The Chain Effect Podcast

Apples or Pears? How Exactly Body Shape and Body Composition Matter for Health

• Chain Effect

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We know BMI and weight are not the best indicators of health risk and longevity, so what are some better metrics we can use to track our progress? How can we improve these numbers? If your hips don't lie and you've got a badonkadonk, you could be at a shape advantage compared to an android (and no, not the phone).

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In this episode, we compare apples to pears, find out what's really going on inside that beer belly, and poke fun at each other's body shapes.

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Welcome to the Chain Effect Podcast, where a physical therapist and a dietitian married with two kids juggle the struggle of running a business, raising a family, and prioritizing our own health, all while trying to have as much fun as possible.

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We're your hosts, Taylor Pope, doctor of physical therapy, and

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Caroline Pope, registered dietitian.

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Together, we own and operate a health facility bringing together physical therapists, dieticians, personal trainers, and active recovery services to create what we call the Chain Effect. So, super proud parent moment this past weekend. Bennett, who has been doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu since November last year. It's

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about three and a half months, four months. Yeah.

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Had his first competition in the light featherweight category, which is 46 to 55 pounds. No submissions. And you have to be doing it from zero to six months or something like that. So there's some caveats to, you

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know. In his age, six to seven years old, right? He's six. He's like six and a half right now.

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So we sign up for, his coaches are like, oh yeah, he's ready to compete. And we're like, really? It doesn't really seem like he's even remotely paying attention and knows what to do at any given time.

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Yeah, because there's a lot of technical things that we're trying to learn and struggling. It's very

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technical. It's very technical. It's like when they do this, you do this, and da-da-da-da-da. And he's always been athletic and strong, so we thought he would do a good job with this. But anyway, so we sign him up. It's$175, and it's single elimination. So the rounds last two minutes. So we dedicate our entire Saturday morning to this, and it could be over– In two minutes.

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Yeah. I'm like, what do you mean? Is it just that one? Yeah. Like just one match he's doing

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done and then, you know, he could lose and that's it. So we're going into it with an open mind and we signed him up for two divisions. So he at least is going to definitely have two different matches. So we get there. He's the ninth seed out of nine. And he's got to do a match just to get into the bracket. So where everyone else is starting, he's got to do a match and win it just to get into that.

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Yeah. I didn't realize that.

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Yeah. And so I'm, you know, and I'm, I'm online, like I'm looking at these kids profiles, like, like doing like,

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Oh, he's scouting against Tyler Moore. Go into

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the, the, the, um, academy's website to, you know, see where these guys train to see if this place looks legit, you know, always going against a seven year old. Yeah. Super intense. So anyway, he starts off and he, you know, in his first match, it seemed like he wasn't quite ready for the level of intensity

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at first. This kid is like a monkey, like running over. This kid was attacking him, like spinning him around the floor.

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Definitely moving at a speed of 10. And Bennett was moving at a speed of like six and like tackles him to the floor. And by the way, we know nothing about scoring of jujitsu. We know nothing about who, how to know who wins or anything and takes them to the floor. Boom. The kid's up two points and these rounds last two minutes. And so Bennett is quickly realizing that he's like, In a dog fight for, you know, for whatever,

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you know, this match. He's looking over his coach and us with like these eyes like, oh. Like

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this is intense. Yeah. So anyway, all of a sudden, like something clicks in him and he starts like getting aggressive. And all of a sudden he's doing the moves that he's been practicing for months that I'm just like, you know, do you know at all what you're doing? And he's doing these sprawls and then he's circling around. And eventually he, he takes the back, which is basically getting the kid in like a choke hold and, and getting his feet like into the, basically the crotch of the other kid and holding him down. Yeah. And all of a sudden the, the ref is like four points. And I'm like four points. Like he just, he's winning. He's winning. So he took the lead. And, uh, then he does this other thing, gets him in closed guard. and wins this first match and we're just like oh my gosh and it could have ended there and we would have been thrilled yeah because he you know had a win and we thought it was going to get harder and harder but there he goes he wins seven matches in a row back to back back to back and You know, and, and he, so he wins gold in the no gi category, which is basically, you know, they're wearing like dry fit t-shirts and shorts. So it's, it's without the like traditional outfit. And then he gets all the way to the finals in the gi category and ends up losing. Um, but it was amazing. So he got silver and gold in his first competition and we're just very proud, very proud

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parents. He's always been a little spider monkey. That's how I describe him. Like, and just amazing. a lean, mean fighting machine. So it was really cool to see. And, you know, we, we know that the next tournament could be very different, um, a different competition level or whatever, but it was very exciting. We were, all of us were, all the parents were just on a high. Yeah. And

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it was also so cool because, you know, as you know, we've talked about some of Bennett's struggles with like attention and stuff like that. And, you know, just to have, um, Like just a huge self-confidence boost, a huge like self-esteem, you know, cause he'll often in sports just come away with like, I'm not that good at that. Or, you know, so-and-so he's like pointing to the kids who are better than him and for him to just be. celebrated and just win.

