Importance of Maintaining Muscle During Weight Loss

In this episode, Rick and Greg discuss why protecting muscle mass during weight loss is essential for real, lasting health. They explain that while GLP-1 medications can be powerful tools for weight loss, the real key to staying healthy during that process is making sure you are losing fat, not valuable lean mass.  

They explore how muscle functions as more than a cosmetic feature — it is a major driver of metabolism, glucose use, strength, resilience, and healthy aging. The conversation also covers why exercise, especially resistance training, is critical, how protein intake supports muscle preservation, and why body composition matters more than the scale alone.  

Rick and Greg emphasize a simple message: GLP-1s are a tool, not the whole plan. If you want healthier weight loss, you need to use your muscles, feed your muscles, and build habits you can sustain long term. They also spotlight whey protein as their supplement of the week and mention their supplement line available at getweightwise.com. 

This episode is for educational and informational purposes only. Be sure to speak with your medical provider before beginning any weight loss, exercise, or supplement program.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:24

And here we are. Welcome back, Greg. Hey, welcome. See ya. We are back. Um, we're gonna be talking about um some uh, you know, we've talked about a lot of weight loss-related things. We've talked about body composition. We're gonna get really to dig deep today. We want to dig deep into some uh uh the importance of muscle and maintaining muscle and and and why that's a uh a concern for some people. But uh before we do, uh just a reminder, this is educational and informational purposes only. We uh certainly recommend that you uh touch base with your medical provider before starting any any weight loss program, any medication, any uh nutritional supplements. Uh just meet with your medical provider and get some guidance that way. We actually talked about that quite a bit last week as well, the importance of doing that, especially because um if you're getting any kind of medication, um it'd really helpful to meet with your medical provider. Um and uh without doing that, uh we would recommend not doing the program. So so with that said, we will um hit our muscle mass. We want to talk about muscle. That's that's a big concern with um with weight loss. So we talk about GLP1s, people lose a lot of weight, you know, people are losing 20% of their body weight. Uh it really changing the the landscape of what weight loss means. And with that, um there is a tendency uh to have some fear. A lot, you know, we hear a lot of people talk about uh, well, I don't know if I want to uh like I don't know if I want to do Ozempic because uh I've heard that you lose all your muscle.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Yeah, it's all the weight I lose is all the weight I lose in muscle and and good uh mass, like like bone and and and and and and those A, not necessarily true, but B, yeah, that happens.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

And the reasons that it does, we want to talk about that so we can avoid that because it is it is way important. Like I'm trying to think of it, like trying to think of the word other than way, way important, super duper important um to maintain muscle because you're we're gonna talk about what your muscles do in your body a little bit, um, and why and where where this comes from, the idea that you lose muscle. Um, and I think that comes from when people are are you know not using the GLP1 medicines or whatever medicine um we talked about several other options last week, using that as kind of the crutch and the the mainstay of their weight loss rather than uh a part of a bigger health plan. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

So I I agree, I agree. And and you know, because I get it gets I get asked this all the time in clinic, like, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to try the GLP ones, I don't want to try trusepatite or semaglytide or semaglutide, however you pronounce it. The um because I've heard that all you do is lose your your muscle. Well, I can tell you for sure that anyone that comes to anyone yourself or anyone that's ever tried to lose weight is we're not even saying we really want to lose weight, right? What are we really saying? We're saying we want to lose fat. Right. I mean, no one's no one says I want to lose all my muscles. Yeah. Who, yeah. I just want to be really weak and frail. So we don't want to lose good mass. When we say good mass, we're always talking about bone and muscle. Now, well before uh GLP1s came along for weight loss, this was still a concern. It just now it's been uh really amplified uh mostly due to the fact that uh people do sometimes lose weight a little bit quicker than they were before. Sometimes the percentage that they lose is higher because they have this GLP one for support. And and if these people don't change anything, if they don't move, if they don't use their muscles, well, they're gonna have the same effect they would have had if they didn't use a GLP one to lose weight and they lost 20% of their overall mass, right? They're going to wither away. They will lose some fat, uh, but they will definitely lose some good mass, which is muscle and bone. Yeah. And we know that that's not what we're going for. People that want to lose weight, everyone that we talk to, all of our patients and all the studies would support that losing specifically fat when we're talking about losing weight is what we're all focused on. So I really think it's a valid question. I think it's valid that patients bring it up, they're concerned about it. We want you to be concerned about it because if if all I have to say is, hey, yes, that's true, that can happen. If you don't work out and you don't feed your muscles protein, well, and that's what gets you to do it, then I'm all for it. So having that fear built into that that not all weight loss is equal and not all weight loss is good, um, I think is a good thing for patients to know. Yeah. No, it's super important.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

