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53. Fat Loss Over 40 — The Truth and the Tools Episode 3: How to Lose Fat Without Wrecking Your Metabolism

• Adam Kelley • Episode 53

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Dieting hard and getting nowhere fast? We dig into why aggressive cuts and endless cardio backfire after 40—and how to build a plan that trains your metabolism to work with you instead of against you. Adam Kelley shares the clear, evidence-based approach we use with busy adults to protect muscle, keep hunger manageable, and make progress that sticks.

We start by exposing the diet damage trap: sharp deficits lower resting energy expenditure, reduce spontaneous movement, and increase the chance of rebound weight gain. Then we move into the core moves that safeguard results. Strength training three to four times per week signals your body to keep lean mass. Protein set at 0.7 to 1.0 grams per pound of goal body weight preserves muscle, boosts satiety, and slightly raises daily burn via the thermic effect of food. Walking and daily NEAT become your stealth calorie burn, adding substantial expenditure without ramping up hunger or recovery demands.

From there, we zoom out to strategy. You’ll learn how to set a moderate rate of fat loss, use diet breaks and maintenance phases to reset performance and appetite, and avoid the burnout that derails most plans. We cover nutritional periodization—rotating fat loss, maintenance, and muscle-building phases—to keep metabolism flexible and motivation high. We also talk about flexible tracking for awareness without obsession, and why structured support and coaching act as guardrails when life gets messy. The takeaway is simple: slow and steady doesn’t just win; it prevents the painful reruns of yo-yo dieting.

Ready to trade willpower for a smarter system? Press play, pick one change to start today, and if this helped, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review so others can find the show.


📚 References:

  • Müller, M. J., et al. (2016). Adaptive thermogenesis and energy balance in human obesity. Current Obesity Reports.


  • Thomas, D. M., et al. (2014). Why do individuals not lose more weight from an exercise intervention? Obesity Reviews.


  • Rosenbaum, M., & Leibel, R. L. (2010). Adaptive thermogenesis in humans. International Journal of Obesity.


  • Transformed Health Initiative client data & coaching systems.

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SPEAKER_01:

And that's the biggest problem with a lot of people is they don't realize that the rat race that they're in of starting, stopping, being aggressive, overshooting, back up, you know, backtracking. This does have an effect on my metabolism that makes it harder and harder each time that we try again in the future.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Live Transformed, the podcast from Transformed Health Initiative, where evidence-based truth meets real life transformation. Lead yourself, integrate health, value what matters, engage in the process. This is how you live transformed. And now here's your host, Adam Kelly.

SPEAKER_01:

