107 | 6 Tips to Begin Your Fat Loss Journey

Welcome back to another episode of the Real Health podcast. Our mission is to add as much value in a condensed amount of time, in your health journey. So you are not gonna hear, a bunch of commercials and ads. You're gonna hear content to hopefully drive that needle just a little bit for 1% change every single day so that you can live a healthier life, not just for you, but for your entire family. We are in February. Happy February. And we, as the first episode of Feb. 0, just kinda wanna frame out the month.

Today, we're gonna talk about some fat loss tips or some weight loss tips, but specifically weight loss in relative to fat. So recomposition where we wanna keep our lean mass, but obviously, we wanna burn fat. But in February , think of it like fat loss February.

Fat loss February means that we're gonna touch on every, detail of how to maximize fat loss starting with the basics, the foundation of today, and building upon that and talking about hormones, talking about toxicity as a hindrance to our weight loss, and so on and so forth. So this is gonna be a great month as we look to maximize our, body's composition, gaining lean mass, but also burning fat in a sense what we call recomposition. So we wanna do this in a healthy way, so we're gonna strategize this in February to set us up for success for those spring and summer months.

When we think about fat loss, not weight loss, fat loss, it's a better term to use, think about something that's that's months in duration. We're not here, you know, boasting Ozempic and doing a quick fix because we obviously know Ozempic is not the answer. Yes. It causes weight loss, but it doesn't drive clean fat loss by in maintaining lean mass, and you get thyroid cancer on the side. So who wants that?

Well, nobody does. So, obviously, Ozempic is not the answer. Let's talk about some true real health strategies that produce real results for real people, that people just wanna apply today and create a discipline for the future. Okay. So the first thing is and you've heard it time and time again, but we're gonna reiterate it.

And if this is something that you've heard now for the fifth time but haven't made a change in it, you have to start now. Okay? Today's the day. Focus on protein. Focus on protein.

High quality protein sources like grass fed meat, right, pasture raised eggs, wild caught fish, organic poultry, is so important to your metabolism. One, it's satiating, it's filling, it's hard you really can't overeat calorically protein. If all you ate was protein, I guarantee you're in a caloric deficit. It's nearly impossible to have a caloric surplus just eating protein alone. How much protein?

Typically, the recommended dose of protein is point seven to one gram of protein per pound of body weight. So let's just say your ideal body weight is one hundred and eighty five for a male. You wanna consume 185 grams of protein per day. In a female, you wanna be closer to point seven grams of protein per day. So let's say, if you weigh a hundred and fifty pounds as a female, you're probably gonna be consuming, we're gonna be consuming about a hundred and five grams of protein per day, which gives you about point seven grams per pound.

So that kind of gives you a reference point. Keeping nutrition simple. What does that look like? Well, if you look at your palm right now, hold it up, make sure no one's in front so they don't slap you in the face, But hold it up in front of you and look at your palm size. And you wanna consume with every meal protein about the size of your palm.

That would be a great, thirty, forty, maybe even 50 gram dose of protein. So that's a great source and size of protein. Okay? So number one, we're gonna focus on protein intake. Number two, we're gonna manage our carbohydrate intake based on our activity level.

So what does this look like? Well, what this looks like is ask yourself, what's your activity level? Add the are you getting 10,000 minimum steps per day? If you are, then great. We wanna focus on protein, healthy fat, fiber, clean fats, right, omega three fatty acids.

But on the days that you strength train or do higher cardiovascular training, we want to increase our carbohydrates in these days, decrease our fats so that we can maximize our recovery and help our bodies and muscle aid in this recovery for the next day and next workout. So on strength training days and moderate cardiovascular days, we want moderate carbs coming from paleo sources like sweet potatoes or berries and squash. Those are great sources of carbohydrates. But on rest or light activity days, we wanna lower our carbohydrate content and emphasize healthy fats instead. This is what we would call, like, carb cycling, adding in carbohydrates depending upon the activity.

In our house, we say, you gotta earn your carbs. Did you earn your carbs today? Right? Did you strength train today? You earned your carbs.

Here's your carb sources. Okay? Number three, in order to maximize fat loss and minimize lean muscle loss recomposition. The majority of our training should be straight high, intensity, high load of strength training strength training. K?

And very light cardiovascular training. What does it look like? It looks like you're literally walking. That's what it looks like. Your heart rate is a 10 beats per minute, 20 maybe beats per minute.

So what does this look like? It means you're having a conversational pace where you're walking with a friend for twenty, thirty, forty five minutes. That's what it looks like. What does it also look like? It looks like walking on an incline treadmill.

It looks like stairs. It is not- If you wanna burn fat, it is not grinding on an elliptical for forty five minutes with a high heart rate sweating your butt off. That's not what that's not burning fat. That is not burning fat. That is burning muscle and glycogen.

That's what that's burning. Okay? We wanna burn fat. If you wanna burn fat, slow your cardiovascular training down. I know it's hard to buy into it, but it is a training myth.

It is an exercise myth that running more, okay, for most people, running will burn fat. It's not gonna happen. Okay? You guys run way too fast. Your heart rate's in this, what we call the gray zone, which means you're really not in you're not enhancing your performance because your heart rate's like one fifties, so you're not improving your performance.

So you're not running slow enough, but you're also not running fast enough. So another tip here in this exercise arena is number right? Number three, strength training, walking, and one, maybe two days a week, do a high intensity interval training session. So what does this look like? Get on an air bike, do twenty seconds all out sprint, ten seconds of recovery, eight intervals.

