Are you weary of battling with the number on the scale? What if your weight wasn't the definitive measure of your health? In today's podcast we discuss four critical numbers that are a far better indicator of your health than what registers on the scale.
Listen up to learn:
The scale rarely tells the full story - join us to learn how you can shift your focus to more meaningful and informative health indicators.
Thanks for listening, we hope you enjoyed it. Follow us for more tips, tricks, and support in our private Facebook Group, Boost Your Metabolism After Age 30.
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Check at our website and blog.
Grab our free mini course - The REAL Reason you can't lose weight
Want to start boosting your metabolism today? Buy our $79 DIY, self-paced "Master Your Metabolism" course.
Want customized plan for boosting your metabolism? Learn more about our 1:1 coaching
Reserve your spot with a Couture Coach: Buy a 1:1 coaching package
Are you weary of battling with the number on the scale? What if your weight wasn't the definitive measure of your health? In today's podcast we discuss four critical numbers that are a far better indicator of your health than what registers on the scale.
Listen up to learn:
The scale rarely tells the full story - join us to learn how you can shift your focus to more meaningful and informative health indicators.
Thanks for listening, we hope you enjoyed it. Follow us for more tips, tricks, and support in our private Facebook Group, Boost Your Metabolism After Age 30.
Take our FREE quiz: What's Sabotaging Your Metabolism?
Follow us on Instagram @couture_fitness_coaching
Check at our website and blog.
Grab our free mini course - The REAL Reason you can't lose weight
Want to start boosting your metabolism today? Buy our $79 DIY, self-paced "Master Your Metabolism" course.
Want customized plan for boosting your metabolism? Learn more about our 1:1 coaching
Reserve your spot with a Couture Coach: Buy a 1:1 coaching package
Welcome everyone. Today you have me, allison, as well as Joe, and we're going to be talking about four numbers that matter more than the scale in terms of what they say about your health, about your physique and how easily your body will release body fat. So before we get into that, I wanna mention a couple of things about what's going on at Couture Coaching Some. We have some free things that you guys can download If you're interested. We have a free mini course. You can scroll down to the show notes and you can get this free mini course.
Speaker 1:We also have our self-paced master your metabolism course, where we walk through really all of the things that our coaches would walk through with you if they were personally coaching you, but you do it on your own, at your own pace, so that is available as well. And then, obviously, we always have our one-on-one coaching program, the metabolic makeover program. That is our high touch, very customized coaching program. So with that, you will be assigned to one of our personal fitness and nutrition coaches. They will help you set things like how much should you be eating, what your workout should look like, and then we also have several other things with that. We've got calls each week that you can join for extra support. We also have a different self-paced course that you get with that.
Speaker 1:So if you have questions about any of these things, feel free to email us at info at couturefitnesscoachingcom. But let's get into it. So Joe's gonna walk us through these four things that are more important than the scale today, so we will just get right into it with item number one. So, joe, what do you think is the first thing, the first set of numbers? I guess that is more important than the scale.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So this one probably doesn't qualify as a number although I do think you can attach a numerical value to it and it's simply how consistent you are with solid, healthy nutrition and exercise habits and what I will say. If those things aren't in place, there's no reason to worry about the scale, because it's gonna be very hard to make the scale change without these baseline habits in place. And so what we always say at Couture Coaching is just we need your best, b minus effort. No one needs to be perfect, no one needs to work out every single day, no one needs to eat perfectly every day, but you do need some consistency and some good quality habits in these areas. So if you think about B minus, b minus is an 80%. So 80% of the time you wanna be having good, healthy, adequate nutrition. If you have macro targets that you're trying to follow, you wanna be hitting those macro targets 80% of the time. For everyone, we would say you wanna be eating at least 100 grams of protein or more a day, 80% of the time. So nutrition is probably the most important habit that's going to influence whether you lose or gain weight, or whether you lose or gain body fat. So that has to be in place. Number two healthy habit that needs to be in place is weight training. I would say, two to four times a week, you wanna be hitting that 80% of the time. Or if you go two to four times a week, doing 80% of your workout on those days, so good, solid weight training habit needs to be in place, and that's definitely more important than anything the scale is doing. And then the last thing that needs to be in place is you need to be leading an active lifestyle 80% or more of the time. So a way you could assign a number to that is are you getting between eight to 10,000 steps a day? That's one way that you can measure how active your lifestyle is.
Speaker 2:So if those three things are not in place, then I would say it's. I mean, you can worry about the scale, but it's sort of a fool's errand, because those are the things in place that are going to help you manage your weight or lose weight, if that is your goal, and this is where you need to focus your efforts. Truly, this consistency matters way more than anything the scale is doing in terms of whether you are a healthy person. So if you are doing these three things, you will be a healthier person than if you are not doing them.
