¶ Introduction
oh
welcome back to talking nutrition episode twenty seven why you're not losing weight in a calory deficit we're going to talk about weight loss plateaus first i got to share it is with you i took a screen on
yeah oh
so i saw a post in a facebook group that says just heard this from a trainer at my gym thoughts
i
says as protein powders are trash because they don't elicit a thermogenic response
awesome
cool
yeah
awesome
so the trash
guys sometimes you'll hear claims like that you might want to double check
yeah
because there's a lot of information sounds pretty
oh
pretty convincing and extreme but it's don't know
oh
i just saw that i was a cool okay
kay
well why
yeah
that's what people are confused
i'm in a lot
yeah
of facebook groups like nutrition just stuff and like sometimes i go in there and i'm just like wow wow
yeah
like what is going on it still
it's like the
surprises
wild west
me to this day the stuff that people can come up with
yeah that's why i'm getting
yeah
very strict like
oh
i've been kicking out people like there's daily this week not a lot but
oh
every now and then because i'm reaching out to every single person
ah
do you want to do the live salle assessment snow you want to stick around do you even want to see this stuff if not no
m
worries that we know i kicked the bunch out captain
i like that
or active ones
oh
and it's been really cool so we're doing it in house
oh
contest which i haven't
oh
shared anywhere on social media
yeah yeah
but it stops bit of
oh
healthy eating you know and we're
love
kind
that
of motivating each other with healthy race of peas and stuff to show you after the episode
sweet
anyway before
yeah
we get into another just chat of another twenty
oh
minutes which we did before the pusguys recording
yeah
yeah
yeah
actually talk about the topic shall we so first of
oh
all as you know feel free to drop as a five star rating and review on spotifyan
yeah
apple subscribe
oh
on you tube and as i said we're going to talk about weight loss plateaus
oh
we kind of brought this up a little
oh
bit in the recent q and a but i wanted to expend on it a little bit more talk a little bit more specifically
oh
about metabolic adaptation right sounds very scary um it's really just a normal thing and christine is on to talk about
m
that soon
yeah
i want to clear that up because i still noticed and i've been
yeah oh
talking to a lot of people recently
m
i did a semenrles monday i got another one tomorrow and
oh
when we kind of get to like the metabolism
oh
part i feel like there's a lot of confusion
m
and people usually have a lot of questions about that because
oh
they do think like hey my metabolism has slowed down because i'm getting older you know i can it's to wait any more um
m
so basically that's why we wanted to bring this topic back
oh
that's kind of like two scenarios i mean
oh
first of all like if you are actually in the deficit you will be losing weight yeah so if you are not losing
oh
weight in a deficit then you are not in a deficit but i said this
oh
already in a recent podcast that scenario one right you're not actually
ye
eating fewer catteries than you burn a couple of things to
oh
consider here is how long did your weight
m
sell i'm just going to ask you a bunch of
oh
questions here to go through it right because is it one day is it two
m
days
m oh
¶ Scenario 1: You’re not in a deficit
one week two weeks or more sometimes you
oh
see the exact same weight on average for two
oh
weeks plus you still want to keep doing the same ship
oh
and then you might see further fret laws
yeah oh
i've had this just now
eh
i've stuck to the same calories for two weeks though state stable and then the last two days all of a sudden it started to drop again so i know okay actually i can
oh
increase again that just got to stick to it you know
oh
but that's my first question for you like if you
oh
are not losing weight how long is that
ye
for you know
can i interject
of course
so on this where like weight is potentially technically stalling out you can i've seen this in clients where weight really isn't doing much but we are still seeing body composition and provements and so
hm
we're going to talk a little bit about this but like this is why we can't put all of the emphasis on that scale weight and also we want to just be focusing on other factors like your pictures your measurements how are your clothes fitting because like i said i've seen clients where and i preface this whenever i go into a cut with someone i say listen you know this scale it's a data point there could be weeks where it doesn't move there could be works where it goes up a little bit but
also we can still be seeing positive body conversation changes without seeing a ton of movement in the scale so