What is going on, all of my live transformed people out there? Welcome to the show this week. Um, feels good to be back. It's been a little while since I've recorded any episodes. I like to try to batch record a little bit ahead of time, and that way, you know, I kind of have the work done for a little while while I can focus on other projects and focus on my clients and my own health goals and things like that. And just the way this season has been for me and my life, um, I have kind of struggled to stay ahead. So right now I'm recording next week's episode, and then I'm gonna try to knock out a few of them, and that way I can get back on track and stay ahead of the game because if you don't prepare to win, then you are preparing to fail by default. So uh feels good to be back. Haven't got to record in a while, and um, our family just came out of the feast days, so we keep the biblical feast days, just came out of the fall feast, so nice and fed. Just kicked off a new fat loss phase for myself. So continuously aiming for that best version of myself, and that's what we're going into now. So, welcome back, guys. Um, this episode, this is episode three of our current series, Fat Loss After 40, The Truth and the Tools. Okay, so today we're gonna tackle one of the most important and misunderstood topics in all of health and fitness that is how to lose fat without wrecking your metabolism. Okay, a lot of excitement, a lot of noise around this topic of wrecking metabolism, messing up your metabolism, rebuilding metabolism. Some of it's true, some of it's definitely not true. So, we're gonna try to weed through some of this information and figure out what we can actually apply to our life that's been shown in science and also anecdotal evidence. So, that is our goal for today. So, if you've ever lost weight only to gain it back, or if you feel that your body just didn't respond anymore, then this episode is totally for you. I know there's plenty of people that can relate to this because I've been able to relate to this multiple times in my life and in my journey. So, this first part we're gonna talk about is the diet damage trap. What not to do? Okay, we're gonna give you some guidelines of what to try to avoid to set yourself up for success. So, let's start with the mistakes that most people make. All right, too many adults in their 40s and 50s fall into the same pattern. They slash their calories way too low, they pile on endless cardio, they get burnt out, they regain everything, sometimes with some extra interest there. This cycle doesn't just hurt your confidence, it chips away at your metabolism. Okay, we see that there is some damage that actually can happen here. Now, there's no damage that is final, like you for the most part, okay. Let me say for the most part, there's not damage that is like, hey, you're just stuck with what you have and there's no bettering yourself. But we want to make sure that we don't get ourselves into those places of where we do start hindering our metabolism because basically we just make our job harder, like it's not gonna stop you from losing body fat. That's impossible. If you just stopped eating for good, like you're gonna lose weight. I don't care what's up with your metabolism, I don't care what's going on with your body, what your hormones are like. If you stop eating, you are going to starve. Okay. But by lowering our immune system, or not our immune system, by lowering our metabolism, it uh we can definitely make the weight loss journey and the muscle building journey that much more challenging. So here is why that this tends to kind of chip away at our metabolism when we don't do things right. All right. Your body is very adaptive. So when your calories drop sharply, your resting energy expenditure goes down too. Okay. So this is something we don't want to happen. That's how many calories our body's burning while we're doing nothing. The higher that that is, the more food we can eat, or the less hard dieting we have to do because our body is burning extra calories while at rest. Another good reason to build as much muscle as you can. Research shows that aggressive deficits can reduce resting metabolic rate by 15% or more. And that's not even counting the effect of lost muscle. Okay, that's just metabolism independently. 15% that's a big deal, guys. That's a that's a pretty substantial change there. A downward shift. Totally not worth it. So over time, this yo-yo dieting shrinks lean mass, it reduces daily activity, and it makes every future diet harder. And that's the biggest problem with a lot of people is they don't realize that the rat race that they're in of starting, stopping, being aggressive, overshooting, backup, you know, backtracking. This does have an effect on metabolism that makes it harder and harder each time that we try again in the future. So think of it like this: all right? If you've ever felt like your metabolism is broken, it's not broken, it's just adapted to the punishment you've been putting it through. Okay. Our body is very adaptive, its number one job is to survive, to keep you alive, and it will do whatever it has to do in order to make that happen. Okay, sorry about the sound shift there. Um, so the quick fix obviously is not worth it, okay? Because fast weight loss that sacrifices muscle leaves you smaller, weaker, hungrier, and more likely to rebound. Okay, all bad things, nothing that we want. It's not worth it. You're not getting ahead. You know, regardless of how ambitious you are, how motivated you are, you are not getting ahead by being too aggressive. You are just setting yourself up for a more drastic failure somewhere in the future. All right. So, next portion