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Yeah. And we were hoping it would be a good motivation to like keep going to practice. Cause you take them and we take them, you'd mostly take them, but like three nights a week. And that is a lot. And we are really starting to feel how other parents are with taking their kids to activities, right at dinnertime and that whole thing, splitting up, dividing and conquering. Um, and it's a lot, but we're on a high, we can't stop watching those videos. I can't stop

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watching it. And you know, I was always that dad too, who was like, why are these parents, they're so invested in their kids' sports. Like, don't they want to be playing sports? But now I get it. Like, I was totally all in. All about it. All in. I could have watched him do it all day long. And so it was just really cool for him to see. And that kind of, I mean, that kind of has a loose tie-in to what we're talking about today, which is body shape. And, you know, Bennett is like a lean, mean string bean of a kid, right?

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And has been since he was a baby. I know a lot of kids change from when they're a baby, but he's always been...

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Super lean.

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I mean, we could see his ribs when he was a baby. He would never really gain weight. I mean, he'd eat plenty and it was just his body type. And then we look at our other son, which is funny, a little opposite. Always the biggest baby anyone's seen. And still, you know, just... What did

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the pediatrician say when we took Tali to one of his first weigh-ins? They're like, you got a roll of quarters in his diaper or something like

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that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's just different. And so today we were talking about body composition, body metrics specifically, a lot more than just the weight because we know there's a lot of factors that influence people's body shape, body size. But we're going to talk about, break down some metrics today that can be helpful for longevity, for health. And what you can do to improve those numbers.

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Yeah. And you know, most people have heard this, but one of the underlying things to take away from this is muscle weighs more than fat and fat takes up a lot of space compared to muscle.

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Muscle doesn't weigh more than fat.

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Muscle, muscle weighs more than fat.

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Well, the one pound of muscle is one pound of fat. It's the size. It's the volume. And that's that misconception that everyone talks about. We just looked up a visual to see like, you know, what's five pounds of muscle versus five pounds of fat look like? That's what it is. It's more of a discrepancy in the, in how you're, and that's why it's confusing. You always hear that, but when you're looking. Gosh, I've been saying

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that for like decades and it's just been

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wrong. It's a misconception because if you look at it, if you have those visual, sometimes in clinics like doctor's offices or weight loss clinics, they'll have the visual of like the yellow fat mold compared to like the muscle. It looks like a, you know, steak or something. Um, and it's very different sizes.

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And the, and the, but the fat looks like a giant bag of popcorn that you would get at the fair.

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Yeah, like a big fluffy, like taking a lot of volume. And then muscle, it looks like there's just a little tenderloin right there or something sitting there. So you can be very lean, but you could have a lot of muscle, which accounts for more weight than fat. And so that's why a lot of people, their BMI, which is body mass index, is... could technically be in the overweight category if they have a lot of muscle. That's for a lot of athletes as well.

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And that's why our medical system loves BMI, right? Because it's like the best measure. All you do is take their height and weight and then you know what their body

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shape is going to be like. You could do a calculator online. It's a little complicated formula, but BMI overall, we're finding slowly, I think the medical practices and doctors are knowing that it is outdated and And it's useful to some degree, but there is a lot more to someone's body composition. Yeah. It does not define health. Right. So even you, right, doing your BMI is in the overweight category.

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No, I'm not just overweight. I'm two points from obese according to BMI.

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Yeah. So for BMI... For those who aren't familiar, below 18.5 is considered underweight status. So if you do your little BMI calculator online and you figure out you put in your height and a current weight, it'll do the formula for you. Underweight can be useful like for some of our teenagers, some of our patients like with nutrition counseling. If they're underweight, we need to know that. We need to really work on their nutrition for that and their strength training. But then 18.5 to 24.9 is the healthy range. That's a big range though. 25 to 29.9 is considered in the overweight category and then over 30. 30 and higher is in the obese range. And there's all these different levels of obese as you get higher, but... Yeah, so you being 28 is kind of ridiculous. There's a lot of athletes that are in that overweight, obese category because they just have so much muscle and they don't look overweight or obese, but that muscle is just so dense. It doesn't... look big.

