52. Dr. Alex Harrison - Diet & Endurance Expert at Renaissance Periodization, former Team USA Bobsledder
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Dr. Alex Harrison returns to the show to set us straight on body fat.
This one is about getting trim and keeping it off. As a follow up to episode 42 where Ken and Sonia outlined their goal to reduce their body fat percentage in 2021, Dr. Harrison joins the show to provide an insightful overview of body fat percentage and the various strategies employed to lose fat and keep it off.
Dr. Alex Harrison is currently the lead endurance consultant for Renaissance periodization. Also working as a nutritional consultant, he works with professional and amateur athletes alike to dial in their nutrition so that they can attain the body composition that will help them compete at the highest level and reach their fitness goals. Today, he is a self proclaimed “amateur” endurance athlete himself, but also just so happens to be a former member of Team USA bobsled and was an All-American track decathlete in college.
Among the many topics discussed, Dr. Alex Harrisson discusses how the body burns fat. The concept of homeostasis and why often the body adapts around many of the tactics and diets employed today in the attempt to lose weight. Why fat lost truly must be assessed through the lens of the individual and why there is such thing as too much of a good thing. He explains the multiple forms of body fat and body composition testing that are available and his opinion as to what extent it’s worth your time. Always in flux, he explains the proper way to track your weight loss over time and why like almost all things it’s about consistency and sustainability over time.
Dr. Alex Harrison:
Instagram: @dr_alex _harrison
Twitter: @XanderPHarrison
Renaissance Periodization: https://renaissanceperiodization.com/
Show Transcription:
Ken Gunter
welcome to the show.
alex harrison
It's good to be back.
Ken Gunter
I know second second time. You have you hype your first repeat guest.
alex harrison
I was just gonna ask. Yeah,
Ken Gunter
yeah, I had a you know, it's funny my, let me think about this. So my good buddy Noah, who's a ESPN commentator, he was like our fourth guest. But then he also got COVID. Like,
but
Ken Gunter
right at the beginning before anyone knew anything, he was one of the first like, 100 people in New York. So he, so he came right back on. And so yeah, so maybe technically, he was the first repeat guest. But anyway, much better circumstances. This time around series. Sure. We were just catching up about this a little bit. But last time that we spoke you're in you're in beautiful Arlington, Washington. And I it sounds like the journey continues. Where are you at right now?
alex harrison
So we are in my wife and I are parked in our RV and just east of Tucson, next to Sapporo National Park east.
Ken Gunter
That's awesome. And is that is that for the cycling?
Yeah, she's gonna write up Mount Lemmon today. Oh, wow.
Ken Gunter
How long of a ride or something like that?
For me? Three hours, three hours up the hill and then an hour down the hill. For her. Maybe two hours? No kidding. under two hours. It's she'll be going from about 1000 feet elevation? Or maybe. Maybe it starts at 2000 up to 9000. Oh, wow.
Ken Gunter
Well, what's it like when you start? When you have like that drastic of a change in elevation, and endurance sport?
If you're not altitude climatized It feels terrible. Yeah, like tingling fingers, tingling feet. Especially if you're working at near threshold levels. Like if you're pushing pretty hard, you'll start to lose sensation and your limbs. It's crazy.
Ken Gunter
Yeah. Because it's, it's just like, within a workout to have that drastic shift is crazy to me. You know, it's one thing to know, like, Hey, we're gonna go be in. We're gonna be in Mexico City. Let's try and prepare in the weeks leading up. It's like, No, I'm gonna start at 1000 feet. And at 9000. High I don't even know how the body like, like you said acclimates itself to something like that?
Yeah, it's it's a it's it's pretty wise to to do some sort of altitude acclimatization beforehand. Otherwise, you'll be you'll just be a different athlete at the top or near anywhere near the top, like coming from sea level. We're from Arlington, Washington. That's like, elevation of 50 feet. All right, well, we'll be like 25% decrease in performance by the time we get to 7000 or 8000 feet. Yeah, that's crazy.
Ken Gunter
Well, and I know, I brought you on for a completely different topic, but just out of curiosity, how to how to you and your wife go about acclimating to the to the elevation? Are you doing any training at sea level? Or is it more about time spent? At Elevation for you guys?
That's a great question. We live in an RV. So we go literally drive up a hill and stay, stay in BLM land at like three or 4000 feet to get some a climatization. But yeah, in general, you just basically, you want to stay at the elevation that you're going to be competing or training or exercising abs?
Ken Gunter
Yeah. No, it makes sense. And definitely a benefit of the RV.
We can move on to altitude.
Ken Gunter
Exactly competitive advantage. Well, perfect. So I did have you come on for a very specific reason. And that is because as 2020 began to wind down my wife and I started to look at our new year's resolutions, and I said, You know what, every every year, I typically set some some fairly big goals for myself. But this year, I was like, I don't know why. But I I want to pay attention to it my body fat percentages, and I want to get it down. And then I realized, I really have no idea what a healthy body fat percentage is. It's, you know, you hear some really low numbers thrown around. And then as I began to read into it, I was like, is that even healthy? So I thought, who else could offer perspective on this than you understanding what you're doing with the team at Renaissance period? So I'm hoping we can maybe enlighten folks a little bit about just the topic in general.
This is actually really good timing because I have been I've been sort of in the formative. I've been forming some newer ideas that I think okay, alignment with,
like the greater body of medicine and medical research and all that. But in general, I would say in the beginning of my career, I started out
I started out, essentially informing my clients like, Yes, I can get you leaner, we can just go as lean as you want. And I can get you there with not a whole lot of like forethought or afterthought for I guess I wasn't pushing people to show or stage readiness type body compositions, like not down to like four or five 6%, usually. But I would tell people, yeah, we can get you to 8% body fat or 7% body fat. And then I wouldn't have much, like, too much thought about how hard it was going to be for them to maintain that, especially if they have a higher body fat percentage in the first place. Right? And that should absolutely be taken into consideration when, when making fat loss goals, you should take into consideration how much fat have I carried before? Because that's going to affect how sustainable like 8% body fat or even 12 or 20% body fat might be for you.
Ken Gunter
Yeah. And why is that does the body just kind of like adapt over time. And essentially, it's
homeostasis. Like if you, if you carry 40% body fat for a long time, your body just is accustomed to that you carry that for 20 years, or whatever your body's accustomed to carrying that much fat. And you will have different hunger signaling, different hormone levels, when you get to 20% body fat or 15% body fat than somebody who only is cutting down from 22% body fat. Hmm.
Ken Gunter
And maybe this is a good place to start to, could you maybe just help kind of orient people? When we start thinking about ranges of body fat percentage, you know, what is quote unquote, healthy? What is an average range for someone who, you know, looks like the guy on the magazine or the gal on the magazine, who's, who's ripped up kind of the body that a lot of people are seeking. And then I think you mentioned, you know, being like stage or show ready. I imagine we're talking like Bob, you know, bodybuilding, you know, what does that sort of threshold look like? And I guess, you know, within that question to like, can you kind of help orient people on what is healthy and what might be unhealthy? either too much? or too little body fat?