Speaker 2:So I think what happens is that we get we see this a lot in coaching we get so focused on results, like is this plan working or is the scale moving, and we often have very, very unreasonable expectations in terms of the timeline of when results will occur. So we get super obsessed with the scale, we get very impatient and then we abandon our healthy habits, thinking they aren't working, and what that turns into, I think, for a lot of women is it just becomes like a dog chasing its tail. You're always switching up the variables. You're never sticking to any of your healthy habits long enough to see any results. So I would say, above anything, any other number, any other metric, track your habits and make sure you're scoring that B minus on your habits. Do you have anything to add to that?
Speaker 1:No, I don't, and I feel like a lot of people don't. They don't realize how important that is and how much they really should be focusing on that. I think they, if the scale isn't moving, they're like well, I'm doing these healthy things, but they kind of downplay all of the good things they are doing. But really don't downplay those. Those are super important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think we also overestimate or over and I know this in myself. We are less consistent than we think we are, especially if you haven't had any of these habits in place before. When you start implementing them, you're like my gosh, I'm doing all this work. The scale numbers should just be flying off the scale, and that's not always how it works. I heard a really good analogy for this on a podcast and the analogy was that it's kind of like parenting.
Speaker 2:You know, when you have a toddler or something you don't, you know you put that you have a bedtime for them, right, like you put them to bed at a certain time each night and you don't change that bedtime Based on whether they get up the next morning and tell you thank you for putting me to bed at 8 pm Last night, like, or you know they're in a bad mood the next day or not. You know In the best mood the next day, you don't say, well, that bedtime didn't work, we're gonna change it up tonight. It's the consistency and the stability and the structure that you're providing that toddler. You need to be doing the same for your body and and, honestly, if you are doing, if you have good, solid habits around these things, you are a healthy person and you don't need to get super obsessed about whatever the scale says. So I think that's fundamental number one.
Speaker 1:Yes, Okay. What is the next number that we actually should be worrying about?
Speaker 2:So I would say now, now we're getting into kind of actual numbers that people are thinking about. So I think body fat percentage is Far more important thing to worry about than what the scale says. Okay, so what is Body fat percentage? It is the percentage of your body that is comprised of fat. So when we talk about body composition, this is commonly how it's expressed, like your body fat percentage. You know, truth be told, it'd be amazing if we could express body composition in terms the amount of muscle we have on our body, because it's so precious and it is the organ of longevity, and that's something that most people would be better off focusing on. The more muscle you have, the better. Maybe that day is coming, but for now, usually body composition is expressed in terms of your percentage of body fat. Okay, why does your percent of body fat matter? That that's, I call it PBF, your. Why is that important? Well, I would say this is a true measure of whether you have a healthy body composition, and by this I mean whether you Are obese or lean. So an obese body composition typically it's somewhere above. You know, I've heard figures of like 30 32%. So if you have 32% Body fat, that that's going to be considered an obese body composition. A lean body composition is going to be lower than that. So I would say, you know, below 30 is probably where you want to aim if you're just getting started, and truly they're just more positive health outcomes associated with a lower, leaner body composition and I would say, from a vanity perspective, most people prefer the look of lean, being lean over obese. Okay, so I think the next thing to think about is okay, if this is a more important point. This is a more important number To focus on.
Speaker 2:How do you determine what your body fat percentage is? So you have to go get a test. You can get a dexa. There's bod pod, there's in body scan. I think that's probably the most Approachable. You don't have to take your clothes off or anything. It's just a machine that you stand on, and now a lot of gyms and supplement stores have the in Body scan. But I also have heard that you know, big strides are being made in the Bluetooth scales or the scales that measure body fat. Those are getting more and more accurate. I think the most important thing to remember when you are getting, you know, using one of these machines to measure your body fat is that none of these are going to spit out numbers that are 100% accurate. They can be off from as much as five to seven percent and that's okay. Really, you just want to be measuring a trend line. So if you go get your body fat Measured and it's say 40%, don't, don't freak out. What you just want to be doing is making sure sort of the habits you have are making that 40%. You know, go down over time. You just want to be kind of, you know, looking at that trend line. So so that's how you would determine what your body fat percentage is.