yeah
just like setting that expectation and knowing that prior to going into cut i think it's really important
definitely mean we'll get into like tracking metrics
yeah
and and photos and stuff a little bit later
oh
but you're so right like
oh
you can't necessarily freak out right away if
oh
it kind of stalls out because sure like the weight might not
m
now drop at all but you might salute that and i even
oh
see that when we start increasing prating in the very beginning
yeah
someone
yeah
comes to me
oh
they want to lose fat but they're not eating
oh
enough protean yet not consistent yet
yeah
we start there tell them
it
like cool like
yeah
this is not the time for it lass yet but you might still see fat loss
yes
simply because of the life still have it changes that we're making here
yep
i have to live silang nutrition are but okay
oh
also a couple of things here was there a big drop in your daily steps if
m
you
oh
kind of attention to your steps and then you kind of like forget pretty easy to kind of see that drop right to
ye
watch that as well
oh
did you track and weigh everything
m
i cut i am of
oh
the opinion that you should be trying
oh
in
hm
tracking and weighing
m
everything if not as much as possible you know because i know
oh
sometimes we go out for food
ye
et cetera but if it were
oh
in a cut like we do want to make it count it cuts we don't want to mess around an eyeball
oh
too much i've seen that too with multiple
oh
clients we're like i'm not
yeah
losing weight should we adjust had a call
oh
with them so i was okay you know it's been going
oh
are you tracking everything et cetera well i
yeah
actually haven't really weighed my food at all the last couple of weeks okay cool well that's
oh
exactly what we're goin to work on
yeah i've had
get
a situation like that too were
yeah
like honestly just was like asking her like like you said in a cut we do tighten the grip on wing and men ring just so that we can maximize that time and the cut and we're not just messing around it doesn't mean that you know we're being restrictive to like we have to make to say that it's just we are being more accurate with how much we're actually eating um so i had a client like we were having some um we're pretty significant stall of weight and i i said that to her
kind of same type of thing you did and then i said right so this week i want you to be very meticulous in weighing and measuring your food like more than ever like be like super meticulous about it and she did and all sudden boom she starts to drop and it's just because you know just some errors with tracking or not being super accurate with weighing and so that is in our opinion this is a time to be very meticulous and accurate with
hm
with wang and measuring oh
i mean like if you don't there's a chance that it's going to take longer
yeah
that's that's the reality so either way like that's also fine we might have to
yeah
just add a couple of re
oh
feed days that's cool catteries will eventually
oh
still you know slow things down so just keep that in mind also
yeah
so i like to make it count approach you know that being said
yeah
are you consistent with your macrosyes or no are you
yeah
actually hitting your targets
oh
or are you kind of messing around
yah
a little bit puzzling
h
not really being consistent
a
this kind of plays into another one
oh
that a road down which is are you changing everything all the time because i do like variety
oh
i don't
yeah
want to think people should be eating the same ship every
oh
single day but i do also see that the more you change
yeah
up all the time every single day every single meal more variables
oh
and the bigger the chances that you're going to run into some inaccuracies
for sure oh
also in cut i mean in general but especially in the cut would be an idea to repeat
oh
maybe not every meal but a bunch of them
yeah like a good idea is to have like you know three or four staple meals so like you could and you know the macros of them so like you could do like say you have three staple or four staple dinners you could have four different dinners across the week but you know exactly what is in those meals and how much you're eating so you're still creating variety there
sure
oh
and for me like that's what i do like
ah oh
four otifie meals four are dialed in and
yeah
pretty much exact im every single day
yeah
i'll change up a protein source here and there maybe some vegis
yeah
and then the fifth meal that's just for variety and me my girl friend like we want to change it up you know
right
cook together
yes
so then you know like that's that's up for variety and that's plenty for me
yeah
personal too though of course um and then lastly two things
m
are there any
m
bingesendor cheat days involved
oh
if so
m
