Hacking Your Health
Hacking Your Health Podcast with Ben Canning and Dave Kennedy - Two guys setting out to hack body, mind, business and beyond. We are here to provide a single source, bullshit free guide to understanding your body and how you can live better, for longer.
Hacking Your Health
Episode 159: Cardio is bullshit...and other provocative statements
Join 'The Program' - Launching Jan '25
What if everything you've been told about cardio for fat loss is wrong? Join us on the Hacking Health Podcast as we, Ben Canning and Dave Kennedy, challenge the conventional wisdom that cardio is the ultimate weapon against weight gain. We start by sharing our personal fitness journeys, the camaraderie that makes it all worthwhile, and how embracing muscle growth has transformed our views on well-being. Hear about the liberating experience of lifting heavy and why my deadlifting journey is more about personal records and less about the scale.
Our conversation with insights from Dr. Rhonda Patrick and Dr. Lane Norton dives into the cardio vs. weight training debate, shedding light on why resistance training might just be your unsung hero in sustainable fat loss. With humor and practical tips, like those from Arnold Schwarzenegger's bicep training, discover how tweaking your technique can supercharge your results. We'll explore the pitfalls of over-relying on cardio, which could lead to increased hunger or unsustainable deficits, and the power of building an efficient metabolism through muscle mass.
With a focus on effective fat loss strategies that stand the test of time, we discuss the drawbacks of fitness trackers, the often-overlooked benefits of walking, and the profound impact of resistance training on both mental and physical health. We emphasize how a balanced routine—one that includes carefully managed caloric intake and the right mix of weightlifting and cardio—can lead to a healthier, longer life. Discover the lasting benefits of understanding your body, the importance of a supportive community, and how lifting weights can be both a passion and a pathway to achieving your fitness goals.
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Yo hey what's up everybody? Welcome to the Hacking Health Podcast. I'm your host, ben Cami, with Dave Kennedy. Every time I watch that intro and the further you and I get into being in a surplus, I'm like oh, do you remember not that so long ago there was a leaner version of ben and dave and I wear a much not leaner version of ben and dave. Anyway, what's up, dude, welcome back to the show yeah, I am.
Speaker 1:I am liking the extra calories. You know the, the five stages of denial. I'm in the, finally, the fourth and fifth stage, which is enjoying where I'm at right now and loving the? Uh, the additional weight that I'm able to carry, uh, both, both on my body as well as uh in the gym. So I've been doing good man, been good dude.
Speaker 2:I somehow something 600 find dead left in the corner again I listen, I think I'm there, like I.
Speaker 1:I did. I did so this weekend. I did um, I did five deadlifts for 505 and I was like man, this is easy. The fifth one like came out like butter. I was like huh, I'm like you know what. I'm pretty tired at this point, but I'm just gonna try for 545, even though I'm already exhausted. And I got 545, I'm like, if I can do 545, fatigued, I'm pretty sure I'm at that 600 mark again, because, because when I was doing 600, I was doing 505 for five, right, so I'm pretty sure I'm there. Uh, we'll just well, it does have to test it out we will have to test it out, but I'm gonna gradually get there, though I'm not gonna like just go for 600.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna, you know, like next week I think I'm just gonna try to go for like 565 or 575.
Speaker 2:You're not doing time there because the time you've done it, you did it by yourself. I need to be there to witness it.
Speaker 1:So you're not going to do it until the end of January as far as I possibly can without doing it, and it would have to be 6.05, because I did 600 before. Yes, that would be a new PR.
Speaker 2:Yes, I agree. So 6.75 was put in the bar, 6.75. I say, just before we come on there, I just got back from Galway and we were down and a couple of mom's cousins lived down there and one of mom's cousin's son's trains and I've sent them down a couple of bits and pieces of WeHackHouse swag and I brought them down some supplements when I went down and he was hyped to train but I had never met this guy before and he's like 22 and I'm like, oh, this kid. And then I saw him and I was like, oh shit, this dude is fucking enormous. I'm like I don't know what I'm getting myself into, but we trained in a real nice gym down in Galway. He was much younger and much stronger than I was, so I was definitely put in my place, but it was good fun.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I've been having a couple of friends over. I just had one of these. Chris Girding came over yesterday that's when I did the deadlift, so I was going to catch up with him and then my buddy Bobby came over Thanksgiving Day and I cooked dinner and everything we did a did a lift. It was legs day and uh put him through some pain and then um had uh dom over a couple times as well. My buddy dom came over uh past two times, two times in the last week. So it's been nice actually having some people there and you know, lifting with somebody and chatting it does make a big difference. I think you know, while you're in there and just kind of having fun with it, and you obviously when there's somebody else there, for sure definitely a lot longer, like, like we're there for like two and a half hours, right, you know, and it's great, you know it's, it's perfect.
Speaker 1:So it was a good time. So and I'll tell you, I'm feeling good with the extra calories. The first, the only reference you hear of it today and it's funny because I, you know, I've been kind of I wouldn't say slacking is the right word the days that I've been lifting kind of fall on, so like yesterday, for example, was like heavy legs and so, like today I was just exhausted and legs. So I'm sitting there doing an endurance day where I have to run for like 23 minutes solid and I'm just like this sucks, like I got nothing here, have to run for like 23 minutes solid and I'm just like this sucks, like I got nothing here, um, but it was good.
Speaker 2:It was good so well, I mean. That leads us into today's topic. I was on the way back. I was like, right, what we're gonna do? And I flicked through like the list that I had in the list that you had, and one of the ones was uh, I think your exact words were why cardio is bullshit and you should just train biceps for fat loss yes, just b.
