Ep 146: How Your Body Actually “Burns” Fat During Weight Loss (Where Does It Go?)
What really happens to fat when you lose weight? Where does the “stuff” go? How does it leave your fat cells and then your body?
In today’s episode, Philip (@witsandweights) unravels the super-interesting, complex, and surprising journey of how your body burns fat during weight loss. From the moment you hit a calorie deficit to the result of a slimmer waistline, tune in as we decode the metabolic processes and bust common myths about fat loss.
Today, you’ll learn all about:
04:57 Exploring how the body burns fat during weight loss
07:19 Fat cell mobilization and the role of hormones
11:45 Fatty acid oxidation and energy
18:10 Water and CO2 loss
20:02 Weightloss through strength training and exercise
25:01 Common fat loss myths debunked
31:18 Practical takeaways for successful fat loss
34:33 Free guides on fat loss
35:44 Outro
Episode resources:
Episode 40: Everything You Need to Know About Fat Loss (Simple Strategies for a Fitter, Leaner Body)
Episode summary:
This episode offers listeners a myth-busting expedition into the true mechanisms of fat loss and body recomposition.
The episode kicks off by addressing a question that has piqued the curiosity of many: Where does fat go when we lose it? The answer is as astonishing as it is scientifically sound—most of the fat we lose is breathed out as carbon dioxide. This revelation is the tip of the iceberg in understanding the metabolic processes that govern the way our bodies handle fat.
Diving deeper into the discussion, the podcast explores the intricate dance of hormones and enzymes that orchestrate fat mobilization. When the body finds itself in a calorie deficit, it triggers a series of hormonal responses that initiate the breakdown of fat cells into free fatty acids and glycerol, which can then be used as energy. The key players in this process include adrenaline, growth hormone, insulin, and cortisol, each with a specific role that contributes to the liberation of energy from fat stores.
However, the episode does more than just dissect the biochemical pathways of fat loss; it also dispels common myths that have long misled the fitness community. One such myth is the concept of spot reduction—the false belief that one can target fat loss in specific body areas. Another is the misunderstanding of overnight weight changes, which are often attributed to fat loss but are predominantly due to fluctuations in water weight.
Strength training emerges as a central theme in the podcast, highlighted as an essential component in boosting metabolic rate and enhancing fat oxidation. Contrary to the misconception that lifting weights is solely for muscle gain, the episode elucidates how strength training plays a pivotal role in increasing one's basal metabolic rate, thus aiding in the fight against fat.
As the conversation shifts toward the art of sustainable body recomposition, the emphasis is placed on the pitfalls of rapid weight loss, which often results in muscle depletion and an unsatisfactory physique. Instead, a gradual approach that focuses on muscle retention is championed for long-term success. This strategy encompasses not only strength training and consistent exercise but also a balanced diet rich in protein, adequate sleep, and recovery practices.
In wrapping up, the podcast touches upon the practical tools for tracking progress, underscoring the importance of body measurements over scale weight. By understanding that the body can undergo significant changes in composition without a corresponding shift in scale weight, listeners are encouraged to look beyond the numbers for a true gauge of their fitness progress.
In essence, episode 146 of Wits and Weights is more than just an informational session on fat loss; it's an empowering discourse that equips listeners with the knowledge to navigate their fitness journeys effectively. By unveiling the metabolic mysteries behind weight loss and debunking entrenched fitness myths, the episode stands as a beacon for those seeking to achieve physical self-mastery through evidence-based methods.