Yeah, absolutely. First, I'll start with the extreme the stage readiness. For men that might be like four or five 6% body fat. For women that might be like, nine to 15% body fat, okay, a little wider range. And for some people who have been super lean and been gifted athletically, their whole life and gifted from their parents with great genetics, like 6% for a guy might be might feel pretty sustainable or 12 13% might feel pretty sustainable for a woman. But in general, that that's not something to strive for, for most people, because most of us haven't hung out at like 7% fat our whole lives or, or 13% fat as a woman. So like, healthy, a healthy range for a guy might be anywhere from eight to 15% fat, that'd be pretty, pretty optimal health. Okay.
Ken Gunter
And, and when we think about, you know, so if the extreme is that four or five 6% for guys, and that's, I'm sorry, am I using the right term like stage ready? Are we talking like body? Yeah. If we think about, you know, an elite athlete, let's make a wide receiver. Someone in the NBA like, what sort of body fat percentage? Are those guys often hanging around at?
Probably five to 11 or 12? That's a ton. Got it?
Ken Gunter
So the other end of that question, then is when does body fat percentage for for men and women begin to be unhealthy on the other end of the spectrum?
alex harrison
Oh, that is a hot topic. Okay,
Ken Gunter
here we go. Finally, some controversy.
Yeah. So I wish I had the the CDC or the NIH guidelines memorized, but I don't
I know
that the reason I don't have them memorized is that it's so individual because of personal history. And all and a lot of my clients come to me essentially having carried more fat it in the past, and so that informs a lot of my decision making about how lean they should get in the future. So when I when I say like, if I say there might be health trade offs of of carrying more than 30 pounds, percent fat as a woman, or more than 25, or 20% fat as a man. It, it might also simultaneously be true that for some men, it's actually not optimal to cut below 15 or 20%, because they've carried 30 or 40% before. And the helm offs of cutting beyond what is sustainable, are pretty substantial. You can have like pretty serious hormone issues, orthorexia, or anorexia tendencies, as well. It's just not, it's not a good psychological process to sort of fight where your body wants to be. And so, a good a solid general recommendation for folks is, if you've never done anything, to target fat loss, if you've never followed a diet that to, to encourage body composition, lose target, losing five to 10%, of body body weight, assuming hopefully that it is all fat, and then see if that feels sustainable, rather than rather than giving sort of like, at 20%, men get less healthy, or at 25%, women get less healthy, that's like, that's just not the case. Like for some people, it is absolutely more healthy just to target five or 10% of body weight loss, and then stay there even if it's a few percent higher than those typical thrown out guidelines. Okay.
Ken Gunter
And this idea of sustainability. Does does that mean that if someone can keep that, you know, that lower percentage of body weight off, there does become a point where they can begin, like chipping away? You know, after their, I guess, you know, the homeostasis is kind of taking place at this new threshold? Or is that something where it's like, hey, some people, you know, just, you're never going to get down to that seven 8%? And if you do, you're going to be, it'll be more detrimental than it's worth.
Yeah, absolutely. So that is a great question and a hard question with a hard answer. Okay. I think that yes, in most cases, after you do a phase of maintenance dieting, whether it's six weeks or 12 weeks, or even a year, of maintaining your weight after some weight loss, yes, it's possible to lose more weight for a lot of people. And they can lose more weight and move into like a second maintenance in the future. And it's nice and sustainable. But there will come a time. And whether it's at 7%. Or whether it's at 15 or 25%, there's likely to come a time where you have the trade offs of losing more weight, are not in favor of doing so like there's just too much psychological trauma, too much life expense, too much hyper focus on food, reduced testosterone levels, increased cortisol levels. Yeah.
Ken Gunter
And when you say 15 to 25%, that's that's like that percentage of is that the body weight loss?
Oh, talking percent body fats there.
Ken Gunter
Okay. All right, Got it. Got it.
I say 750 and 25. I'm sort of pulling numbers from men and women, they're so like, women are almost never going to be a 7%. And always, it's ideal for men to get below 25%. Because they just tend to be a little bit lower body fat percentage than women in general. Just Yeah. Big general generalities there.
Ken Gunter
Well, let me ask you this to for people at home who are listening in or kind of interested in this, you know, what is the best way for someone to actually measure their body fat? And maybe you can I know, there's multiple options. So I'd actually even interested understanding like, what are all the opportunities that? Yes, but then realistically, the average person who listens to this podcast is like, you know, let me see what mine is like, what's the best next step there?
My, my honest answer to my clients is don't bother getting it tested. Oh, really? Okay, that might be even more important, because the number one way is the dexa scan, dual X ray absorptiometry. And it basically takes a look inside your body and tells you what it's made of, and it's accurate to within like two or 3%. Like if you do a cadaver study, which we obviously can't do, then it would be accurate to within a very tight margin. There's a whole bunch of other things you can do. You can do air plethysmography, which is a fancy word for the bod pod, if you've heard of it. Yep. You sit in an air bubble and they measure the amount of air that you displace, and then they tell you your body fat based off that sounds really awesome. Not super reliable. There's bioelectric impedance analysis which is anything like the in bodies Or those scales that measure like you step on a scale, and it has two little metal plates on it. Yeah. Those in those and an electrical current through your body and tell you how well your body conducts electricity. And based on the conductive pneus of your body, it can tell you roughly what body composition you are. But the problem is, they're super sensitive to hydration, because water conducts electricity really well. So you could drink like, a quart of water and see your body composition change by like 3%, two hours later. Which is usually not accurate. It's just your body's conducting electricity better. So yeah, the big a and the bod pod, are like an additional 3% error on top of the dexa scan 3% error. So it's like a plus or minus 6%. Wow. So not not super reliable skinfold tests underwater weighing similar errors. And I would say that if you get a really good tester doing skinfold tests, like somebody who's done, like 1000s of them, they can probably be more reliable than bi or just about anything, except EXA. Probably Yeah, it's all really when it's all really invasive. So and it costs money, and it costs time. So I say just take progress pictures, and be honest with yourself, and you'll see changes.
Ken Gunter
Got it? Well, and, you know, I did the skinfold that's like the calipers. Yeah, we did that my body fat was lower than I expected. But I was like, man, how accurate is this? Like, am I even getting a good? You know, sample here? Like I have not someone who's done it 1000s of times, it was literally me and my wife after the kids have gone to bed. Yeah, sitting there in our underwear, like China people like freaks doing. But yeah, that's how I was like, it was like, Well, you know, this number looks good. But I was like, How accurate is it? Really?
