 900 calories in your workout.
Speaker: If you go for a 30 minute jog, you will burn roughly 300 calories for about every mile. It's somewhere around 100 calories, give or take your body size and those different things. But it's around 100 calories per mile that you're burning.
Speaker: So let's say you run for 30 minutes, you get three miles, you're running at a 10 mile per hour pace, that's 300 calories. Well, you could go and eat a cookie that's 300, 400, 500 calories in all of about seconds. so if you're trying to burn off food or you're trying to trade cardio or exercise in order to eat food, it's really not a good trade off and it's not a good use of your time. So the way that I have thought about cardio is to do it for your health, but don't get in the mindset of trying to burn off calories or to earn food because cardio is great for physical and mental health.
Speaker: but it's not great for trying to burn a ton of extra calories. It helps with a lot of different things, but burning off calories is not really a good use of your time. So I think of every extra calorie that I burn through cardio or through exercise, I just think of as a bonus. So exercise, do cardio for your physical health, for your mental health, and then everything else is just a bonus.
Speaker: Strength training is next on the list. Underrated. If you want to look better, if you want to feel better, if you want to have a faster metabolism, be able to actually keep the weight off, then building muscle is an essential part of that process. And there's no better way to build muscle than strength training.
Speaker: it takes very little time to get a ton of the benefits that you get from strength training. And if you can only dedicate a couple of hours to strength training, the amount of benefits that you can get are going to be tremendous. And I think lots of times people think they need to work out every single day or they need to put an hour in the gym every single day. And you don't have to do that to get a lot of the benefits. If you're getting a couple full hour long workouts in per week, or maybe you're doing three 45 minute strength workouts per week, you're gonna get a massive benefit in how you look, how you feel and just health benefits.
Speaker: And a lot of the reasons that people want to lose weight is because they want to look better and they want to feel better. And strength training plays ah a huge role in both of those, because without muscle, you are not going to look the way that you want to look. You need to have muscle mass in order to look more toned. As people say, if you want to look more fit and athletic, you need to have muscle mass. And from a physical and mental standpoint,
Speaker: Strength training is one of the best things you can do as well because it helps with building that confidence as you get stronger, as you start to do hard things, as you start to build up your discipline, you start to feel better mentally. And then physically, when you're feeling strong, when your joints feel good, when your muscles are being able to tolerate more, when your body is able to do more, that is a really good feeling. And strength training helps with all those different things. And so strength training Still underrated, even as much as people talk about it. I can't say enough good things about strength training. If that's not part of your weight loss plan or your fitness plan, I think you're really missing out on a ton of benefits. There's not a lot of things that I think that you that everybody should do. But strength training is one of those things that I think literally everybody should do because the benefits are just too good.
Speaker: 10,000 step rule. I would say this is properly rated, but not for the reason that most people think. a lot of people think I need to get 10,000 steps so I can burn a bunch of extra calories. Yes, walking more, being more active is going to help you to burn a few extra calories, but that's not actually the main reason that I love it.
Speaker: The reason that I like the 10,000 step rule is because you start to think about doing something frequently throughout the day that acts as a constant reminder to do other healthy things. So when you start to track your steps, you start to think about throughout the day, oh, I should get up and walk a little bit more. Maybe I should park a little bit further away. Oh, I have 10 minutes in my schedule. Maybe I should go get in a quick little walk. And this is something that starts to shift your identity over time because you are proving to yourself that you value your health and your fitness by prioritizing something like walking.
Speaker: On top of that, you're stacking these small wins and you keep that momentum going. I think a lot of people really struggle with health and fitness because they feel like if they're not doing everything perfectly, then it's not really worth it.
Speaker: But that couldn't be further from the truth. As long as you're continuing to move that momentum and get that 1% better that I talk about so often, you're continuing to move in the right direction and progress. That is a good thing. If you do that for a long period of time, you're going to be in a much, much better spot. And walking is such a simple and very accessible way to keep that progress going, to keep getting 1% better, even when you're busy, when you're stressed, when you're traveling, when you don't have access to a gym. when you don't have a ton of time, you always have this simple tool called walking. You can do it anywhere. You can do it in a short amount of time.
Speaker: You don't need a ton of equipment. You don't need a bunch of like a big extensive training program or anything like that. You just get out and you walk. And so for that reason, I would say the 10,000 steps a day is properly rated.
Speaker: last section of this underrated overrated fat loss edition episode these are fat loss tools strategy so supplements i would say these are overrated when you think about fat loss supplements is not very high on that list i always think about what are the things that we can do that are going to move the needle the most and supplements are not high on that list at all you want to focus on eating the right amount of food mostly whole foods a lot of protein a lot of fiber You want to walk a lot, you want to lift weights, you want to get good sleep, manage stress, hang around good people, all that good stuff. And supplements is not in that list. And I probably wouldn't even put supplements in the first 10 things that I would recommend you focus on. But a lot of people think that if I can take this fat burner, if I could take this certain supplement, Maybe that'll help to speed up my progress. And the reality is it just doesn't. It's not going to make nearly as big of a difference as you think. There's a few supplements that have some good evidence that I recommend people do when they're on a fat loss protocol or when that is their goal, but it's not very high on the list. And so until you have all those other things in order, I don't think that putting a bunch of time or money into supplements is the right move. And so I would say supplements in general overrated.