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Transcript
Philip Pape 00:00
What really happens to fat when we lose weight? Where does the stuff go? How does it leave your fat cells and then your body? In today's episode, we are unraveling the super interesting, complex and surprising journey of how your body burns fat during weight loss. From the moment you hit a calorie deficit to the end result of a slimmer waistline. Join us as we decode the metabolic processes and bust common myths about fat loss. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights
Philip Pape 00:56
community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our last episode 145 Brian Borstein on failure training intensity, home gyms specialization and cardio. Brian shared his vast knowledge on training methods, such as length of partials, maximizing metabolic stress, intensity techniques to save time and ramp up muscle growth ideas for leg movements in a limited home gym, his thoughts on cardio and how to specialize your training for specific body parts and epic conversation back on 145. Today for Episode 146, how your body actually burns fat during weight loss. Where does it go, you'll learn the hidden mechanics of fat loss, which I must admit, took me back to my love of basic science. And this was a good refresher on how all of this works. This is something I've been fascinated with for a while. Today, you're going to learn how your body transforms fat into energy during a calorie deficit. The very interesting dance of hormones and enzymes that mobilize fat cells. And the surprising ways that fat literally exits your body, which is what we're going for, to cause your weight to trend downward over time. Now to make it a bit more practical for this episode, it's not just the science, I'm also going to debunk some of the more persistent fat loss myths explain the impact of activity and strength training on fat loss, and concluded practical, sustainable strategies for effective fat loss and body re composition. I want to give a big shout out to just Cetus in our Wits & Weights Facebook group for suggesting this topic, I had created a post where I asked about things that you wish you knew more about, but haven't heard lately, on a podcast. And we have a lot of people who are avid podcast listeners not just to this show. But if you listen to this show, you probably listen to you know 20 3050 100 other shows like it. And of course, we're trying to be unique here and hit on things that aren't covered as much in other shows. And that's why I wanted to find out what you you know were interested in. So this was definitely an awesome idea. Just see it as something that I'm surprised I hadn't come up with because I've been fascinated by it myself. I've lost sleep over thinking about what the heck is happening. When I go to bed at one weight and I wake up and another what is going on. So huge thank you for the idea. Speaking of the Facebook group, if you're feeling like you're going it alone and would benefit from some real support and engagement by people with the same or similar goals as you, such as body composition, building muscle, losing fat, all the things come join the 100% free Wits & Weights, Facebook community, it's an extremely positive community. Now I've been in a lot of Facebook groups. And I've met people who just don't get a great feel from a lot of these groups. But then they join our group and they're like, this is the one group I'm going to be in and I'm going to use Facebook just for this. Because it's so supportive. So positive. We've got experts that come in, I post a lot of exclusive content. There's the Ask Philip read every Friday where I answer your questions live in the group. So you can post your question throughout the week and then I'll answer it live. We have exclusive workshops, like the mindset workshop on stopping self sabotage with Paul Salter exclusive lives challenges so many things in the group. So I invite you to click the link in my show notes. Always there every episode no matter what your episode you're in, you'll see a link to join the Wits & Weights Facebook group, so you can see what it's all about. Good always leave if you don't like it, but I am pretty sure you're going to really love the atmosphere. And then you could talk to other driven individuals who are looking to improve their body composition using the evidence based approaches that we talked about. For training, nutrition, health, physique, all of that. Again, just click the link in the show notes or search Wits & Weights on Facebook to join the Wits. & Weights Facebook community. Alright, enough of that. Let's jump into today's very, very intriguing topic, how your body actually burns fat right weight loss, where does it go. So when you're in a calorie deficit, meaning you are consuming fewer calories than your body is burning, the body says, whoa, what's going on, you're asking me to do things like exist, move, lift weights, whatever, you know, pump your heart, but you're not giving me enough energy in the form of food. And so the body needs to pull from its energy stores that sells That's right, that's, that's, that's what we love about it. They're like, they're like our battery cells, and we want them to shrink in certain cases. And it's gonna pull from those energy stores those fat cells to make up for the lack of energy coming from that. So the main energy store in the body is fat, it's stored in what we call adipose tissue. And to tap into those fat stores, the body goes through this complex