Yeah. Well, let
Ken Gunter
me ask you this. And I you almost said as much like so is is even looking at your body fat as a percentage, the right approach? Or is there another metric that that folks should be focused on either quantitative or qualitative?
Yeah, I think that a rough estimation of body fat percentage is is a useful tool. Mm
hmm.
But in the absence of a coach, who can sort of interpret what you're seeing on progress pictures?
Ken Gunter
So is that is that how you work with a lot of your clients? Yeah, it's the progress pictures. And you know, you can actually see the body composition change.
Yeah, once every three or six weeks, I'll just have them take pictures in like, athletic attire, head and I can gauge changes in muscularity, and body fats and all that. And I use that to monitor change, rather than to sort of I'm not sitting there saying, Well, I can look at your your body and tell you that you're 12% body fat. That's not what I'm saying. I mean, I can usually make a pretty good guess. But because I've done it for so long, but yeah, so much repetition, exposure. Yeah, I mean, I've body comps, like 1300 people or something. But yeah, yeah, for a person without a coach, I think, probably just taking progress pictures from a standpoint of monitoring your progress, seeing if there is change. And then using that alongside the scale, if and monitoring your trends with the scale. Rather than I mean, jumping on the scale, and taking any one off way in as like, I'm losing or gaining weight is just it's a terrible idea. You should get something like the happy scale app, or make yourself an Excel chart with the trend line if you're if you're savvy. But yeah, I'm using using using the scale plus progress pictures plus the knowledge that you are training in the weight room, hopefully, if your goal is body composition, you can sort of assume that if the scale is trending down and you've lost a few pounds, and you're seeing body composition changes, and your strength is maintained in the weight room, you can assume that the losses that you're seeing have been fat. And then you can sort of say Well, I've lost three pounds, I've lost five pounds, and I weighed 200 pounds. So I've lost two and a half percent of my body weight. And you can you can sort of crunch numbers and figure out what percent fat you might have lost if you lost two and a half percent of your body weight and maybe you had 160 pounds lean mass. So that would have put you at 20% body fat originally at 200 pounds, drop, drop two and a half or drop five pounds of fat and now you're at what is that? 17 and a half percent fat. I think that's it. That's the math that I do.
Ken Gunter
Yeah. Know that that's what you know, and maybe it's even good to take a step back a little bit. And just, you know, like, what is the point of fat in the body? Right? I feel like a lot of people may be no or they think they know. But like, why is the body putting on fat in the first place?
Hmm, yeah. So the point of fat is, I mean,
Ken Gunter
maybe that's a weird way to ask
the warmth, energy. But the reason the body is going to be putting on fat, especially fat in excess is just excess calories. It's the it's the body's way to store. store the calories that you eat. Once you once you've topped up your glycogen stores and your muscles, that's where your muscle store your carbs. And once you've consumed sufficient protein to feed any growing muscle tissue, yeah, the rest is going to be either burned for energy or stored as fat. Mm hmm.
Ken Gunter
So, you know, when you're working with clients, cuz I know you work a lot with endurance athletes and you know, athletes of all different varieties. Are you most often trying to help them reduce body fat to get leaner? Are you trying to help them put together a plan that's going to? And maybe I'm oversimplifying this identify like, hey, how much do I need in my diet to simply just like replenish those glycogen stores? Give my muscles what it needs to like, recover, grow, etc, and not slip too far into this, like accumulation of fat?
Yeah, that's, I mean, that is, in a nutshell, what I do for all my folks, I have a blend of endurance athletes, and just, I call them regular folks who just want to train want to exercise be healthy, and might want to look a little better feel a little leaner. Maybe they want to grow a little bit of muscle. And yeah, I put together plans that essentially help them hit the calorie needs that their goals require, and fuel well for training simultaneously. So most of their fuel for training is going to come from carbs, whether you're lifting or endurance, or doing endurance. And, yeah, then I make sure that they're consuming sufficient protein. So that they're, if they are losing weight, if that's their goal, the combination of sufficient protein plus fueling their training with carbs helps them retain their muscle, and then any weight that's lost as fat.
So
Ken Gunter
here's a question, how does the body actually burn fat? And I guess what might even be interesting too, is if you could give like some applicable examples of like, more effective means of burning fat, like there's a lot of talks about, like, Hey, get up do fasted cardio, or fasted training or time restricted eating, like, you know, how does the body most effectively burn fat? And what also might be interesting, too, is like, what are some of the misconceptions and mistakes that people are making in an attempt to do that?
Yeah, absolutely, I am going to be a total wet blanket here. The all of all of the things that are attempts to burn fat, actually, let me start with this, the body is really, really amazing at figuring out what it wants to do. And all of the tweaks and modifications that we can make, that are sort of like, I'm gonna I'm gonna do cardio to at this specific percentage of heart rate maximum to burn fat, or I'm going to do cardio fasted, or I'm going to only drink this amount of carbohydrate during cardio, to make sure that I'm burning the maximum amount of fat, or I'm going to do a keto diet to to increase my fat utilization, ability. All of those things. The body essentially works around and I'll give the example of the fasted cardio because it's like the, it's the big one that lots of folks talk about. Yeah, if you do fasted cardio, you absolutely are going to burn more fat during that cardio session than if you weren't doing fasted cardio. But over the course of the next 23 hours until you do fasted cardio again, your body's going to be like, Hey, I lost some fat. During that cardio session, I'm going to be more ready to replace that fat when this person eats again. And so if you actually look at the data in the literature, people who do fasted cardio versus people who do fueled cardio, or like they consume a healthy mixed meal beforehand, maybe some carbohydrate during their cardio, fat loss is literally identical over the course of like weeks, weeks and months, but only if you actually look at like immediately. Post training. Yeah, sure the people that did fasted cardio during that training session, burned a smidge more fat, but the body makes up for it later. And that's, that's the case with keto and and really any sort of manipulation strategy you can you can do to target fat burning. The body just makes up for it later.
Hmm.
Ken Gunter
So it's it's kind of, I feel like the recurring theme of this one is like homeostasis. Yeah. So it's like a the body knows it burned up more than it normally would in the morning. Again, I like to oversimplify everything. Right, but then it sounds like because of that, it actually might be more willing to store throughout those those next 23 hours, like you were saying, and it would have otherwise had you just trained with normal fuel. Interesting. Okay. So Well, let me ask you this, then like, so what is the right approach? If you're trying to get leaner, we're trying to, you know, change body composition? And, again, often the answer I get back is like, it's different for everyone. So totally get it if that's the case, but if there are some kind of like, tried and true recommendations or pillars, yeah, people can kind of fall back on, I think that would be really helpful.