is metabolism is not fixed, it's responsive. Okay. This is where people, I feel, fall into the most error when it comes to metabolism because they think, oh, I've done some damage to my metabolism over the years, whatever that means, that I'm just stuck now. But that's not the case, okay? So this is the good news. Your metabolism isn't a fixed number, it's dynamic, it's trainable, and it's influenced by your habits. Okay, so you have a large portion of the impact ability. So here's how to protect and even improve your metabolism during fat loss. Number one, strength training three to four times per week. Now, you don't have to strength train that much. Let me just say that, okay. You could totally do two times per week, you can even get away with one time per week. I rarely ever tell people to settle for one time per week because that's not going to give you the greatest results, especially when it comes to building and keeping muscle. But even just two times per week, even if it's short workouts, that can go a long way. But if you aim for that three to four days per week, you definitely put yourself in a good position to not lose muscle tissue. And we know that resistance training signals your body to hold on to muscle even in a deficit. So the more muscle equals a higher calorie burn, better body composition, and a stronger metabolism. So we want to keep as much muscle as we can when we're dieting. No matter what our goal is, no matter what we want to see in our body, the more muscle that we can keep throughout our fat loss phases, the better off we're gonna look in the end, the better off we're gonna feel, the better off we're gonna operate, the better we're gonna think. You know, cognitive abilities, everything is gonna be better if you have more muscle than less muscle. If you keep more muscle rather than burning it all off. Number two is by prioritizing protein. These two kind of go hand in hand. So aim for around 0.7 to one gram per pound of goal body weight. So the reason why I say goal body weight is because if you're 350 pounds and you're trying to get to 175 pounds, you probably don't want to try to force yourself to eat 350 grams of protein. Like you could, but that's very overdoing it, very extreme as far as on a higher intake, and that's gonna take away a lot of your calories that you have available for carbs and fats. So you're basically gonna be eating just pure protein all day long, and that's miserable and not sustainable. So based on your goal weight, if your goal weight's 175 pounds, then eat, you know, around 175 pounds of protein, you're gonna be uh good there. Okay. Look, I know what it feels like to be frustrated with your health. Trust me. To feel like you're doing everything right, but nothing seems to be sticking. That's why our coaching isn't about perfection. It's about building a system that works even when life gets messy. At Transform Health Initiative, we help busy adults rebuild their health, rewire their habits, and redefine their identity without shame, without overwhelm, and without starting over every Monday. If you're tired of trying to do it all on your own, we're here when you're ready. All right, back to the episode. Uh, so we know that protein preserves muscle, it increases satiety, so it keeps you fuller longer, potentially, and builds more or sorry, and birds more calories during digestion. So that's what's called the thermo effect of food, and that's basically how many calories it requires of our body in order to break down foods into a simpler form to absorb them. And basically, fats almost burn almost no calories to break them down because you don't really have to break foul fats down very much. There's not a lot of processes to convert them to store them. That dietary fat can easily go straight into adipose tissue, straight into fat cells because it is a fat. Um, then carbs have a little bit more of a calorie expenditure when consumed, but not anything to brag about. Protein is the highest out of the three macronutrients. It's not a substantial amount, so it's not like just eat as much protein as possible and you're gonna burn more calories, you know, and have a big difference, but it does burn more calories to break it down, break down those protein molecules to their amino acid form so that they can be utilized. So, yes, you will burn more calories, you know, from eating more protein, but it's not gonna, like I said, it's not gonna be something substantial. It may be like 100 calories extra per day at max, you know, most likely. And that obviously doesn't sound like very much. Now, over time that can add up and that can be a two to five percent difference, but don't try to use that as a reason to just eat as much protein as you can. Just know that yes, it does burn more calories than carbs and fats. Number three, what you can do is walking daily, okay? So non-exercise activity, things like steps, chores, just your daily movements throughout the day, talking with your hands, tapping your foot, clicking your pen, things like that. It's one of the most overlooked parts of metabolism, okay? Um, so for most adults, daily movement burns more calories than formal exercise. So the time that you spend at the gym, rather if it's 45 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, an hour and a half, two hours, you know, the time that you spend doing cardio, you burn some calories there. But if you're awake for 16 hours of the day, then you've got another 14 hours of the day where calories can be burned. So if you're active, if you're moving around a lot, if you keep yourself going, you have the opportunity to burn way more calories than you did during your training session. And um also