Speaker 2:I Think the other big misnomer about you know, body composition is it really has. I mean, it can have something to do with how much you weigh, but not really. You know, I, I am five foot eight. I typically weigh, you know, anywhere from 150 to 155 pounds. Right now I happen to be around 157 pounds and have about 24% body fat, but I've weighed as little as like 150 pounds and had over 30% body fat. So it's not atypical To and we have a lot of clients. I think that fit in this category where you know, and this is typically women who have dieted a good portion of their adult lives, who are a normal weight. But have, you know, 40% body fat? This is what we call skinny fat and it's not the look that most of us are going for. So you can't really correlate how much you weigh with your body fat percentage. Do you have any Commentary on that?
Speaker 1:No, I totally agree, and I mean I'm I'm going to compare this kind of to like the BMI. I hate the BMI. That's my personal opinion. I hate the BMI measurement. I'm on the high end of normal for BMI and I am a very small person. So, yeah, I mean, if you've got a lot of muscle, that is healthy, healthy weight on your body. I'm sure there are plenty of, you know, big muscular guys out there who have a lot of muscle weight, and there are a lot of muscular guys out there who are considered obese by weight but are extremely healthy and fit and maybe have six packs, but their BMI would say that they're they're obese. So I totally agree. I think that the, the body fat percentage is, is a very important one and it really doesn't matter what you weigh. Some of us just carry more, bigger bone or carry more muscle and so thankfully, this will actually reflect that and not, you know, incorporate that weight is a bad thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay. Well, now let's talk about ways you can decrease your body fat percentage. So I think, starting out, you want to eat enough. Ideally. You know you will lose body fat if you're in a calorie deficit, but eating. You need to be eating enough to Protein and calories to pervert, preserve your muscle mass, because you can lose weight and Actually make your body composition worse, because if you lose muscle, it's going to make that percent of body fat go up. So you're not actually improving your body composition.
Speaker 2:If you, you know, cut your calories drastically, lose a bunch of scale weight, that a lot of that can be muscle and it will actually make you Something that makes you have more fat on your body. You just as compared you know if you compare muscle to fat, you have Less muscle on your body. So you're you have more, a higher percentage of fat on your body. You can decrease your body fat percentage by lifting weights. If you build muscle. So let's say you don't even lose a pound of body fat, but you add muscle to your body, you're actually going to decrease your body fat percentage because it's a ratio of fat to muscle on your body.
Speaker 1:I think that's a good point out. That is very important to point out.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you're, you're gonna look better. So it's. It's not just about, you know, losing body fat. There are a lot of different ways you can sort of impact your Body composition. Then you know you want to be moving your body a lot. We're not talking about, like you know, hours and hours on a cardio machine, but just lots of walking, you know. Mowing the lawn, playing with your kids, not lying around on the couch All those things can help you reduce your body fat percentage. I think you know practical ways to use. The body composition number is like I said.
Speaker 2:If you're above 30%, you just kind of want to work on moving this number down. I would say, track it at most once a month or maybe every few months and just see the trend lines. Are you losing fat, are you losing muscle? Both. If you are below 30% body fat, that's a good spot to be in, and probably I always tell ladies like, if you're below 30% body fat, or especially like in that 25% range, Any weight you want to lose at that point is probably vanity weight.
Speaker 2:Now, there's nothing wrong with that. But you don't need to lose weight for health purposes, even if in your brain you don't weigh as much as you did on your wedding day or something. You are probably in a good spot from a health perspective and this is the big, and if you are around 20% it's going to be hard to probably lose weight. It's going to be kind of like that last five or 10 pounds phenomenon Because you don't. You have a pretty low body fat percentage as it is. So, just, you know, these are just ways to kind of get that number, that body fat percentage number, and assess what it means for you.
Speaker 1:All right, that's a good one. It's a very important number. I totally agree. I'm glad that it's getting easier to test it, because I think that's one of the reasons why people do use the scale, because it's so easy. But if body fat percentage were just as easy, maybe people would start using that more. I think it's a very important one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've heard people say that they've gone and gotten a professional test and then the scales that show the body fat they'll line up pretty closely. If that's the case, I would probably just use my scale to assess body fat percentage. I think technology is improving every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good thing. What's the next number you have for us?
Speaker 2:Okay. Your waste circumference Okay. Why does your waste circumference matter and what does it mean? Doctors, I think, have been using this for a while. I know life insurance companies have but it is a proxy for how lean you are and whether you have a healthy body composition. Why? Well, because I think that's where we tend to deposit fat. I mean most people, not everyone. This is partly genetics, but especially as we grow older it's we tend to deposit fat throughout our torso.