So there's two things we want to talk about, like during weight loss, um, how to preferentially lose fat and keep muscle. Yes. And then afterwards, like the like so the skinny on science section, we'll just incorporate that into what we're talking about today. Um, there were some studies that were done uh and and I'm gonna kind of look at the things that they looked at. So this is this is a there's a big study that it was patients with obesity that lost about, on average, they've lost about 12% of their body weight. Okay, after they had lost the weight, then they were uh randomized into different groups. And there was there was a group that uh did just exercise, an exercise program, okay, supervised kind of exercise program. There was a group that did uh GLP one medicines, lyraglutide. Yeah, okay, then they took those to maintain their weight. There was a group that did both the GLP1 and exercise, yeah, and then there was a group that did neither of those things. They just lost weight and they did nothing. Uh and and then they they did that for they followed their weight maintenance for one year after that. Okay. All of the groups maintained their weight loss. Okay. But but um only the exercise groups improved things like their cardiovascular markers, so inflammator inflammation, um, their endophthelial dysfunction markers, their the thickness of their carotid artery, uh the in kind of the internal parts of the carotid artery, that's it just increases your risk of stroke. Um the GLP1 alone, so the people that just took GLP1s did not improve these markers. Um they they they it was as if they did nothing. Like as far as as far as those health markers go. Okay, they maintained their weight, but their their cardiovascular health um did not improve. Um, as far as their body composition, the exercise group preserved or increased their lean mass. That's what you're talking about, muscle and bone. Lean mass, yep. Um, the GLP1 uh group that didn't exercise, they they lost some lean weight. They they lost some fat, mostly fat, but they lost lean weight. And then the combo group, uh, they lost the most fat and preserved the most uh lean body weight, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:06

So yeah, the combo is is yeah, the really what it's saying, right, is the combo doing the medication and exercise.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

The only groups that maintained these markers of health were the exercise groups or the exercise and GLP1 group. Yep. Uh the GLP1 group alone or the didn't do any of it group did not. And and so the takeaway for that, I think is the weight loss uh alone is not health improvement, right? Exercise is the driver of cardiovascular health. And then we're gonna talk about maintaining that muscle mass and what that does physiologically, because your your muscles aren't just a cosmetic thing, they are a metabolic and endocrine organ. Like it is they they drive a whole lot of what's happening with your body.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

And in terms of insulin, I mean, we talked about that uh two episodes ago and how important insulin is in terms of your body storing um fat, utilizing glucose, and insulin is the biggest driver um in muscle. It drives it drives glucose into muscle if you're using it. I mean, if your storage is full and you're not using your muscles, well, it doesn't have anywhere else to put it but fat story.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Right. Well, and and and and as far as like getting rid of the glucose, like burning, burning up the energy rather than storing it, your muscles handle 75% of that. Yeah, right? Your muscles make up 30 to 50 percent of your mass, but they they handle 75% of like the engine running and burning and yes uh using the energy rather than storing it as fat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

So I mean, I think uh Rick gave a good comparison and I might be jumping ahead here. But if we were talking about the difference of, you know, do you, you know, you if you start out as a as a V8 engine, a big engine that uh, you know, in a in your truck that um that uses a lot of fuel, maybe that's not good uh if you're talking about a truck in terms of fuel consumption, but in the terms of body, if we're talking about losing weight, we're gas to use that fuel up, right? Because you're trying to use the excess fuel, i.e. fat, um, to be able to use that. And you know, so you can't lose that muscle. So you're downgrading from your big truck to uh like a Honda Civic, um, and you still want to burn the same amount of fat. You you have to drive farther, yeah. So you have to do so much more in order to keep the same metabolic rate, yeah. Um, as opposed to your muscles being a big V8 engine. They just work, I mean, they're gonna gobble up that energy so much better so that you have such much more.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