Yeah, I don't, I don't think it's so different for everyone. Actually, I think that maybe the the numbers differ for everybody like how, like, certainly, two different people who are, they're both 200 pounds, and they both like they have the same body composition. And they might even do the same training. And they might have the same strength numbers and same endurance numbers and everything, they may actually require slightly different carb amounts or protein amounts or fat amounts, but the the overall strategy is not so different for everybody, the overall strategy should be, work hard to retain your muscle, consume sufficient protein to do so which might be like, point eight to 1.2 grams per pound of grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. Consume sufficient carbohydrates to fuel your training. So that training can have high quality, high volume and high intensity. And then create a calorie deficit by making sure that your probably your healthy fats consumption is a moderate to limited. And so that your total calorie intake for the day is lower than you expend. So, you train train hard in the gym, lift with high volumes, do big compound movements. Try to push your your, your strength numbers up. Doing things like three sets of 10, four sets of 10, five sets of 10 over the course of weeks with progressive overload, using like 60 to 80% of your one RM great way to try to grow muscle while presenting that muscle growth stimulus. If you're creating a calorie deficit, and fueling training well with protein and carbs. That's the best way to go.
Ken Gunter
Got it? Well, and is that? Does that vary at all? Because we do have a lot of folks who are endurance athletes, I know you spend a lot of time working with our an endurance athlete today yourself like does that differ for someone who's an endurance athlete? Or is it kind of the same concept that applies?
Yeah, for me, I come from a very peculiar background of former strength power athletes now endurance athlete, so I carry a ridiculous amount of muscle. And so I just had, I had the luxury of not really needing to lift when I, when I started cutting down as an endurance athlete, like my goal, I was 40 pounds at my peak. And I think I carried about 15% body fat. And then when I when I finished bobsled, I think I was to 25 but like nine or 10% body fat. And I'm six one for reference.
Ken Gunter
And so it's five 774.
And so I like I said I had the luxury of having like excess muscle. And so I could actually afford to lose muscle for my endurance pursuits. And that's the case for a lot of folks who come from like football or baseball or basketball and moving to endurance, it's like it's not really a huge deal for them to lose a little bit of muscle. So their protein consumption doesn't necessarily need to be on that like one gram per pound end of things. And they can they can use their calories. They can a lot their calories more towards carbohydrate to better fuel their endurance training then rather than eating one gram per pound of protein per day, they could do just fine with like point six grams per pound or point seven grams per pound protein per day. Hmm, definitely don't go lower than like, point five or point four though because then you can start flirting this like pre diabetes for not getting enough protein.
Ken Gunter
Oh, wow. So okay, at I almost don't want to ask this because I feel like I know what the answer is. If someone really does want to take this seriously, like, does it require that you start paying attention to like macros and micronutrients?
As an endurance athlete? Yeah, absolutely. Especially if you plan on doing anything, any sessions that are longer than two hours, like if you're going to run a marathon? Yeah, yeah, you should be counting your carbs at some point, especially intro workout. If you're going to be like, you want to write a century on your bike or metric century, or do any of those big granfondo rides? Yeah, you absolutely need to be counting carbs and making sure that you're getting enough intro workout, carbs, and probably enough around the clock. Because when you train, when you ride your bike for three hours or four hours, you need to eat like 500 to 700 grams of carbs in a day to just offset the glycogen loss. But, but the goal is just like weight loss, or leaning out while doing some endurance stuff. You can probably you can probably do it without counting macros. And the way that I recommend generally doing it for folks who don't want to count macros is do pay attention to protein and make sure that you're getting like somewhere in the ballpark of point seven to one gram per pound. Okay, that's not a super hard math thing to figure out, and then be hungry, at least as often as you are full. And eat plenty of veggies and you'll probably start losing weight. Hmm.
Ken Gunter
That's, that's good advice. And let me ask you this. Do you does that one gram of protein, right? Does that hold up? Even on days where you're not training? Yeah, absolutely. It does. Okay. And that's, that's just about maintenance. And just retaining muscle mass is why you need to do that.
Yeah. So oftentimes, the days that you're not training, your, your SFR are essentially the, the rate at which your muscles are laying down protein, and growing new muscle or attempting to grow new muscle is is higher unrest days than it is on training days. And so finding that protein to your bloodstream on rest days is just as important, if not more important than that on training days. Oh, interesting.
Ken Gunter
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to when you describe it like that intuitively, but I feel like sometimes I'm like, Well, you know what, I didn't work out as hard today. I don't need to be as diligent making sure that I'm getting as much or sometimes I'm like, you know, maybe it's beneficial for me to like, not overeat today. Sure. But yeah, I guess it's not so much like overeating. It's like, are you eating the right things in enough quantity?
Yeah, I'd say focusing on for if you have to focus on one thing, it'd be lean, lean protein, for sure.
Ken Gunter
Okay, lean in and what what would you classify as lean protein?
Like, anything with probably five grams of protein and per one gram of fat, so like, lean chicken breast, maybe chicken thighs? Probably not. But if you're eating them in moderation, you probably find tuna, tilapia, all the things that you hear bodybuilders talk about. lean ground, Turkey, super lean ground beef.
Ken Gunter
Just a second, literally, in my head, I can literally see the rock eating like two pounds of halibut, whatever it is that he eats, every every two hours. You said something else there too?
Well, I've got a bunch of questions for you.
Ken Gunter
I hope you don't mind. You said something there that I thought was really interesting. And I think for folks, and maybe it is different if your goal is like, increase mass. But you said you should be hungry as often as you are full. Can you dive a little bit deeper into what you mean by that?
Yeah, so in the 21st century, in America, at least, we have abundant access to food. And probably like all of your listeners can afford to buy more calories than they consume, or the than they need to consume. Like, for most people, like it's super, super cheap to purchase, way more calories than we need. They might not be the right calories, but you can go into any grocery store and get like a huge killer caloric excess for like almost no dollars. So what that means is, it's really easy to it's really easy for our hunger, which is affected by food abundance, to outstrip our actual need for calories. Especially if you are your goal is fat loss. So if your goal if the goal is fat loss, you have to be in a calorie deficit of some kind. You have to generate a calorie deficit somehow, some way. When you're in a calorie deficit, you're going to experience hunger That's just a given. And if you go if you go into a fat loss phase, or go into a weight loss phase of a diet, and you're you, that's your goal, and you don't anticipate hunger. That's a huge mistake. And that's one of the first things I tell all of my clients is I give them this little handy sheet that says, here's what your hunger is probably going to look like over the next like, six 812 weeks. And it should increase from like, just barely slightly hungry in the first week of your fat loss phase to like, Okay, I'm, I'm pretty, I have some intense craving sometimes, and I'm moderately hungry most of the day towards the end of the fat loss or weight loss phase. And if you're not experiencing that hunger, chances are you've either you've either been eating way too much for way too long. And just been in a huge caloric excess for a long time. Or you're you're not, you're not losing weight, because weight loss, absolutely, will, will cause hunger, fat loss. The act of losing fat tissue causes hunger, there's direct signaling that causes it.