Speaker 2:Your waste circumference is a good measure of how much fat you have on your body. What is a healthy waste measurement? If you're a woman, to be considered healthy, you want it to be below 35 inches. I don't have the number for men, I'm sure it's a little higher. I think it's a good measurement because it's very easy to get this measurement. That's compared to, maybe, your body fat percentage. How we recommend you measuring it is. This is something you could measure on a weekly basis. I would pick a landmark on your body like a belly button is where I would take my waist measurement, because my belly button isn't going to move, or maybe if you have a mole or something like that, and then you just want to measure around that landmark every week. If you have a naturally a very small waist maybe you're not someone who gains weight in your waist you might also measure your hips, and you want to measure your hips at their largest spot. Again, if you are genetically blessed with a small waist, then that might mean that your hips might be where you are more inclined to collect body fat. These are just both places where we tend to deposit fat and if they are going down while you are changing your nutrition and exercise habits. So if waist and hip measurements are going down, it's a good sign that you are losing body fat.
Speaker 2:The next question might be well, how do I get my waist measurement to go down? This is not a matter of doing sit-ups. We've done a podcast on this before. It's really about losing body fat. There's nothing magical like don't go wrap your belly in saran wrap or something it's not going to. You can't spot reduce it.
Speaker 2:But similar to making your body fat go down is the same process. You need to be eating enough, eating enough protein, to maintain your muscle mass. Lifting weights, moving your body, lots of walking, non-intense cardio movement that's how you reduce your body fat. It goes back to the first thing we talked about. Those nutrition, exercise and activity habits are how you make inroads on improving your waist measurement. Practically, how can you apply this number? Like I said, measure it weekly. If it's going down, it's a great sign. It can be something you do instead of getting your body fat measured. People don't tend to gain muscle in their waist, so if that number is going down, you're likely losing body fat and I think that is. I think any piece of data you have can be helpful. But it's a really easy data point to collect and it's a really good sign if your waist measurement is coming down and that your body composition is changing. If it's going up, and going up dramatically, it's probably a good indication that you are gaining some body fat.
Speaker 2:This is the one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just going to say this is probably the number one thing, the first thing I look at when I'm personally coaching someone. This is the number one thing that I care about. Honestly, whether somebody is in a cut or trying to repair their metabolism, this is probably what I really care about the most. Yes, I look at a lot other metrics, other biometrics, but this is a really, really important one.
Speaker 1:I think this is a good one because it's so easy to do, right, you just get a tape measure and you can do it just as easily as you would step on a scale, especially if you are maybe in a spot where you know, okay, I need to repair my metabolism, I know I've got to get my food up, so the scale probably won't be going down. This is a great way where you can maybe see some progress, because what we often see not always, but often what we see with our ladies who do have to start in a metabolic repair phase with us, the scale won't move, but their waist measurement goes down that is a great sign that your body is doing exactly what we are hoping it will do. I think this is a good one. Honestly, you could use that if you were in a metabolic repair phase, you could use this in lieu of the scale. If you know the scale might be triggering, you could just do this.
Speaker 2:True, yeah, okay, so that's the third number that I think is much more meaningful than the scale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Okay. What's the last one?
Speaker 2:Okay. So this one is pretty nuanced and it doesn't really have as much to do with sort of your Well. It does, I think, have to do with your overall health, but it really is going to be an indicator of how easily, if you want to lose some body fat, how easy that process is going to be for you. So the fourth number is your maintenance calories, also known as your TDEE, or your total daily energy expenditure. Those two things are pretty much the same. So what are your maintenance calories? It's how many calories you need to eat to maintain your current weight. So if you are not actively losing or gaining weight, it's amount of calories you are eating every day. It is not the calories you would eat if you want to lose weight. That would be what we would call deficit or cutting calories. So it's just the calories to maintain homeostasis in your body. So here's the thing Everyone has a maintenance calorie level. Most people don't know what that is, but you have one. Whether you track it or not, you have a caloric threshold at which your body will either maintain weight, gain weight or lose body weight. So even if you're eating vastly different calories day in and day out, it's likely an average of how much you're eating over, let's say, a week. That's how I would calculate it. If you're just on a total calorie roller coaster, I would probably have you track your calories for a week and then we would take the average calories you're eating during the week and that's how we would determine your maintenance calories.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's talk about what is healthy maintenance calories. So, for, the recommended daily allowance for an adult woman is 2,000 calories a day. For men it's higher. We like for as a minimum maintenance calorie for our clients. We like to get all of our women up to around 1,800 calories for maintenance calories and most women can get there. Many women can get higher than that, but we're very happy if we can get all of our clients up to about 1,800 calories a day for maintenance, meaning they can just eat 1,800 calories a day and not gain weight. I would say if you're eating upwards of 3 to 4,000 calories a day, that's probably a little high for maintenance calories. On the contrary, like, 1,200 calories for your maintenance calories is too low. It's very low, and we'll talk about why. That's not a great spot to be in.