you would
m
get with your coach
ah
because that's also very important because if we don't
oh
know that's happening that's another thing
oh
but i do think like that's also something to
oh
talk about and this might even
yeah
be an indicator of hate
oh
maybe it's a time to kind of quit the cut at least for now if we really run into that right
yeah
i don't want to look
oh
like i don't want to try to figure ship out as we're like deep down in the cut
yeah it's not a place be figuring ship out
no so
no
you know just take the break work through debt and then you can pick it up once you feel better you know once you're in a better place
right
um m then basically
oh
ou know process foods i mean like we talked about this recently like the more you add
oh
you know the trick your gets to kind of really stick to things so control you know your
oh
overall ratio you know process versus minim process keep it flexible but also there like
oh
don't have too much process stuff because
oh
also you know again
oh
with food labels for example also those can be inaccurate
yeah
so that might also be one of the things
yes
anything
oh
else you wanted to add there
oh
like not
oh
actually being in a deficit
um i honestly think that the daily steps is a pretty big one that you said i think and i think it's overlooked um
yeah
m it just from the standpoint of like energy expenditure um so if we do see like a fairly big drop in steps that can very much stall us out um so i just wanted to touch on that a little bit because i think people again they they look a lot to exercise and i mean like in the gym exercise and they don't think a ton about steps and this is one of the variable is to keep metabolism up that we are in control of so um you know keeping those steps up during
the deficit is really helpful because of something i'm going to explain in um so scenario two is metabolic adaptation um so this term is tossed around a lot and i think there is a lot of fear around it and i'm going to be honest with you when i started learning about this like years ago i was definitely i would say i was approaching it from like a fair based place um now that i just i know way more about
¶ Scenario 2: Metabolic Adaptation
it this is not something to fear it's a very very normal response uh it's our body's survival mechanism right very very normal and it's not a bad thing it can become a bad thing if it's like a severe case so like someone who has been like ronically and i mean actually chronically iding for like years years and years
that's a big word actually
yeah yeah like actually like not going on like big benches um you know consuming more it's like these people are actually under eating for like years and years and years and years and more modes and stuff have down regulated quite a bit that can be that can take a long time to come back from but when you are in a calory deficit
ah
and you hit an actual plateau like an actual one were like your your weights not moved and we're stalling out for an extended period of time that's your body adapting that is metabolic adaptation that's that's the plateau kind of what most refer to as plateau um so essentially what it is is it's our metabolism it starts to adapt and become more efficient at living at a lower co or intake um it's not that you have a slow or damaged metabolism and definitely forever is that your
body has now adapted and it's trying to conserve energy right these like this can be restored right like when you're doing a reverse diet you know we can get our metabolisand back up into mo like a better place and we usually do that like like i said with a riverside but metabolic adaptation um it involves a down regulation of like hormones is one part of it um so like thyroid right obviously that please directly in mentalism neat so this is what i'm talking about steps so
when your dieting like i said the body is trying to conserve energy so we often think about net as in steps but it's like me fidgeting right talking with my hands how quickly i stand up from the chair blinking all of that like that's all neat and so when we are in a deficit our body without us even realizing it we start to move less and slower like if you think about it you're in lat definitely you're like man like i don't want to get up and go get the mail when you're
maintenance you're ike i'm gonna go get the mail like it is because
no
we're in an energy deficit we just don't have as much energy yeah our body is trying to basically compensate for that so we naturally will see a decrease in neat right so why we put such an emphasis on keeping steps up is because this is our way of like offsetting that and being able to crack it right and increase it so steps is the one way to keep neat high in a deficit um as it tries to essentially down regulate that makes sense