Speaker 2:So we're going to get into it today. The goal I guess with today is I want to, I guess, express my frustration at people who think that cardio is the main tool for fat loss. And you've admitted yourself before you've been down this rabbit hole that you've just went down tons and tons of cardio because you've seen the scale move, but then at the other side of it you were not happy with how you looked overall.
Speaker 1:so I just want to get into that yeah, that the big I think the big misconception in general is just a lack of understanding around how your body works right, and this is the. This is the fundamental concept that I think everybody. If you understand this concept here, everything else starts to fall into play. And yes, there's things you need to build up on that and more knowledge you need to build, but the fundamentals is that if you just want to lose 20 pounds, you're not going to be happy just losing 20 pounds and that's not something that's going to be sustainable one way or the other, unless you put things in place to be able to get to that 20 pounds and then either keep it off or do something different. And I know that when you get a new person, when you're on board and you have the new program that you just just put in place, right, I'm sure the first question you get is I just want to lose 20 pounds. I just want to lose 20 pounds.
Speaker 1:I just want to lose 20 pounds and you know it's kind of hard to break people of that cycle because you have to say, well, listen, we can do that. And I do think it's important for people to be able to see success in the scale, but doing it slow enough to where you're not dropping muscle mass and you're adding muscle and, at the same time, being able to put the right things in place to be successful in the future. And Dr Rhonda Patrick had Dr Lane Norton on her podcast recently and they were talking about the most benefit, most beneficial things that you can do for sustained fat loss. And it's not cardiovascular work, it's weight training, training biceps. Well, funny story about training biceps.
Speaker 1:So I was reading you know those Facebook shorts you get onto or whatever, and there's one with Arnold and Arnold was talking about his bicep curls and how he does them and it's different than how I was doing them. So when I take the bicep curls I put my my, my hands, center of gravity to balance out the dumbbells right. So when I'm coming up, you know I can get that full contraction as I'm coming up and the weight is balanced between the two arnold's like no, you need to move your hands to the inside so that you're completely off balance and you're putting more strain on your wrist, which causes you to curl your bicep more and get a better contraction there. So I actually did that today and it's actually hard. It's actually much harder to do that. So, instead of so where your hand's at no-transcript and it's really causing that, that, you know muscle flexation, that's even a word you know to to that bicep.
Speaker 2:So it's, it's, it's, it's interesting and I and if it's coming from Arnold- hey, it's so, essentially, you have to create more stability because you're creating an off balance of where you're holding the dumbbell. So your bicycle has to create more stability, so it has to do more work.
Speaker 1:Essentially, yes, yes, and I and I and I really like them, I really enjoyed it. I was doing them today at the gym and I just had some forties on there and just repping them out and it was. It was definitely killing, killing the bice, lot more than just doing a standard curl. So that's going to be my new new thing for the for the new year. But but back onto just training biceps.
Speaker 2:Thanks, because we do yield the conversation just talking about biceps, and that was a joke. We're talking about cardio today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think I think the biggest thing for folks to understand is that you know, cardiovascular work is great, it's great. It's great for your heart, it's great. Misconception is that cardio equates to weight loss, and in theory that's true. So if you go and do cardiovascular work solely and you eat less food, you will lose weight. However, if you do no cardio and you eat less food, you will lose weight. So it's not that cardio is inhibiting. A much more insane response to losing weight it's that it's burning more energy. Therefore, if you eat less, you have more of a caloric deficit.
Speaker 1:Now the problem that most people go into and this is the most challenging part this is why pretty much everybody fails at it Right here is the main reason everybody fails in.
Speaker 1:It is that there's two main points. One, because they've done cardio, they're extremely in a caloric deficit, so they eat more food. Therefore, they're in a surplus, so now they have more calories than they actually burn, so they don't lose the weight. Or two, they're in such a caloric deficit that they feel like complete shit the entire day and they feel horrible that they have no energy for anything else. So they quit doing it in the first place because it's not working and your body will shut down. When you're in such a deficit to where you don't have the ability to recoup that energy to rebuild the muscle, to be able to have a heightened level of blood flow and pump and everything else that's going on in your body, you need food and nutrients and things like that so your body can replenish, including sleep and everything else that goes along with that. But the main point is that cardio does not equate to sustained fat loss. If you're trying to do sustained fat loss, the better approach is to build as much muscle as you possibly can.
Speaker 2:Whoa, whoa whoa, you're going to hit again. There's a lot of stuff to talk about before we talk about that. So the point that you're making there about when you do cardio and you're hungry, you think about and I'll always give credit to, uh, our former client james, and he put this on to me the first time that we ever had a call about the difference between what cardio does and what weight training does. So if you think about cardio as a system that burns the fuel and you think about weight and resistance training as a system that builds the engine, so if you imagine you do an hour's cardio, if you're in a car and you drive for an hour, obviously you're burning the fuel. You're going to need to top up the fuel. So whenever you get to the end of the journey or the end of the cardio session, there's going to be that deficit from the fuel that you have burnt on the spin class or insert, whatever the thing that you have done is. So two things will happen is number one.
Speaker 1:You will most of that, most of that fuel that you burn, by the way, is going to be glycogen in your muscle cells, right?
Speaker 2:so not necessarily fat that you've burned per that cardiovascular work yeah, so you will be hungry because you've just burned a fuel, the same way that your gas tank will run out whenever you after you've done a long journey.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I see happen quite often and I think that this is a huge problem with people who track food and have their smartwatch or fitness device connected is, say, for example, they do a spin class and they burn 750 calories. That will record on their my fitness pal and it also it almost buys back the 700 calories. So, say, your total for the day is 2000 calories and then you're like plus 700 calories, so I get the 2700 calories. First of all, disconnect that or turn that shit off, because that's not the way you should be doing it. If your goal is fat loss, so you'll be hungrier after your cardio session and, to the point, depending on how intense or how long the cardio session was like, it's an insatiable hunger that you just want to eat everything and, as df says, that puts you back into a surplus because you have over consumed.