metabolic process to release the energy contained in those fat cells and make it available for the body to use. Now you might have heard it's, it's pretty easy to gain fat, but it's also not so hard to lose it, right. So it kind of is a fast process. When we look at how this all works. Now, our body stores this, this any excess energy that comes in, in fat cells, it converts it in some way, and we're not going to go through that process. But those fat cells those adipocytes, they get stored energy does in the form of triglycerides. So you've probably heard of that, because triglycerides get measured. If you ever get your blood work done, you see your LDL, HDL and triglycerides. And this is why one of a kind of a general proxy for poor health is high triglycerides, because it indicates higher fat storage, right higher body fat. Now, to tap into these fat reserves, you need to be in a calorie deficit, meaning you consume fewer calories than you burn. However, I said that earlier, however, you can tap into these fat cells, even when you're not in a, a total gross deficit. But you're building muscle at the same time. And your body ends up being in a net deficit after accounting for the energy to build that muscle. So it gets a little confusing, because you're like, Well, how do I lose fat, even when I'm not in a deficit, it simply because to your body in terms of what it needs for energy, it thinks it's in a deficit, because you've already used some of that energy to build muscle, just to simplify it, and it and it's like, wait a minute, I still need more energy. So I'm gonna pull it from the fat cells. But to keep this simple, we're going to just say that you are in a calorie deficit, meaning you're eating less than you burn, and then that'll make it easy to understand. Alright, so I want to start with a concept called fat cell mobilization, for fat burning to occur. And you know, when we say burn, we don't mean like it's literally on fire. But yet, there is some sense of reality to that, because we are expending the energy for fat burning to occur. First, the fat itself has to be broken down into what's called three fatty acids, and glycerol. And it does this through a process called lipolysis. This occurs when hormones that regulate your fat metabolism, trigger those fat cells to release their contents. So that's very high level, right? There are hormones that regulate your fat metabolism, they trigger the cells to release their content. And there are 1234 Key hormones that I'm going to talk about briefly here. The first one is adrenaline and noradrenaline kind of a combo. So a lot of the terms I'm going to throw out here are sciency. And even I don't understand them all, because I'm not a biologist, but I'm saying it verbatim. So catecholamine hormones, think that's how you pronounce it, are secreted by the adrenal glands. So you know, the adrenal glands, which produce adrenaline, and this happens in multiple times, but especially during exercise, fasting, which is just another fancy way to say calorie deficit, meaning even within a given day, there are times at which your body is in a deficit, but even over the long term as well. And also stress, right? So these hormones that are secreted activate an enzyme called hormone sensitive lipase HSL, that directly breaks down the triglycerides into free fatty acids. I'll put another way. They bind to the receptors on fat cells, signaling them to release stored fat. So just that just to summarize, right, you do certain things like going to a calorie deficit. There's hormones that get secreted, and they tell the triglycerides to break down into free fatty acids, right. Then we have growth hormone. So growth hormone is secreted by the pituitary gland. And it's done. So impulses which I think is really interesting, especially during sleep and high intensity exercise. So growth hormone activates lipolysis. Remember Life policies is this conversion process through triglycerides, triglyceride lipase enzyme and by boosting the effects of other fat burning hormones. So this is as complicated as is going to get trust me, but if you nerd out on this stuff, I hope you enjoy insulin, we all know about insulin. This is an anabolic hormone. It's an anabolic hormone. We love insulin in the strength and lifting community as much as a bad rap as it gets. For in the anti carb world, it's something we are happy to have, because it's anabolic, and it promotes glycogen, fat and protein storage, when you have lots of nutrients. But when you're in a deficit, the insulin drops and your low insulin levels, further facilitate lipolysis. And then finally, we have cortisol, right, the stress hormone, it's released again, by your adrenals, another hormone released by your adrenal glands, when you are fasting, or you're in a starvation mode, or in a calorie deficit, right. This is why fat loss is stressful for you. Cortisol raises blood sugar, and it promotes gluconeogenesis. And providing fatty acids as fuel, right. gluconeogenesis is when you convert protein into glucose. It prevents adipose tissue from taking up and storing circulated fats. So this in this case, that's a positive that we're going for, because it's actually preventing the storage of fat cells. So the combination of all these hormones in this very complex dance end up bringing the fatty acids from the triglycerides, and these free fatty acids and the glycerol, enter your bloodstream. And now they can be transported to your tissues for energy production. So we're not even talking about the loss