Speaker: GLP ones. I figured I'd throw this one in here just because GLP ones are so popular now and they're only going to get more popular. And I would say as of right now, these are properly rated. There's no doubt about it. These are a very useful tool for some people.
Speaker: As far as weight loss goes, I don't think we've had anything that has made this big of a difference in a very, very long time. The reason that I would say it's properly rated and not underrated is because we still don't know a ton about these things over the long term. Obviously, these drugs have been approved. And so they have gone through some extensive studying and trials and different things like that. But we still don't have tons and tons of evidence with these things about what they're doing to our bodies 10 years, 15, 20 years, years down the road And when it comes to our bodies and different things like that, there's always trade-offs with anything that you're doing. There's always going to be certain trade-offs. And so we don't really know exactly how these things are going play out long-term, but for some people, when it comes to getting that weight off and just living a healthier life and improving the quality of their life and being able to live a few extra years, if it means taking these drugs and helping them do those things. And I think for quite a few people, this has been a helpful thing for those people.
Speaker: We also know with these things that if you don't pair these with lifestyle habits, you're not really going to get all of the benefits that we want to get. And if you come off these things without pairing these with lifestyle habits, that weight is going to come right back. So like anything else, if you want this to be a long-term sustainable thing,
Speaker: you have to focus on changing your lifestyle habits as well. And so I don't think these things are the end all be all and that they're going to completely solve obesity and all of the health problems that come with obesity and our lack of sedentariness and all those different things. But there is no doubt about it that these things have been helping lots and lots of people. And so for that reason, I would say properly rated.
Speaker: The last one that I have is fat loss challenges. So think of like your six week or eight week challenges. maybe 75 hard, even though I know 75 hard isn't meant to be a fat loss program. Tons of people use it as a weight loss program.
Speaker: I would say these things are overrated. And I've actually done these things myself, but I would say that the way that most people use them, it is very overrated. Because if you go into this with the mindset of, I'm going to spend six weeks or eight weeks or 75 days trying to get as much weight off as possible, and then after that, you don't really have an exit plan and none of these habits stick, well, then the results that you get are not going to be able to be sustainable. So if you go into it with a different mindset about what can I learn from this? How can I help this to build up some momentum? And then I have some sort of plan once this six weeks or eight weeks 75 days is over.
Speaker: Then I can see some value in these things, but that's not really the way that people go into these challenges. And that's not typically the way that these types of things are marketed anyways. It's about getting as much weight off as quickly as possible by any means necessary. And it's super easy to lose 10, 15 pounds in 30 days. It's really hard to lose that much weight and actually keep it off.
Speaker: And so if you're not able to keep it off, like what's the whole point of this, if you're going to use a fat loss challenge, then use it as a way to build yourself up to start to focus on the right things to give yourself some structure, to learn a few new things, and then try to carry those things over into your actual lifestyle into things that will actually stick because if you approach it that way, there is some value in these things. But the way that most people use them, I think is highly overrated.
Speaker: And with that being said, those are the 14 topics for this episode. Hopefully with this, you were able to get a little bit more clarity about what actual things make sense to focus on. Because again, if you're focusing on certain things that don't really matter all that much and you're being consistent on those things,
Speaker: you're not really going to see the results that you want to see. So want to make sure that we're focusing on the right things. And with that being said, just a quick little list of things that I always think are very valuable and very worth your time focusing on. So eating mostly whole foods, don't eat too many calories, especially if fat loss is the goal or maintaining is the goal. Prioritize things like protein and fiber.
Speaker: Do these things in a way that you actually enjoy. So a style of eating that you like, find a meal timing routine that you like, eat foods that you like, find a system that you can easily repeat and that you like, that will make this sustainable from a diet side of things. so You want to make sure you're walking a lot, trying to focus on living a more active lifestyle, including both structured and unstructured movement is going to be super helpful. So doing some things like lifting some weights, doing a little bit of cardio, but also doing other things that you enjoy. So if you have different hobbies, if you like doing outdoor stuff, if you like going on hikes or doing some lawn work or different stuff like that, all that stuff is going to be helpful. And then the last thing I'd say is just to continue to shift your identity with small little actions each day into a person who really values their health and fitness so that this stuff actually sticks long term.
Speaker: Again, I hope this was helpful. If it was, you can always share it with somebody, leave a review, all that good stuff. If you want some specific one-on-one coaching with any of these things or any specific goals you have, that coaching link is in the show notes. But as always, I appreciate you listening and we will see you next