yeah for sure
yeah
i think it's it's good to mention because i recently heard lay north
m
bring this up on the
my
uberman podcast
yeah oh
set
oh
where people are
oh
now misunderstanding what need means and it's
yes
purposeful exercise
m
if you go for a walk and exercise
hm
activity yes true
m
oh like you
oh
said like we we just use steps as our way to it kind of like manage your overall movement like
yeah
sure
it's
maybe
it's
you're
a proxy
still blinking
to
a little
movement
bit less or you know
yeah
yeah it's it's the best tool that we can use or the stuff outside of the gym
yes
that's kind of like how we do it this
yes
want to add one here
h
is really the most obvious one
m
that's when you lose weight
oh
burnt for your acateries because your body
oh
is smaller that one is overlooked
m
as well i feel like
yep
is your maintenance doesn't say the same it will
no
go down
goes down
should lose weight will
oh
go up when you gain
yeah
weight
yes
that's a big one
oh
too so what can start off as a deficit
yeah oh
leading to weight loss at some
oh
point may just become
yeah
that new maintenance to where
yeah
he now we have to adjust right and that's why
right
you kind of have to do a cut that way
right um another part of like or another part that's affected with metabolic gravitation is like thermic effect of food and it's because e're just in taking less food right so the thermic effect isn't as high and that naturally obviously in curses back up as we increase food so again metabolic adaptation
ye
like from a hormone i guess i will explain a little bit from hormones so like from a hormone standpoint dieting is a stresser right like it's controlled starvation but it's still one of the biggest
m
stressers on the body i think the only time it's not a huge stress on the body is when it's some one who has like a lot of fat to lose like an excessive amount of fat usually i mean i mean that's not going to be a stress or on their body right so um but when we're chronically under stress or hormone production and thyroid function can lower and essentially like down and regulate so when the body when the body stress it isn't focusing on reproduction like it doesn't want to bring a baby
into like a stress environment is focused on survival hence why it down regulates so that's why you do sometimes like you'll see libido decreasing um in extreme cases you're going to see stuff with menstrual cycle i will never end don't get to that point with my clients and i'm very open and transparent right from the bat that if that starts to happen we're not doing this it's just not worth it but you naturally will see things like this do regulate and then you know once we
were or that you know we start to increase colors again that's those are typically restored so it's again it's not this like forever thing and we can increase metabolism or get it now back to like it's regular spot if you want to put it that way but it is metabolic adaptation is part of the process that when you plateau that is your body adapting
yeah
yeah
often have you
yeah
talk to people where they think
yeah
tried to diet
oh
forever and they i managed to lose weight in reality
oh
it was matter of inconsistency
almost always
yeah
yeah
because
i
that's
have
a big
had
one too
i have had clients come to me that are actually chronically
oh
eating like a thousand twelve
yeah
hundred collars
m
one hundred per cent and in that instance like river the reverse diet from like a psychological standpoint it can take a long time honestly you got to stay out of a deficit for a long time because the body is just it's beat down basically from how much it's been eating how much you've been eating but than that i it's it's more than not just it's a it's a inconsistency thing
yeah quite often that's that's one of the reasons i had someone that i'm thinking of now or have a client who
oh
so she mentioned during the on boarding process i tried the thousand cattery diets of twelve hundred cattery diets
uh
but couldn't lose body fat
yeah
i've been trying for effort you know
yeah
start
oh
to increase and actually
yeah
work towards
oh
her maintenance i just started to lose bodifetat
ah
sixteen hundred or something like more
oh
you know
oh
because guess what trying to be at twelve hundred catteries and embinging every now and then because you can
oh
stick to it usually ends up being more
yes
consistently hitting sixteen hundred
yes
that's a really
oh
big one so i do want to emphasize that that's often the case too right
m
where it's not the actual
oh
fact of going from twelve
ah
hundred to sixteen hundred it's the fact that you're actually sticking to it now and a twelve hundred like sure
oh
like that's what we were trying to hit then in