of fat yet, we're just talking about the release of the energy from your fat cells, which your body needs, that's why you released it, your body didn't have enough energy, because you were effectively starving it with a calorie deficit, it now needs that energy to kind of make up the difference before it then has the byproducts that lead to weight loss. So we're gonna get to in a second. Okay, hope you're still with all right. So that was, that's all mobilization. Now we have fatty acid oxidation. So once those fatty acids, those free fatty acids are circulating in the bloodstream, they can be transported to your various tissues, like your muscle cells, right and the enter the mitochondria of the cells. Now, you may remember that term from biology, and they undergo what's called beta oxidation at the end, the end result is they produce ATP, adenosine triphosphate, ATP, is the body's usable energy. You may have heard about ATP with when if you've ever learned about energy systems, or the fact that we need that ATP when we we strength train for that when you take creatine, it increases the uptake of ATP into the muscles, which helps with your lifting, right? ATP, it's effectively the the atomic unit of energy for the body, atomic Nami atom but but like a single, it's the ultimate unit of energy. Here's what happens. Number one, fatty acid molecules are broken apart in various stages. And these release what are called acetyl groups. Number two, the acetyl groups go through chemical reactions in the Krebs cycle. Again, biology, I'm not getting into this, trust me, this is as detailed as I go. That Krebs cycle then causes these to produce electrons, those electrons feed into the electron transport chain, and that generates ATP molecules, again, the body's energy, currency. Now you don't have to understand any of what I'm talking about in this episode, to lose fat. But it's really fascinating. At least I find it so. So this process of using oxygen in mitochondria, to break apart fatty acids and generate ATP is what we call fat oxidation. Right? So you see why it's called that we're using the oxygen in the cells break apart, the fatty acids generate ATP. Now, before you actually lose weight, lots of the energy released as ATP is, of course, used by your body for all of its cellular processes, like digestion, keeping your organs functioning, your heart pumping, you're exercising, you're walking, you're using all of your muscles, lifting weights, even sleeping, basically, every breathing, right, everything that makes up your body's metabolism, and adds up to what we think of as your maintenance calories, right, your TDE all the all the energy you need throughout the day, from you know, 12, midnight to 12. Midnight, the next day you're TDE is you need energy from somewhere. So if you don't get it from food, because you're in a deficit, you get it from your fat cells as ATP that's been oxidized. Now, since you're in that calorie deficit, right, and your body has pulled extra energy from fat cells that it couldn't get from your food. Here's where the magic happens. That causes you to lose physical weight on the scale. All right, the carbon atoms from this process are ultimately released as carbon dioxide and the hydrogen atoms combined with oxygen atoms to form water. And this is where we get all of the weight loss during fat burning. These turned into three things. Okay, two I just mentioned and then a third I'll mention a second. Carbon dioxide, water and other minerals So carbon dioxide, around 84% of the mass loss from fat comes from you breathing out co2. Each Tria GLIs Trius sigh glycerol molecule holds a bunch of carbon atoms. And this is a byproduct of the oxidation process we talked about earlier. And all the cellular processes that occur that get used, that were that use the fat cells, what you're left with is this triacylglycerol molecule, and it has a bunch of carbon atoms that get released. And they combine with the carbon and oxygen combined co2. So 84% of the weight you lose, you're breathing it out. That's it. Right. And I was, I was shocked to hear this, when I learned it a couple years ago, I always thought it was your sweat your urine, you're going to the bathroom, a heat, you know, but 84% of the mass loss comes from reading out co2 16%. So almost all the rest come out as water. So this is the loss of hydrogen atoms combined with oxygen to form water. And that comes out through your sweat, your urine, your respiration, like your breathing, where there's there's liquid in your breath as well. And then some other physiological processes. So it's not nothing still 16% of what you lose does come out in the form of water. But 84% of is carbon dioxide. And then there's a trace amount like a half percent or less, that come out as other minerals like phosphorus and sulfur, which you know, can come out in your urine, for example, hence the smell. Okay, so the carbon dioxide, co2 production happens continuously, right? It's always happening, you're obviously always breathing out, but it could reach its highest rates after you eat or during aerobic exercise. And this is why they're all these links between exercise and fat burning and types of exercise, fasted training and all these other things. At the end of the day, don't try to gain the system when it comes to fat burning in that sense. Just be consistent and do the work. And it'll happen. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights,
Philip Pape 17:10
I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show.