If you lose by losing the muscle mass, you're downgrading your engine. Absolutely. You cannot, you just literally can't burn as much uh or as efficiently. That's okay. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Yeah, that was I thought it when we were talking about it earlier when talking about doing this episode, I thought that was a good comparison. We just it's easy to understand basics of cars, right? A Honda Civic is not going to be as efficient um as a big truck, it's not gonna burn fuel, and that in this case the fruit of the body, we want to do that, and you want a big strong V8 engine, right? If you need to do a lot of work, you're not going to get your friends Honda Civic, you're going to get your friends' tundra.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Well, and when we talk about your resting metabolic weight, we've talked about it before that you know that that's the energy that your body uses just by being alive. And and your muscles drive the majority of just that process, staying alive. Your muscles are just the ones that like kind of idling, it's like leaving your truck running. Yes, right. And and it's burning, you know. So if you decrease uh your muscles, you're gonna you're gonna not be able to maintain that resting metabolism.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yeah, you really just become more efficient in a bad way. We don't want to be efficient, we want to be burning through fat. We want to be utilizing uh glucose. We don't want to just be storing it because we know it's what we know what it stores as. And it's nothing we want anything to do with.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Well, and it's and it's and it's okay, so it's not also so keeping your muscle mass maintained is not also just about burning the engine, right? I mean, there's there are other we talked about it being a a big organ that has a lot of functions.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

There are other health benefits. Yep, right? I mean, uh a huge amount. I mean, this is a a huge uh uh we talked about the cardiovascular vascular benefits. We could go on for days about those. I mean, having your um your muscles in good, like being strong, because we tend to, as the years go on in our life, we tend to decrease our overall muscle mass a certain amount of percentage per every decade of life. Um, really keeping that muscle mass on as you go through life is so important. So it's really hard to add it when you're 70, but if you can add it when you're in your younger years, your 40s, your 30s, 40s, 50s, it's you're starting at a higher level. So when you do get to 70, right? It's like retirement account. Retirement account. We talked about that. What was the saying that you said? The oh, I'll have to go. I don't remember. It's uh we wrote it down somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

The muscle is like a reserve. Well, it's a reserve tank. Um, it's a longevity organ, not just a strength organ. I don't know if that was it.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Yeah. Well, and then it was it was like a retirement account. Um, you're putting it, you're building it now to be able to utilize it really later. Later. Because we can't help the aging process. You are even if we slow it down by you getting better.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Yeah, and and and and it's as you age and and naturally your body loses muscle mass, you know, you become more frail. But but part of that is because the muscle as an organ is protective. It's not just a it's like a health bank account, you know, not just energy. Um maintaining your muscle mass uh increases it decreases your risk of dying, like your mortality risk decreases, like all cause decrease. Um you you have by by when you lose muscle mass, you increase the the effects that an illness has on you. Um, you know, when you do get sick, you get the flu or covet or whatever, um, you you you will tend to get sicker the less muscle mass you have. Um there you you have uh recovery from trauma is improved with maintained muscle mass. So I mean it's just like like this is repository of health benefit by having muscles maintained. Okay. It might not, I mean it sounds intuitive to me, but but there's good data that show all of these things.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Which is why we like um a provider-led uh weight loss program. Sometimes if you're someone's just getting stuff online or or if they're doing uh you know, they're just kind of doing this willy-nilly, or even going to a provider that doesn't specialize in this and they're just getting prescription medications and not discussing this. The problem is, is that like we're we're what our argument uh for this is, and we have a lot of uh backing for this, is really that not all weight loss is good weight loss. Like you can lose good stuff, and so even though the scale number is lower, weight loss itself does not equal health gain, yeah, right, or health maintain. Yeah, we mean yeah, it doesn't mean you're healthy just because you're losing.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Yeah, what you lose it matters a lot. Uh so how does one do this? What works? So we talked about you know, maintain your muscle mass. So take your GLP1s, lose your weight, but don't lose your muscle weight.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

How do we do that? Yeah, we gotta we gotta put them to work. You have to use your muscles. Any muscle you want to keep in your body, uh, you have to use it. So, I mean, if you're not big into lifting weights or anything like that, come up with a uh uh full body workout regimen. There are endless supplies of these online. We'll talk to your medical provider if you're if you're utilizing one, if you're not and you're doing this on your own. There's plenty of resources online where you can go find and ease into a program. If you want to keep a muscle, you want to use it. We okay, I'm gonna commit right now.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

We should do an episode uh with a physical trainer, right? And go through some of these some of these like physically what to do. But yeah, because a lot of people don't know, they're like, oh well, how do I exit or what do I do? I don't want I don't have a gym membership, but you know, but but using your muscles is really yeah there's there's a thousand ways to and if you go from not yeah, not using muscles to just using them a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