oh
between benches just brought you back up right
right yeah
higher
and
even
it's just like they don't understand that right where like
come
your average is actually going to be the fear it's like they fear eating sixteen hundred but when you set it out for them like in a visual
yeah
and say look sixteen hundred you're
yeh
averaging sixteen hundred okay then you're eating a thou and calories and then you're having like four thousand calories and it's going back and forth like that you're actually averaging say nineteen honour galleries you
yeah
know what i mean so i just it's i think it's just hard for them to to see it when they're kind of in it and they don't have someone to be able to show them
yeah
that's why we're here
why we're here
m
yeah
be able to
exactly
explain these things
yeah because i also understand because it's like oh i'm going to try this though i'm going to go to google how to
yeah
lose weight whatever
right
well fundacatery thousand cater
yeah
diet okay well i didn't manage to stick to it after three days you know
yeah
ill off try something else there's never that
oh
education like hey stop for a second like this is how you
i
should be doing this
yes
o
yeah
fun of coaching
yeah me
obviously
too me too
not really
yeah
so let's let's get into tracking metrics and io feedback
h
because as you mentioned in the beginning
m
way more than just wait and we need to make sure
oh
that we
yeah
have more than justice
oh
kill i'm still a big fan of the
m
skill
yeah
honestly
oh
if it wouldn't be so useful i would probably get rid
oh
of it
yeah i agree
reality is like it's still great
yes
and the number
as a
one
coach
reason
it's helpful
super helpful
yeah
super helpful because
yeah
we don't know chatteris burned like we're never going to know so that's
¶ How to know if you hit a plateau
right
already one part of the equation missing if we control our food in the take and then we have a visual we have a grip on our weights
oh
measurements et cetera we can actually make the adjustments that we need to
oh
plus here's a big one too
yeah oh
if you're cutting want to stick to that
m
knowoptimal
uh
range of like
h
point five up to one
oh
percent per week just about on average you're balking is not really related
eh
to this episode but still you also
eh
want to keep that rate
oh
in control to take to that point
oh
twenty twenty five
oh
up to point five per week you know
yeah
that's why
oh
i love weight so much because we can look
yeah
at the skill on average
uh
make
oh
our adjustment so that you mostly lose body fat and mostly gain muscle you know
right
the best tool
yeah
have i done it without
oh
it in the past yes i do that
yeah
again no
isn't it
big
this just popped in my head isn't it funny interesting rather i should say that kind of goes the boat it kind of goes both ways with people dining and going to extremes and then they think the same and bulking with bulking they're like
yeah
oh i'm bulking i can eat whatever i want you know and just the stuff food in their face and then the other and then the other way it's okay i have to remove everything i eat a thousand calories so
yeah
interesting the extremes
it is yeah
oh
it's a the mind is very interesting
yeah
how it works you know
hm yeah
weight it's
ah
still very useful and we have a track for that we use your your average
oh
weight and we look at that two week basis and then we look at
oh
okay like are we actually selling
oh
do we see on average that your way is going up down whatever
m
more than often i got
oh
a check in and again it kind of sucks that i'm cutting but then you know i'm gaining weight
ah
and then it's like one higher way in and then the average is down by half a
yeah
kilo yeah ah
yeah
which is cool because we have the data and then we can show you and
that's
you are
why
totally
we
fine
have data
you know yes
yeah yeah
we had
yeah
measurements big fan every two weeks is plenty at least that's what i did whatever you
yeah sam
yeah i do like them as like
oh
i say even if you just do waste that's a big one just that because that's where we mostly store but fat started
oh
doing below above and on the naval um as well as a few other ones but altogether if you want to double
oh
check like i do really think that it's a very good
m
idea to track your measurement to
h
i have to double check
m yeah
because how often have you seen the scale say the same and the measurements now no waste measurements
yahveairly often
yeah it happens a lot
yeah
so we triple check christine these we're gonna do
oh those
yes
also i couple of things i um like i already talked about this but like how their clothes are fitting like that's
yeah
a
yeah
really big indication
real life ship
yeah or like a good
yeah
