Why Crash Diets Backfire And What To Do Instead

We’re a father-son coaching team behind Time Under Tension PT, and this podcast is built for men 30+ who used to be in great shape but now struggle with low energy, weight gain, and inconsistent habits due to work and life demands.

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Transcript

Welcome And Mission

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Tut Radio, the podcast where health, discipline, and legacy meet. We are the father-son coaching team helping dads lose weight, restore their health, and show up stronger at work and at home. Let's get into

Why Eating Less Stops Working

SPEAKER_01 0:12

it.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Today we're talking about why the standard approach to weight loss doesn't work long term.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Okay, so if you're a man uh over the age of 30 and have been trying to lose weight and now you are stuck because the scale just simply won't, you know, won't move. And the deal is, you know, you're eating less, but you're not losing weight. So one of the most frustrating things we hear from people, you know, is I'm eating less than I ever have, and the scale still won't move. And the truth is, you know, they're not they're not lying. What they're experiencing, however, is something called metabolic adaptation. So you hear this kind of a lot. The problem is is that most people's approach to fat loss is exactly it's the exact way that makes this whole uh process of losing weight worse by aggressively cutting calories, or I should say cutting food more than anything, that's where this whole metabolic adaptation occurs. So when you eat or cut calories aggressively, your body adapts to survive. So this is is it's kind of important to understand, and I always say it this way, it's kind of silly, but if you think about it this way. So let's say, for example, you're in a calorie deficit, right? And in the course of a week you lose four pounds, right? And then you multiply it out of a four, that's 16. So 16 pounds in a month, that's that's pretty damn fast to lose that weight. There has to become a point where you have to stop. Your body has to stop. Because I mean, in in theory, if you continued to do that forever, you'd eventually

Crash Diet Consequences

SPEAKER_01 1:44

like just disappear. Now I know that's silly, you know, because obviously you're not going to disappear, but why wouldn't you disappear? Well, because the body makes an adjustment and says, okay, well, normally, let's say, for example, we're used to surviving on 2,000 calories worth of food in a day. Well, now you're only giving it 500 calories. So now it goes, okay, well, that's less. So I've got to get this energy from somewhere else. So it starts using some fat. So you're losing some fat, that's a good thing. But then it starts tapping into other areas. All of a sudden, you you know, you go a week and you didn't lose any weight, you may have actually gained a pound. That's what's happening. And so there are things that you can do to help fix this. There's a couple things that kind of go along with all this when you're doing this extreme calorie type thing. And this is what, and let's too, because this is the basis be behind really all diets, and particularly the fad diets, things, whether it be, you know, keto, carnivore, the problem with all this stuff is that it takes what should be balance and pulls it out of balance. And yes, does this does it work? Yeah, it does temporarily, but long term it does not work. It ends up being a problem for you.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

All right, so so tell me what happens when you crash diet.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

You know, the energy that you have during the day that drops off, right? The hunger signals start to to rise. You become really, really, really hungry, which makes dieting more difficult and sometimes unbearable. You know, movement decreases. And it's like, well, how does that happen? Well, because you the body knows, you know, that you don't have a lot of energy. So it kind of makes you feel tired. It's sluggish. So you don't move as much. You may not be up and around, you may decide, I'll just sit here. What happens is, and this sounds crazy to say it this way, is metabolism actually becomes more efficient. How do we fix this? How do how do we help people

Cardio’s Limits And Real Benefits

SPEAKER_01 3:37

get this right? The first part of this is what we call the discovery phase, right? Most men just jump straight into dieting without understanding their current metabolism. And this is so important. And it's like I think about it this way if you know if your boss comes to you at work and he says, Okay, listen, John, I want you to go ahead and we got to increase sales this next quarter by 2%. The next logical question you'd ask was, okay, well, where are the sales now? Because how you never get how do you get to 2% increase without knowing where your starting point is? And so this is the same thing. People just go, okay, well, I want to lose 20 pounds. And they just automatically start cutting out stuff, and that's their diet approach. Well, there's reasons why it doesn't work. Here's what we typically see. So men who have been dieting repeatedly, eating very little, relying on cardio, right? They're tired, hungry, and frustrated. So this is that's what we see. And so we also then see these the common signs of metabolic adaptation, right? Stalled fat loss, low energy, constant hunger, poor gym performance. This matters because you don't have enough energy to actually work out.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

And I think a lot of people think that cardio is the best way to lose weight. You know, do you do you think you can explain why this isn't necessarily true?