Speaker 2:Okay, so why this important? Or this number is very, very important, especially if you have some weight loss or body fat reduction goals, is this is the number that's going to dictate how easy or hard it is going to be for you to lose weight. So to lose any significant amount of weight or body fat, you're gonna have to get into a calorie deficit. So you're gonna have to send the signal to your body that you're eating less than your maintenance calories. And it doesn't matter what those maintenance calories are. Your body has to recognize that you're giving it fewer calories. So we like to say, like we like to have 500 calories of runway, but it has to be like 300 to 500 calories a day, meaning you're gonna start eating 300 to 500 less than your maintenance calories every day to lose weight.
Speaker 2:And so if you're eating 1500 calories as your maintenance calories, you, I would say you have no caloric runway. Like we like to say, you can't cut from a stump. I mean, there's just nowhere to cut at 1500 calories. So and it's gonna be very, very hard for you to lose any weight. Sure, you can cut to 1000 calories a day, but it's going to be very difficult, it's gonna be probably nearly impossible to sustain for the period of time you need to sustain it to lose any significant weight and you will likely rebound pretty hard even if you can eat that little.
Speaker 2:So, honestly, the higher your maintenance calories are, the better if you want to lose weight. I think this is the most difficult concept for people to understand is that how much you're eating right now is going to determine how much weight you're able to lose. That and you have to be adherent. But you know, how much caloric runway you have is really a big determinant and how much weight you can lose and how easy it is for you to going to be for you to lose weight. This has nothing to do with how much you know, how much you currently weigh, how much body fat you have on your body. It is really your maintenance calories. Thoughts about that, allison.
Speaker 1:I don't really have anything to add here. I mean it is. It's such an important thing to know. I would agree with you Most people don't know it, but you have a maintenance calories, whether you realize it or not, so figuring that out can be a great tool for you if you do want to change something about your body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so let's talk about that. How do you figure out what your maintenance calories are? And I've had very smart people ask me this who work out all the time and they're like you know, I went to this calculator online and is that how I figure out my maintenance calories? No, I mean it can be, I mean you can start there, but the best way to figure out your maintenance calories is to track your food for two weeks without changing the thing. That's very important. Do not try to be healthier, do not try to be good. Just track what your normal eating patterns are for two weeks and then take the average and take over those two weeks and that is very likely your maintenance calories. I guess, if you don't want to go through the pain of that, you could just pick a calorie level and start eating there for a month or so and see if you gain or lose weight, and that could tell you what range or maintenance calories are. I think the former method is better. That's probably what I would recommend.
Speaker 2:Okay, so next thing that is important to realize about your maintenance calories is the correlation between your maintenance calories and these other numbers. We talked about your body fat percentage and your waist circumference. There is a correlation, but not the direct correlation that you probably think. So a person can have very high maintenance calories and low body fat and a very small waist circumference. I'm thinking of one of our coaches, coach Hillary. I think her maintenance calories are something insane like 2,800 calories and she's, like I don't know, some insanely low body fat percentage and I'm sure has a very small waist circumference.
Speaker 1:But she has a ton of muscle on her body.
Speaker 2:She hasn't done a lot of dieting, so her maintenance calories are very, very high. Okay, so you can have that person, but you can also have a person that can have very low maintenance calories and very high body fat and very high waist circumference. We see this. I would guess this is 50% of our clients, if not more. So you might be thinking, well, how could this be possible? So it's a little bit complex and somewhat dependent on energy expenditure.
Speaker 2:You might be thinking, oh yeah, that person that's eating a bunch, with the low body fat and small waist, works out five hours a day, and it's not true. I think it really has more to do with the health of your metabolism and how healthy your metabolism is, meaning the person's metabolic rate, which is directly related to how much you eat every day. The more you eat, the higher your metabolic rate is probably what's determining how lean they are. So, all this being said, almost no one has I would say no one has a high enough metabolism that they're probably burning. No woman is burning 3,500 calories a day without working out or moving a lot, and you are likely going to have a higher body weight at that calorie level. So that's probably on.