Speaker 1:On the other side, that question right there, by the way, when they're talking about fitness trackers, whether you're wearing a Whoop device Garmin, apple Watch, whatever I get that question all the time. Well, this tracker is telling me that I burned 1,000 calories in this 30-session workout, which, by the way, is near impossible. Just to throw that out there you didn't burn 1,000 calories in a 30-minute session. That's like next to impossible. And second, that automatically usually attributes to your total daily energy expenditure that it adds on to there. So it's saying you can eat an additional thousand calories and not actually doing the math like you don't want to use it as a base of what your calories are, yeah it's true, the skyline chili, like you were doing it was so good.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, right after two days in a row, we'll not get into that?
Speaker 2:we'll not get into that so I'm not here to totally shit on cardio, because it does have some benefits, as you mentioned, and I think it's important to go through that. I think the biggest thing for me is, if you talk about the negatives, number one I don't enjoy it, so that's a negative for me. Number two there is a potential, if you do too much, that you can. If you do too much and you're in too much of a deficit, it can cause muscle loss as well, which makes your body less efficient at burning calories, which I mean I don't know who won't. Neither you nor I want that and I can't imagine anybody that does. But in terms of benefits, obviously there's cardiovascular health, heart health, the benefits in terms of cholesterol management, blood flow and circulation, endorphins if you're into that sort of thing Some people will say stress release, but I also think they're psychopaths and improved mood.
Speaker 2:So that comes off the the back of you know, the endorphins and sort of feeling good after you do some sort of uh output, whether it's high intensity or low intensity, improved fitness levels and probably the most for me anyway, the biggest sales point for it is better recovery. So better recovery between sets. If you have a higher cardiovascular health marker, you will recover better between your sets, which means you can actually get more from your weight and resistance training on hold. So I'm not here to completely shit on cardio as a whole. I'm not telling you not to do cardio. We're just here to tell you today that it's not the most efficient way to do fat loss.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you can even incorporate. What I like about resistance training is it's so flexible on the types of programs you can build. Um, I think you, what was? What was the one that everybody always complains about?
Speaker 2:um, uh, man, though, the one workout routine that didn't work out, huh the engine yeah yeah, yeah, engine right and uh, and the engine workout is more of a cardiovascular type of it's cardio disguised as weight resistance training, so there's like deadlift in it and then you're doing like 30 reps. I'm like what the fuck is this? And then you have to go and run a kilometer and you're like this is not weight resistance training you sneak it in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are ways to incorporate cardiovascular work into your resistance training, like one cutting down your your rest in between sets, um, doing more volume, uh, doing higher intensity, uh type of workouts, like I know, when I'm doing legs day, for example. Let's just say it's a heavy squats day for quads. Um, I know that my first few sets, my, my big compound movements, are going to be slow and I'm going to need some time in between recover because I'm going heavy. But then, as soon as I I kick it into kind of the muscle exhaustion, muscle fatigue phase, my sets are very, very fast. In between I'm dripping in sweat, my heart rate is up and elevated, especially when you have me doing those, those effing cluster sets. You know like I'm about ready to die. They're a cardio set but you're a cardio it's literally the skies is a cluster set.
Speaker 1:um, but uh, you know, those things definitely allow you to move around and what's interesting is you don't need a substantial and again, this is again based on goals. You don't need substantial amount of cardiovascular work to get the benefits of cardio, like, for example, elevating your heart just by going on a walk. Walking is one of the best things you can possibly do for cardiovascular work. You're moving your body around, your heart rate gets elevated. On a walk, walking is one of the best things you can possibly do for cardiovascular work. You're moving your body around, your heart rate gets elevated, you break a little bit of a sweat. It's non-intensive on your body, which means that you recover much faster and it allows you to continue on with that resistance training. So when you're talking about sustained longevity, sustained body composition, sustained weight loss and getting the goals that you want to Again, dr Rhonda Patrick had a great tweet just last week on it.
Speaker 1:Keeping lean body mass, muscle mass in your body, is one of the most important things that we can do as we age. It leads to longevity. It leads to better cardiovascular health. It leads to reduced cancer risk. All of the benefits you get of living longer come from maintaining and building muscle. And you know, as you know, as we get older, it gets harder and harder to put on new muscle, and so we want to be able to do this, you know, in a sustained fashion as long as we possibly can.
Speaker 1:And you know, I see, you know pictures all the time now of 70, 80 year olds that are deadlifting. You know, three 400 pounds. They look frigging amazing, you know, and they're, they're energetic. You know, like I hope, when I'm 70 and I'm 80, I'm still deadlifting, maybe not 600. That'd be frigging cool, but uh, you know, at least doing like three or 400 for some reps and still feeling great and energetic about where I'm doing. I'm still very mobile, um, which I think is really important.
Speaker 1:It's not just living longer, it's that quality of life. You see a lot of folks that are in wheelchairs, that have canes, and it's horrible. I don't want to be in that position. And, granted, they might have had accidents or things like that, or their body has just broken down and it's not a knock in any way, it's just I want to try to allow myself to give every opportunity possible that, when I get older and older and older, I'm able to accomplish the things that I want to do, have high energy and still be there for my family, still have fun going to the gym. I want to be that old dude.
Speaker 2:you know that's that's doing, you know he used to record a podcast with this guy from Ireland and talk about doing all gray beers with me with a really long epic like ZZ top beard.