SPEAKER_01 4:45

The amount of energy expended during cardio sessions is a lot smaller than you would think. You know, you might do an hour's worth of walking, you know, and burn 150 to 200 calories depending on you know your size, how big you are. And so that's just not a lot. Because I mean you turn around and you look, it's like, well, what if I had, you know, I ate a couple of cookies. Now you're right back where you started. So it's just not an efficient way of doing it. Cardio is extremely good for you, right? For me, and what I always tell people is that you should do walking or cycling or whatever it is you really like to do because you like to do it. And so what I mean by that is that I use I use the walking to just get out there by myself and just relax and again think whatever I'm thinking. Sometimes I'll listen to an audiobook, whatever it may be. That's its benefit. Why? Because remaining calm and relaxed, reducing stress, reduces cortisol, and it actually helps your body utilize fat more effectively. So that's the bigger effect that that that can have, meaning cardio can have on your overall health. It isn't really the world's greatest weight loss strategy, that's for sure.

Energy Systems Made Simple

SPEAKER_01 5:52

So, what would be a strategy that you would recommend? What is a weight loss strategy from an exercise standpoint is you know, doing resistance training, right? Building muscle. Why? Well, because there are some simple things that that you should be able to understand. You know, energy can come from really three three places, obviously, you know, once you're once you've eaten. But so there is energy that's stored as glycogen in your muscles, there's energy that can be produced by your liver. Then you also have your fat store. So there's really three parts. If you understand how energy actually is is used and where it comes from. Okay, wait, no, now now I'm confused. You kind of have to understand it. It's like look at it as like these three dimmer switches working at the same time, right? One of them being ATP production, this the other one being glycolysis, and the third one being what's called the oxidative process. And so the first two do not require oxygen in order to expend energy, and the third one does. And this is where they kind of the third one is where the walking piece kicks in. So kind of imagine it this way. The the first one, the ATP one, that one actually is good for a couple of seconds, really. So if you just start off as a sprint, that's exactly where your body would would use this would use this energy. Then the next piece could be anywhere from you know a few seconds to a couple of minutes, the glycolysis part kicks in. And so then finally, the oxidative process kicks in. And I think what people misunderstand is that these three things work together. They don't, like I said, like dimmer switches. They don't, they don't, one turns on, the other one shuts off. It's almost like, okay, you start off with the ATP and it goes up, and then that then all of a sudden, while that's going up, glycolysis is kicking in, and then all of a sudden oxidative is kicking in, and now you're spent on the first one, and then the second one starts higher, and so on and so forth. And like just kind of think of it as trying to keep the lights on an even amount. So that's how that whole process works. And it's kind of a longer explanation of it, but it's actually kind of important. So why

Start With Discovery And Maintenance

SPEAKER_01 7:57

do I bring that up? Because I talked about muscle, because muscle, muscle is another place where energy is stored. So the more muscle mass, logically, you have, the more opportunity your body has for storing energy that's usable that's important because if there's excess energy in your bloodstream, it has to go away. It's got to go somewhere. So if it's not going into your muscles or it's not being used immediately for energy, then the body stores it.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

So, where should somebody start if they want to shed unwanted pounds of fat?

SPEAKER_01 8:26

The key takeaway for all this is that before we, you know, try and lose more fat, we first need to understand the current metabolic state. But really, what the first thing you have to do is you you gotta just be just simply straight and honest with yourself and go, okay, let me let me log all the food and everything I drink for the next two weeks, right? And and you've got to ask yourself, well, first of all, am I in a state where I'm I'm gaining weight right now? So in the last 30 days, 60 days, have I gained weight? Or are you in a spot where you are not gaining weight? You're just kind of stable, right? So, and if you are stable, then that means you're probably at your maintenance calories, whatever that is. So now you go in, you eat you eat what you normally eat, and you take a look and you track it all and you figure out, okay, this is this equals whatever, you know, 2,000 calories a day. We'll just make something up, right? And so from there, in order to start to lose that weight, you've got to re we've got to reduce the amount of energy that we're putting into the system. So, so now a lot of people, you know, again, this this aggressive approach, you might go seven, eight hundred calories down, which is way, way too much. I think what makes more sense is looking at that as like maybe 200. So let's start again. If you're at 2,000, now you're at 1800, right? So there's a there's an energy deficit there. That's that's where we end up starting, but you've got to know first where where are you? Then once you've got that that starting point, this is where we then kind of like go through what we call metabolic reconstruction.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Okay, so but what about for the people who are impatient and want to lose weight right now?