Philip Pape 18:10
Now, the water loss tends to be steadier. Right? It's not continuously like the co2, it's more from sweat from urinating, it depends on your breathing rate, things like that. So in summary, here's the thing. The fat exits fat cells enters the bloodstream, it travels to cells for energy processing, and then leaves the body as co2 and water resulting in weight loss from the loss of carbon atoms. That's it. You're losing carbon. All right. So that's the metabolic process. I hope, hopefully, I kept it high enough level and simple enough that you're like, wow, that's interesting. And maybe I want to learn more about bits and pieces of that. And maybe I'm shocked or surprised that most of it comes out of co2. And that's how you're physically losing weight. Right. Now, real caveat there is that your day to day scale weight doesn't tell you enough information to know how much of that is from the loss of co2, because the water weight fluctuates significant. We talked about that before on the show. But if you're new to the show, or you're wondering about scale weight, the reason we'd like I like my clients to weigh themselves every single day so that we get used to the fact that your weight fluctuates by multiple pounds almost every single day. And only through the trend over time. Can we tell if you're actually losing fat, these carbon atoms are actually leaving your body over time. So it's almost like that the carbon atoms leave slowly, you know, to the tune of, let's say, a pound a week. But every day water, water molecules go in and out at a rate of you know, 123456 pounds a day. So the signal in the noise is hard to detect. Unless you're capturing your weight daily over a long time. And by long I mean two to three weeks to see that that it's actually trending your body mass is actually reducing Carbon atoms via carbon dioxide. Alright, so I did want to touch a little bit on exercise strength training your metabolic rate, how they engage with this process of fat storage and using fat for fuel as well. And then we'll get into common fat loss myths. So just the act of engaging in physical activity really helps with the process of accessing and utilizing fat for fuel. Now, you know that we are a diet neutral show, we don't emphasize one, quote unquote, diet or another. I'm a big fan of flexible dieting and using what works for you. I don't vilify carbs, I don't vilify fat, either any macros really. And we don't really get into the discussions of like, becoming a fat burner, but you know, versus carb burner in the Keto world, you know, going to ketosis, all of that. You use fat for fuel, regardless whether it's your quote, unquote, primary source, because you're short on glucose or not, you you end up using fat for fuel. And, of course, liberating fat from fat cells in the process we just talked about, that's the whole point. That's what fat loss is, is liberating fat, getting those fatty acids available as an energy source via ATP right. Now, being mobile and moving a lot and strength training. These all these activities regulate the hormones that are behind fat metabolism, like cortisol, right, you can become more adaptable to your cortisol curve, you can burn down some of that cortisol if it's too high, when you strength train, and so on. And this only improves the fat oxidation during and after exercise. So there is evidence to say that independent of a calorie deficit, you're going to be more effective at burning fat by being an active person by getting enough sleep by strength training, right. So it's kind of a it feeds on itself. Not only is it beneficial for the the building muscle aspect, and the cardiovascular aspect, it also helps you become better at burning fat. And we know of other things like the fact that if you're sleep deprived, you'll you'll store fat in the more dangerous visceral area, and things like that, that have been demonstrated by the evidence. So there's obviously some connection there. There's both the I'll say the aerobic aspect for the calorie burning aspect, like when you just walk or run or swim or cycle or anything, where you are going to burn, you're going to burn calories, and some of those are going to be fat, calories, you know, there's glucose, there's fat, you're always going to burn some fat. And it's quite a bit, you know, depending on the activity, right. And, of course, this leads to fat release and transport after you exercise. So there's some, there's some evidence that shows that fat burning goes up, even after exercise. So it's not massive, right? We never want to over blow these things. But you've probably heard that before. And so again, just it feeds on itself. Strength training, burns, fats, burns fat in multiple, okay, the primary way that I I love about it, is it increases your metabolic rate, right building muscle elevates your BMR. You know, again, not massively, but to the tune of, you know, six to 10 calories per pound of muscle, that you just burn for having that muscle. And, you know, a male can gain 30 or 40 pounds of muscle in his, like a natural, lifting career, maybe a little more. So I mean, if you had the full 40 pounds of muscle that's 400 calories a day you're burning, versus the person that doesn't just for existing, right. So that's an amazing thing. Strength training also boosts fat oxidation, which is what we were just talking about, it enhances your body's ability to use the fat, it shuttles it into your muscle cells for energy, because you need that, boom, just the act of lifting weights as a fat burning activity. And then it improves insulin sensitivity. We know this as well. It encourages, you know, obviously, muscle growth itself, it needs the insulin and the anabolic result of that insulin, and it balances the insulin activity as a result, right? You're effectively saying, Yeah, give me that blood sugar spike, or give me that extra insulin because I'm going to use it and it bounces off and therefore you become metabolically resilient and more insulin sensitive. And then it's harder for you to store fat over time. I always question statements like that, because in the right calorie surplus, you're going to store fat. But I've seen this anecdotally. And I've heard it for many, many people that the more muscle you build, just the the harder it is to gain, it seems to gain fat after you build up that muscle. And it also seems harder when you're a little bit leaner. Even though some people think it's the opposite. But it seems to be like a runaway effect when you start getting too much body fat. Whereas if you stay leaner, kind of in this nice range is healthy range. I don't know for males, let's say 10 to 20% or so, not something that's a reasonable range right there that you're kind of in an optimal area to not getting too fat more quickly than you want. It's still going to come down to how well