We call this Tabata, or Tabata training. So four minute high intensity effort which will help in so many other factors. We're not talking about maximizing fat loss here. We're actually talking about helping the brain heal and nervous system health, and also improving just your athletic performance. So number three, focus on training.

Okay? Be more specific with your training. Number four. Don't have a cheat day. Eat clean and keep eating clean.

A cheat day can throw everything off. If, let's just say your caloric goal is roughly about 2000 calories a day. K? Because we're not we're not counting. Right?

We're keeping things simple. But if you have a cheat day, you could be in a- in that day, you could be a 2000 to 3000 calorie surplus easily, very quickly because processed food is full of calories, it is non satiating, and you eat too much of it. Very quickly, your body can very easily become from a caloric deficit to a caloric surplus just in one cheat meal or one cheat day. So in my opinion, cheat meal and cheat days are just not allowed because it's not worth it. Okay?

During the week, find something that you enjoy that fits within your meals. So for me, I like dark chocolate. So I'm gonna have a little couple squares of dark chocolate. That's just satisfying and and it gives me joy. So find something small that's satisfying so you're not depriving yourself, and then obviously you fail when you have that cheat meal that turns into a cheat day, that turns into a cheat week, and then you're completely off the train track and you're plummeting.

I want you, number five now, monitor your weight loss with body composition. There are so many gyms. There are so many health studios that you can go to and get what's called a body composition evaluation. So here at The Real Health Co., whether our West office location, Armor Health, or our South Knoxville location at the Health Factory, we have a body composition evaluation that we can look at what are your- what is your fat, what is your lean mass in terms of percentage and weights that every thirty days you're looking, hey. Am I keeping my lean mass?

Am I burning fat? Because the scale is gonna lie. Let's throw the scale out. When you look at the scale, it just gives you a number. And the problem is that number could be lying to you in terms of what you're trying to achieve, which is recomposition.

You are trying to what are you trying to do? You're trying to decrease fat and increase muscle mass. So the issue can be you are losing weight, but you're actually losing muscle, and you see the number drop on the scale, but yet you're actually not- you're not recomposition recompensating your body at all. You are just burning muscle. K?

So this is classic with what we call skinny fat, the chronic cardio who's underfed, blasting their hormones, dumping them into the toilet, high cortisol, they start getting belly fat, they're losing their muscle, they have no energy, they feel like garbage, and they're burned out. This is the mom that walks in the office at 30, 35, 40 years old, and they thought running was the answer, that cardio was the answer, they thought elliptical was the answer, they thought undereating was the answer. And what we find is that most need more food, more protein specifically, healthy fats to balance hormones, clean carbohydrates. K? And when we look at how their body composition changes when they're following these foundational principles, well, they're actually gaining lean mass and burning fat.

Okay? So make sure you're monitoring. Right? Number five, make sure you're monitoring your body composition in some way so that you have objective data of what's actually happening internally. When we look at how to keep things simple with losing weight, are you eating clean, or are you eating inflammatory food?

Are you eating protein? Are you prioritizing protein? Are you carb cycling on the days where you have more strength output, you know, in the gym or higher endurance activity days? Do you consume healthier fats on the days that are more rest and active recovery days? Are we looking at, a some way to look at recomposition through body like a body comp.

So are you working with someone to analyze your data? If we stick to some basic principles, now I'm gonna give you one more. So number six, if we stick to these basic principles, you will create an environment where you're re having a recomposition of fat and muscle. Number six, the last one. And this is so important.

You're gonna hear again, every podcast is from here on February is contingent upon these principles. The last one is, are you sleeping enough? If you aren't getting at least seven hours of sleep a night, you're not gonna recover. You're gonna be in a chronic stress state and your body will store and hold on to that fat.

You have to get seven, at least, hours of sleep per night. Okay? Preferably eight. And take a day, take a Sabbath day. Take a Sabbath day where you just get seven, eight, nine hours of sleep.

Okay? And just kinda reset your body. Right? If you're in a rest state, it's so important to recover. So we gotta get into those states.

So, hey, pick something and start applying it today. Whether it's I need to go for more intentional walks, I need to cut out the chronic cardio, I need to strength train more, I need to, make sure I carb cycle properly, eat my healthy fats, I need to prioritize my protein and eat more protein. Right? I need to sleep better. What is it for you?

What are you trying to apply? Something that's really cool, guys, is if you go to realhealthco.com, "real health co .com," go to the resources tab, We now have all of our podcasts over the last few weeks in outline form instead of writing notes, taking notes, or going to our- going to the transcript on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, you can go to our resources tab and download these notes from the realhealthco.com resources tab and get it directly sent to you. Grab the guides. There's there's guides on rehab that from low back rehab to ankle rehab to shoulder rehab to a ketogenic diet, and then obviously today's episode, which is how to, simplify your fat loss journey. So, hey, as always, if this is useful, if you've enjoyed it, share it.

Like our page. Subscribe to our podcast. We would greatly appreciate it. Thanks again for listening to another episode of the Real Health Podcast.

Our passion is to add value to your health care journey. Anything that we do, we want to do it within a community to help as many people as possible. Thanks for listening to episodes of The Real Health Podcast. If you could like, if you could subscribe, and you can share, it would help our mission to reach as many people with real health that produces real results for real people.