Speaker 1:You know that's my goal, with probably no hair then at that point, but I'm cool with it. You know I'm going to be that old guy at the gym. That's like teaching all the young bucks what to do and still having a Jack figure, you know, at seven years old, right, you know? And again, I never thought any of this would have been possible before I started with you, because I always thought the way to lose weight was cardio. And I remember I tried every single program out there. Um, I remember I was doing the shanti insanities when we had derby con. Um, at derby con I'd take a break from the conference, I'd go upstairs and I'd do a 45 minute shanti you know insanity workout upstairs in my room and it's all cardio, all body weight, and I noticed I would drop some weight and gain some weight again and drink 10 old fashions and that'd be like the fucking window right completely out the window because I was literally drinking.
Speaker 1:You know, I remember I did fireball shots for everybody and then I was drinking. You know, uh, one year, uh, uh, buster rhymes canceled on this last minute as he was supposed to be at the place and we took his like cavasier and like all this other like high-end shit. We start drinking it all and sending pictures to him saying he's an a-hole. And so, you know, like the calorie content was through the roof, right, you know, and I wasn't losing any weight. And then, and then what would happen is I get discouraged and I'd gain like 30 more pounds and I'd be heavier than I was before I even started. And so I lost that six months of like hardcore work that I was putting myself through because I doing the right things. And you know, again, I think, especially around the holiday timeframes, like right now isn't the best time to start a new program, like New Year's Day is not the best time to start a program. You know, a New Year's resolution, it's really again starting, kind of the small things. That gets you there, and it's really just kind of going to the gym and hitting the weights a little bit, getting good with form, feeling the weight, getting comfortable with it and exhausting the muscles. And you know, once you start to do that, you start to build the things in place to allow you to be successful long-term. And we got this down to a science now. Man, like, right now I'm at two well, cause I lost the way. I'm two, 48,. You know, I want to get to like two, 65, two 70, you know, and once we get to that point, like I know for a fact that I'm gonna be able to drop down to whatever I want to drop down to. You know, and it's literally a flip of a switch.
Speaker 1:I remember the last time I went on a deficit, you know, like the night before, aaron was like, hey, let's, let's go get some ice cream, like cool, I still got one more day. And then, like you know, a couple days later she's know like, and so it's like just that switch. And all of a sudden now, two pounds start rolling off a week, three pounds start rolling off a week. I start cutting back down and by the time summertime hits, I got my six pack abs and I'm bigger than I was before. So you know, it's just, it's just understanding that it all comes down to putting your muscles under tension, time under tension and being able to put the time in to actually grow your muscles so that you can get to the sustained loss and the body type that you want to be Like. You know, I showed you that picture of me in the hot tub yesterday. You know you could. You could see like the muscle you know of the shoulder coming out with the upper part of the chest.
Speaker 2:You do the gym, you can tell I do the gym. You can tell like my traps are popping.
Speaker 1:You know, the upper, upper chest is popping out when it goes right into the shoulder, the delt is there. You know, like, like that's frigging cool, like I'm so excited about where I'm at right now and you know, I would have never had these tools had I not listened to Ben and not listen to this podcast, by the way and stop doing cardio all the time, and that the time, and that was a big challenge, by the way, when I, when I met with you because erin and I were in a pretty good regiment with orange theory and I was doing four times a week and then it went down to three times a week and I was down to two times a week- you know.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned the shanty and samaritan twice. Yeah, you did mention it twice. We'll be calling you out on that. But one thing I want to talk about is the difference between doing something that's high intensity and doing so low intensity, steady state. They both have their benefits, but they also both have their drawbacks as well. The biggest thing that I see when I speak to people initially is they say that they do high intensity.
Speaker 2:My biggest, I guess, red flag with that is it is such a high stress If you're doing it correctly, if it is actually high intensity, where you're fucked at the end of it and you can't do any longer than 30 minutes and it's like you're going 80 to 100% of max effort. It's such a high stress on your body that if you already lead a stressful life life, adding that as an additional stress without some sort of stress management on the other side can be quite difficult. It is efficient in terms of the time. Low intensity, steady state is born as shit. It takes a lot longer, but in terms of stress levels it's less impact on your body overall.
Speaker 2:Um, even just you mentioned about walking earlier on, like there's obviously ways that you can add to that in terms of the speed that you walk at, the terrain that you walk on, ie uphills, whatever. If you want to add um, like a rock or a backpack with some weight, you can add more intensity to it. So there are other ways to do it and add it in. But I think we should get into why we think that lifting weights is better for fat loss. Yep, number one it's more fun. Let's just get that out of the way. We all know it's more fun.
Speaker 2:It is way more fun number one top priority of the list. It is more fun full stop the end like there's.
Speaker 1:There are the weird people that really love cardio, and I don't understand it.
Speaker 2:Um okay, though, because they probably don't like lifting weights, and that's okay, that's okay. Yeah, they don't understand us.
Speaker 1:We don't understand them, but I'm not here to piss them right, but there's something to be said about going into a place and picking up heavy things and putting them down. Like to me, that is like the most human mankind caveman thing that you caveman and women think you can possibly do is picking up heavy things and putting them down, because that's what makes our bodies work. And there's a whole triage of things that happen in our bodies when we lift weights. One it has been shown in the data studies that lifting weights has completely, in many cases, replaced people that aren't SSRIs from a depression standpoint, because it floods our bodies with dopamine, which is the heavy positivity drug that we get in our bodies, our natural drug for happiness, as well as it regulates our DNA to build back stronger and healthier. Our bodies are designed to be put under stress. Our bodies are designed to do work. They're not designed to be sitting down every day and being on the computer all day and eating super high caloric foods and things like that.
