#48 Weight vs. Fat: The Truth Uncovered

🦋✨💙 Welcome to Wellness Wednesdays 💙✨🦋

In this enlightening episode, we challenge conventional wisdom about weight loss and introduce a revolutionary perspective centred around fat loss. Many of us associate healthy living with shedding pounds, but the truth is that focusing solely on numbers can be misleading and detrimental to our overall health. Drawing on cutting-edge technology like Styku, we discuss how to accurately assess body composition—providing better insights into one’s progress beyond just weight.

The episode emphasizes the importance of muscle retention during weight loss journeys and explores how increasing protein intake can lead to better outcomes. We delve into the psychological effects of weight obsession, discussing the cultural pressures that often lead to unhealthy behaviours, and revealing how to reclaim agency over one’s health. We can foster a more balanced and empowering outlook on our wellness journeys by shifting our terminology and mindset.

Get ready to rethink your approach! Tune in for valuable insights that can enhance your health and well-being. Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share your thoughts with us!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 13:51 Understanding Weight vs. Fat
• 51:45 The Launch of Staiku Technology
• 1:46:07 The Problem with Traditional Tools
• 2:24:35 The Importance of Body Composition
• 3:00:48 Mental Health and Weight Management
• 4:13:13 Regaining Muscle: The Key to Health
• 6:25:13 The Role of Exercise and Diet
• 6:28:01 Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, hello everybody and welcome back. I am your host, star Friedenberg, and welcome to this wellness podcast which is called Can't Make this Shit, tuck you Up. All right, I'm trying to get the swing of it. Otherwise, the natural way I'd say, it would flow much, much easier on the tongue, but in this case I can't. So anyway. So seven seconds have passed. So, anyway, ignore me, I'm settling into the space, and today's topic may be quite quick, I would say, but we're going to be talking about well, because I deal with weight loss and I'm not all about just dropping, you know, pounds and kgs. It's all about transformation, about losing fat and gaining muscle, and so that can be quite a different understanding. So it's sort of trying to create the awareness of the understanding of the different understanding. So it's almost sort of trying to create the awareness of the understanding of the different language. So you know what is the difference between weight loss and fat loss, which is something I have to keep repeating in clinics. So hence why the theme of this podcast has come up, because I have a technology called Staiku, which is a fantastic new age tech that you stand on this machine for 30 seconds. It spins you around and will make a 3d hologram of your height, your measurements, your weight, and then can basically send a breakdown of all your measurements, which I dictate as a digital dietician, where you know if, again, if you have never been to one you go to a dietitian. Typically or the olden day version would be they'll take a measuring tape and measure around your key areas and then put you on a scale and then use these things called calipers, which basically are like tongs that pinch your your fat and then, depending on the amount the caliper pinches, then can present an understanding about how much fat percentage you have. And then they use this very ancient and very, very not effective, inaccurate and should be binned bmi calculation to say basically, or basically give you an unhappy face about oh, how much do you? Uh, how much body fat do you have? So what's lovely about this new tech is that it factors in, um you know your lifestyle, your habits, your height, um, your density. It works out your bone density and basically can separate between how much fat you truly have versus you know what your weight on the scale. So, for someone like me, I have a bigger. I have a bigger ability to attract muscle, so I've got a lot more muscle than a regular woman. So my weight on a scale is a lot. So I don't use scale. I don't believe in the scale per se, I don't think it's helpful.

Speaker 1: 3:00

I think, especially in modern day society with focus on mental health, it's not really healthy for the mental health because people can become quite obsessive, quite fearful, which sends a lot of you know, triggering responses to the brain. That puts you in a fight, flight, freeze kind of situation and can become quite obsessive and and then people are not focusing on the right things in life because they're just like oh, I want that, you know, one kilogram less, that one, a little bit less. And then they're going from a place of being healthy to a place of unhealthy, where you can, of course, see, you know, those most common eating disorders which will be either anorexia, could be bulimia, could be BED, those most common eating disorders which will be either anorexia, could be bulimia, could be BED, which is binge eating disorder. So it's kind of like what's happening here. So what I'm trying to create is a philosophy of you know, a client-centered approach which is working, unique to you and everybody is different, so we have to respond differently and that's why I'm super, super happy and really grateful that I've studied a very rare medical system being the Tibetan medicine medical system, where it's really focused on and as well as in. You can get it in Ayurvedic, so Indian medical system and Chinese as well, chinese, traditional Chinese medicine, but the Tibetan medicine really honed it in for me, which is looking at your constitution, your body type, your height, your frame, your size, which can then dictate predisposition to certain things. You know, do you gain muscle easy? Do you struggle to put weight on? Do you struggle to gain muscle? You know what is your natural body type and so from there we work on that and then we can understand. Ok, you know, scales are not what we're focusing on. We're focusing on the quality of your body. Do you feel healthy and do you feel good inside and out? And that's what we will deal with.