side note on that getting steps in because it's not very aggressive, it's not like high intensity, it tends to not really affect hunger levels. Whereas doing like high intensity interval training, HIIT training, or you know, more high intensity cardio and even strength training, those can tend to spike hunger some. But walking at a normal pace doesn't seem to do that. And you're getting in that daily activity, burning those extra calories throughout the day. So big thing that you can start adding in is going for walks each day. And number four, avoid long-term extreme deficits, okay? Long-term extreme deficits. So dieting is a stressor on the body. Stay in a moderate deficit, big enough to see results, but small enough to preserve lean mass. Okay, so basically how we do this on a as a coaching aspect is we set a certain rate of loss that we want to see each week. If we supersede that rate of loss, then we know that most likely we're starting to dig into some of that muscle tissue because the body can only burn so much body fat per week. It's not a very large number. And once you get past that, your you'll your body will start tapping into muscle tissue for more energy. Because if you're losing higher than the amount of body fat your body can unlock and break down and burn, then it has to continue to get energy to sustain itself from somewhere else. And it will gladly choose your muscle tissue unless you give it a reason to keep that muscle tissue. So try to avoid that extreme dieting, keep things in a moderate deficit, you know, somewhere. You know, what I like to aim for for most people is anywhere between a half a pound, upwards of a pound per week of loss. Again, that's body fat. That's not just weight loss, that's not water, that's not muscle, that's just fat loss. That's can be a pretty aggressive rate of loss depending on the size of somebody. The smaller you are, the higher amount that you're gonna be losing each week. Um, but that's kind of a safe range, and then kind of test and play from there, depending on what their goals are, their timeline is, and just you know how how much they're willing to push themselves, basically. So, another thing you could do to avoid long-term extreme deficits is to take breaks, okay? Diet breaks, maintenance phases. These actually protect long-term progress. A lot of people think that you need to just push through your goal and burn as much as you can and don't stop till you get to your goal weight. But a lot of bad things can happen when we diet for too long and we stay in a deficit for too long. So, utilizing and implementing diet breaks where you give go a certain amount of time, maybe a few days, probably not long enough, more like a week, two weeks, or longer. We consider that diet break. You eat about maintenance calories, you're kind of just maintaining your body weight at that point, letting some of that diet fatigue fall off, you know, the negative side effects of dieting and losing body mass, and then you're good to start pushing again from there. Or doing an actual maintenance phase, which I consider a maintenance phase, an extended diet break. So maybe you know, four weeks, eight weeks, twelve weeks, or longer, and staying in that phase, really letting the body recover from that deficit, that stress that was put on the body. So then when you kick up your next fat loss phase, you are good to go, everything's good, hunger's under control. You know, you're able to eat enough food to sustain yourself and to continue in a deficit for another extended period of time. That usually works out best. That's what I did. That's why I said at the beginning of this, I just entered in my next fat loss phase because I took, you know, about a month of a maintenance phase, which I kind of overshot my maintenance, not gonna lie, end up gaining a little bit more than I wanted to during that period, but it's all good. Uh, but that's what I did because I'd been dieting for you know several months at that point, was definitely feeling diet fatigue. I was having to drop calories lower than I wanted to go because I couldn't supplement enough cardio and daily movement. And so it's like, hey, you know, and then the feast days came where I know I'm gonna be overeating, I know I'm gonna be eating more than normal foods I don't normally eat. So it's like, hey, this is the perfect opportunity to pump the brakes, take some time, let my body recover, let my mind recover, you know, psychologically, and then now I'm ready to push and I'm more motivated than ever. So totally worth it for sure. So the reframe is this, guys the best fat loss plans don't fight your metabolism, they train it to work with you, okay? You and your metabolism are on the same team, all right? You're not worried, it's not working against you, it's trying to save you. Now, it may work against your goals because it doesn't know the difference between trying to get down to a healthy body fat percentage versus slowly starving to death, but it's still on your side, it still wants you to be healthy, okay? You have to support your metabolism, and your metabolism will therefore support you. All right. So, this next section we're going to talk about is strategy over willpower. Okay. This is the one of the biggest factors when it comes to fat loss for any age group, but especially in your 40s. So if you're in your 40s or 50s, here's your advantage. All right, you don't have to out-hustle your 20s, you just have to outsmart them. Okay, you don't have to do what you did when you were 20 because you probably won't be able to or won't be able to for very long. Life is different, your body's different, your goals are different, your priorities are different. So