Speaker 1:And there's a tweet that I saw recently. And obesity, by the way, is an extremely complex problem in today's society. I don't blame anybody that struggles with weight, because I was there too and I just didn't know. And it's easy to be obese today. It is extremely easy to be obese today because of the sedentary lifestyles we have, the culture that we have around not moving around and being outside, what we've created from an internet perspective and jobs that don't require copious amounts of work, and that's the society we live in today. We have to accept that and that's totally fine. But there's things that we can control. And someone had said but there's things that we can control. And someone had said being obese doesn't require you to eat normal because you're not eating normal to be obese, to not be obese, you need to just eat sources, things that you can actually read on a label, that you know what they are like chicken, beef, steak, veggies, veggies are phenomenal. Fruits, whole grain type of things, right, complex carbohydrates those are how our bodies are designed to operate. This other stuff, the microplastics and the crazy ingredients, the dyes, everything else, and kind of a huge, huge rabbit hole.
Speaker 1:I won't go into it here about seed oils. I'm not convinced seed oils are the devil. If you look at all the data studies that are out there NIH has so many double-blind, placebo, randomized control studies around seed oils it does not appear to be a seed oil problem. Now, the seed oil. People listen to this podcast and be like this is ludicity. I understand it's a gray area here. Where the issue seems to be is where you get seed oils and you're cooking them at high temperatures, which has more of a cancer type effect carcinogenic type of effect in high grade temperatures. Not necessarily olive oil Olive oil is good but the rest of them seem to be when you're cooking them in high degree temperatures has a carcinogenic effect too, but the rest of it, you know, leading to obesity and things like that. I don't think there's enough data out there to say, hey, this leads to. This is the reason why obesity is happening.
Speaker 1:I think there's a lot of things.
Speaker 1:It's calories in versus calories out. There's a big debate right now. I think RFK Jr is talking about mandating, like Coke and Pepsi, use pure cane sugar versus corn syrup, and there doesn't appear to be any data studies that support that that's going to be any better one way or the other. It's calories in versus calories out at that point in time. So if you're doing 55 grams of corn syrup and 55 grams of cane sugar, it's going to be the exact same from a body impact perspective. It's still going to spike glucose. You're still going to get the calories in. It's still going to be an obesity issue, so it's not going to be necessarily helpful.
Speaker 1:But again, when it comes down to the benefits of putting on muscle, the more muscle you have, and it's the same thing for obesity. So if you look at the metabolism of folks that are obese, their metabolism is actually extremely high because they have to burn so many calories to sustain that size. You're moving around. That size requires calorie burn to an extreme level, so your metabolism is actually really high. Same thing goes for folks that have heavy muscle mass. The more muscle mass you have one, the healthier you are, the longer you live and the more calories.
Speaker 2:You burn.
Speaker 1:What's that? The better you look.
Speaker 2:The better you look, the more respect you get from other dudes in the gym, Absolutely, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:But more importantly, the more calories you're going to burn because again, you have more mass that you have to move around. So when I first started on this journey, I think we're at what? 2000 calories when I first started with you. And you know, you know, towards the end of the, the, the surplus cycle, I'll be more towards 4,000 calories that I have to eat a day just to sustain what I have because I'm going up in weight. So you know, you get to eat more. I eat a lot of food Sometimes, you know, when I started to get to that 4,000 calorie mark, I'm tired of eating food, but it's one of those things that allows you to have sustained weight loss, to have the physique that you want to.
Speaker 1:You know, when I go to the, to the gym, or I go to, you know, the beach, I'm comfortable, like where I look. I'm comfortable taking my shirt off. I never was that way before and when I lost all that weight, by the way. So when I was skinny Dave, this is before I met Ben I, I, um, you know I had the, the gastric sleeve, uh surgery done. I dropped a lot of weight and I was rail thin Like I. I looked like. I looked you know, ghostly, yeah, and my wife would complain that I had just too. I was too bony, Like I was bony everywhere, Right? So it was this long, six foot four bony dude that had no you know fat whatsoever. But as soon as I took my shirt off, I'm skinny, fat because I have no muscle definition whatsoever, right, and I hated the way I looked.
Speaker 1:And so, moving along, that sustainability of keeping that weight off was not possible and I started gaining more and more and more weight again. I started getting heavier set, I started to get more weight in my gut and my sides, where men typically store their fat at, and the only way to combat that that sustainable long-term is through building muscle, and that muscle building process allows you to keep that weight off, put it in the areas that you want to and have a great physique and live healthier. Yeah, I think my blood work, by the way. My blood work has never been better now than when I was, when I was skinny. It was horrible. When I was skinny, I might LDL and HDL levels were off the roof. My blood pressure was off the roof. I wasn't feeling good all the time. I felt like shit. Now I feel great, my blood work's great.
Speaker 2:Everything else is coming in line because I'm able to put that work in, because weight resistance training is superior to all other things that are out there, yes, but the second point that I've noted here and it's exactly what you said to find a way that you can do it and have a tool for fat loss that you can use long term is building muscle. Like, building muscle is an ultimate fat burner. Um, muscle tissue is metabolically active. So basically exactly what you said even you now, versus you this time four years ago you will burn more calories just standing having the same conversation that we haven't four years ago. You will burn more calories just standing having the same conversation that we having four years ago, because you physically have more muscle mass.
Speaker 2:I think that that's that's the important note. Yes, ok, we can talk about the aesthetics and looking better and whatever, but your body will require more energy, more fuel, to just do everything that you do day to day If you carry more muscle tissue. We're not saying you need to be 50 pounds in terms of like, add 50 pounds of muscle or whatever, but the more that you put on, higher your basal metabolic rate will be and the more calories you will burn just being alive day to day, and I think that that is the important part, as that the ultimate fat loss tool is building muscle yep and and again.
Speaker 1:We're not saying cut out cardiovascular work. You want to do that, but you're still getting cardiovascular work when you're doing resistance training.