Ken Gunter
Is is the hunger. So here's why. Now I'm asking for personal recommendation. I'm a big snacker. And like, every I mean, honestly, probably every two hours I go I eat something every three hours. Is Is it more about? Is there a kind of like an optimal window where it's like, hey, look, you actually do a little bit better if you can go, you know, X number of hours between eating? Or is it more about hey, I'm more concerned with over the course of the day? How many total calories you're actually taking. And I just want to make sure that there is that caloric deficit?
Yes, ever fat loss, at least the latter. It's just about the calorie deficit. And whether you do by eating three meals a day, or 17 snacks a day, it doesn't matter, either way.
Ken Gunter
So what is there any additional benefit? And you brought up keto? So maybe we, I would love to talk about that a little bit, too. But also, you know, my wife does time restricted eating, which we used to incorrectly call intermittent fasting. She's just generally not very hungry in the morning, and she feels better. And she generally likes it. And I think, you know, the belief is that she also it's just, you know, helping her keep her weight down if she wants to, um, it does something like that have a positive benefit on fat loss and staying lean? Or is it kind of like what you were saying almost with the fasted cardio, it's like your body just wants to make up for it. When it does he?
Yeah, the I think the biggest assets for a time restricted eating or intermittent or intermittent fasting approach is, is that for some people, it actually reduces hunger, at some point during the fast like use, your blood sugar stabilizes. At some point, after you have like a little, at least for me, like, three hours after I've eaten, I'm like, my blood sugar is tanking. I'm like, I want six slices of bread now. But, but like, if I fast for six 810 hours, like I might actually be able to go to 12 or 16. And it's, and it's not so bad, because your your body does stabilize your blood sugar and dropping blood sugar is one of the most powerful stimulants of hunger. So if you can avoid that, drop in blood sugar and get through the through any initial sort of crash at the onset of the fast, then that can be a really useful strategy for folks to maintain a calorie deficit. So I know there's not any, like, additional fat burning effect of that fasting period. But it can be a good hunger mitigation strategy for a lot of folks in a calorie deficit or just as a maintenance strategy. Oh, interesting.
Ken Gunter
You know, I remember who I was speaking to. Because it was a while ago, it might have even been Christian tibideaux. And as you're talking, so I remember he was like, Look, like, there's a lot of different approaches. There's a million different diets, but at the end of the day, it's about like calories. and D are you taking in less calories than you're burning?
And I feel I'll go ahead and Oh, absolutely. That's right.
Ken Gunter
Yeah. It's interesting, because there's no shortage of like it, maybe we can touch on this too, like crash diets, or really extreme, sustained diets that people adopt. Believing that that is what's causing them to like, ideally see results or they're doing in hopes of seeing a specific result. What is your kind of take on all of these various kind of, I don't know, I'm going to call them extreme diets that exist. And like, Is there a place for some of these to be beneficial? Or is it more about like, you were saying, like, Hey, we need something that's specific. stainable because it's not just Will you go back on it, it's there's actually no detrimental effects that physiologically take place. If we if we make wild swings in the body.
Yeah, for as far as the extreme diet approaches go, cleanses and all of that. They do more harm than good. And most of them do exclusively harm. Okay. Yeah. Can
Ken Gunter
you expand on that? Because they drive me nuts?
Yeah. Yeah, I'll hit you right in the confirmation bias here. Okay. So they, in general, they cause folks to number one, believe in them, because they work really fast. And so people see the scale goes down. And they might be that they look more trim in the mirror, because a lot of them involve carbohydrate restriction, or just extreme calorie restriction. And they achieve this extreme calorie restriction often by like eliminating certain foods or food groups, or just like eliminating all food and just drinking lemon water with cayenne pepper. And, yeah, you lose weight super fast doing that, because when you consume almost no sodium, and you consume, like way, way, way less calories, or you start consuming huge amounts of vegetables. Yeah, you essentially you drop a whole bunch of water, when you don't consume sodium, you drop a bunch of water, when you don't consume carbohydrate. And you if you, if you start eating like a head of lettuce, and a bag of spinach every day, you will clean out your gastrointestinal tract really fast, you'll look more trim in the mirror, and you will have 10 pounds of gut contents days. And that and the problem with all of that is that people start to think that that's the only way that they can lose weight, because it's the only time that they've seen the scale respond or the mirror respond positively to what they're doing. And then if it if that compounds itself, when their hunger spikes, and then they binge. And yeah, they regain all their weight and probably start accumulating fat tissue faster than they lost it in the first place.
Yeah.
Ken Gunter
Yeah, it's, um, because I think folks who historically have had struggles with weight and wide swings and fluctuation. You know, I see it in just friends, people I know, you know, they'll go on this hardcore diet, and you know, then they exert an incredible amount of like, self discipline to get there, which is amazing. But it's like, it feels like every time it's like, once they deviate from what that crash diet that they went on, it's like, slowly but surely, it's like the revert to bad habits, or it just it doesn't seem like is sustainable is kind of the word of the show as well.
Yeah. And I think, I think it's important for people to know that a fat loss phase or a weight loss phase shouldn't be or shouldn't feel sustainable. But the weight that you end at, should be sustainable, and it should feel sustainable. After about two to four weeks of maintenance, at your end weight. So if you if you are 180 pounds, and you want to get down to 165 pounds, and you're carrying sufficient fat to do that healthfully. It's it's important to that. It says it is important to do it slowly enough that when you get to maintenance, you're not like completely overwhelmed with the urge to, to go to Red Robin and eat every day. I don't think I'll ever
Ken Gunter
drop an urge no matter how healthy I've grown accustomed to eating bottom of steak fries.
But I think that it's an important message for folks to hear that the fat loss phase should not feel sustainable. And even the first couple weeks of maintenance might not feel sustainable, and that is going to require some hunger, it's going to require some hard work. But that once you are into a healthy maintenance, wait four weeks after you've started that maintenance, it should start to feel more sustainable and you should feel balanced. And like your hunger your you're hungry about as often as you are full. And that's good balance.
Ken Gunter
So I have two questions for you. Because I think this is really important. And maybe it will help shift the perspective of folks who do have some sort of weight loss goal or body composition goal. What does and I wonder if this is the right way to ask is like Healthy Weight Loss look like, you know, do you guide clients, it's like, Hey, we only want to lose this percentage of body weight a week or these pounds a week or you know is Is there something that generally is like a healthy way to start? To lose fat along the way. And then you know, I guess maybe if you could explain that, what does like a maintenance period look like? Because I feel like that's something the app, but most people, they're like maintenance period. Like, I'm just trying to keep the weight off, like, what do you mean maintenance? Like, what does a maintenance period look like?