the key is strategy, okay? Nutritional periodization. So alternate, like we talked about, between fat loss, maintenance, and muscle building phases. This way, your body's getting different things, you're adding more muscle tissue, boosting your metabolism. You know, you're going through a maintenance phase where your body's just getting it set at that body weight, at that body fat percentage. You can get some, you know, some quote-unquote healing to your metabolism, building that back up, and then fat loss phases where you're working towards your goals and getting to a healthy body fat percentage or pushing things on the leaner side because you want to be leaner. So it's better to alternate between those. This keeps your metabolism flexible and it prevents burnout because if you try to do any of these for too long, even muscle building, it sounds amazing to eat a bunch of food and just train hard and all that, but eventually that gets old. Uh, and the fat loss that may or the fat gain that may come with it. Same thing with maintenance, like it can get old just all the time staying the same. Like, why am I even training? Why am I doing this? If I'm not seeing any changes happen, I'm just maintaining. So going between them helps prevent burnout. Um, another thing, another strategy that you can try is flexible tracking. Okay. So this is a hard one for especially a lot of us who are in the bodybuilding world, or you know, rather recreational or competitive, uh, athletes, things like that. So, or people that have focused on weight loss for a long time. So, trying not to obsess over calorie counting, but intentional awareness, okay? So, tracking when needed, then shift to mindful system once habits are strong. So, you shouldn't have to track forever. All right, that should not be the goal of someone to track for the rest of their life, weighing out everything, entering it into an app or a spreadsheet or whatever. Now, I will say for some people, that works best for them. That helps keep them in check. There's that accountability, there's that structure, there's that level of control. That would be me. I prefer to track because I know myself. Like I know how to eat to get to any goal that I want without ever tracking anything again. Like it's fairly easy. It's just, I don't really have, I don't feel like I have the level of control, at least at this point in my journey in my life, to where I can just go day after day and not track anything. Like eventually I know me. I end up overeating more and more as time goes on. And I like having that level of control. I like seeing that data. I like seeing what's happening and why it's happening. So that's the nerdy side of me. And so I prefer to track regardless of what season I'm in. But I really encourage people to at least track for a little bit of time, you know, maybe a few months, because this really gives you a great understanding of how eating works, how nutrition works, like, you know, how much protein are in certain foods, how many carbs, how much fat, how much fiber, um, you know, which foods keep you full longer, what compilation of foods tend to work better for you, which which meals and compilation of foods give you the best energy and promote the best sleep. Like there's a lot of things you can learn from tracking, but you shouldn't have to be a slave to it the rest of your life. You should learn how to eat for your goals in that way. Whenever you, hey, if you're you've been in maintenance or massing for a while, it's like, hey, I want to clean things up. I know I just need to eat a little bit less of this, a little bit less of that, switch out these couple foods, and I'm good to go. That takes a lot of discipline, though. I will say that. That's another part of that too. I personally like more of a flexible dieting approach where I can work in different things. Like I want my ice cream. So if I've learned in the past that ice cream is one of those things that I can cut out pretty much anything for a good amount of time. My favorite food is pizza, okay? I cannot eat pizza for months and months, like it's fine. Uh, same thing with everything else I enjoy, but ice cream is one of those things that it eventually gets me. And so it's better for me if I'm tracking because then I can choose ice cream and make it fit into the calories that I'm needing for the day. And that way I'm still reaching my goals and not over-depriving myself and then end up binging later on because I have a bad habit uh for a long for as long as I can remember, all the way to childhood, of binging on food and hiding it and and the guilt and everything that comes with it. So when I plan for it and I structure it in, I'm taking control back. Okay. And that makes it easier for me to be consistent over a long period of time. So that's what I prefer. But I never tell anybody to do what I do, find what works best for you and do that. Okay. Find what works and then let it. Um, another thing, another strategy is structured support. Okay. So this would be like coaching, hiring you a coach. Um, hint hint. We do online and in-person coaching, check-ins, accountability, the things that come with working with someone. These are the guardrails that keep you consistent. So having someone that you have to report to, you know, um, people act like, you know, oh, well, I'm not responsible because I have somebody to report to, or I should have enough self-efficacy, or enough ability to keep myself disciplined that I don't need somebody, or it's weak to hire somebody. A lot of males feel this way. Like it's, oh, you're just not strong enough, you're not tough enough to do it on your own. You need somebody to help you. Nah, okay. Look at