one is like when people haven't seen you for a long time and then they see you there like and you know there's significant change there like the people around you could even still notice the difference when you
oh
don't um but photos are huge like i how to
yeah
client i have a client and we're not even in a cut we're just again we're in this like foundations uh spot just figuring things out right now and he had he sent me picture is week one and i think we're in like week six and he sent me pictures last week and his side by side like it's significant deference and we're not even in a cut and he's like wow like you couldn't even believe it right because he sees himself on a daily basis it's hard for him to to see that um
so that's why i'm so big on photo and like say a client hasn't sent photos in a while i'm like key well can you send me some photos and then we put things side by side
m
and they're like okay yeah it's working like yeah um so big fan of photos usually
m
like in a maintenance phase i'll ask for them every month unless there's a different you no reason for me to ask for the more and i definitely i like to see them more often so typically like every two weeks in the definisote um m and then buy a feedback so
yeah
cool well in terms of bio feedback what are your thoughts here because like i'm i mean i'm always monitoring biofeback always
yeah
like regardless but really in like a in a maintenance phase we're looking to improve bio feed back a lot of the time but in a in a cut i'm looking to make sure that biopheback isn't declining too much right like we're going to see some biopheback so when we talk about a few back we're talking like energy and mood and recovery you
hunger
know menstrual cycle hunger cravings all of that so i'm really just looking at not seeing a huge decline in these in a defisite if we can keep them you know in a really good spot that's great but i think it is mean i know it is normal to see a decline in some of these like hunger like energy um but there's stuff we can implement to help manage those yeah
i think
oh
i think it's good to pay attention
yah
especially to look energy and hunger
h uh
because here's the thing too if you are not
h
hungry at all
yeah
that's usually signed that you're not in deficit
yeah
you know um
that
but
could
i
also
also want to
that could also be i mean it depends on the person but like we do want to be hungry
yeah
and there could be like a significant like too significant of a stress response happening if someone is
m
at you know
m
say a very low caloric intake and they're not hungry that's a problem in my eyes like
ah
that's a red flag and i would be definitely looking into like what is stress looking like overall if there's too much stress going on
because i had that where
oh
we were pretty low she was also not super tall but like still it was n't the
yah
lower end
h
and she was like
yeah
oh yeah but i'm fine i'm not hungry at all i think you all
that's an instant
do you
red
think
flag
that's a good
to me
thing
it's like thing
exactly it's like
ah
i know that you think
oh
that's a good thing but i don't think that's a good thing at
no
all and i think it's definitely time
uh
to go back
yeah
but i also wanted to point out like okay hunger exactly like you said
oh
we want to have somewhat we want to feel a little hungry like
yes
we know that it's working then as a normal response and adaptation that happens
yeah
orviaval again body is like oh ship we're not getting enough food in let me make you more hungry until you go look for food
right
but we also
yeah
don't want to be starving
oh
just completely feeling like i could eat everything in sight
right
that's also red flag
yeah
when it gets too bad we got too many cravings
yes
we really get the desire
yeah
to just completely go all out you know be time for a break
right agreed my
folio anything
oh
else wanted to add there christine
i think we did great think we covered
yeah
a lot here also were doing so much better like not having to cut and stuff
it's crazy
oh
great to just uploaded now you
yeah
know saved me time no but like i wanted to stick to like the thirty minute mark just about
yeah
because too long ago we kind of went over to
yeah
forty five then
¶ Outro
i
one
know
hour
i know
now we're going to keep it is in short you
with
know
guests it's a little bit different but
yeah
with
yeah
us we're still we want to stick to the thirty minutes so
yeah the point otherwise you run out of ship to talk about you know
h
so i don't think that will ever happen
m
cool
oh
thanks to god for listening you know where to find is i'll drop a link to a related blog as well if you
oh
like reading ship stuff sorry i should swear a little bit less
oh
and we will be back next week again
yeah
with a guest i'll talk to you soon
thanks guys