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Sometimes the fastest way to lose fat again is to stop dieting for a

Big Food Low Calories Strategy

SPEAKER_01 10:03

short period of time. The increase in food strategy that we kind of give people, it's really it's very simple. What we call this, then I call this this big food, low calories, because there's a difference between looking at something as food, like a lot of it, and calories and a lot of it, because they're not necessarily equal all the time. And so we'll just kind of explain what that means. So instead of tiny portions, you know, we're gonna build meals with lean protein, high fiber foods, high volume vegetables, and uh whole foods that make you full. You mentioned protein and fiber. Why are they so important? You'd be surprised if you prioritize protein and fiber first. So, okay, you're gonna try and get 30 to 40 grams of protein in each meal that you make and eight to ten grams of fiber. It becomes very difficult to do that and still get a lot of calories. Like, and then of course, if you had vegetables on top of it, the vegetables are almost free when it comes to vegetables. I mean, when it comes to calories, because there's there's so there's so little calories in vegetables. Let me give you an example of this. So a 600 calorie meal might look like you know, look like this. There are two options here. So the first one would be like two cookies and a small latte. You could put you can get around 600 calories from that meal, right? Then you take six-ounce sirloin as an example, right? Vegetables, you know, any kind you like, whatever it is, and and there are ways that to prepare vegetables that I think are amazing. And then, you know, a baked potato. So if I give you a plate, obviously a baked potato, a six-ounce sirloin, and a huge portion, two cups of vegetables, you know, it's hard, it's actually hard to eat all of it.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Aside from being able to eat a bunch of food, what other benefits come from this type of approach?

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Well, let me tell you kind of what happens. When you eat something that I just described, let's say the sirloin, the potato, and the vegetables, your hunger decreases, your energy increases. Then from that, if you go to work out, you've actually got some fuel available to get into the gym and feel like, okay, this is great. I've had a good workout. And most importantly, your metabolism stabilizes. So, so no, what you're not getting is you're not getting again an overabundance of sugar.

Protein Fiber And Full Plates

SPEAKER_01 12:19

The other thing that's important during this is to emphasize structured resistance training and daily movement. So just, you know, remember, you cannot rebuild metabolism, your metabolism on starvation. Once the metabolism is stable again, then we can start on this fat loss piece. How do we do this? So, fat loss works best when the body is well fueled and metabolically stable. Instead of aggressively dieting, what we're gonna what we're gonna do instead is a small calorie deficit, kind of like I talked about, maybe 250, 300 calories maximum. High protein intake. So, what does that look like in the course of a day? Depending on your size and who you are, that could be anywhere between 122, even you know, 170 grams of protein in a day. High fiber, uh, anywhere's between 20 to 30. And here's the thing if you, you know, when you're doing your discovery phase, you realize that you only eat about three to five grams of uh fiber a day. You're not gonna want to start off with 30. That'll cause some intestinal problems, things like that. That'll be bothersome. So is instead, you know, kind of look at where you are and then maybe do 15 to 20 if you can, you know, if that's see how you feel, and then ultimately get to somewhere around 30. And then the final step, obviously, again, is the resistance training so we can move the muscle up for greater energy storage. Again, what are we gonna emphasize? Big food, right? Low calorie strategy. And so, what are some examples of foods that can help? Here, here's what I'm gonna say: it's whole foods. How do you define whole foods? Really simple. One ingredient. So an apple. If you go and buy an apple at the store, it doesn't have an ingredients list on the back of it, it's just an apple, it's all that is. So, same thing. So you can you can basically eat if you look at whole foods as your primary, you know, source of energy. You know, you go to a fast food place and you start to realize if 80% of everything you've eaten in the course of a week is this whole foods diet, and you go get the you