trained you are, how much muscle you already have and what rate of gain you go, of course. Alright, so that's how activity plays into At Bat, there are a bunch of misconceptions around how our bodies burn fat that I also wanted to address. So these are, you know, common myths that I came up with. So these are four in particular, that I still hear. The first one is spot reduction. Okay, you can't do you can't target fat loss from a specific body part with a particular exercise or, or anything, right, that cells throughout your body are oxidized, like indiscriminately. One of the few, I guess caveats to that is, you can seem to gain fat in certain areas. For example, if you have if you drink more alcohol, or if you don't get enough sleep, you'll gain belly fat. And also women because of changes in hormones and Peri and post menopause like the change in estrogen may cause more belly fat storage. But again, it's it's a matter of where your body tends to store fat, you can't target the reduction of fat from a particular area without something drastic like surgery. So that's the first one. So if you're trying to reduce belly fat, or you're trying to reveal your six pack abs or whatever, the best thing to do is train your abs and lose fat. That's it when you have some lose fat. Alright, the second misconception is that fat turns into muscle that doesn't have, okay, fat and muscle are two different tissues that cannot directly convert into muscle mass. After it's lost, there are two different things that are happening potentially at the same time. Like you can be burning fat while you are building muscle. Two different things. The third one is I guess I'll call it overnight fat loss, right? Like, if your scale drops two pounds overnight, on the scale, you didn't lose two pounds of fat. Sorry, that's not what happened. Okay, you whatever fat you lost was probably equivalent to your calorie deficit. So if you're in 1000 calorie deficit for the day, okay, that's 1/7 of two pounds. Okay, so that'd be like, if you lost two pounds a week. That'd be like a seventh of that, which is a fraction, a fraction of a pound, I'm not going to do the math, right. The point is, if your scale drops by 234, or five pounds overnight, it's water, it's mostly water. Alright, the noticeable fat loss occurs over time, and it will happen over weeks and months after a cumulative calorie deficit through your diet, right, and also through, well, no exclusively through your diet. But of course, being active and burning more calories and having more muscle allows you to be in that deficit, potentially eating more food. That makes sense. There's no shortcuts, no shortcuts, right? Number four, the fourth is about rapid fat loss. So I've talked about rapid fat loss before I even have a rapid fat loss guide. And Rapid Fat Loss is a very controlled protocol done for a very short time, two weeks, two weeks at the most, where you are training really intensely, not intensely, but the intensity of your training is high, the load is high, right, the weight on the bar is high, and your protein is quite high. And you're able to hold on to most of your muscle mass while losing a bunch of fat two weeks. That's that's a controlled Rapid Fat Loss protocol. But what most people do is they lose fat way too quickly. Not using one of those protocols, but just on a regular diet or, you know, extreme restriction, or a named diet where they cut out a bunch of food groups like carbs, or cut out all, you know, plant products like carnivore, and they lose a bunch of weight very quickly. A lot of its waterways initially, but then they might lose a bunch of tissue. But the problem is, it's not all fat. In fact, probably 25% or even more is muscle muscle loss, let alone the diet not being sustainable. Right. So yeah, your weight on the scale is going to drop really quickly. If you do that, but you just lost a ton of muscle that's going to take time and effort to get back, you're gonna look skinny fat, it's not the physique you're going for at all. What's the point? Why would you do that? Don't do that. All right. So you can speed up fat loss, fat loss just will occur at the rate that it occurs. And if you push the needle too far, you're gonna start losing muscle. It's just like in the other direction, when you're trying to gain muscle, you can't speed up muscle building, by just gaining more weight, you're just gonna gain more fat, the body has limits, which it can do these days. All right, and then I mentioned briefly before, and I want to touch on it again that it is possible, especially for individuals who are training but but are still newer in their training journey to burn significant fat, not not just fat, but a significant amount of fat without necessarily losing weight through body composition, right? This occurs when you're building effectively an equal amount of muscle mass to replace the lost fat. You're not converting converting fat into muscle, but you're doing both at the same time. And so you're you're eating at this level of calories that appears to maintain your weight. But chances are it's actually more than that, because you're compensating for the fact that your body is building this extra tissue. And so it's actually burning more than it would otherwise, right? And, and that's why body recomp can be deceptive. So some people, when they start lifting, they're like, their waist goes down, they start getting stronger, and but they're not gaining or losing weight. So that could be happened, for sure. And I mentioned why before, it's because your body thinks it's in a little bit of a deficit. Because it doesn't have enough energy leftover after the body uses what it means to build muscle, the more advanced you are, the less this is going to happen, because muscle gets added at a much slower rate in more advanced trainees, and therefore, the comparison of muscle gain to fat gain is lopsided, like you can't gain that much muscle in that scenario. So you're either just not going to gain much muscle have maintenance, or you're going to have to be in a slight deficit, I'm sorry, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to gain weight to build muscle, or you're going to primarily lose fat, even when you're at meat, so not gonna build much muscle. Okay, I hope I explained all that. When it comes to body fat in general, body measurements, like your waist circumference, you know, how you look how you feel in your clothes, things like that are gonna give you better insight than either the scale or some sort of body fat measurement device, which are very inaccurate. So I'm not going to get into that on today's episode. But if you're curious about more, you can always reach out and ask me, Hey, how can I measure my body fat? Okay, practical takeaways. I want to conclude with that. So the first, the first big takeaway is tracking.