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And just for reference, I'm about 6'3", 222 or 224. So it's like right in that range.

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Yeah. So there's many more useful markers for health. One of them being, which we're going to spend a lot of time talking about today, is body shape. So a lot of people probably heard about the apple versus the pear shape. Can you visualize that? So like the apple shape, and this is This is simplifying it a little bit too much, but it is helpful because we can visualize this a little bit. So an apple shape is that round picture. You have a picture of someone's body and there's a round apple right around their abdomen and they carry that weight in their midsection more. So that's more of the shape of their body. Their legs are smaller. Their abdomen, their midsection is just a little bit more round and bigger. It's also called the android shape in the scientific community. Is it like Mr. Kool-Aid? Yeah, yeah, kind of, yeah.

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I was just checking to see if you knew who Mr. Kool-Aid was.

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Yes, I do, back in the day.

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You'd break down walls, Mr. Kool-Aid would.

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So most of the fat is stored in the midsection and less is in the hips and the butt and the thighs and things like that. And then the pear, if you think about the overlay of a pear is over a drawing of a body or a person's body, a visual. It's less weight in the midsection, so a little bit smaller up above the hips. And then as you get down to the hips, it's bigger, but thighs, hips are bigger. So those with a pear-shaped body, gynoid shape, means more fat is stored in the hips, butts, thighs, and so that's bigger, but they have a smaller waist. So typically... Females can carry more weight in the lower part of their body. So they're, you know, they tend to be more pear-shaped, not everyone, but genetics has a big role in that and diet and exercise. And then men are more typically gain more weight in the midsection and tend to have that apple body shape as if they gain weight. People with that gynoid have a smaller waist to hip ratio, which means their waist is a little bit smaller and their hips get bigger. But that actually has been shown to be a healthier... in terms of health risks, body shape, that pear shape.

SPEAKER_02:

And when you say health risk, you mean like metabolic dysfunction, cardiovascular disease, things like

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that. Yeah, exactly. Like if you think about having more weight in the midsection, that visceral fat is what tends to be really unhealthy and lead to risk. There's two different types of fat, right? Going back, there's two different types of fat in the midsection. So one is subcutaneous fat, and that's like what you can pinch around your belly, like if you're pulling it out, it's right on the surface, versus visceral fat is that deep fat behind the abdominal wall, behind the abdominal muscles surrounding the organs. So you can think about how that is a risk in itself. It's so close to all those organs in the center of your body. Too much visceral fat is linked to a higher risk of health problems, including insulin resistance, which we know is a precursor to a lot of different disease states, but also things like high blood pressure, a lower cardiovascular profile, so a higher risk of heart disease, certain cancer, stroke, fatty liver disease, which we don't talk about much, but some people get that fatty liver disease, and then early death from any cause, and then sleep apnea can also be at risk if you have more visceral fat.

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I was wondering about that respiratory component too because if you just have more fat internally it seems like just less room for your lungs to be able to expand.

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Yeah, I mean there's a lot of different health conditions it's related to. So And it's interesting, that's why it's been studied, those different body shapes have been studied so much. Just some studies I found talked about, like there was a 2020 review of 72 studies that said people with a greater fat distribution in the stomach area, the apple shape, had significantly higher risk of death from all causes than those with pear-shaped bodies. There was a study in 2019... With almost 3,000 postmenopausal women that had more of an apple body type, more in the midsection, less fat in the legs, I'll explain that in a second, they were three times more likely to have heart disease. than those with a pair body type. So a lot of times we're thinking about more inflammation, more insulin resistance, but heart disease is a big one as well that happens later in life and especially because of the hormonal changes in women with perimenopause and menopause. And so what's happening there is as estrogen levels decline with the start of menopause or perimenopause, that time around menopause where the body is starting to change, there's a decline in estrogen And estrogen is the one that likes to accumulate fat lower, more of like the pear-shaped. So as it decreases, you're more likely to accumulate or that fat is more likely to shift to the midsection. It's called like menopausal belly sometimes. Between that shift and the hormones, also muscle mass is... is harder to keep as you get into that stage, that hormonal change, and then your calories burn, like your basal metabolic rate might be going down. So all of those combined during that phase of life could lead to that fat accumulation, creating more of an apple shape.