I mean, the difference, I mean, it eventually gets to the point where like if a bodybuilder is doing a few push-ups or a few sit-ups or things like that, he's probably not gonna see much in the way of benefits there. Someone that's doing nothing and then goes to just doing a little physical activity, they're doing some push-ups and they're doing a few things that are just really kind of engaging their muscles. I mean, the benefits like is are are huge. And so it really comes down to just starting somewhere and doing something that's resistance in training. So walking, for example, we know that's like a really good thing. You're not probably gonna get a lot of resistance in the muscles from walking. So, I mean, whether it is adding weights to your walking regimen, whether you grab a few push-ups, do some do some squats, do some you know, these big muscle groups exercise them out. Absolutely. You don't need a full gym membership or anything like that to be able to take advantage of this. You want to use your muscles, and that's so that you can keep them, especially if you're on a weight loss program, as the study that we talked about before. I mean, this is this isn't hours and hours, like like like five to 20 minutes um has starts to show improvement, right? Absolutely, and you just feel so much better. There's not, I mean, who who do you talk to? When or where have you ever been in the situation where you've used your muscles, you've done some kind of workout, push-ups, set-ups, anything, and you've gotten done and you're like, man, I really regret doing that. I I just never, right? I mean, unless unless you hurt yourself. No, there is the times where uh I would say more than an annual physical test in the airport.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

I remember the APFT. Now, you if you did if you trained for it, right? If you if you worked yourself up to it, you were feeling pretty good. Yeah. If uh if you just went in and you go from nothing to all the things, yeah, but we don't want you to do that.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

We want you to take it easy. And but but frequency also matters. Like, like two, we recommend two times a week minimum. Now, four times a week is great, but but interestingly, yeah, um, if you look at the data on on uh muscle gains, yeah, um one time a week of resistance training, of exercise, muscle, these big muscle groups. If you do that once a week as opposed to two times a week, yeah, how do you know how much gain there is compared to the two times a week versus the one times a week?

SPEAKER_00 17:16

I know the one is ex exponentially more than even saying the two.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Well, no, two. So if you exercise two times a week, you get four times the gains compared to one time a week. Wow. Oh, really? It's not double, it's four times. Four. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Yeah. So that's yeah, that's so frequency matters. So even if you can do two times a week, that's what we recommend, kind of a minimum. If you can exercise two times a week, you're gonna get four times the benefit for doing it one time a week.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Oh, yeah, that's interesting. So yeah, I I I mean it's a coupling effect, you're adding on to it. Because I think it really exemplifies too, though, like two times a week, right? I don't know that it would what the difference would be to go on three times a week, but rest does matter, right? No one's saying do this seven days a week. No, and most people, if you said, hey, you can do this twice a week, most people can. That's that's a that's a that's something they can you know bite off a chew for a bit. Right. We can do that again, and and that that is a a maintainable, sustainable lifestyle improvement. Yeah, right. I I think I think absolutely, and I I think it really just comes back down to trying to keep this simple. We talk about science stuff here, and we sometimes even use words that are maybe sometimes if you're listening to this, overwhelming, like where you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're talking about all this metabolic health stuff and all that stuff. At the end of the day, we're actually a little bit simplistic to our approach to weight loss and how this all works. Use your muscles, feed your muscles with protein, because you did ask, you know, how do we do this? Well, you know, yes, when you're gonna be using your muscles, we want to make sure to uh, you know, really point out you also need to feed these muscles. Protein is the main primary source of what they need to be able to um maintain and grow. So make sure you're getting 60 to 80 grams of protein at a bare minimum. If you become more active, you might need to bolster that up a bit, you know. So um, you know, once again, good reason to talk to your medical provider and and get some advice going that way. But if you get a bare minimum of 60 to 80 grams of protein for any normal average adult, you're probably that's probably the a good amount and a bare minimum uh for just maintaining good muscle mass. I know that there's plenty of health experts on here that would, you know, maybe argue with me and say, oh no, one gram per pound of body weight. Have you ever tried to eat 180 grams of protein? It is not, I mean, it's probably I mean, it's a lot. So only if they come in the form of Reese's Easter eggs. I know, my goodness. If they just make some protein Easter eggs, there is some, but I mean, if they made like a protein, like protein the same, oh man, that would be amazing. Me and Rick would just be sitting here eating the as we did these. The um so the the support your muscles, you know. Water is a big part of the muscle too. Um, going back to kind of what how we do this, you know, your muscles are made up of a significant amount of water.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Well, and and and water is important. All of the, you know, we talk about the the muscles being an organ that burns the fuel and it does all these health benefits, but but water really helps do all the chemical processes that that muscles do. Absolutely. Your body does. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