Speaker 1: 5:01

And, of course, that will go completely against the modeling society. You know, in America I would say, where it's just basically like size zero, it's like that's not healthy. And I always joke because when you go to all of these museums and I think of like the Louvre as a good example, when you see these portraits that are made from hundreds of years ago, you know, the wealthy and sexy and most people would you know, being drawn nude all over the place, in public areas as well. But you know, beauty was portrayed as being voluptuous, as being more, and now it's being portrayed to be as skinny as a rake, or at least it was back then. But now you know, know, you can see there's a societal shift going on here which is quite good, quite fabulous um, but of course, you know, I'm not a big fan of, you know, the excessively overweight um models that, yes, you know, we're promoting a better um image in society.

Speaker 1: 5:59

That's saying, you know, don't judge, but of course that excessive weight does not equal healthy, which is what I'm focused on. You know, and there are people that are, you know, don't judge, but of course that excessive weight does not equal healthy, which is what I'm focused on. You know, and there are people that are, you know, they've got wider set hips, they've got bigger structures, so they will present bigger. But it's not about that, it's about being healthy and how you feel within your body, and that's what we focused on. So we have to respect that.

Speaker 1: 6:21

Everybody's vehicle is different, and so I'm trying to sort of just again the purpose of this podcast to explain and create the understanding and the right language or use of language between what is weight loss and what is fat loss. And so with me and my practice in my clinic because I deal with a weight, weight management support, so that's helping people lose you know, first of all, bloating that often people confuse, especially around their belly and their back, um, and face around what they confuse as being overweight. Um, it's correcting hormones that will be sending um what I frame as moon face or cortisol face or cortisol belly. So correcting hormones, so getting that in order. And then any excess fatty bits that you know are sitting the most common for men is around the belly, woman it's on the lower lower region, being the glutes, the thighs or even the arms around the tricep area. So it's kind of just understanding. You know why is that arising and how can we address that in a healthy way and make it sustainable and long-term.

Speaker 1: 7:25

When you say weight loss, it's kind of just understanding. You know why is that arising and how can we address that in a healthy way and make it sustainable and long term. When you say weight loss, it's like, literally, you just dropping weight and you're dropping muscle, you're dropping fat, so you're dropping protein, you're basically not in a healthy way, and so my sort of goals with weight management is that we can blast the fat, we can change your diet, we can support your metabolism to boost and increase, because some people unfortunately do have a genetic predisposition where weight just gains because something's not functioning well. And I'm trying to, as a practitioner in the functional medicine capacity, correct the fire or root cause and really do get some great success with doing again this package, creating an outcome to help you get to what your goal will be and also helping you mentally to understand what is a good goal and what is a healthy goal and working with checkpoints or stepping stones to get to that healthy goal, because everything that you want is worth waiting for but does take time. And I use that analogy of you know you can't expect to come for one session and expect an overnight miracle, and it's the same thing you can't expect to go to the gym once and expect to have a six pack. It would be lovely, I mean, that place would be a bazillionaires, but it's unfortunately.

Speaker 1: 8:38

I think it's teaching us the discipline, the principles and values of discipline and, and you know, earning something. And you, you know, and that's why people who really do have fantastic, you know, healthy, ripped bodies, if you will, um, they really have such a wonderful mindset, and I would say, the people who do it naturally as well, not like on hgh, human growth hormone and steroids, etc. But the people who really earn it and are very, they're very gentle, gentle, calm, you know, respectable, very kind in the sense that they, you know, because they understand the, the slug getting up, the motivation, the discipline, doing the same thing every day. You, you know, not giving in to the temptations, that you know that the sugar demon, you know, dawns upon them at the midnight hour, etc. So, yeah, so anyway.

Speaker 1: 9:34

So the purpose of this is to talk about that, right? So, just to just clarify, weight loss refers to a decrease in your overall body weight from muscle water and fast fat loss. And then, of course, there's a huge um, a huge thing now, a huge awareness that again people confuse, uh, being fat with having a lot of water retention as well, which I do work on lymphatic drainage, um, and the infrared sauna that's in the clinic with the preso therapy, so that's really helped. So, again, we were trying to correct the body and understand why is it retaining the water? And you can see. You know people can retain up to five kilograms of water. It's really incredible. So we can help correct that. Then you achieving immense weight loss.

Speaker 1: 10:17

And another big one is the carbs that one consumes. You know are heavy, dense, they porous, they absorb water. So I think of putting you know. If you think of putting rice in water, or you soaking oats overnight, it balloons up, it gets bigger. Or pasta as well. It's another good example. You, these things take water in and they swell, right. So that's the same thing, which is I don't know, I can give many examples, stop me. But the whole purpose is that you know that's what same thing with chia seeds. I don't know, I can give many examples, stop me.

Speaker 1: 10:45

But the whole purpose is that you know that's what happens quite literally in your body. So, of course, being you know, my specialism is in gut health, and gut health then affects everything else. So I deal with everything else as a result of that. But the premise is you know, the gut health doesn't work well, the digestion's slow, people are constipated, they're not going to the toilet on time because they're not drinking enough water, they're overly stressed, they're not exercising, so getting the body flow, the movement, the peristaltic movements to push things out. So all of that excess carb then will sit in the body and then swells up and then it will show right.

Speaker 1: 11:17

So when you go on diets, the biggest thing that diets always say is they make you, you increase your water intake, your exercise output and then, of course, your reduction in carbs, and then all of a sudden people see this, like you know, in one to two weeks, this quite dramatic shift and like, wow, I'm losing so much. It wasn't fat that you've lost, you've just taken away health imbalances that you were creating. And by implementing what would be classed as a normal routine if you want to be inverted commas healthy and achieve the optimal health outcome by doing the basics, that's what you're starting to see. And then I always sort of frame that the first month that you're on a big regime is not really that was fat, it was actually just health imbalances. But it always acts as a great motivator because you start to see you fit into clothes better, you start to feel better, more energetic, less sluggish, less brain fog. Um, you know, people uh, you know provide a lot of compliments to you. You look in the mirror and you go, wow, I feel better. Maybe the face looks slimmer, the the quality of the eyes start to sparkle more, the hair starts to shine better, the skin, uh, the complexion of your skin, is more radiant. So you know, it's just all these motivators just to keep you going. But it's sort of, for me and my, my belief system is from that month two onwards, that's where the key stuff starts happening. So so you know, again, work with a health coach wherever you are in the world, because they can really get you into doing this effectively and will customize you get targeted results much faster. So what I love about that. So then, when we go on to what fat loss is, it refers to weight loss of just fat, only bad guy, the jelly guy, the one we don't want in our body, but we do want some, but not too much, right, um? And it's a more specific and healthy goal rather than just general weight loss. So, again, you know, because from a very young age I was sent to hypnotherapy and so, um, I, I, you know, I loved, I loved to eat a lot.

Speaker 1: 13:25

So, basically, comes back, comes back to my father. My father was in the war. If you listen to one of my previous podcasts, because now I'm starting to spill all my secrets. Um, my father was in the war as a child and he had to hide and basically it was subject to starvation, um, and deprivation. And you know there was a, there was a lot of things he didn't have and so that created a childhood trauma in him. So as a father he didn't want to pass that on. But of course he did the opposite extreme, where there was just an abundance, eating too much, having all the candy in the world. There was no restriction, there was no uh anything, so we just had too much and, of course, without having a parent creating boundaries. You're like I will have it all.

Speaker 1: 14:08

So my mom very strict with food, very slim, very. She was basically a model, a beautiful, tall, uh, gorgeous, but you know, very mindful food, very. You know typical ladylike mindset where it was like eat nothing, exercise, uh, and look bloody good, right, and she did. Sorry, my, I hit the bottom of my mic and I made this really horrible sound so I had to cut it out, so just sort of mind glitch. But basically, from carrying on from the last part is that my mom did look the part. She looked really good, but I don't know the quality of her insides because, you know, so many years later. I only have the knowledge now.

Speaker 1: 14:47

But yeah, but it's coming to that understanding because with her, you know she had a you know fear in mind, said don't get fat, don't get this, you need to be attractive, you need to. You know how do you lose weight. And you know the belief system of back then was very different to the knowledge and empowering understanding that we have now about how to look after your health and how to get better. So as a kid I was just eating so much and then she was a bit worried so she sent me to a hypnotherapist to go lose weight. Right, I was like, oh gosh, can you imagine I don't even know if I was this elderly gentleman and you have like a young child going like how do you lose weight? You have like a young child going like how do you lose weight?

Speaker 1: 15:26

But what has stuck with me out of everything that he's done was just one principle which was the power of your language, and he was saying that you know when we use the word loss so I want to lose weight is that, you know the most, probably one of the most common, probably, sentences that is said on this planet but I want to lose weight, I want to be rich, I want to have the best body you know, I want to be happy, you know all of these common ones. But weight loss, I'm sure, is on on the high list. But he said the word that you need to delete, the word loss. And I was like what do you mean, sir? I'm only a child, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Speaker 1: 16:04

He said well, think of the implication of the word loss. When you say I have lost something, you imply you want to find it. And so when he said I want to lose weight, he says that's why people lose weight temporarily. And yet when they finish their diet or they have a rebound or whatever relapse, then they gain weight and you know back. But then they end up gaining more than previously as well. And I thought that was quite interesting. Because he says when you say the word loss, then you imply you want to find it again, if not more, because you don't want to lose it ever again. So you're going to find even more.