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Yeah, and it just seems like, too, like... Fatigue, your sleep isn't as good, your stress is higher, you know, so it's like you're not as able to enjoy your workouts the same way. Oh

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my gosh, it's so multifactorial. And speaking of stress and sleep, not good sleep, both of those can lead to higher cortisol level, which does, you know, help, not help, but... is more likely to lead to fat accumulation in the midsection. So anyone who has higher cortisol levels or a higher baseline cortisol from daily stressors, poor sleep could lead to that apple shape as well. So there are a lot of things about body shapes and a lot of studies around them. But a big one is higher insulin resistance, blood lipid levels, worsened heart and metabolic health. Again, we can never assume based on body shape that someone's health is at risk just because of their body shape. Because genetics, activity, nutrition, hormones, stress, health history, those all play a role.

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One of the things that we do at Chain Effect is we have that Fit3D scan. And we found that to be... When I was first... researching a body composition scanner, I was more thinking about the role it would play in sort of body transformations. But what's been really interesting is that a lot of their algorithms and data is all about more of a health profile. And so what is your risk of cardiovascular disease? What is your risk of developing metabolic dysfunction? And a lot of those measures that you talked about, the waist circumference and waist to hip ratio and trunk to leg volume ratio are things that are highly prioritized in that report along with body fat composition. And so it's really interesting to see that we will have patients who will come in and they're not really thrilled about their body. And I can think of one in particular that you know, was, was doing everything working so hard. You know, she was, she was of that menopausal age and, but she was doing the diet, doing the weightlifting and she was lifting heavy and doing a lot of strength training and eventually did a fit 3d scan and her body shape score, like, which is a, basically a composite that fit 3d puts together of all the of those different ratings was super high and in the ideal range. And she was like, well, what's going on with this? This must be a mistake. But she had that really high or that really good waist to hip ratio.

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She

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had that really good trunk to leg volume ratio. And she had always like looked at her body and thought like, you know, she's carrying too much weight in her hips. She's carrying too much weight in her legs, but she had a really slender waist, a small waist. And so her, her actual health risk of developing these chronic diseases was very low. And that gave her a lot of, you know, Both confidence and happiness and joy around her body, whereas she wasn't really feeling that way just based on the scale and all the work that she'd been doing. And so having an idea of some of these other metrics being... Just as important as your overall weight and what you feel like you look like and how your clothes fit is really interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, describe the Fit3D scan because it's different, the scanner. How is it different from InBody, which is bioelectrical impedance? That's more of a popular one that gyms do. Walk us through how

SPEAKER_02:

it works. Well, for one, those... you know, in body, I just can't speak to cause I just have no idea how that bioelectrical impedance works. You know, it's sending like, you know, an electric signal through your body and somehow understanding like how much of your body is liquid and how much of your body is, you know, lean muscle mass and fat, et cetera, et cetera. Um, this to me makes a lot more sense. Um, it is fit. 3d has a, um, is basically an upright and upright, um, camera system and you stand on this turntable and the turntable has a scale in it and then you you know press these buttons and it spins you around and as it's spinning around it's taking hundreds of photographs of you that it basically compiles into a three-dimensional avatar and And while it's doing that, it's taking all of these circumferential measurements of your forearms, of your bicep, of your chest, of your waist, of your hips, of each thigh,

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of each calf. You have to stand very, very still for a little glitch. It won't work.

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You got to stand very still. And it'll also take a look at your weight distribution on the scale. Maybe you're favoring your right more than your left, the front of your feet more than your heels. You really want to be balanced And then it's also taking a look at your posture as a function of where your center of mass is. And so we can look at a bunch of different things and see a bunch of different either past injuries or reasons that people may be dealing with some different pain from the posture standpoint, but also we're able to get a great snapshot of where people are starting from before they start their weight training and dieting. Because I mean, to be real, a lot of times that scale doesn't move as much as we want it to when we really start making these changes. And a great, for instance, is, you know, I did a scan in January of last year and then I rescan myself, um, in February of this year. And granted last year was a big training year for me and I was working really, really hard, um, getting ready for worlds. But, um, I was able to, my weight actually went up two pounds, but my fat mass went down eight and a half pounds and my lean muscle mass went up 10 and a half pounds.

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Wow.