Stabilize Metabolism Then Cut Small

SPEAKER_01 14:15

know, the the hamburger or something like that, or cheeseburger from your favorite, you know, fast food place, it's not gonna derail you. And so we always remember that fat loss is rarely about eating less food. It is about eating better structured food. So let's talk about some real life, you know, scenarios here, right? We're gonna focus on building repeatable meals, predictable routines, structured workouts, manageable calorie awareness. And so so, what does that kind of mean? Always make sure that you are eating something throughout the day. And we know Vin and I always recommend we prepare breakfast, right, for ourselves. Make breakfast because breakfast is pretty quick, pretty easy. You could do some sort of eggs, do an omelet, whatever that may be. Lunch, a lot of times, because you're working, ends up being something you do out. And then dinner, if you had to meal prep anything, maybe you can meal prep the dinner piece. And so for me, you can make, you know, make rice. So that way you have rice for a couple of days. If you're gonna do chicken or steak or whatever that may be, go ahead and cook a few pieces of it. Don't just cook obviously one for yourself. Then you're just kind of building it. Another thing that too, if you if you're not someone who like loves to be in the kitchen, you can buy go buy rot rotisserie chicken. I mean, that's already ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

So, what do you think about the apps that have like the pre-made meals already programmed in them?

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Uh, the problem I think that I see when it comes to like the food apps is when they they give you like all these suggestions for food. And and unless you're like a gourmet cook, you're never gonna make this stuff because it's got 12, 15 ingredients. It's just too much. I get it. And a lot of stuff it's like you never even heard of it. So for for me, a consistent, basic, simple grocery list

Whole Foods And Flexible Routines

SPEAKER_01 16:01

of the favorite vegetables you like, the favorite meats that you like, maybe the favorite starches that you like, that's what's going to help you sustain this, okay?

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Okay, well, what about working out?

SPEAKER_01 16:10

If you're gonna get into the gym and you're not doing anything now, you can do a resistance training workout that is 30 minutes long. And so the question you just simply ask yourself is can I can I dedicate 30 minutes of my time to resistance training? That's that's the realization is that you can get that done. And then, of course, like I said, flexible eating. And what I mean by that is not necessarily a whole huge variety of food, and that's up to you. If you want to work at that piece, you can. It requires more time and energy to do it. But flexible eating is more about like what I said you know, you got breakfast at home, you're gonna have lunch out at the deli, and then you're gonna come back at home for dinner. Remember this, and this is a key, this is a key message. This is really important because I think people say, Well, what's your goal? You know, we ask that, and they say, Well, I want to lose 30 pounds. And we say, That's okay, I get it. The goal should not be a finite end when it comes to how much you want to weigh. It it because that then it's then the goal ends up being a temporary diet, right? That's not what you're trying to build here. What you're trying to build is a system that you can run for years, like that's that's it. So again, the structure of the system is what really matters the most. Okay. Kind of think of it this way, I think. And I heard this a long time ago, which I thought was pretty smart. So when somebody says that's been smoking for years, well, I quit smoking, the door is kind of still open to start smoking because you quit smoking. But if you say, I'm a non-smoker, that's different because that is an identity. You're saying, I as a person, I am I am not somebody who smokes, I'm just I'm somebody else. And that kind of shuts the door on the possibility of falling back into smoking again. So it's the same thing here is if you're just in a diet, if you just

Simple Meal Prep And Workouts

SPEAKER_01 18:01

go on a diet and you lose a certain amount of weight, you can start again, right? You can fall off your diet. But if you're saying that I'm just a person who exercises on a regular basis and eats healthy whole foods, just as part of who I am, then that's different. Just to kind of summarize some of these basic things. If you're eating less but not losing weight, um, it's usually because your metabolism has adapted, your body is conserving energy, remember that, right? You skip the rebuilding phase, which is really, really important. And the solution isn't always more restriction, right? So often it's right, better we talked about this, better structure, better food volume, smarter training, right? And a phased approach, right? The first part, we just to kind of review this whole thing, the first part is again understanding where are we, you know, the discovery phase, right? Then then correcting the metabolism, that piece so your body functions as it's supposed to. Then we tackle this how do we how do we actually start tapping into fat and then you know, finally looking at it as okay, how did that system as we put it all together work for me day in, day out? So that's just that's just my life. It's the way I live. It makes a lot more sense, and that's where you

Identity Over Dieting And Recap

SPEAKER_01 19:15

end up being able to maintain your body weight, which is really where people have a problem. Just about anybody can lose weight, it's maintaining it that ends up being the bigger issue. So, anyway, so kind of really again summarizing the whole thing, what makes the most sense is a structured approach, and that's what we teach people. And that ends up being what's different or new about this approach to to fat loss. And so, if that's something that you're struggling with, hopefully today's podcast will help you see it a little differently.

Where To Find Us

SPEAKER_01 19:49

And of course, you know, you could always reach out to us at Time Under Attention PT on all socials, and we will talk to you soon. Thanks again for listening.