Speaker 1: 16:42

And he said to me use the word I want to get rid of, because when you want to get rid of something, there is hell, no, I do not want that back, hell no, and I'm like that's very powerful and that basically out of everything and I still like candy from there. But basically he did implement a foundational principle of the power of language. So I'm just, obviously, because of the theme of this podcast, is just passing that little, that little golden nugget onto you as well. It's like, think about how you're saying things and is that, is that a possibility that you can implement that maybe use of phrase somewhere else in your life? You know, I wanna, I don't know, I can't think of an example now because the only weight loss is the theme in my head, hence why I'm talking about it. But you know, and it's just might be to you, do you want to? Are you thinking about that?

Speaker 1: 17:33

You're, you've got some extra, you know, kilograms, pounds, that you want to shift, and it's kind of like you're struggling with that. Just maybe even start with just the simplest thing is I want to get rid of an extra five kilograms, you know, I want to get rid of it, you know, and then maybe that can also help with help with um, help with shifting the paradigm, right. So what I? Why? Why I love this tech that I got called the PsyQ is because what happens is people get on the scale. I'm just going to use a simple analogy of you 100 on the scale, and then you train really hard, you're feeling good, you're feeling motivated, you notice your clothes start to shift and then you get on the scale. After, let's just say, three months of effort, the scale is the same. And that is a complete mind effing thing. Hey to you, because you think, and it absolutely destroys your mental health, and you go like well, I'm completely demotivated.

Speaker 1: 18:29

What's the purpose of it all? Like, why am I doing this? What the hell? Like the scale hasn't changed? But what people struggle to differentiate is what weight have you actually lost? Um, that's actually weight itself, or muscle or fat, and also what have the like? Like a seesaw of proportional change, what has? What fat have you lost and what muscle have you gained? And that's why I love the styco machine, because it actually can uh, through its uh technology, differentiate so it can go okay, the scale, the weight, actually says it's the same, but actually you've gained x amount of kilos in muscle mass and you've dropped x amount of kilos in body fat, and sorry, I always talk kilos because that's just how I was raised, so I know my term, the metric. I don't follow imperial system, so, yes, but you just go with numbers, just so. Yeah, I just want to talk about that.

Speaker 1: 19:29

So here's some information to help you understand that ways that you're actually losing fat. So you know if you're not working with a healthcare professional, and that's sort of the game. The sort of purpose of this podcast is give you things to understand from the comfort of your own home. So when you're on a weight loss journey, you may track your weight loss progress using the scale, and while this can be helpful, most scales don't differentiate between fat loss and muscle loss. Sorry, now I'm reading my article, but I've just said that to you, right? So a body fat scale can be a more accurate picture of your body composition by measuring the percentage of fat and muscle you have. You can also get some skin fold calipers to estimate your body fat percentage, and I use the emphasis estimate, not factually calculate, right? All of these things are an algorithm and estimation, but this takes practice to ensure accuracy.

Speaker 1: 20:21

So what I will say is, if you are going to be a person who wants to weigh, who wants to measure. Try and get one of those really cool latest futuristic scales that are available, because they can measure a lot about your body other than just what you weigh, and there are some that can calibrate to an app on your phone and then it can also give you some diagnostic tools to understand. So then you can start to see shift changes, and especially as a woman, because we have a cycle every month, so there are different times in your cycle where weight can start to increase or decrease, where your estrogen levels start to peak, and then you start to feel fitter, you start to feel more energetic, you start to output more, so that's like when you start to train you really in a much stronger state, so therefore you can increase your strength based training as well. So that can be quite helpful. So there are again love, love, mr Amazon. I know he's destroying the planet. I don't. I know it's not his name, by the way, but I call him Mr Amazon. I love him very much because you know I ask him for something and then tomorrow I have it, but of course it's not great for the planet, so I know there's a con to it, but for me and my practicality and lifestyle. I'm a big thumbs up, you know, because it's really supporting me as a person as well as my practice, because it makes things widely available to people to try and improve their health from the comfort of their own home. So, yes, there are so many great tools out there that you can buy from there or slash. If you want to go to the high streets, you can do that as well, so that can start helping you to improve your practice.

Speaker 1: 21:56

Because one big thing that I love is I'm a you know if I have to boil it down is I'm a researcher. I like patterns, I like to see things, I like to compare data, and that comes from when I used to be an auditor. You know the principle that got drilled into us. If there's one thing I can take away is if it's not documented, it's not done. How do you know things have changed unless you have the original starting point? And it's the same thing I see in the clinic as people go oh, I don't really know if things have changed, I'm not really sure.

Speaker 1: 22:25

Put them on the stycu, boom, it's like well, it says here you've lost more than like 30 centimeters cumulatively or more. You know, your weight has definitely shifted. You had a bounce back on your previous session. Uh, why? Because you know something happened or you had to travel for work, but if we start from our initial first session, look how much progress you've made and that's just such a great mental health boost. So, yeah, so I love that.

Speaker 1: 22:50

So what you know I'm shifting into here is that we want to focus on, you know, again, programming yourself going, want to focus on getting rid of fat, right, focusing on the fat loss, you know, not the weight loss, right. So shifting that um, that talk you have, but also that um in which will then dictate on what happens and how your protocol will be, will also be varying and shifting. And one big one that I like and encourage is if you can incorporate into daily practices mct oil, medium chain triglycerides, which is just a really good oil. It's direct derived from coconut, so you have coconut oil as well, which you can cook with. Or you can drink um, you know electrolyte water as well, but just really good to add a teaspoon of that just into a shake, protein shake, smoothie by itself or, as I do, you know, like a bulletproof coffee kind of thing. Then you can do it like that and that just helps enhance because it's really good for you. So, and then, of course, going on paleo, keto, kind of high, high fats, low carb diets really really helpful for that shift as well. And keto, of course, big, big emphasis on keto, because that's literally the premise of this, whereas in back in my day it was known as the Atkins diet.

Speaker 1: 24:05

Right, so many weight loss programs. They claim to help you lose weight quickly and easily, right. However, it's important to note that a significant amount of weight might include the water and the muscle loss. So sort of just going back to what I was saying earlier in this podcast. So losing muscle, oh, big, no. No, it can be very detrimental to your overall health, because it's healthy, because it's really needed and supports many, many things. You know it keeps um, because muscle is attached to your bones, so it's affecting your posture, right.

Speaker 1: 24:35

So big emphasis on that, um, and it can put your body out and it also can displace where your organs sit as well, which is a big thing, because when you know your kidneys are dropping, your intestines are dropping, it's pushing on your reproductive health, you know. Then maybe uh onto your bladder as well, and then prostate problems, um, reproductive health problems, bladder problems, you know. And then in chinese medicine we have this sort of cycle of life, if you will, about how the organs work and one, and then they have been able to prove that one, just a certain organ, will have a knock-on effect to another specific organ. So if that one is out, then you got the whole chain of effect that then goes out. So you don't really want that to happen. So, please, muscle is important and I love the new, the new societal shift of, like Pilates, it's like just become this huge thing. It's blown up now and it's about skinny girls before are now lean but built with core strength, and I love it because it's again a huge emphasis on muscle. So it's not skinny girls with no muscle, it's like skinny girls with muscle, now the new sexy. So I love that right.

Speaker 1: 25:42

So so losing muscle can be very detrimental and it also will then affect, as your outcome is, it will navigate, your everyday task as well, and I just clearly thinking of, like you know, can you pick your child up? Can you pick up certain things? Can you move things? You know how, how is your posture going to be when you're sitting and there's just no muscle to hold your your upper torso up, etc. So maintaining a healthy percentage of muscle has several benefits, which others than other than I've mentioned will be about regulating your healthy blood sugar levels, maintaining healthy fat levels like triglycerides and your cholesterol in your blood, and also it controls inflammation as well. So there have been studies done that have linked to a higher fat to muscle ratio, so aka more muscle than fat, and if that happens and that links to chronic diseases. So common ones are metabolic syndrome, heart disease and diabetes. So if you know me, I'm either talking about the biggest things or it's diabetes or cancer. These days it's kind of like which is your poison? Well, hopefully none of them, but you know it's the most common of the poisons out there at the moment.

Speaker 1: 26:48

So maintaining muscle mass may also reduce the risk of age-related muscle loss, which is great, which can result in frailty and also potentially disability as well. You know the big common things people need walkers, people need wheelchairs, people need the little moped bikes to get around, just to go to the shops or anything simple. So you kind of want to avoid that so further. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn when you rest. So I don't know the stats anymore, but when I was younger, I got told that, um, the more muscle you have, uh, it burns 50 more calories extra, and I was like, wow, so actually, ironically, in order to survive, so the muscle needs more nutrition. So you can eat more, which is fantastic to hear, especially for me, because I love eating, I'm a huge foodie but basically the benefit is, the more muscle you have, the more calories and nutrition it needs to survive, and thus you can actually get away with eating a different amount of calories. So then you can burn more and then hence why, the stronger you are, you know, the more ripped you will be as well, but of course, in a in conjunction with the calorie controlled diet. This, you know, good, good for you.

Speaker 1: 28:05

But again, for how many calories you need will be dependent on what are your goals. You know, if you're training, body lifting, you crossfit, or you're doing a competition, and depending what kind of competition? Versus, is it running or is it weight lifting? Um, and then, of course, versus. You know, if we go to gender profile, you know, typically speaking, men are genetically stronger and thus genetically usually have more muscle than women and, as a you know, varying amounts can happen, that women may need a different amount of calories than men, and then, of course, just factoring into the account of going back to the first thing about body composition, so losing weight in the form of muscle can decrease the amount of calories you burn. So that's kind of like this vicious cycle the less you have, the less you can have um. So and that's what happens is that it will make it easier to regain any weight you lose in the form of fat as well.

Speaker 1: 29:03

So what's very interesting is um fat cells, which is when I trained, when I did um a fat loss injection. So like deso therapy was the one I did, which is injecting and it's an aesthetic treatment. I don't offer it anymore because it wasn't aligning with my values when I was starting to get more and more into health and finding more natural ways to get rid of fat. But the idea is is that when you input or your consumption of calories is more than what you burn, then the excess will then turn into fat pockets, right, so fat cells will grow. But the thing is, when you lose weight, the fat cells just shrink, but they don't disappear, and so that is why it's so easy to regain fat. You know when one does so.

Speaker 1: 29:54

What I like within the clinic is that now I don't offer the deso anymore. I mean now it's become a lot more common in the UK, for the latest version is called lemon bottle, but I'm not a fan of injecting non-natural things into the body because it just goes against everything I offer. But I was having my arm, you know, sort of twisted in pools and going like, please offer this, please, we need this, you know. But then what I have since found is a non-invasive lipo machine which is topical. Using a machine to break down fats destroys the fat cells and then you will pass them through over the week, which is really helpful, and then of course I in my, in my specific protocols, I then flush them out through the colonic. We have the presotherapy, we do metabolism boosting vitamin shots as well, so call it the fat burner and I love it because then we getting rid of in my own special, customized way, because no one offers the sort of package of treatments that I do so we can just really nail and attack every angle and just nail the head, the tip of the head that we can basically address destroying the fat cells, so it prevents the regrowth from happening. So it's really, really lovely, which, in my purpose, is more health related rather than aesthetic related, because then we're increasing your longevity to be healthier overall, right.

Speaker 1: 31:23

So how to lose fat and maintain or gain muscle. So there are a few things that you can do to try to lose weight in the form of fat and either maintain or gain muscle mass. So the biggest one that I harp on about is increase your protein. Eat as much protein as possible, and it will shock you actually, because when I talk about fiber, you know, when I say how much fiber one should eat today, people like, oh my God, I like literally don't even do anything 10% of that, and it's kind of the same thing with protein. So I'm averaging.

Speaker 1: 31:57

Or let's just not talk about meat. Let's say I recommend on average about 150 grams of protein a day, and if actually you start to you know, use your labels and figure out how much you are really consuming, you'll start to see that actually it's not that easy and, you know, not a lot of high sources of protein are available. So it's quite a conscious effort and it's not a cheap effort as well, because the most common you can think, okay, there's meats you can get, but there's a lot of other sources where you can consume, and I'm thinking protein shakes, I'm thinking eggs, I'm thinking protein cereals, I'm thinking protein bars. You know there are a lot of ways, and bone broth is the biggest one that I recommend, but there's a lot of ways to incorporate protein into your lifestyle. That's not just strictly meat, but it is with a conscious effort.

Speaker 1: 32:45

So protein is an important nutrient for variety of bodily functions and I think, because my mom told me that she wasn't feeding me all of this nonsense baby food that you were getting in the shops back when I was a kid, she was taking steak and potatoes or mash and blending it in a blend and she was feeding that to me, and I think that has really set me up for a good future, because people often say I look 10 years younger than I do, which I highly take the compliments. So thank you very much, um, and you know I think it's allowed me to. You know my mind is very sharp as well, so I think it's really, really helpful that I can be on the ball and I think that, and I believe that it's really due to the protein, because it contains so many compounds, basic amino acids, that builds the fundamental building blocks of our mind, our body, and the big thing that I talk about is the integrity of the collagen that holds, you know, collagen. Everyone thinks about the face and the aging, but it's like no one thinks, only me, only me. I think like this a bit weird, but hey, here we are. But you know, I think about the integrity of the skin, of the organs that are holding our system together. If we think of the skin and the collagen that's holding our skin just starts to all just give up and you know, like, you know flump, you know just drops everywhere Our organs are going to displace and that's going to create a lot of knock on health issues that we don't want, that are, are unnecessary. That just could be kept up with protein and it does hurt me in some ways is that a lot of?

Speaker 1: 34:20

Um, a handful of clients that come in that do make the choice to be vegan or not eat protein. Um, that you can just go like your health would literally just improve if you just ate some meat, and it could be. You don't have to eat the meat itself, but, you know, consuming a different form protein, that could just change your game. So, you know, not everyone needs to eat meat. There are certain body compositions that I say, but there are people that definitely more people than not that would benefit from having it. But not that obsessive when you see those carnivore men that you know there's extremes and there are, you know. Those are the ones where I think moderation, variation to balance lifestyle and diet, right.

Speaker 1: 35:10

So if you find that you struggle to break down the meat, of course you you know you can take enzymes as well. That can help support digestion and energy production. It can regulate the fluid balance. It supports the immune health as well. That can help support digestion and energy production. It can regulate the fluid balance. It supports the immune health as well.

Speaker 1: 35:20

But protein is important for maintaining muscle. I think you can't have one without the other. And, the most important, it also helps to support new muscle growth, especially when you're losing weight as well. So high protein diet is associated with promoting fat loss while preserving fat free mass. So, furthermore, there's a study that shows between you know, six to 12 months in length, and they found that when having a high protein diet it also prevents weight regain after fat loss. Protein can also make you feel more full, which is very helpful. So that then helps reduce your overall food intake, so it reduces the risk of snacking.

Speaker 1: 36:00

And then you know, of course, having that feeling sluggish and going for the not so good foods that are available, and I think of like biscuits that are available when you're in corporate or you know snacky bits that you go, oh, I shouldn't have, but I just I just want a little bit of a nibble, and then you get caught in that sugar, uh spike and swing right. And then excess calories. Because it's shocking, you can just have a couple of biscuits, think, oh, it's innocent, but actually if you see how many calories are there, you're like I could have literally had a whole meal for the equivalent of those two biscuits. So well, protein needs, uh, differ depending on your age, your health, your sex and your physical output or activity levels. Consuming around 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram. So we can work at it ona customized basis of your body weight to support your muscle mass retention and fat loss with dieting. So there was a study done. So, according to a 2020 to 2025 dietary guideline for americans, um, the average adult should consume, they say, for an average per male, is 34 to 56 grams per day, um, and then a female is 34 to 46 grams a day. I don't think so, I think more. I think about 150 grams a day on average. So, but again, you can work with it because some people are really small. You know, there are some ladies that are literally a third of my weight. So of course, then, a third of in proportion, but as high as possible and as much as possible is what I'd say, but not, you know, having 10 steaks in one meal kind of obsession. So of course, there are reasons and certain health reasons as well medical conditions that you need to ensure that you can't. You know that you wouldn't compromise your health as a result of increasing your protein intake significantly, because I think of heart conditions, you know, too much red meat, cholesterol, etc. So it's important to, of course, speak to a healthcare practitioner before significantly altering your protein intake or making other large dietary changes.

Speaker 1: 38:00

Your biggest and most important friend is exercise, and exercise is the most effective way to encourage that fat loss rather than muscle loss. And unfortunately, as much as you want to, you cannot target fat loss right. You can't go. I've got fat on my belly, so I'm going to do exercises that will work on my belly. The gods above decide where you'll lose, and it's generally an overall loss, um. But you start to see shifts and I think when people go oh you know, my belly is significantly dropped, probably because that wasn't fat like I was going with before. It could be bloating, could be water retention, right. So there's been a review of six studies found, um, that older adults with obesity who engaged in cardio and weight training at least three times per week while following a calorie restricted diet retained 93 percent more of their muscle than those who did not exercise.

Speaker 1: 38:50

Exercise is your best friend, and also a balance between strength-based and cardio-based as well, because they all offer different reasons for why one should do it. And exercise alone isn't actually an effective strategy to maintain muscle mass with dieting, but combining exercise with a higher protein intake may help to optimize your results. So I mean, over the years, the, the ratio of proportion, like so much to the point where I'm not even sure anymore what's correct. But you know they say that common expression abs are made in the kitchen, right? So it's actually more about your diet rather than exercise, where I've seen 70%, 60% is in the kitchen and then 40% is the exercise. So you know one alone. So it's not the fact that you can eat whatever you want, how unhealthy you want, and then because you're exercising every day, then it's okay. No, it's actually more predominantly about what you're putting in your mouth, and of course that will also dictate your energy output as well. So if you're feeling sluggish and heavy and uncomfortable, of course you're gonna be like maybe I'll go to gym tomorrow, and then that tomorrow is three months later, right? So the CDC generally recommends that adults get about, or at least, 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity and at least two days of muscle strength because training exercise per week. But yeah, like I say, good, a good balance between the two.

Speaker 1: 40:11

Another thing is about following a reduced calorie diet. So to to lose weight, you must create a calorie deficit, that's so you're putting something in. Uh, what you're putting in has to be less than what you're burning, otherwise you're going to be gaining rather than losing. So you can create a calorie deficit by eating fewer calories or exercising, but preferably doing both. However, cutting your calories too much may lead to a greater loss of muscle rather than fat.

Speaker 1: 40:39

So aim to moderately reduce the number of calories you consume. You can reduce that when you consume by eating more whole foods, which is fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein. You know, not having all the extra um or like extra skin, like on the chicken. So the most common one is like having a chicken breast rather than chicken thighs and then if you're going to have a piece of steak, don't have that slither of fat and avoiding highly fat um proteins, which I think, like bacon is a really good example, streaky bacon especially right, and increasing your healthy fats. So, like I say, mcts, good olive oil, that kind of thing, nuts as well. Those are really good protein shakes as well, um, making sure there's not a lot of additives. There's a really really good brand um of protein shake that's also pro vegan. So if you want to know that, please contact me directly and I can obviously get you um some recommendations as well, because I'll have to factor in some other factors as well. Um.