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So if I was just looking at the scale and even if I was just looking at pictures, like granted, I feel better. And I know that in my mind somewhere, but the scale, the scale says I'm exactly the same.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but you feel the difference. Yeah, you feel the difference. Yeah, they're like, well, I'm not, the scale at home is really not showing anything, but I do feel my pants are getting looser. They feel better. They're feeling, you know, their clothes are fitting differently. They are probably losing inches. And that's why this is so cool to see these circumferential measurements and that their scan is showing, wow, you've actually, you're at a net zero basically, but you've lost three pounds of fat and gained three pounds of muscle.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. And you can really see like when, you know, Look at them from the side. Look at them from the back. And if you're looking closely, you can really see those common places where people will tend to accumulate weight or where they tend to gain a little bit more muscle. And again, we're talking about when you lose fat, you're losing a lot. typically like a lot of volume, but when you're gaining muscle, you're not gaining that much volume. So even small changes like gaining an inch on your arms or gaining an inch in your quads or your calves is, can make a big difference in how much muscle you've actually accumulated versus, you know, necessarily like where you're actually losing weight.

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Yeah. And what's cool for our office and our, our business concept is the posture and the balance. Cause you can see over time posture changing if you're people are gaining strength. Doing the weight training, yeah, doing the posterior. And it's really cool. And I think that's a surprising result of the initial scan for a lot of people is seeing their neck tilt or their head tilt or how off balance they are. And they think they're standing straight up. Yeah. I had no idea. Just because of how we are a very screen culture. We're always bending over, sitting at a desk. And it's really alarming. I think it's like, well, strength training can help with that. And that'll improve that. So For us, having physical therapists, having personal training aspect, that was a cool feature of the scan.

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And to be clear, you know, it does have its limitations. I mean, some of the data that it compiles is somewhat algorithmic, but... Fit3D has a cool relationship with DEXA, which is sort of the gold standard for body composition scanning, and they're able to share data back and forth. A DEXA scan is like a low-grade x-ray that you kind of lay down and it takes a look at your bone density, but it's able to see a lot of that soft tissue as well. And so if you're looking for sort of the gold standard for body composition, it's either going to be that DEXA scan or getting into some sort of a immersion tank where you kind of displace the volume. But the Fit3D is a great way for, for one, you can't do a DEXA scan if you have any sort of joint replacement or any sort of metal hardware. Yeah. Um, but it's just a great non-invasive way for us to be able to track that progress over time.

SPEAKER_00:

No, it's a little alarming for even the fittest of people.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And we do warn people going in because it is a 3d image, which you're only ever used to seeing a 2d image of yourself.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, you're used to seeing a 3d image, but now you're taking

SPEAKER_00:

a 3d image and making it 2d. That's a 2D image and you're seeing yourself spinning around from every angle and you know it gives outlines it doesn't share everything but it gives outlines but you're like wow that's what I look like I thought I was more in shape but it's a great reference to start like anything like if you are starting habit changes if you're working with you know different providers it keeps us both accountable so just to go back to the waist to hip ratio to give people some numbers out there what they're looking for basically the pair like I said before has a lower waist to hip ratio and less risk but but the optimal ranges, if you can picture your waist measurement, like if you want to do this at home with a tape measure, your optimal rate range would be, um, for men 0.95 or less, so less than one and then 0.95 or less would be optimal. And then for women 0.8. And so that's your waist to hip measurement, which makes sense because you'd want your waist a little bit smaller than your hips. So you'd want it to be less than one. Now, I'm kind of like a rectangle. I don't really have any like... And this trunk-to-leg volume, basically the smaller... the better for that. I don't have any curves. I gotta be honest. I'm just like a plank. Like even after having two kids, you

SPEAKER_02:

look good to

SPEAKER_00:

me. My hips did not expand. Well, thanks. But I really don't have much of any sort of like ratio there, um, with the waist to hip ratio, which like mine might be higher than what, what you'd like to see because of that. I just don't have any hips. Um, but that trunk to leg volume ratio is, um, is similar. So a high trunk-to-leg volume ratio correlates with an increased likelihood of experiencing these health conditions, insulin resistance, high triglycerides, high blood pressure, metabolic syndrome, all of that. So the lower number, the better. And then that will help you decrease the volume of your midsection. And then you can increase the volume of your legs through strength training, heavy weight lifting, and then nutrition as well by decreasing your waist size.

SPEAKER_02:

Getting that protein.

SPEAKER_00:

Getting that protein. Getting that fiber. Body fat percentage is something you also definitely want to take into consideration. Whatever way you have of looking at it, taking it with a grain of salt, depending on the scan you're getting or how you're getting that measurement, like these home scales. I will say

SPEAKER_02:

those tend to be low. The bioelectrical impedance that I've seen tends to measure a little bit lower. So it'll say like... where you might actually be more like a 20%, it might say you're like a 15% body fat. Whoa, that's a big difference. Yeah, it can be off by quite a bit.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and kind of the optimal ranges for body fat percentage you want to see or a goal to get to would be for younger adults, like 20 to 39. Women, a good range is 14 to 31%. Men... need less fat they don't have certain features that women have 8-19% for younger adults and then when you get to ages 40-59 for women an optimal range and this is according to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition women a good range would be 14-33% that's a big range and then men 11-21% and then as you get older it gets a little bit like ages 60 up it gets a little bit more fat just because it is hard to keep that muscle mass right and that lean mass as much.

SPEAKER_02:

And to be clear, like you need some fat.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Fat plays an important role for thermoregulation for, I've always heard that it's sort of the lubricant of the soft tissue as well. So protecting the muscles, you know, so you can have too little body fat.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And that's why it's good to monitor in athletes as well. Especially like growing athletes, like, like teenagers and females, if they're missing the their menstrual cycle and things like that because they don't have enough fat and their weight is not enough. That's something to monitor for that because it can mess up hormones and menstruation and all of that. Kudos

SPEAKER_02:

to that. That was like a big influential book back in the day. It was like the female athlete triad or something that first really shed light on that. And everyone was... trying to make people as thin as possible. And really, you want to have muscle. You want to be strong and fit and have all that muscle and fat to back it up.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, for sure. So those are some of the main metrics. There's a lot more with our Fit3D scan, but the main ones that... that we feel are important is body fat percentage, waist to hip ratio, trunk to leg volume. Your waist circumference, you really want, according to American Heart Association and Diabetes Association and different markers like that, typically they say less than 40 inches for a male is ideal, less than 35 inches for a female for your waist circumference. You could measure that with a tape measure and that could be a good goal as well.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's not typical. directly correlated to like your pant size. Cause like I wear a 35, but like my waist circumference is like a 39. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It depends on where you're wearing your, and you've got a little short torso. I have a

SPEAKER_02:

weird body. I have a weird body. My legs are like flamingo legs. My body is kind of like a flamingo. If a flamingo had really long arms and my, my kind of a knuckle dragger, my, my, Like

SPEAKER_00:

a caveman? Kind of. I mean, my

SPEAKER_02:

hands reach down to my knees. And so if I lay on the ground, you know, they call it in climbing, they call it the ape index, but I have like a plus six index. where my arm, my wingspan is six inches longer than my height.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's a lot. You're always talking about your wingspan. Amazing people like, Oh my God. Cause you don't notice it at first, but then when he does show you how long his arms are, when we take

SPEAKER_02:

pictures that I wrap my arms around like two

SPEAKER_00:

or like five people on each side, the wingspan is big, but yeah, you have short little torso. So that could be influencing your measurements a little bit. And depending on where you like, your hips are really high compared to where you'd think they would be just because your legs are so long. Um, so those are, Those are some main metrics instead of just using weight, instead of just using BMI as a marker for your health and your progress, some really important things to think about. I wanted to talk about how to improve these numbers and not just the basics, but how to improve these numbers and body shapes. So we know nutrition, of course, to decrease the visceral fat. We know that plays a role. Being in a calorie deficit, you know, Also, when we're tracking, I think a big misconception is, you know how a lot of these... devices are syncing with apps to track calories. If people are tracking calories, they are automatically adding, it is adding in your exercise and giving you bonus calories unless you can manually turn it off or disconnected. I get so frustrated when looking at my patient's journal sometimes because, or tracking devices because of this, because sometimes they make it really hard to pin on the app to turn it off and they want to connect them because they want to see how many steps they're getting. They want to have that accountability of the exercise being in their app and get credit, but it's giving you bonus calories unless you turn off that feature.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. So saying that you did a little bit of exercise and it's like, all right, now you can afford this extra

SPEAKER_00:

thing to eat. It affects all their goals that we set. So it makes it confusing. Like, Oh, well this day it's given me 2100 calories, but my goal I know is 1800 calories on a daily basis. So they think, Oh great. I have extra calories to eat. If you are trying to lose fat or lose weight, do not add those excess calories that the tracker gives you. You just want to stick with those goals. So that's a little tip for when you're tracking and you are counting calories. We know, of course, how to improve these metrics is through strength training, heavy lifting. Go back and refer to our heavy lifting. Are You Lifting Heavy podcast episode that explains a lot about heavy lifting strength training how beneficial that is for your overall health

SPEAKER_02:

and and really if you're gonna be in a calorie deficit it is critical that you are also strength training because we know that when you are losing weight overall a lot of that is muscle if you're not strength training

SPEAKER_01:

right

SPEAKER_02:

so you have to be at the same time that you're in a calorie deficit you're you have to be upping your protein and you have to be doing more strength training. It is just a necessary part of that, or else you're going to lose a lot of your muscle.