Philip Pape 31:25
How often have I mentioned this, and people don't do it. I have people reach out to me all the time saying, like, I I can't lose weight no matter how little I. And my first question is, are you tracking? No, no, no, I'm not tracking, it's tedious or whatever other excuse, insert excuse here. Alright, well, come back to me. After you track for about three or four weeks go use Mac, go download macro factor, use my code, Wits, & Weights, best app around it dynamically adjust your metabolism, you will know very quickly what you're putting in your mouth quality, how much protein, all of that even if you don't try to hit targets just to be aware just to get that you know, level of awareness, then you can use that same tool to be very precise with your fat loss phase and be very confident that you're going to get there in a reasonable amount of time without floundering around and constantly hitting plateaus. The second thing related to that is going at the proper rate of loss. We mentioned earlier that rapid fat loss is not sustainable, and it kill it reduces muscle mass, we want to keep that rate of loss between a quarter and 1% per week. Okay, strength training is a must period. If you listen to the show, you should be strength training. I'm not gonna say by now if it's the first episode you ever listen to go check out a bunch of my other episodes and, and kind of get the bug for why training is pretty much a necessity for everyone on this planet. If you want to be strong fit and have great body composition as well and have good health. But you have to be strength training with progressive overload. You want to be walking. To some extent, you know, eight to 12,000 steps is reasonable. For most people, it's a great target. You're not there yet, work your way up over time by incorporating fun activities that gets you those steps. And then other cardio is really kind of optional, but in certain scenarios. During fat loss, it can be helpful to add a little bit to the calorie burn. Prioritizing sleep prioritizing recovery, prioritizing yourself care. And of course, eating plenty of protein, and eating in a sustainable way that lets you get through the diet without feeling too miserable. Because it's not the most fun to be dieting. It's not like a walk in the park. But it should be as easy as you could make it and if you missed it or you want to go back in the archives. One of our most popular episodes is that covers all of this much more detail is episode 40 Episode 40 Everything you need to know about fat loss simple strategies for a fitter leaner body. Again, just search for episode 40 and have a listen for my detailed breakdown on fat loss. Alright, so to sum it all up fat burning is it's complex biologically, it doesn't have to be that complex practically. So biologically, it's this dance of hormones, of enzymes of intracellular transport, respiration, metabolic processes, all these things that happen that unlock that pesky store fat from your fat cells to create energy that then eliminates waste products for from your body in the form of co2 and water, ultimately resulting in both weight and fat loss. Okay, so before we sign off, I did want to mention that among our free guides are three that are related to fat loss that you might be interested in. And I might be adding more soon here. One is on Rapid Fat Loss one is on female fat loss, and one is on fat loss refeeds but again, if you want just the big picture and fat loss, go check out episode 40. If you want one of these three guides, check them out at wits & weights.com/free or click the link in the show notes. So you can always just go to wits & weights.com and click free stuff at the top as well. And you can find all the free guides with more being added all the time. Okay, so I hope you enjoyed the little bit of science a little bit of practical, a little bit of bit of myth busting, like we do on the show. And in our next episode 147 A brand new way to workout at home with Josh York. Discover the journey behind this interesting company called gym guys. And it's unique in home training model. You'll learn about Josh's intense, and I mean intense, and he's an intense guy, his intense personal health regimen and how he balances everything, his views on the fitness industry, and of course, some practical strategies for training building muscle and optimizing your fitness. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong
