Would you say that sleep is more important than cardio for fat loss?

Well, I did put it this way once.

I said, "If you're waking up at 4:00 a.m. to do your fasted cardio after only five hours of sleep, you're stepping over $100 bills to pick up nickels." And that's been something I've said for many years.

If somebody had...

To me, I would, I would do the cardio later, or I don't even really recommend cardio at all to most of my clients because it's a pretty significant departure from their standard lifestyle, and it might not be something they enjoy.

It might not be very sustainable, and we see it has diminishing returns over time as your body kind of adapts to that stimulus and reduce... becomes more efficient and reduces the calorie it burns.

I focus on non-exer- And another thing is, is that too much exercise activity, particularly aggressive exercise activity, I'm not shitting on any of these forms, if the best exercise is the one you'll do.

Yep.

What is it that you're seeing that they're not?

Well, you mentioned...

What was the first one you mentioned? Oh, mTOR stimulation.

There's a difference between acute and chronic inflammation or mTOR stimulation.

And the acute inflammation or stimulation of mTOR doesn't seem to be a problem.

And that would be the same protein in general.

It wouldn't be specific to red meat.

Yeah.

The loading?

I would probably hold dumbbells with those, yeah.

Barbell on the back's kind of an awkward setup.

Uh, now we're gonna move to a chest exercise.

Uh, I like the incline dumbbell press, uh, just a slight incline dumbbell press.

Uh, I did a lot of heavy benching in my career, and I, I never built my pecs as well as when I trained with Flex Wheeler using incline dumbbell presses.

Uh, they allow more depth, and they allow independent rotation of the shoulders, so I get less potential shoulder injury.

... on the arms.

Um,

But having said all of that, to answer your question more specifically, when I keep fats lower, it gives me more room for carbohydrates.

People who are on a diet, everybody always talks about the vertical diet as being a steak and rice diet.

I certainly don't want women to go without high iron foods.

And so, yeah, I'm big on red meat, particularly for that population.

But most dieters never get to the rice because they got to get adequate potassium from a foundation of carbs.

nutrients that i recommend that you start with which is going to be fruits and vegetables uh potato for the mace mainly for the satiety content and the massive potassium content a baked potato has twice the potassium banana and then plenty of fruits and vegetables by the time you've consumed those on a diet you've probably got enough carbohydrates in there which when added to your you know your protein allotment and your minimum fat requirement Uh, they're pretty much going to take up all of your calories and, and I want more carbohydrates in there for people to train.

volume and frequency.

Versus you could have someone who is no pain, full function, they get a scan of their shoulder, they get the exact same rotator cuff tear, um, the bursitis, but they're like, "I c- I can do anything with my, with my arms." Which is just a fascinating part about the human body, and even more proof that you have to keep being strong for life.

Agreed.

But there's so many important things there.

I think the folks that do this really well, uh, is the folks at Barbell Medicine, a- and they're, uh, Austin Baraki and Jordan Faigenbaum, and they talk about pain, uh, particularly back pain, but also, uh, they've done a great job.

Uh, Lara Marmosley, Explain Pain, right there in Australia, is a, a leader, uh, in this industry.

He talks about...

He gives a bunch of examples.

Now, as a 33-year-old male from Melbourne, Australia, who's been training since he was 17, if I want to keep fit, healthy, and strong for life, what should I be monitoring to make sure that I don't end up burning out, injuring myself, or just falling off completely?

for fat loss?

Well, I did put it this way once.

I said, if you're waking up at 4 a.m. to do your fasted cardio after only five hours of sleep, you're stepping over $100 bills to pick up nickels.

And that's been something I've said for many years.

To me, I would do the cardio later, or I don't even really recommend it.

cardio at all to most of my clients because it's a pretty significant departure from their standard lifestyle and it might not be something they enjoy.

It might not be very sustainable and we see it has diminishing returns over time as your body kind of adapts to that stimulus and becomes more efficient and reduces the calorie burns.

what do we need to know frequency structure why is it working what's the best way that you found to integrate it how do you stick to it

What is it that you're seeing that they're not?

Well, you mentioned...

What was the first one you mentioned? Oh, mTOR stimulation.

There's a difference between acute and chronic inflammation or mTOR stimulation.

And the acute inflammation or stimulation of mTOR doesn't seem to be a problem.

And that would be the same protein in general.

It wouldn't be specific to red meat.

Yeah.

we working here?

Yeah, that's my point.

And one of the best things, of course, for all the muscle groups is to get a full extension.

When you're doing that with a bent row or a T-bar row, you're going to put a lot of stress on the lumbar spine.

It was great when I was powerlifting, you know, and that kind of thing transfers over well to a strong deadlift, but just for back training.

So those are my two back exercises.

I like a Viking press and a side lateral.

So you wouldn't want to do a standing barbell press from a rack or whatever? You would rather go neutral with this Viking press?

So we'd love to hear your thoughts on that phenomenon, what you've experienced.

Yes, it exists.

I was a skinny kid.

I had a very hard time gaining weight.

I wrestled 98 pounds in high school.

106 as a junior, 115 as a senior.

And I was 135 as a freshman in college.

And again, we can't necessarily just look at someone and assume that they're, they're insulin resistant, but I think these things do have a pretty decent correlation with higher body fat percentages how do you approach someone who's coming to you and their goal they want to put on muscle and maybe they don't even necessarily have a lot let's say they're relatively untrained there's not a whole lot of muscle you know that proverbial skinny fat uh you might even be concerned about i've seen this presentation where there's also some issues with um liver fat as well you know how do you go about this what do you go first

Would you say that sleep is more important than cardio for fat loss?

Well, I did put it this way once.

I said, "If you're waking up at 4:00 a.m. to do your fasted cardio after only five hours of sleep, you're stepping over $100 bills to pick up nickels." And that's been something I've said for many years.

If somebody had...

To me, I would, I would do the cardio later, or I don't even really recommend cardio at all to most of my clients because it's a pretty significant departure from their standard lifestyle, and it might not be something they enjoy.

It might not be very sustainable, and we see it has diminishing returns over time as your body kind of adapts to that stimulus and reduce... becomes more efficient and reduces the calorie it burns.

I focus on non-exer- And another thing is, is that too much exercise activity, particularly aggressive exercise activity, I'm not shitting on any of these forms.

Yep.

Sure.

It could've been just about any type of, uh, test of strength.

Uh, and then we also find grip strength is, is-- there's a huge genetic component as to your birth weight and your strength, uh, which tends to, to carry over, so not always the best proxy.

Just any kind of strength training consistently throughout life.

And we've even seen, uh...

I was just visiting my pops in Iowa a couple weeks ago, and he's 95, and they still have a physical therapy program where they take him down and, and have him do some exercise.

They get him up on his walker every day.

Right

W- what is it that you're seeing that they're not?

Uh, well, you mentioned, um...

What was the first one you mentioned? Oh, MTOR stimulation.

Well, that, uh...

There's a difference between acute and chronic inflammation or MTOR stimulation.

And the acute inflammation or, or stimulation of MTOR doesn't seem to be a problem.

Uh, and that would be the same of protein in general.

Yeah

The loading

...

I would probably hold dumbbells with those, yeah.

Barbell on the back's kind of an awkward setup.

Uh, now we're gonna move to a chest exercise.

Uh, I like the incline dumbbell press, uh, just a slight incline dumbbell press.

Uh, I did a lot of heavy benching in my career, and I, I'd never built my pecs as well as when I trained with Flex Wheeler using incline dumbbell presses.

... on the arms.

there's

a limit to that.

And even a tiny surplus, maybe 200, 300 calories surplus, is sufficient to maximize muscle growth.

Part of my problem was that as I initially increased calories, my metabolism would increase.

And so I wasn't necessarily in a surplus.

I had to keep eating more and more and more and more just to maintain my weight.

and I had a hard time holding on to that weight.

That's one of the things I,

If you don't under- if you don't deal with your psychological stuff, like, the calorie equation doesn't matter because you're, you're gonna overeat calories."

Yeah.

I, I hope he has evolved in that way.

The, the, um...

And he's right.

Calories in, calories out.

I've, I've said, I have this quote going back many, many, many years, "It's truthful, but it's not useful." There's many reasons why people overeat.

Is the diet prescription the same as far as somebody who maybe they have a higher height-to-waist ratio, they may-might have some visceral fat? Is the diet prescription the same?

overall healthy dietary pattern like if somebody's listening to this or watching this they want to get into the best shape of their life like what are the the things they should focus on meaning like the metrics that they should aim for to make sure that they're actually in line um with what's going to be um being in the most like effective shape

Yeah, for the better cardiovascular health and body composition, by that meaning the higher lean body mass, muscle mass, then you want to do a combination of some cardiovascular exercise that gets your heart rate up for an extended period of time and some lifting.

Although we're seeing pretty significant effects in less time with something like a high intensity program.

So when I say extended period of time, that might not be as important as the effort itself, because you can do, you know, brief, explosive, higher intensity bouts of exercise and still obtain a, you know, a a cardiovascular benefit that's going to decrease mortality risk in all terms.

And so it's kind of...

Which do you prefer? Some people would like to have you do a little bit of both.

We say the same thing about lifting.

And then what are some myths you're seeing right now?