SPEAKER_00:

And having too little calories is a risk. So that's why speaking with a dietician can be helpful. Really. dialing in your numbers that you need so that you're getting enough protein, you're getting enough fiber, you're getting enough produce, you're getting enough micronutrients and fuel to actually help these processes in your body build muscle and go on instead of slowing down your metabolism. Especially

SPEAKER_02:

those GLP-1 users, right? Like we've talked about that in the past. Yeah. See that more and more as that becomes more and more popular and more and more people are doing these GLP ones. Like you have to hammer the

SPEAKER_00:

protein and you have to say you have to get enough calories. I know you're in a big calorie deficit and appetite is lowered. Or if you're ever on a drug where it's appetite suppressant, you have to be extra careful if you're trying to build muscle. Um, And then another thing is eliminating excess sugar, liquid calories, which have a lot of excess sugar usually, and alcohol. And so I know a lot of people talk about this idea of like, whoa, yeah, I'm getting a beer belly or this alcohol is contributing to my midsection. I know there is a lot of truth behind that. It depends on the drink. It depends on the person, of course. But in general, higher alcohol intake is associated with a greater risk of that visceral fat, that deep fat right around the organs. And there's quite a few mechanisms that could explain it. Also the type of alcohol. So we know beer has more carbs, except these super low carb beers are a great option these days. But beer and then cocktails, things like that, that have more sugar and carbohydrates, that could be more strongly associated with visceral fat accumulation than things like wine, which is It's a little bit lower carb. Pretty low carb. Yeah, pretty low carb, pretty low sugar, depending on what type.

SPEAKER_02:

Also depends, yeah, the type of wine. So you want the drier, like more Cabernet style wines.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the reason why, so alcohol, you know, we know it is a toxin as well, but other mechanisms for why it could be increasing that, you know, visceral fat more readily is the extra calories being one. So that can contribute to weight gain and fat accumulation. Altered hormonal balance. It can increase the levels of cortisol and testosterone, which promotes fat storage in the abdomen region. That's something we don't always think about. Impaired liver function. You know, we do know it can damage the liver, which plays a role in regulating fat metabolism. And then just overall inflammation. So if we have more inflammation in the body, that contributes to visceral fat accumulation. And as we get, we've talked about this in other episodes, as we have more, as our fat cells grow in that visceral region, they have cytokines that increase inflammation in the body, which is just going to do a lot of different things.

SPEAKER_02:

Not to mention, it makes you hit... for that 6 a.m. workout. That's right.

SPEAKER_00:

That is right. Can I cancel in time? Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I mean, it can affect, like, you know, kind of bloating and fluid retention and, you know, affects our skin, all these other things as well. So those are some things we can work on. Obviously, going to the basics, nutrition, exercise, strength training. I

SPEAKER_02:

mean, let's be real. It's always, almost always... All about the nutrition. I know. People, come on.

SPEAKER_00:

The basics. Back to the basics. Well, we've had a lot of conversation. Just

SPEAKER_02:

rolling that ball up the hill every single day about nutrition. And, you know, we're fighting these marketing, you know, don't get me started, but we're fighting like such an uphill battle with marketing and the things that people think are healthy.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, y'all, if it's one, like one thing that they say is going to change your life. Like electrolyte packets. Y'all, I can't take any more ads for electrolyte packets. And these doctors and all these people on their podcast promoting it. Yes, there is a time and a place that can be helpful, but they also can have a lot of artificial sweeteners. You might not need it at all based on what exercise you're actually doing. You may not be losing a lot of sweat and electrolytes.