So yeah, really, really pushing the fact that you um you need to get your protein, you need to be working out. I mean, you know, according to obviously what Rick just said, you know, two times a week at a minimum, right? If we can do more, great. Um, but doing a full body exercise, finding creative ways, you know, talking about the um hold on, I'm thinking of the acronym, and then I just it just skipped my mind. I've actually been using it a lot in clinic. Um neat. Oh non-exercise uh activity uh thermogenesis. So when you're doing your your neat stuff, like your stuff of where you're just a regular daily living. Yeah, you're just doing stuff. Well, hey, I I I walked from my living room to my kitchen and I did uh lunges all the way there instead of just walking. I mean, you can find creative ways to really add in some extra exercise and some resistance to those muscles to not only help maintain them during weight loss, but even maybe enhance them.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

I'm gonna do that at the next day. We had it, we had our like Easter uh had some family over for Easter dinner. Uh I I'm thinking maybe next time I have company, what I'll do is we'll serve the dishes and as I go from the kitchen with a plate of food, yeah, I will enter doing lunges.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Enter doing lunges of.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

I'm just I'm being healthy. Yeah, you might you might get some looks.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

You might get some looks.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

No, that's important. It's important. So so um I takeaway on this then you can lose weight and still get less healthy. Sure. Right? The weight and and and the the the as you lose weight, the the thing that maintains your health is um exercise and maintaining your muscle. Right. GLP1 medicines and diets, they shrink your weight, but exercise builds your health. Is that a reasonable way to say that?

SPEAKER_00 22:07

I think so too. And I think to emphasize the GLP1s, bringing those back up is really just that GLP1s alone have no mechanism built into them that take away muscle or bone.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

It is just by themselves.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

It is the weight loss that that that occurs with that. And it is not using those muscles in which then support good healthy uh weight maintenance, which is your muscle and bone. Um the the GLP ones alone do not Yeah, they don't they don't they don't make your muscle disappear on their own.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

They they help you, I like again reiterate, they are a tool, and they help you make better choices and and they help you eat less and take less calories in. Uh, but what your body does with that process is important, and you can drive that process by by staying active, providing resistance training to your muscles, and and really drive you know what the effects of the medication and your dieting and those things are, uh preferentially focus that on the fat that you want to lose and maintain the muscle that provides healthy longevity to your overall function. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

And if you haven't been doing a workout program, let's say that this you're just getting back into it. You're listening to this episode and you're like, you know what, Rick and Greg, convince me, I'm gonna go do this. Um, if you haven't worked out since high school and now you're just getting back into it, don't think that you're still your high school self, right? Like ease back into this. I've had a uh a few patients that got so excited about getting back into working out, they went and they went and threw on the same weights that they did in high school and they tried to do that. And yeah, they completed it. They were so dead after their workout, they couldn't work out for two weeks because they were so sore and tired and hurt.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

I this that's a good lesson for me. I'm glad you said that because my wife insists that when I get on my mountain bike, I still think I'm in junior high. Yep. And in fact, I I think that's right. Like I the first time I went to Sedona and rode a mountain bike around there, yeah. Uh I felt like it was like I'm 12 years old again. Yeah. This is so amazing. Yeah, so I gotta remember remind myself I'm not that person anymore.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

You're not gonna get uh the honeydews done. I don't know if I believe that. Yeah, no, no. I know. Well, mentally, maybe we're all still 12. I'm 12, especially any of your anyone that you know that's a male, we're all still 12 at heart. We just to start better.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

We never got better.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

But really, just give your body some time, ease into it so you can maintain that working out. Don't do one big workout only to be sore for two weeks, and then now you you're not able to maintain this and and and uh it's a lifestyle change, um, not just a one and done kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Yeah. Um okay, so and uh get a body composition scale. That sometimes is helpful if you if you really, if you're a numbers person um and you and you want to focus on that, the body composition scales can kind of help you keep track of that and and and show you that you're you know how well you're doing, maintaining your your muscle mass versus your visceral fat and your overall fat and body so I think it's helpful. Yeah, I some people really like that feedback.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

It's so interesting to watch when patients first start using uh uh even just individuals, anyone I've talked to that started using a composition scale that wasn't previously doing that. Right. Before it was like you were just focused on that one number, that scale, your relationship with gravity, as we've called it before. And you're so hyper focused on that that if it doesn't move, you have no concept of what's happening. Yeah, what's happening? Whereas they get a composition scale, all of a sudden you start watching your muscle, your fat. And you know, it's like it's almost like the weight at that point starts being the last number they look at.