all the best athletes ever. Name one of them that didn't have a coach. Look at all the best bodybuilders ever in history. Tell me one that didn't have a coach, at least at some point, okay? Like the best of the best have people over them. The richest people in the world have mentors and people over them, people that they report to to keep them accountable for their actions, business owners, like all of the successful people that you typically see in the world have somebody over them. Rather, if it's coaching them, helping them, guiding them, keeping them accountable, whatever it may be. Um, you you we cannot under we can't minimize just how beneficial it can be to have somebody in your corner or have a group in your corner. And at THI, we don't just hand people a cookie cutter deficit, okay? We build a system that protects metabolism while driving results. So this is what we do, this is how we help our clients. We help build the system and the structure that's going to help them be successful, but also teaching them along the way so that they continue to learn how to do this for themselves. So you don't have to, we don't have to hold your hand for the rest of your life. We'll gladly walk with you, walk next to you, give you a push when you need it. But our goal is not to have to drag you along because this is for you. This is your life, this is your health, this is your future, not ours. Okay. So that's how we see things. We want to build people up and educate them and guide them and lead them so that they can take the reins themselves. All right. And here's the truth, guys. Discipline alone won't save you, all right? It will not save you. Eventually, you will run into a wall. If it did save you, you wouldn't keep starting over. Okay. Everybody has discipline in the beginning. If you had one healthy meal where you chose a healthy meal over a less healthy meal, that was discipline, okay? But that may not last forever. And strategy beats willpower every time, okay? Willpower runs out. We have a finite amount of willpower. Strategy is what keeps things humming along while willpower takes its natural dips. All right. So here is your takeaway of this episode, guys. Losing fat after 40 isn't about being tougher, it's about being smarter. Okay, it's about being strategic, it's about knowing the plan, executing the plan, trusting the plan, and then reaping the results. The more aggressive you are, the more you risk losing muscle, slowing your metabolism and setting yourself back. Okay, there is no reason to risk losing muscle. If you waited until March to try to get your summer body ready, and you've got 40 pounds that you need to lose to be beach ready, you waited too long. It's better to still do it in a smart way. Accept the fact that you may not have the body that you want to see on the beach that year, and just keep going until eventually you develop that body that you can keep forever, not just for two weeks while you're on vacation and undo it all. Okay. Slow and steady don't just win the race, it keeps you from having to run it twice. Okay. Learn from my example, please. I've lost over 100 pounds twice in my life. It is the hardest thing I've ever done, and I had to repeat it. And I'm still fighting this battle because I didn't go slow and steady. I try to do it too many times where I would bust out the gate, full steam, and then wonder why I'd burn out and just backtrack over and over the same yo-yo cycle so many times, so many years in my life. I'm 36 years old now, and I'm still fighting this battle because of these reasons. But in year the years that have developed recently, I've learned systems, I've developed ways to keep myself accountable and you know, to have the structure that's going to help me succeed no matter what my goals are. And that is living a life that's transformed. All right, live transformed. Would you look at that? All right, so I have a challenge for you this week. Okay. Of course, we have homework because what is learning if you don't do anything with it? Knowledge without application is just entertainment. And you're not here for entertainment. Although I am an extremely entertaining person, I have a fantastic sense of humor. I'm strikingly handsome. I am all the things, all the good things. That's not why you're here. Okay, you're here to learn and to apply. And that's what we're gonna do this week. So I want you to review your current approach. Are you cutting too hard? Are you skipping strength training? Are you ignoring your pro are you are you ignoring your protein? Okay, ask yourself this. Are we doing things wrong out of the gate? So I want you to pick one adjustment, okay? Rather, if that's how hard you're dieting, if you're not weight training, if you're not moving your body daily as much as you can, if you're ignoring protein, I want you to pick one of these, whether that's adding a strength session, that may be upping your protein, it may be taking more steps, and start implementing that now. I don't mean like when you feel like it, like even while you're listening to this podcast, grab your protein shake real quick, get out of the car, get off the couch and walk around your living room. I don't know. Like pick one of these and start now. And if you're tired of the yo-yo cycle and you're ready for a strategy built to work with your body, that's exactly what we do at Transformed Health Initiative. All right. So when you're ready, we would love to help you live transformed. All right. But until then or until next time, do something good for yourself, something good for your health, something good for those you care about. But whatever you do, make sure you live transformed. We'll talk at you next time.