Yeah. Okay, so first, appropriate weight loss rates, usually, for most people should should be maxed out at 1% of body weight per week. And I really also cap it at two pounds of body weight per week. So if you're, if you're 250 pounds, and you want to get down to 200 pounds eventually, or 225 pounds, eventually, I would say target no more than 2% or two pounds of weight loss per week. But if you're if you're like 150 pounds, and you want to trim up to 140 pounds, target 1.4 or 1.5 pounds per week as a maximum. There's no as a maximum. Yeah, there's no harm in going slower. Especially, I mean, yeah, there's there's no harm in going as slow as half a percent per week. They're the only harm that comes from going slower is that you will look at the scale, and you will see it fluctuating. And you will honestly believe I'm not losing any weight. And another huge message I want to send to everybody shouting this one from the rooftops is it is normal, it's totally normal for your your weight to fluctuate one to 4% of body weight daily, especially, like when hormone cycles get involved for women. Total mansplaining moment here. There. It's normal, it's 100% normal for your weight to jump around like three to five pounds daily. And the the, everybody's like, Yeah, I know I got it, it's really important. Because those fluctuations, three to five pounds of body weight fluctuations are sufficient to totally mask weight loss or weight loss trend, that is only half a pound or one pound per week, three or four weeks, if you're just if you're just doing like, if you're just doing like a before and after, or just like a high point. Like if somebody somebody weighs in at 134. Like on March 1, they might weigh in at 134. Again, on like March 22, but actually be losing a pound per week. Because right? They it could just be an upward fluctuation on March 22. And the downward flow, it was a downward fluctuation on March 1. And so it's super, super important to use something like happy scale app or an Excel chart with a trend line or however you're going to monitor the trend, because those fluctuations totally mask what's actually happening.
Ken Gunter
Yeah, no, and that. That makes a lot of sense. And I'm glad I haven't heard of happy scale, but I will check that out. But yeah, I think a lot of folks do get so hung up on the number that they see on the scale. You know, that oftentimes, like they get defeated, you know, and they're using that as kind of like the rubric to measure their success. And what you're saying is, there's there's there can be such big swings in your way in an individual day that even if you've lost two pounds, the two pounds you want to get rid of. Yeah, depending on like what time you look at the scale, you might feel like you've not made any progress. So that that makes a lot of sense with the trend line. Yep. You can see it over time.
Super, super important.
Ken Gunter
Do you recommend to your clients weighing yourself like the same time every day? Or is even that not going to be completely reliable,
that that helps to like just eliminate one variable that might that might cause additional fluctuation, I tell folks not to weigh in multiple times per day, because sometimes people will be like, Oh, I wait, I weighed in kind of high this morning. And then they'll check again at noon. And they're like, Oh, yeah, okay, I'm down two pounds. It's like, just take the weight sometime after you get up after you've used the restroom. Sometimes for breakfast, or if you want to do it after breakfast, it's fine. Just do roughly the same time in your schedule doesn't have to be the same clock time but the same time and your your general morning schedule, take the weight, put it on a on a on a chart. And for the love of all that is good. don't interpret that single weigh in as anything at all. Yeah, it's it's got to be part of a trend analysis.
Ken Gunter
Now that I think that is awesome advice. And probably even though you've said it three times, three times advice A lot of people will be like, Yeah, but I really like it when I step on the scale and it says 123 Yeah, I feel worse when it says 125
Oh, so true. That's so so true. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Ken Gunter
And can you explain a little bit about the maintenance phase like what what is a healthy maintenance phase? And what are the sorts of things that people should be focusing on it? maintenance. You know, what does that mean?
Yeah, so two things. weight maintenance means you're just maintaining your weight, you're consuming sufficient calories to match your expenditure. So your weight, that weight trend line isn't going up, not trending up, and it's not trending down, you'll still have big fluctuations in maintenance, still totally normal. It's just changes in gut contents changes in your water holding patterns. Changes in Oh, I ate an extra high sodium meal last night, you're up three pounds, no big deal. You just want the trendline to be flat in minutes. And it really needs like people talk about all just compare weekly averages last week compared to this week. That works great until hormone cycles start to happen for women, or until like, you just catch some random upward fluctuations a couple days in a row in one week. And then you start to convince yourself that, oh, I've gained I've gained half a pound since last week, I must need to cut 250 calories for my diet. It's not true. So the week to week weekly average approach isn't really the best that truly the best is a trendline. And you plot more data than just two weeks of data. And it doesn't have to be every day, it could be every third day or every fourth day.
Ken Gunter
But you have to have longer term data than just one or two weeks. Are people during a maintenance phase still experiencing that that hunger that you were describing during the weight loss phase? At the pairs? Are they beginning to get acclimated
it for some folks, if it's like the first weight loss phase that they've ever done, and they're coming into a maintenance for the first time, a lot of times they won't feel any hunger at all, they'll be like, I feel great. Like, nothing's wrong, I'm eating plenty of high volume foods, healthy, healthy carbs, healthy fats, lots of veggies, plenty of protein. And they're like, yep, no hunger at all, I feel great. And then they let me go as a coach, and I'm like, sweet, I did my job. Right. But the for some folks, if they've lost more fat, like if they've carried more fat years ago, or maybe, maybe they lost 15 or 20 pounds over the last 12 weeks, they can have some hunger that lingers for two to four weeks. Or if like, full disclosure moment, if I have taken if I've taken a client and had them lose weight, beyond what would have been sustained, or what should should be their sustainable sort of end weight. Because they've carried more fat in the past, like substantially more. Hunger can linger for a while it can linger indefinitely, if you if you don't actually increase back to a more sustainable ways.
Ken Gunter
How much of that? Like? Does it then become about reshaping their perspective as to what's healthy? Like? I imagine, like, Look, I myself, and I believe you're the same type of person, like if I set my mind to something like I will push through absolutely any amount of discomfort to get there. Yes. You know, and I imagine a lot of especially a lot of these endurance athletes that you work with, you know, how much is it about saying like, hey, look, it's actually better for you to back off, get to a sustainable place versus like killing yourself to get down to some unmanageable, you know, lower body weight body composition.
alex harrison
Yeah.
Actually, I've been very surprised. It's my my folks who tend to be of the same mind that you just sort of alluded to where the, they'll just literally push themselves to death to accomplish whatever goal they set their minds to that come from two camps, the endurance camp, and the formerly very obese for lack of a specific term. Yeah. Those who have carried like 40% fat and are now in like the 20 25% fat range, it took some serious work to make that weight loss happen. And they're there like a lot of times, they're like, type a corporate, like, super driven multiple degrees, and they have a period of time where they gained a bunch of weight, they maintain that heavy weight for a long time. And then they finally put their mind to losing weight. And there's some of the most driven people they will essentially, they are, they're forced to if they want to lose that substantial amount of weight, they're forced into orthorexia, a bit. Like they, they literally have to be so adherence to a restrictive plan that they they develop, like really strong habits of needing to follow a plan. And because that's the only way that they can lose that amount of weight. And yeah, of course, the endurance athletes, like a lot of them are like, I gotta get lighter, and they have the will of I mean, they just have Oh, yeah, tons of willpower. What?
Ken Gunter
What What is orthorexia? Really quickly
orthorexia is, and I, this is not reading from Google, this is just generally and understanding it's Yeah, the need to, or the desire to strong desire to follow a, some sort of plan for your diet or some sort of rule based system for your diet. So it's not the desire to not eat like anorexia, it's more, I'm going to follow a rigid plan. Okay. And interestingly rigid to the point of beyond what's necessary to accomplish the goal.
Yeah. Wow.
Ken Gunter
Okay, one question here. Now, now, now, I'm thinking more about like the elite athlete camp, or someone who has athletic goals that they're going after that they, you know, are very passionate about, you know, you kind of just mentioned this, like, one of the best ways to get faster, jump higher, is to reduce your body weight, while not sacrificing like strength and speed. So, you know, for people who are not solely just worried about body composition, with the intent of looking better and feeling better, but like, Hey, I'm looking for a competitive advantage, athletically. You know, what are the things to keep in mind when trying to lose fat, but not not just main. And when you can tell me if this is possible, not just maintain, you know, lean muscle mass, but actually continue to get stronger at the same time?
Yeah. Huge, huge trade offs of doing fat loss phases in athletes, especially if speed and power is a goal. And especially if they're already lean. So one of the things that happens in a calorie deficit is muscle fibers tend to convert towards Slower, slower muscle fiber types are interesting, not good for strength and power and speed. And when you when you are in a calorie deficit, your fatigue is, is higher. So you're going to be able to train, you'll, you'll be forced to train at a lower intensity or with a lower volume than you otherwise would. So yeah, there's there's big trade offs of doing doing fat loss phases for athletes. So if you're, if you are a, like, let's take the sprinter example, like if you're a sprinter, and you want to run faster, or let's, let's say, jumping as part of your event. Certainly, it would be nice to have less mass, if you have to, if you have to accelerate your mass vertically against gravity, it's nice to have less mass for sprinting. But the trade offs are, are often like really, really reduced rate of force development in the musculature. And that mean, that sufficient reduction in rate of force development and sufficient reduction in power, that the reduced mass, the benefits of the reduced mass are outweighed by those reductions in power. Wow.
Ken Gunter
So, you know, like, let's say we are, we're using that sprinter as an example. And I guess, taking being willing to take a longer term approach, like, What does from a nutrition standpoint, training look like? When done the right way? And I guess, not training? But is it? Is it more thought of like, Look, if you focus on getting stronger and faster, and you're eating healthy, and you're making sure you're getting the right amount of protein and carbs to fuel training? You know, does it you just, you just kind of naturally shift your body composition, to something that's leaner? And is that the best approach? Like, I feel like a lot of this just kind of happens without us thinking about it. And I know I'm being like very, you know, tactical these questions. But for someone who's like, Look, I don't want to sacrifice strength rate of force development power, I certainly don't want to convert fast twitch muscle fibers that I've worked so hard to build the slow twitch, but I do want to, you know, kind of slowly change my body composition over time, like, what is the right thing to do?
I think having dedicated a very short phases of fat loss, very far separate from any competition is probably the right approach. So maybe four weeks of fat loss at like 1% weight per week. And ideally, like way more than three months in advance of any competitive need, so that you've got plenty of time to spend. And so the training approach would be like hypertrophy or high volume strength training to make sure that you're reaching taining all of the muscle mass that you can. But if the goal if you're if you're competing in something like sprinting, you can't be doing high volume strength training and hypertrophy training, and also sprinting fast. So, it's really wise to have that fat loss phase and the higher volume training phase three plus months in advance of any need for speed, so that you can back into like strength max strength, peaking power type type training, far in advance of the of the competition. That Yeah,
Ken Gunter
okay, that makes sense. How are you? How are you doing on time here? Because I've got maybe two more questions that I would love to ask. But absolutely,
you're good. Yeah.
Ken Gunter
So one of the things that we talked about was, you know, the idea of fasted cardio, or fasted training, so oftentimes, like, I'm the type of person where if I don't work out first thing in the morning, like, just given how hectic my day quickly becomes, once the kids are awake, like, it's not gonna happen. Yeah. So oftentimes, you know, and I think a lot of people who are very driven and, but they also, you know, they have their own life and their their professional career, like, like me, wake up, maybe drink a glass of water, and then it's like, straight to the gym. What What does proper fuelling look like? Knowing that you're actually sacrificing volume and output and some of his other things by doing fasted training? You know, what does proper fuelling look like for someone who has to like work out in the morning like that?
That's a great question. And that, that probably applies to like, half of my clients, myself included, like, I don't have time to, to like the idea of sitting down and eating like a whole breakfast before I train in the morning, sometimes. laughable, right? Like, nobody has time for that. So
Ken Gunter
maybe nobody got time for that.
Exactly. Making a carbohydrate and whey protein shake. Or if you're doing endurance training, just a carbohydrate and electrolyte shake, or drink beverage and a water bottle or something. That's all you need to do. Because the whole purpose of the pre workout meal in the first place is just get some protein into the bloodstream. Just because it's a good idea to have potent protein in your bloodstream anyway. And to boost blood sugar, so that your cognitive drive and your neural drive is high during training. And then if you're an endurance athlete, the secondary purpose of the increased blood sugar is so that there's glucose available to the working muscles that they have that to draw upon alongside their, their glycogen stores and triglycerides that you'll be burning during endurance training. So that's the purpose of the pre pre workout meal. And you can do the same thing with just drinking Gatorade and whey protein, or straight up sugar and whey protein. Or if you're an endurance athlete, like a little bit of Gatorade, a little bit of sugar, a little bit of like, salt, Mo. And like, I, if you follow me on any of my anywhere, you'll see me talking about this kind of stuff all the time. Yeah, but you can accomplish that same purpose of the pre workout meal with an intro workout beverage or like a bottle that you make just real quick, and then drink half of before you go to the gym, you can boost your blood sugar, and you'll have great training intensity. And that's that's what like half my clients do for all their morning training, they don't even have a meal, they just 20 minutes before training 15 minutes before training, they drink 30 to 50 grams of Gatorade, or sugar or whatever, with a little bit of whey protein.
Ken Gunter
And how much how much protein is needed? like do I need? Do I need to go for the whole 30 grams? Or do you just need enough fat
and 50 half of the scoop like 15 grams, okay, pre training and then finish the rest of the rest of your carb shake during training and along with a protein. So I like a whole the whole layout might be like 30 to 40 grams carbs, and 15 grams of protein 15 minutes before training and then roughly the same thing during training.
Ken Gunter
Yeah. Okay. Know that. That certainly helps. Yeah, I mean for years. And just out of necessity, kind of like you were saying, I would wake up maybe a glass of water, coffee, definitely coffee. Yeah. And I would just go to the gym and work out I would feel pretty good. But, you know, at this point in my life, it's like, man, when you when you have a lot of time to either train or you know, whatever my focus is within that a lot of times like I want to make the most of it. And I think there's a lot of people if if you're listening to a podcast like this, like I imagine you probably feel the same way. So I think that's helpful, right? It's like, just if you're gonna be willing to put in the work and the effort. It's like, how do you help yourself get more out of it? Okay, last question, and this might be a big one, but it seems like you know, if we're talking about burning fat losing fat. You need that caloric deficit? Where does someone begin and kind of understanding, you know, what their caloric baseline is? And I guess it's about what you're burning. So that you can kind of map out from that, you know, what your deficit needs to look like?
That is, that is that's a that's a hard question. And I'm not sure.
Ken Gunter
I'm not if it's the wrong question to Yeah, I'm, I've looked at you tell me that as well.
But I would advise, okay, newer folks, folks newer to fat loss are newer to weight loss interest? I'm not sure I would advise that they try to ascertain how many calories they're burning. Okay. Because all of the ways to do that are fraught with error. Like all your Apple Watch, or your Fitbit or whoop strap or whatever other things tell you how many calories you burned today? Yeah, at the very best, they're like, they have like an average of 10 plus or minus 10% error that average, which means that for some folks, they might have a 0% error might be dead on and for other folks, they might be like, 20% off. And if you're 20% off on a 2000 calorie diet, that's 400 calories, which is totally useless from a prescriptive standpoint. Yeah, definitely, like Word to the wise, don't, don't try to ascertain your calories from a wearable device.
Ken Gunter
Okay, I think that's that that alone is great. Because I do feel like people listening would probably say, hey, look, you know, they said, caloric deficit, find a way to take in less than and, you know, I just want to make sure that I at least ask, so it's like, Look, what is something that someone can use as a, you know, a guiding point, to make sure that they're at least on the right path,
the guide, the guide point is, track your calories meticulously for like, three weeks, okay, for three weeks, and track your bodyweight every day for three weeks. And honestly, for women, I would say, if you can track it over the course of one entire menstrual cycle, if you have a cycle, that's ideal for men, you can probably get away with two or three weeks because there's tends to be a little bit less cyclical fluctuation. And then plot a trendline, or use happy scale or any other there's probably 10 other apps besides happy scale, I just have a bunch of clients that use that. Okay, any app that tells you essentially, what your what your trend line of your weight is doing. And then you can look back and say, Okay, I averaged over the last three weeks, I averaged 2200 calories a day, and my weight has been flat, like I haven't losing or gaining weight. That's how you can figure out how many calories per day that you're burning, and how many calories you need to actually eat to maintain. And for most folks, they're like, Oh, my God, I've been eating 2400 calories per day. No wonder I'm able to maintain my weight. Like, like, and then they're like, wait, I can I can eat 1900 calories a day and lose a pound a week. Awesome. Yeah.
Ken Gunter
No, that helps. Well, and I, it kind of makes me think to again, this is just another confirmation that these quick crash extreme diets or extreme approaches people take the lose weight. You know, it's it's like, the secret is in like the consistency over time. Yep. And, you know, what you just described and I mean, this in the best way possible is like low tech, super. It's just tracking consistently. And, you know, as someone who does this for a living with all sorts of diverse athletic clientele, it's like, that's, this is the recommendation, you know, or go work with Alex. He might not have time. I don't
I don't even have any openings for clients, right, though. He really, totally booked.
Ken Gunter
good business to be in. Yeah. That's awesome. So I okay, I said last question. This is a quick one. But there's a lot of people talk about belly fat. Is belly fat actually more difficult to burn than other types of fat? Or is it is it just kind of all the same?
I'll tell I'll tell you what I tell all my clients which is okay, if you have more fat in a certain area, it's probably going to be the last place that you lose it, or the place that you lean out to completely last. So like if you if you carry more weight on your thighs and hips, it's you're going to have more fat on your thighs and hips. After 10 pounds of fat loss to you're not going to there's no such thing as spot fat loss. It's all baloney. So I don't care what any product anybody's tries to sell you online. Don't listen to if you cannot, absolutely cannot will not lose fat in a certain area by taking any Sort of strategy or using any sort of physical or chemical product
Ken Gunter
at all ever. The only way I can stop, I can stop hooking my tummy up to those electric basic electric charging pads. Those things do not car battery on the other end.
Yeah, they do not do what they say they do.
Ken Gunter
I know my wife seemed like, Did you really just say, Tommy on a podcast? Yeah, I did. Uh, Alex, man, this has been awesome. And I honestly feel your explanation is probably going to help a lot of people who have this as their goal, make effective change. Because I think what's very frustrating is one, it seems, if you're someone who's just reading the news, or reads the occasional journal, or you know, Men's Health, women's health, whatever it is, like, it constantly seems to change, like, what works, what doesn't, it's very confusing. And then on top of that, there's so many people trying to sell you a solution, a diet, unique approach, that it's just overwhelming for people. So I feel like if nothing else, there was a lot of relevant information. Things that could be, I'm not gonna say easily applied, because you know, changing your diet behaviors is difficult no matter what you're doing, but easy to understand. Hard to apply. Yes, exactly. Yeah, that's very, very well said. So, hopefully, like this demystified stuff, or a lot of a lot of the misconceptions that exist around this topic. But yeah, well, Hey, I know you're booked. However, I also know that you put out a ton of great content, both on your social channels, and then I know you do a lot of writing for Renaissance as well. Yeah. For people who want to follow you more closely, and maybe do some further reading on on this topic, because I know you've put a lot out there on this already, like, where is the best place for them to go?
They can probably find me on Instagram. And my handle is Dr. Alex Harrison. And I think there's an underscore in there somewhere, but you'll find it.
Ken Gunter
I'll link to it. For sure.
The RP endurance group is an awesome group that I helped moderate, very cool 5000 members on Facebook. And if you're if you're an endurance athlete and you you like want to know how to fuel your training, like how many how many carbs to eat during a bike ride or whatever. I have more information than you will ever be able to digest on that page. And I'm happy to share more. Perfect.
Ken Gunter
Awesome Well, let me ask you this any any athletic feats, or goals that you personally have coming up here? I know I know. You're an endurance athlete, yourself any big races coming down the pike,
no big races. I'm trying to keep up with my wife as usual. Let's see once. I did a time trial a couple weeks ago, and I might jump into a triathlon triathlon with with Michelle, I think in April.
Ken Gunter
Oh, very cool. Right on. Yeah, I don't I don't think that's in my near future. Yeah, but I'm glad you're doing it makes me feel more accomplished. Just watching you go out and do these things. So Alex, man, thank you for your time. This was an awesome conversation. And yeah, I mean, well, if you're up for it, we'll have to have you back in the future again.
Yeah, it's my pleasure. I'd love to