unknown 25:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

And the first number they start focusing on is how's my fat doing? How's my muscle doing? How where's my visceral fat? You know, the total body water, right? Yeah. It's so it's so cool to watch people when they start looking at the other numbers and then start realizing like how do I feel, right? I've been in the gym, I've been doing great. I've I've fit in a um my clothes are are um fitting more loose, even though that number, maybe the scale didn't go down, or maybe it went down very like uh minimally, like a pound or two. Yeah, but you're like, boy, my fat percentage dropped 2%, my muscle percentage went up, I'm feeling so much better. And you can really give just a better gauge on that.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

So, so exercise then it becomes the the key to um we know we talked about like your muscle mass is like a retirement account, right? So, so exercise is is sort of the way to um increase your interest rate on your account, right? Your it's the it's the great multiplier. Um you get the exercise in and that that improves your cardiovascular health, uh decreases inflammation overall, maintains that muscle mass that we talked about so important, your bone density, uh it makes the GLP1 medications more effective. Um you know, so so there it's like uh just that bank account. You build it now, you you the exercise you do now increases your return and uh later in life and and really increases your chances of having healthy longevity uh throughout the remainder of your life.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Yeah, absolutely. I I really do look at it like just like uh we talked about before our retirement account. You know, the earlier you start, the the better, right? So outcomes for later on. But does that mean if you're 60 or 70 and listening to this podcast that it's too late? It's not. You just, yeah, sure, you know, you've lived some life. Um, is it going to be like you were when you were 20? Probably not. Um, but it's not too late to start. But the earlier you can start, if you are on that, you know, side of uh, you know, 30, 40, and you're like, look, I'm just ready to get this going, uh, then yes, of course, building that up, talk to the people that are 60 or 70, just getting going, and they'll tell you, look, yeah, I wish I would have started this two decades ago. Right.

unknown 28:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

So okay. Yeah. So uh in short, then a little summer, you don't need a big gym, you don't need big heavy weights, you need consistency, need a little bit of progression on that. But like consistency, even just two times a week, right? Is is is awesome. Uh shows amazing muscle preservation and health benefits.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Let's talk about supplement of the week. We'll do since it goes along with this, is uh is whey protein. So we'll talk about protein supplementation. Uh protein supplementation with protein. Uh I hit on whey protein specifically because whey protein is a complete protein. It has all the essential um amino acids that you need to be able to be a complete protein. Uh, you know, we like and support supplementation of protein where needed. Sometimes it's just really hard through just regular foods to be able to get all the protein you need. Uh the benefits of supplementing protein are that you can hit those protein goals, you can give your muscle support quickly, right? You can do this through uh powder that you mix with any shake you want. You can do this through, geez, they make protein gummies, they make clear protein pop. I mean, oh yeah, yeah, those are so good. There's just so many things that they make now. So figure out just what works for you if you're not hitting your protein goals through your regular diet. You know, supplement protein, good whey protein, good old-fashioned whey protein is probably your most complete form and most commonly readily available protein uh that's available. So um, you know, it's good for supplementation as far as um getting your protein goals. I guess the disadvantage of supplementing with protein is sometimes it's not in your real food. So you do process it maybe a little bit quicker. It doesn't maybe keep you full quite as long. So, you know, getting a mix of variety where you can get real real foods with real protein. Uh I wouldn't say real protein, but but with protein, and then supplementing where you need just to be able to hit some protein goals is is uh the benefit. Don't just have three protein shakes a day and that you're like, I'm good. I'm I got my protein and all that. I just think that it really is um using supplementation and real foods where needed uh to be able to get those protein goals. And so whey protein is a great one. We're not really the brand snobs on this, like you know, get a good quality um, you know, bat protein, a good and one that you uh like that you like the flavor or or the consistency.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Oh, I've had some rough ones. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot that you know we want we don't want this to be miserable again. It's not it's not sustainable if it's nasty. Yep. Um so and there's and and different people have different you know favorites. Yep, totally it's good. So use it. All right. Uh uh, we do recommend meeting with your medical provider before starting any exercise program or other weight loss uh program. But again, we do recommend that because it's important to have that uh accountability and and um just the personalization of of you know what's working for you and what what might need to be added or or taken away. Absolutely. Uh so do that, and uh we hope that this helps you be healthier ever after.