Speaker 1: 41:41

But also the most important is cutting back on processed foods and ultra processed foods, right. So sugar, sweetened beverages, sodas biggest one. I remember hearing something, uh, hearing something. I remember hearing again when I was kids. It was all information. As a kid I was just like absorbing it like a sponge. But they said that if you're someone who drinks a lot of beverages sodas, we call them cool drinks, you call them soft drinks, wherever in the world you are, um, but basically there's a stat that says, on average, if you drink a lot of these drinks and then you cut just that out of your diet, you can lose up to five kilograms as a result. So that's how bad it is.

Speaker 1: 42:22

You know, I remember one of my very first partners, uh, when I was in university, would drink about two liters of coca-cola a day and absolutely no water and he actually had I know now, uh, inflammatory bowel disease. But it's just, that's crazy, isn't it like? You just think, like, how do you survive on that rocket fuel? Um, you know, coca-cola, you can literally like act as a toilet cleaner. It can remove blockages from pipes. You know, it's a bit bit frightening, but highly accessible. And when I was in Mexico last year, I was shocked to see that the big trolleys coming up the size of the coca-colas were even bigger than I've ever seen in my life. I think they were like four or five liters. So just crazy. Um, sorry, hashtag coca-cola, um, so, yes, other big one is about processed meats, so the quality of meats I always think of uh, what's that one bologna of meat?

Speaker 1: 43:17

So always think of, what's that one Bologna? Not good Salami has lots of fat bits inside. So you kind of want good quality, not processed. And then of course, your good old fried foods, deep fried, and oil you just want to cut out because that's just not supportive for what we're aiming to do here. So of course, again, before you make any massive decisions, you know that can be quite dramatic.

Speaker 1: 43:39

And also you just don't want to go cold turkey and just do something because it's not necessarily sustainable and increase the risks of, or the risk of rebound, a big fan of like, slowly, slowly, slowly, just remove one thing at a time and just adapt and get used to it so it can make that long-term success more sustainable and more likely and more probable. But of course you get personalities that are like I'm stopping smoking now and that's it after they smoke like two, three boxes a day and they just can do it. Um, but with food it's, it's a tricky business. Food, food's very alluring, you know. The sugar demon is always there, or the salty demon as well, you know. So you just got to be careful.

Speaker 1: 44:22

But so, and also the big one now as well, which I'm seeing a lot of, especially with the Manjaro, the Ozympic is just talk to a healthcare professional that specializes in this about how much calorie deficit is right for you, right and what are you in conjunction with your goals? And making sure it's a stepping stone, because a lot of people on the, on the jabs now they're just completely not eating. It's destroying their health. They're like I feel great, I would say, in mindset, because they're a lot less, but they're creating other long-term health complications as well. So, you know, cutting too many calories, you know, can only lead to a greater loss of muscle mass and which then, of course, can be harmful to your physical as well as mental health as well. So just yeah, just knowing the difference between the twos. So my takeaway conclusion is that losing weight in the form of fat rather than muscle should be priority, right? So, like I said earlier, a body fat scale or a skinfold caliper could be useful for monitoring fat loss rather than tracking your body weight alone. And again, also working with a professional will be very helpful. Who's ever knew you or in the way that you want to receive help and support with yeah. And then there's other simple ways to assess fat loss, which is, you know, measuring your inches.

Speaker 1: 45:46

Me, I'm a big fan about how do your clothes feel, you know, do you have gold pants? You know, does it feel looser when you put the button on? When you sit up after a long day? Do you have that line? Um, because, uh, this I'm just going to use, your trousers were just too tight, um, you know how does it feel around the arms, et cetera. So that's how I sort of track it. Uh, so you know, and you can say it, from your waist, your hips and just noticing those changes.

Speaker 1: 46:11

So I think that's the best method. You know, my thing is, you know, I want to, you know, just not specific to my story, but I prefer to encourage people to say what is a goal dress size or pant size that you want to fit into, and let's sort of work our way to there. And then you can prioritize that by changing and altering your diet, which is increasing your protein with the right kind of protein, exercising more and then moderately restricting your calories, all right. So, just so you know, that's the difference between the two, and just maybe see if there's just a bit of a mindset shift, a power of language shift as well, and just maybe more of a. I'll focus more on, maybe, thinking about my protein and sort of what are my goals with regards to this? All right, so wishing you a lovely day or slash night, wherever you are in the world, and look forward to welcoming you back to the next episode on this podcast. Bye.