SPEAKER_02:

What was that one that... the one that had like a thousand milligrams of sodium. Oh gosh. Oh yeah. I forget. And one of my teammates was saying that his wife was just drinking that on like just around the house and all of a sudden her ring stopped fitting. Oh my gosh. She was just like swelling up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So much fluid retention. It's yeah. Like we, and that is not going to cause you to be healthier in terms of like your metabolism and your muscle mass and your visceral fat, it might help you feel better with certain things, but that one thing. So anytime there is one thing that you are getting ads about nonstop, try not to give into it because it's just, we are buying so much. I mean, the, the wellness industry is just exploding with all these supplements and things that are like the answer. Oh, collagen. It made me, you know, it made my body look like this. No, it didn't. You are like an athlete that has been like working out for 20 years. You've

SPEAKER_02:

been working out, eating tons of protein.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, going back to the basics, nutrition, strength, training, moderation, sleeping well, stress relief. But I wanted to end on, Since weight is primarily what people can measure themselves with, like a scale at home or at their gym, I wanted to talk about, we've kind of been back and forth about this, like how often should you weigh? What's the best way to weigh if you want to keep track of your weight? And you like doing it every day. That keeps you accountable.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I read, you know, like back in the day I looked at, you know, I was reading the four hour body by Tim Ferriss when it first came out and he was talking about this guy that basically plotted his weight. He, he drew a line of where he wanted to get to that, that had him losing a pound a week and he did it on a graph and it was based on time. And so he would weigh himself and every day if he was above the line, he He would make some better choices. And if he was way below the line, he would give himself a little more freedom to eat whatever he wanted or have a drink or whatever. But he basically lost 20 pounds over the course of six months just by weighing himself and altering those little micro decisions every day. Yeah. So I don't know. I think it, for me, it just got ingrained that like I can track my like daily, weekly progress by just weighing myself every

SPEAKER_00:

day. And a lot of people are like that. So I would say it depends on the individual goals and circumstances. Like how often should I weigh? What we do know is that it needs to be the exact same time every day. It needs to be first thing in the morning after you've gone to the bathroom and No clothes, you know, that can vary based on what you're wearing, no shoes, nothing like that. So for some people, it could be weekly. I usually encourage weekly if it's just so people don't get obsessed over it and then disappointed. But for some people, daily works for them and they keep track of it. But just know that. Doing like what you did the night before or the day before does not directly impact your weight the next morning. And I think this is really hard for some of us because even on like vacations and stuff, you might say, wow, I had so many carbs last night at dinner. Like, oh my gosh, yesterday we just like, I was, we were totally off our game and I'm like two pounds lower this morning than I was yesterday. And you just, that could not be, it may not be a direct correlation at all. There's lots of factors. So you can't sweat the daily fluctuations. It could cause unnecessary stress and derail a lot of people and then say, screw it, like I'm going to eat like that because I'm lower after a couple of days of not being on my plan. But there's so many things that can affect it, especially for females. If you think about all the different stages of the menstrual cycle throughout the month.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you were talking about that.

SPEAKER_00:

All those hormonal changes, like you see these photos of women taking a picture of themselves, like from the side. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it could be that time of the month. It could be the week before where you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm up a little bit. But I also feel so much more bloated. So that can change. That can fluctuate the weight. Strength workouts can also cause a temporary increase in weight. Because if you think about it, your body is repairing, like your muscles are trying to repair themselves. There's some inflammation involved with that process. And after a really hard workout, your body is naturally drawing in water into the muscle cells, leading to that increase in muscle volume temporarily. So like that could be, oh, I just had a really great workout yesterday. Like what's going on? Why is my weight up? Or you weigh yourself soon after that. And then another thing is monitor your bowel movements and your hydration status and your sodium intake. Because if you eat out a lot or you're having an extra high week of sodium, that could lead to some fluid retention, which is affecting your weight. If you are not going to the bathroom, as you usually do, due to, I don't know, change in diet or medication or anything like that, that's going to, of course, affect your weight as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow. And what I took away from that, too, is that... Y'all women have just so much more to deal with.

SPEAKER_00:

Y'all women. Yeah, we do.

SPEAKER_02:

And we should just give you hugs all the time. I

SPEAKER_00:

know.

SPEAKER_02:

Just love on our ladies, y'all.

SPEAKER_00:

I know. Yeah. Yeah, we deserve it. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02:

totally. Well, this has been awesome. And thank you so much. And if you could just do us a favor, if this just resonated with you or you know someone that could benefit from this knowledge, please text them this episode. Just do that. Just send them a little text, a little screen, hit that square and then put their phone number in there and hit send because it would do us a favor and help us grow our podcast. And if you have any questions and want to reach out, we're always available. For this episode, you probably want to talk to Caroline at chaineffect.us. And if you want to talk to me for some reason, taylor at chaineffect.us.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, if you ever want to come get a Fit3D scan, anyone can walk in and do that service and you can get some good numbers. But yeah, thanks for listening. We'll check you on the flip side. Catch

SPEAKER_01:

you later. i'm not