Speaker 2:I've made sure to put the point a couple of times in here just to make sure that we are telling people to do cardio as well. I'm not completely bending it at all. No-transcript weight and resistance training session. The thing that that doesn't take into consideration is a thing called epoch, which is excess post exercise consumption, which can allow. Basically, that means your body will burn more calories in a anywhere between 36 to 48 hours after you do your weight and resistance training. So, okay, yes, maybe, according to insert whatever data tracker you're using, you've only burnt 300 calories in that one hour session, but for the next 48 hours your rate of burning calories will be higher because of the session that you've done, and that's not necessarily taken into consideration. Whenever you're looking at that very minute like one hour comparison of doing a cardio session versus doing a weight and resistance training session, you're on mute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry, the after effect of lifting is incredible because, again, when we talk about depleting your glycogen stores, so you have anywhere between an hour to a few hours of energy in your muscles and that's how they're designed to work. It's essentially energy reserves that we have in our muscles to conduct rigorous exercise and that glycogen that we don't use will eventually be replenished or won't be replenished, and then it goes to fat if we put in new stores, like you know, sugars, complex carbohydrates, fats, etc. And it goes down into, like you know, proteins hard to convert to fat, carbohydrates and fat very easy to convert to fat, and so if we're not using those things to replenish our bodies, it's just going to fat stores. So when we go and we do muscle building, we want to eat well so that it can replenish those muscles and those muscles then have everything that they need to rebuild. And then what happens is, if you eat a lot of fiber, a lot of carbs and you work out, you will see fat loss. It just will happen, and it's just part of that thing. The fiber almost has an anabolic effect to how it is used in your body, how carbohydrates and glycogen is used within your body, and then the recovery phase of that. So when you're done lifting, you have a large percentage of that day and even the next day and forward where your body's still repairing. You're still burning calories to repair that muscle fatigue and the effect that it has overall and everything else that goes along with repairing muscles, replenishing old, you know, cells that were dying off or inferior, taking up too much energy, those types of things. So there's a lot of things going on in your body when you conduct resistance training that allow you to afford more calories and that's the biggest thing.
Speaker 1:When you're thinking about going on your weight loss journey for fat, you want to do it in a way where you're getting enough calories to replenish your body to have good energy levels, and that's why Ben and I talk very much about carbohydrates and everybody's different, everybody's bodies work very differently. There's people that just eat meats and cheeses and you know things like that and low carbohydrates was, you know more of the. You know carnivore diet and things like that. Whatever works best for you If it's high fats and proteins that work better for you, fantastic. You know what we're trying to accomplish is to be able to put your body under rigorous exercise, right? You know muscle fatigue, resistance training and also feel amazing throughout the whole day, having steady energy levels throughout the whole day.
Speaker 1:What happens when you go into caloric deficit is that your body doesn't have enough energy to do the tasks that it normally does on a daily basis, so what it starts to do is it starts to shut down a bit. You have less energy, your brain isn't focusing as much, you know, and, especially if you're in an extreme deficit, your body literally is going into starvation mode, where it tries to keep every possible calorie it can, and that's why you start to see people that don't have weight loss and are doing rigorous exercises. It's because your body's fighting you. First of all, you're not performing in the gym the way you should because you don't have enough energy to perform in the gym, and then, second, you feel like crap afterwards because you're already in a deficit. You made yourself even more of a deficit. You didn't work out as hard as you possibly could, so you're not getting the benefits of that.
Speaker 1:It's this vicious cycle when you don't eat. So in most cases and Ben, correct me if I'm wrong, but when you bring in somebody to training, you most likely are giving them more calories than they're used to eating and more calories than they're used to eating. And don't get me wrong, some folks may be eating way too many calories and they have to shave down a bit. But in many cases you start them off at a pretty good set of calories so that they can feel the benefits of what that is. When you go into a high-intensity workout, you have the fuel to go and do it and you feel good the rest of the day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's a funny one because it's a little bit nuanced, because people will come and say that they're eating more food than they ever have and they're still losing weight. And then you need to look at are they eating more food in terms of the amount of total food that they're eating, or are they eating more total calories? Generally, it comes down to they're eating better quality food, which tends to be lower in calories, so they get more actual food, but they're eating less calories overall. That being said, there are a lot of times that I'll bring someone on um, someone that comes to mind that I had this conversation with her recently a client, jesse. She's like are you sure I should be eating this much food? I'm like, well, we're like 20 weeks in and you've lost like 40 pounds. So I I think, yeah, this, this probably should be the way that we're doing it, because it's definitely working. And the thing that it is is exactly what you're saying is there's a fine line between just like drilling yourself into the grind to push the fat loss effects or weight loss effects quicker. Where your quality of life is shit and I have done that to sort of push myself to the photo shoot condition.
Speaker 2:Everything becomes more difficult because your body doesn't have the fuel or the energy to do things. Like you know, walking up the story, I actually listened to um, I was listening to Chris Bumstead and Chris Williamson podcast and he was talking about being like and obviously this is an extreme, but he's talking about being three to four weeks out from the NBA and he, like he dropped something and he was just like nah, I'm not picking, I don't have the energy to pick that up, and just just walked on past it. So if, for me, I'm dealing with like normal humans um, I'm not professional bodybuilders the the thing that I try and teach them is if we, if we find a spot, we're in a slight deficit, that we still have enough fuel that you can enjoy your workouts, you can progress, you can get stronger and you actually get the feel-good factor, versus being like in a quite a severe deficit and everything's a struggle and everything's shit. It's much better to do it long term. That being said, I have started to push a couple probably about the last year, maybe more um, actively planning for short periods of time where we push it a little bit further just to see what can be done in a shorter period of time. So we'll have the conversations look right, okay, look for the next six weeks or eight weeks we are going to go into quite severe deficit.
Speaker 2:It's going to suck, but while doing something that's sustainable and long term is great, it's also good to sort of push to see what can be done on a shorter period of time and what you're actually capable of.
Speaker 2:And I've said this time and time again for me, I like the extreme deficit and a short period of time. So if you said to me, okay, we're going to do a six month fat loss phase, I'm like, I'm like, no, absolutely not. But if you tell me that we're going to do four, six week on, two week off, rotations of like extreme deficit and then maintenance, I can, I can tune into that a little bit more. I can understand that a little bit more and sort of get my head around that shorter period of time. So it's about understanding what the client needs, what they will stick to, what they can manage and how we can do it. That it's looking at it short term, as to what the goal is, but also like long term, what their long-term physique goal or health fitness school or whatever else, and sort of building it out in that way yeah, the um.
Speaker 1:I like the extremes too. We've done a couple of those right.
Speaker 2:We've done like mini cuts right and they're pretty intense right and and it requires a lot of discipline, it requires a lot of commitment but at the same time, you get very fast results with it, and it's one of those things for me, it's known that there's a cutoff point and I think where people struggle and this is not to bring down any other coaches, and I've seen it time and time again, I've seen other coaches complain about other coaches it's it's knowing that you can take the client to that point and teaching them how to come out of it.
Speaker 2:Because, again, if we talk about prep or photo shoots or whatever, like clients will get them or coaches will get clients to that stage where they do photo shoot or they reach their goal or whatever, but they don't teach them how to come out the other side. And then that's like when I did my first shoot, I must have put on, I would say, 30 pounds in the space of a weekend because I was just eating like a fucking asshole and it took me about six months to rectify that situation because I just wasn't educated in the, in the how to deal with it on the other side. So for me it's a okay, this is going to be six weeks, this is what we're going to do after that, to sort of reverse you back out of it, to bring your body to a normal level, that we will do that longer term yeah, the listen, I think for me and we've talked about my phases, phases of what we've gone through here.
Speaker 1:Remember, when I first started, I was all in and I still am all in, but in a very different way. I was all in in the sense where, if I ate one thing out of my macro count, I thought I was going back to Fat Dave again.
Speaker 2:The box of Wheat Thins. I haven't had Wheat Thins since.
Speaker 1:I had Wheat Thins all day. Pretty good. I I burned myself out of wheat thinsense, wheat thinsense and cheese hits.
Speaker 2:I don't do as much anymore, but for the first time ever, we uh cheese has been introduced to the uk, so we can actually get them over here now oh yeah, okay, okay, there's a.
Speaker 1:There's a new hot and spicy wheat thins are pretty good, we just have plenty.
Speaker 2:Gives a break.
Speaker 1:Been too long, you're not getting all fancy with the hot sauce, anyways, but I mean, it came in different extremes, but that was a lack of confidence in myself because I felt like if I failed once, the whole thing was gone, because I've failed so many times in my health journey. Right, and what I love about now is that when we're going through deficits and surpluses and maintenances, it's just second nature. Now, to me it's just another day, it's another phase, it's another way of looking at things and I like the balance between the surplus and deficits because in in in surpluses, the first, like few months, I'm like, ah, I can eat everything you know. And then you're like, ah, I can eat everything you know. And then you're like, ah, the crap, I could eat everything this time. And then it goes back to like, okay, I can actually start to like, like, drop this weight and feel good about myself again and start to see the lean. It's like the different you know phases, but now I trust myself to get to those points, you know, to be able to do that and it's taken years to grow that discipline you know, in in in me, knowing that I'm not going to fail at it and get to a certain point again where I'm going to go back to that person again, but, at the same time, like these things, what, what? What I just want to emphasize to people is that, like this, stuff that we're talking about is things that you can do for the rest of your life. Like this is stuff that that will work for you for the rest of your life to get you to where you want to be at to live longer, to feel better about yourself, to have better mental health, to be able to do exercises and activities with your family and friends Although I do feel like I need to go to bed at like 9.30, 10 o'clock nowadays but it's those things that you instill in yourself that affords you everything else.
Speaker 1:Like, if I want to go and eat Skyline Chili, I know I'm going to be okay. You know, like, two days in a row, I know I'm going to be okay. You know and those are the things that I think people you know once you get to a certain point in your weight loss journey, in your fitness journey, in your muscle building journey, you have those luxuries that you can still have without going too crazy or overboard. Like I don't mind eating pizza. Like you know I go to, I go to uh, uh airsoft and I order pizza. You know I'm I'm burning, you know, six 700 calories. I know I'm going to burn 600 calories, but I don't need a whole pizza. You know I might have like three or four slices and I'm good, right, you know so it's it.
Speaker 1:It's a give and take and at the end of the day, our bodies we know our bodies react to resistance training to build muscle. We know that it's healthy for us. We know we live longer because of it. We know that if we have more muscle mass as we get into, you know our later stages in life that we're going to have a better quality of life, less injury prone, less disease, everything else that goes along with it. And we know that this is all possible. We know that if we consume less calories than we burn, that we will live longer, we will live healthier. It's been in the clinical trials, it's been in my studies, it's been all over the place.
Speaker 1:Caloric deficits are the easiest way to live longer. Two things in our life that we know of that make us live longer is doing some sort of workout routine, whether it be cardiovascular work or our resistance training, and caloric deficit. Those two are the only two things in life that we know extend our lifespan right. And if we just do those simple things, everything else starts to fall into place. And again, the mental health benefits. Like I'm sharper than I ever have been in my life. I remember you know the, the, the three, four o'clock, you know bingers, you know where I'm coding and my brain's all jacked up and I wake up the next morning feeling like crap, but then I go back into it again feeling like crap and I you have to take stimulants just to get get you going, like copious amounts of caffeine, or you know, you know alcohol whatever, um, you know, alcohol whatever, um, you know, and that that lifestyle is not good for us in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 2:And uh, I just you know I can't emphasize enough just going into the gym and getting some muscle in it will do you tenfold better than anything else you can possibly imagine yeah, and I think the thing just to go back to what you're saying about sort of where you are in the journey like, the more that you go down this path, the more of of an understanding you have for for your body.
Speaker 2:And even to talk about the Chris Bump said Chris Willington podcast. Again, he was talking about how sometimes on preppy, disney's eat a cookie and his coach doesn't really want him to eat the cookie but he knows if he eats certain cookie it's the same amount of carbs as a rice is supposed to eat and it just it keeps him seeing on that, that, on that that journey. But he's done that, you know, 10 years in a row where he knows exactly what his body needs. So having an understanding, that's okay. Right, there is the extreme that you were at the start where anytime you had to cheese it you were on that flipping ladder climber or whatever the fuck it was, whereas it was hell on earth.
Speaker 1:You were like I had. I had to cheese it, so I'm just going to do six hours in the vertical area.
Speaker 2:I'm'm like let's not do that. But the more you go into it, the more you have to understand the body. I think that that's the problem is people just don't know what they don't know at the start and they think it needs to be that extreme. So it's just understanding you know a way to get started and, I think, to give some sort of practical advice on how you can start or set and obviously it comes down to time and whatever your capacity is. But the way that I would look at it is anywhere between two to four weight and resistance training sessions per week, anywhere between one to two weight or anywhere between one to two cardio sessions per week. And, like you said about sleep, make sure you're prioritizing your sleep and your recovery and your stress management as much as possible.
Speaker 2:The biggest driver of the whole thing is your nutrition. So just don't eat like an asshole. Try and eat 80% whole, good quality foods. If you eat a certain way and your weight goes up, don't shit the bed about it. Just eat slightly less the next week and then just continue to sort of iterate as you go through that process and that is the way that you'll find out.
Speaker 2:That's the way that I do it with clients. I don't have any magic formula. It's like we're going to start with this. If it works, cool. If it doesn't, we'll change a couple of things until it does work and then we go okay. Right now we're out of the goal. What are we doing next? And that is that is how it becomes built to you as a person, and not just some cookie cutter bullshit from the internet so I I will say yes, but you do have some secret magic sauce into that yeah, you know you give that away it's the program, it's the, it's the, it's the ability to have somebody that is guiding you along the way through your various stages of getting to that point.
Speaker 1:Right, and, and that's where I don't think I would have had success, um, if I didn't have somebody there, that was because, like, you're not going to get the immediate results that you want to day one or day two, or day three. It's going to take time, right? Yeah, you need somebody there. It's like, hey, I noticed the difference, you know, I noticed things are changing, even though you do not. And these, look, look at your heart rate variability it's gone down you know, it's great.
Speaker 2:In addition to that, what you provide and everybody else provides for each other so I always say this whenever I have an initial cause is it's not necessarily a selling point, because if everybody disappears one day, then it's just me and one other person at discord. But, like everybody who supports each other in the discord, chat, at the events, you know, or whatever, that is a huge part of it and that's why I'm excited for launching the program here in january and it's been cool to sort of have a couple of conversations with people and everybody who's come on board so far some new faces, some familiar faces and what they will get from going on that journey together, whether it's just in that initial eight-week period or if they carry on way beyond that. Yes, okay, it's. It's me looking at other information beyond what the scale says, but it's a support that comes from the events, the calls, you know, celebrating the wins, the prs, the food, whatever it might be, and I think that, truthfully, that is the secret sauce. It's me and the community that really makes it the win.
Speaker 1:I know we're wrapping up here, but I do want to say we are very tribal creatures. When we have a group of people that we all contribute in some way, shape or form to the greater good, that resonates extremely well with our brains. We are very, very tribal creatures. Where we have communities, we have people that have like or similar interests and we navigate towards that right. And so when you have a community that shares in your success and you share in their success, that creates a amazing ecosystem for success.
Speaker 1:And I think that's the most important thing to remember is that you're not in this alone. There are other people that have struggled with the same things that you're going through day in and day out, and you're just in different stages or phases of that of learning to get to that point to where then you can start to help other people with your successes and contribute to that tribe, which allows that overall tribe to be successful. And at the end of the day, we're all here to help each other, help one another to be in similar groups of people, both men and women, helping each other day in and day out. That creates an amazing success in the community that you built with the whole team here. I love the folks that are in here. I love when you see new folks coming in and they ask the same questions that the new folks before did.
Speaker 2:New folks that before did are now answering those questions, that's like that's the thing and actually we'll can wrap it up on this. My favorite thing about a couple of calls that I've had recently, because I always ask like what they think that they would need for coming in, because that's how I sort of iterate the whole thing, Like you know, what would you have benefited coming in? And a lot of the sort of ogs within the group are saying like some sort of specific mentorship from an existing client and that will allow them to give back because they have had it from the people who come before them. So if you want to join the tribe, set yourself up for success. I'll drop the details in the link in the in the bio. I'm excited I've started to build out what the program is actually going to look like and how the weeks are laid out and everything along that. So I'll drop the link, the in the description and we'll kick off on the 13th of January.
Speaker 1:Awesome, well, another great podcast. So the the TLDR of this is do not do any cardio whatsoever ever in your life and just do anything I need to get into it. And everything else will happen. You got to get those, those 25 inch biceps, wherever the hell. It is 24 inch biceps, but uh no, in all actuality, a combination of both. It's all balanced yin and yang. Start off with lifting and go from there and you will have a lot of success.
Speaker 2:So appreciate everybody next week next week yeah, yeah, yeah.