Speaker 2:Those are probably surplus calories, not maintenance calories, but it is very, very possible to have very low maintenance calories and a very high body fat percentage. So I just we just wanna put that marker out there. But in terms of, like you know, why should you know this number, or why is it important? This number really is determined, your roadmap If you want to make some sort of changes to your body. It's a number you want to know before you start any dieting attempt. It's a planning tool and then I would say also from there, it's also a good measure of kind of your long-term health. If you've got good, healthy maintenance calories, you're probably gonna be able to maintain your weight as you age a lot more easily than someone who has a very low maintenance calories. Okay, anything to add on that?
Speaker 1:Not really. This is. You know I was. We were talking about how a lot of people may not know what this number is. If, when we get new clients in, some people do know exactly what they're eating. They've been tracking and they know I'm eating this much. But this is probably the first thing we do with any new client. If they're not sure, as we, we go through that process of figuring out. Well, let's figure out what what you have been eating. So it's it's really, really helpful to know. It's hard to determine what you need to do next If you're not sure what you're doing currently.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, so that that the maintenance calories is really, really important, you know, just for planning purposes, if you, if you want to make some big changes, okay, let's talk about the interplay between these four numbers, okay, and kind of what it means, what's the ideal, and so you, if you can kind of diagnose yourself in these four areas, it can tell you, kind of you know where you sit and what's possible for you, okay, so let's talk about what the ideal would be. So I would think the ideal, you know, for these numbers, is that you have quality, consistent health and nutrition habits. Okay, just as a starter, you go to the gym on a regular basis, you're lifting weights on a regular basis, you have good quality, adequate nutrition day in and day out. You are not a couch potato. So that person is in a good spot because they've got all the health habits in place that they need to make any significant change. Okay, let's also ideal would also be high maintenance calories.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say that 1800 number or above, or above a waist circumference below 35 inches, and I would say body fat percentage somewhere between, I don't know, 23 to 28%. This person is very healthy and in a great spot, and here's why it means that this person is eating enough that she can go out to eat, go on vacations and not worry about gaining weight, and she's going to have plenty of energy to have good workouts in the gym. Her hormones are probably going to be very happy and she's probably also going to like the way that she looks pretty athletic and lean. So, in short, this is all. These numbers represent a body that is a healthy body that is well nourished and thriving. If this person wants to lose a little weight, she's going to have an easy time doing it. Number one healthy bodies tend to be very responsive to weight loss efforts. So if she wants to drop a few pounds for a special occasion, she's going to have plenty of caloric runway to do so and her body will probably respond extremely well. So this is kind of what you want to aim for. If this you know, in this ideal scenario, because this person has good nutrition and exercise habits, she can just calibrate things to make a little change and she's probably going to experience success. She's not going to have to upend her life and figure out when she's going to find a time to lift weights and et cetera, to make changes in her life. So this is the ideal. We don't, you know, if you're not there, don't panic. It's just kind of what you want to move for toward and start with establishing those good quality habits. But this person is in a really, really good spot.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's talk about the next person that maybe has great habits, meaning they're getting to the gym, they are paying some attention to their nutrition, they go on walks. They're not a couch potato, but they have high body fat and I would say kind of you know, around a 35 inch waist circumference and very high maintenance calories, like above 2000 calories or so. Honestly, this is not a bad spot to be in. So probably what's going on with this person is that they are probably their maintenance calories are probably a little high, maintenance are probably they may be in like a surplus situation, but they could improve their body fat and waist circumference very easily by doing a small calorie cut and their body would probably respond pretty quickly. There's not going to be probably much metabolic adaptation with this person. So their body is going to respond very well to eating less and moving more and they would, you know, as long as they can adhere to that, they're probably going to have pretty good weight loss success. So we see that this person too. And they're always like oh, it's so terrible, joe, you know I'm eating so much. Honestly, I would much rather be in this person's spot than the next person I'm going to talk about.
Speaker 2:So the next person I'm going to talk about, they probably have very inconsistent, haphazard habits around nutrition and exercise. I would call you know, maybe like the typical yo-yo diet, or who's on the wagon or not on the wagon? Or if they're on a diet, maybe they're going to the gym, but when they're not on a diet they're not doing much. So no consistent nutrition or exercise habits. They have high body fat, a high waist circumference and low maintenance calories, so 1,500 calories a day or less. Again, I would say this describes over half of our clients. Weirdly enough, women who have dieted a lot have very inconsistent exercise and nutrition habits. They're kind of all over the place because they're kind of going off of one fad diet to the next. So the consistency isn't great with them. Or they are so panicked to lose weight they're hopping from one exercise fad to the next or one diet to the next. So it's just not very consistent.
Speaker 2:So this person typically has spent a lot of their adult life dieting or done some sort of extreme dieting like fasting or maybe optavia or something like that, and so this, I would say, is the worst spot to be in. It can be a really tough spot to be in because your body is probably not going to respond to dieting very well, even though it would be beneficial to reduce this person's waist circumference and body fat percentage. But this person has no caloric runway and, like we said, you can't come from a stub and at these low calories, probably going to experience a lot of weight loss resistance. I would say this person has probably also wasted a lot of muscle on account of the calorie restriction and being low calorie for a long time. So this person is going to have to spend some time boosting their metabolism and getting muscle back on their body. The good news is that their body composition will most likely improve and waist circumference is going to decrease as they go through the reverse dieting process.
Speaker 2:I would say this person is our specialty, but it's a tough slog mentally. But the good news for this person is that you can get out of this spot, but it's going to be. It's not going to be by dieting hard or restricting more calories. I mean, that's not the way out of this spot. So any thoughts about these three scenarios?
Speaker 1:I think you described them perfectly. I haven't done that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that. I think it's really. I think this is the hard thing to grasp is that your weight loss success is largely dependent on this maintenance calorie number, and sometimes there's work to do there. Okay, so I thought it would be helpful just to close with our numbers and we can talk about sort of how these numbers work in a real person.
Speaker 2:Most people refuse to even know they're some of these numbers because they are so mired and shame about their, about the numbers. You know, maybe they have a high waist circumference or they're scared to know what their body fat percentage is. They don't have time to figure out their maintenance calories. I think a lot of women are fearful that their maintenance calories are going to be super high, which is so funny, because that's almost never the case. I mean, I don't think we've even seen someone who has that 3,000 calorie maintenance level maybe one person, and she looked great, I mean. So I mean, you know that's what I always hear and lo and behold, you know I'm scared to track. It's going to be so bad.
Speaker 2:And then when we have them track, it's like, well, I'm eating 1200 calories a day. It's usually very low, but we're here to tell you that the starting point is to know where these numbers are, because it really does tell you where to focus your efforts and energies and how to have the best success. And then you can go about changing the numbers, and we're definitely living proof of that, as are many of our clients. Okay, so, allison, where do you think you fall in terms of how would you, how would you give yourself a grade on the healthy habits? Maybe A, b, c or D? On the maintenance, calories, your waist circumference and your body fat percentage?
Speaker 1:I'll try to go through everything. So habits I will give myself an A Just because I've been doing a lot of these things before I mean 15 or more for a very long time. Years and years and years. They are truly, truly habits. Now I track my food almost every day. I know that's not necessary for me because I live most of my life in maintenance, but for me personally, tracking is freedom. It means that I can go out and have that ice cream cone and, as long as I fit it in, there is no guilt. If I didn't track before I discovered tracking, there was guilt when I would have something like that. So I do track every day, even though I probably don't have to. So I'm good there. I lift weights four days a week and that definitely is a habit. I do not wake up motivated every day. I wake up a lot of days and I just wanna land or the covers and read stupid stuff on my phone, but I just get up because it's a habit. It is not. A lot of times it is not motivation. So good there. I do get in my steps, mostly because I love going on walks and I love playing tennis, and so that is a great, super fun way for me to get in my steps. So I will give myself an A on habits.
Speaker 1:Okay, next number body fat percentage. I typically live around 20% body fat when I'm in maintenance. For me, that is a very happy place to be. When I go lower than that, believe it or not, I start to feel negative effects. So when I cut, I probably get somewhere down to like 16 or so percent 16, 17% and yes, I do like the way I look then, and I will sometimes do that for photo shoots or for summer. But I start to have less energy. I start not sleeping as well, and so for me that 20% is something I can pretty easily maintain. I can eat a lot and still maintain it, and I feel like my hormones are happy and I've got good energy levels. So that is a good sweet spot for me.
Speaker 1:What was the next one? Waste measurement. I'm pretty bad about taking this. I have taken it a few times in the last year. I think it's like 28 inches, so that's where that is at. And then maintenance calories. When I am in maintenance they are somewhere between they're slightly above 2,000. And when I say I track every day, I track very loosely when I'm in maintenance. So I estimate a lot, basically 100% of the time I estimate. I don't really measure a lot when I'm in maintenance, whereas when I'm in a cut I might actually measure things. But yeah, maintenance calories, probably 2,000, up to 2,100-ish, or some days higher. So that is a very healthy maintenance calorie spot to be in. And since I know my maintenance calories, I know exactly what I need to do if I do want to lose a few pounds, because I know what I'm eating and I know what I need to do to spark a little bit of fat loss. Let's see, is that it? Did I touch on all of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think, yeah, you definitely fit in that kind of ideal, optimal category. When you want to lose weight, you can. Your maintenance calories are high enough that you can drop a few pounds without much anguish, assuming you can adhere to a cut, which is another topic.
Speaker 1:I will say I'm going to add, I have not always been in the spot, though I have been the person who had. I've always had the good habits. I've never had a high body fat percentage, never had a high waist measurement, but I have been in a spot where my maintenance calories were low and trying to lose weight from there, trying to cut from the stump, as you call it today, was terrible, absolutely terrible, and I didn't know all of this at the time. So to me it was just frustrating. I remember you know why do I have to eat so little when my friend over here can lose weight on so much more? So that was. That's. Probably the biggest thing that I've changed from my 20s into my 40s is that I eat a whole heck of a lot more now.
Speaker 1:Yeah lose weight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. So for me, okay, looking at the habits, I'm going to give myself a B. I track, well, I don't know, somewhere between an A and a B. I do track my macros pretty regularly and what I will say is I have a good, a very good relationship with exercise and tracking nutrition and activity level. Like they don't, I don't resent having to do them. Like you, I kind of geek out on the data and I like tracking my macros. It's like kind of crossing something. I feel like I've done something for the day. It's very I don't know I'm high in execution. So I like tracking my macros, but I did not always used to. It used to be a nightmare for me because I set them ridiculously low and I was failing every day. But now I have a good relationship with it. If I don't track them, I know I usually go under on protein, so, but anyway, I have a good relationship with the tracking macros. I don't track them obsessively, Like we were just in Rome for, and I did not track anything while I was in Rome. But I'm good at it. I can implement it when need be. Right now I'm lifting five times a week. I would say the I lift somewhere. I mean, right now the circuit I'm doing is a five times a week. I really like that. So the I'm lifting, at least I would say, four to five times a week. I do do one interval cardio training class once a week. It's like a high intensity spinning class. I just like having that cardio training in my lifestyle and I get somewhere between eight to 10,000 steps most days. So I'm gonna give myself, yeah, an A slash B on my health habits. I don't, you know, not every week is perfect, but I like these things. They are, these are I wouldn't say I'm motivated to do them every day, but I know that they definitely improve my quality of life. So good there.
Speaker 2:Okay, I have a I would say usually a 30 inch waist circumference. It's been as high as 33 inches when I was doing a lot of dieting and a lot of yo-yo dieting and I've gotten it down as low as 27 inches for shows, but I don't really have a naturally small waist. I have a very rectangular body shape, but I would say now it's around 30 inches, so in that healthy range. All right. Now I'm about 23% body fat. That's changed over the last few years.
Speaker 2:I used to be able to maintain 20% body fat, but so I don't know. I'll be 50 in a few weeks. I don't know if it's an age thing or maybe a decrease in activity level. 20% is what I can maintain, Like when I'm not for a show, but like when I'm training for a show or coming off of a show. So it could just be. I haven't trained for a show for a while, so I'm just not as active as I working out as much as I am when I'm training for a show. But 23% body fat is around where I sit. And then I have maintenance calories. I'm gonna give a range of 1800 to 2000 because they're probably lower in the winter, because I'm less active, it's just harder to get steps in and I think we're more naturally, we're just less active in the winter. So 1800 to 2000 is my maintenance calories. I've brought that up from 1500 calories a day and yeah, so that's where my maintenance is.
Speaker 2:I would say I do in body scans. Per that I have about 70 pounds of skeletal muscle mass, which is a great place to be in, and I am quite sure I have way better body composition than I had in my 30s for sure, I would guess then. So that would be. I would call that era my yo-yo dieting era doing lots of running, not doing any weightlifting, very inconsistent with my habits, and I would guess that my waist was around 33 inches then and I had body fat above 30%. So this is not a matter of age or anything. It really is a matter of those first things that we talked about your habits.
Speaker 2:So, yes, I would say that I am in a good spot, definitely in a better spot than my 1500 calorie days. So that's how my numbers measure up. So our best advice to you is just start collecting this data. It really helps create a really solid roadmap for you. You don't wanna be guessing at these things and don't let the data scare. You Don't be so afraid or so ashamed that you just don't collect it, and it also makes monitoring progress much more meaningful if you have these data points, and these are way better than just obsessing about the scale. So that's our best advice to you. Anything that you wanna close with Allison.
Speaker 1:I don't think. So I say, if you listen to this podcast, our challenge to you is figure out these numbers and then you can decide where you wanna go from there, even if you don't change anything yet. Just try to figure out where you're at, and it may be very eye-opening. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's all we've got for you today. Have a great week, thanks, bye.