5 Best Tips For Fat Loss || WBWL Ep 102

These are the TOP 5 tips I've used and hundreds of my own clients to lose fat, get in shape and be at least 15-20 lbs down in 3-5 months.

This is 20 minutes of pure weight loss GOLD!

There's no magic pill for weight loss though. You have to be consistent and that's the dirty truth.

But these are proven to work as I've experienced my own transformation dropping from 175 lbs to 148 in less than 6 months.

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Won Body Won Life Podcast. Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Jason Won, Lifestyle Physical Therapist. I help busy parents and tech professionals worldwide, not just to eliminate pain, but also to change their health and change their lifestyle forever through habit mastery. Today, I wanted to go through my five key tips on how to lose weight and actually keep it there. So a lot of clients that I know have gone through really crash diets. They go down to 1200 calories. And then they lose a lot of weights, but they oftentimes will rebound. And I want to share with you a specific methodology that I've used myself as well as hundreds of my clients. So even just as of January 1st, 2023, I was at my, I would arguably my heaviest weights. For a while. And the reason why is because I recently just had my first child and then also I really wasn't prioritizing my health as much as I should. I was exercising a lot, but I was wondering why I was gaining all this weight. And all the while it was because of oftentimes poor sleep, a lot of stress trying to keep a little baby alive. And I wasn't exercising as consistently. So I was at around 173 pounds as of January 1st, 2023, and I decided to really buckle down on these five things that I'm going to share with you in just a few moments. But fast forward to the end of the year, 2023, I was at my lightest weights by far, even before college. So as of college, I was 156 pounds. With much less knowledge and as of the end of 2023, I was 148 pounds at just 9 percent body fat and I was lifting my heaviest and I was moving my fastest and performing at my best. So let me share with you the five tips right now. And the first tip I want to share with you is pretty obvious because I talk about this consistently and it is strength training or resistance training. So why should be that be at the top mark of somebody that wants to lose weight? So if you really understand the philosophy is that we need to be burning more calories than we are consuming, right? It's just calories in versus calories out Some women may argue because either they're in menopause, or they say it's not as, your hormones play into it. But at the end of the day, there are pretty much absolutes. Calories do not understand emotions. Calories is some, is oftentimes just a unit of energy. So if we are burning more than we are consuming, we are going to lose weight steadily. However, we do need to stay consistent. and not look at all the kind of like daily and weekly fluctuations that oftentimes result in overwhelm or stress or anxiety and you oftentimes will lose sight of what is actually helping you. So strength training is going to help with a lot of things. The very first and foremost is that it's going to help you build muscle mass. muscle mass. Muscle mass is a very highly metabolic tissue and I believe each pound of muscle can actually lose or I guess consume 8 to 20 calories per day of your total intake. So if you're looking at caloric output, we are born with a certain amount of metabolism which is called our resting metabolic rates. That is pretty much makes up 70 to 80 percent of our total caloric output. So the other determinants of that is that highly metabolic tissue. that highly metabolic tissue, which is muscle, the more muscle that you have on your body, the more that you burn at rest. So considering that I was prioritizing from January 2023 to the end of that, all I really prioritize was strength training for some of you that believe, the cardio is yeah, I've lost weight on cardio. It's really hard to sustain that. And the only way to continue to. to burn more calories is simply adding more time onto those cardio workouts. However, when you strength train and when you progressively overload intensity and volume, you build more muscle mass. And again, for every one pound of muscle, which may yield 8 to 20 calories per day, if you think about that doesn't seem like a lot, but that, that accumulates over a week span and a month span, right? That's anywhere between a few hundred to even a thousand calories. That you're not getting if you're simply just like running it off. All right, so strength training should be at the forefront. Strength training also does aid in fat loss. because of the fact that it improves insulin sensitivity, right? So the thing here about insulin sensitivity is if you've had if you are insulin insensitive Meaning that your insulin is not responsive to the sugars that you're intaking Then what happens is that sugar can accumulate into fat it can accumulate into adipose tissue However, when we have more muscle mass What ends up happening is when we eat sugar in, in the form of glucose, we need to store that glucose, and the storage form of glucose is glycogen. Glycogen can either be stored in your liver, or it can be stored in muscle. And your liver only has a certain capacity for storing glycogen, and the rest of it, guess where it goes? It goes, it gets stored up as fat, or it breaks down the bloodstream and it can result in atherosclerosis. Lead to a lot of other vascular disorders, right? Such as diabetic neuropathy. That's how diabetes starts is that when we become insulin insensitive. So having more muscle mass actually makes you more insulin sensitive. Therefore that sugar can therefore be stored in the form of glycogen and more muscle mass tissue. All right? So you just think about that in that way. That's huge when it comes to preventing disease. It's preventing early death, but also aiding in fat loss as well. And not just that, but strength training, because of the intensity at which strength training is. As an actual form of exercise, strength training actually leads to something called EPOC, right? It's Excess Post Oxygen Consumption, E P O C. And what that means is that we are actually burning calories 24 to 48 hours after the seizing of that exercise regimen. Okay, so that's why I strength train pretty much 6 to 7 days a week because of so many of the benefits around muscle mass. Recomposition. A lot of muscle mass actually looks better in general, but not just that. It does lead to sustainable weight loss because overall your caloric output stays much higher than a person that just does those crash diets. Crash diets oftentimes will lead to a little bit of fat loss, but you got to realize that those crash diets also leads to muscle loss. So that's what that's where you're actually. Quote unquote, you might be on a crash diet, but you're also crashing your metabolism. So when you decide to consume food again you can't stay on a crash diet forever though. That's what's gonna work against you, and you're gonna store all that in the form of fat again. Okay, so let me go through number two. Number two is neat, NEAT stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis. This is pretty much the amount of activity that we're getting when we're not in the gym and we're not actually doing planned workouts. So neat. Is. Transcripts can be formed in a lot of ways, and NEAT can make up anywhere between 10 to 50 percent of your total metabolism. The reason why I say 10 to 50 percent is that it's such a large range of caloric output, is because you're looking at people like construction workers, that all they do is carry heavy machinery. Curie blocks of cement for all we know, and that is a lot of neat, right? So they don't for somebody that's really trying to stay in shape. They don't need as much cleric output or they don't need a focus. I wouldn't say they need to focus as much as strength training, but they burn so much because of their work and physical demands. But if you're somebody that Let's say you're a busy parent or you work, let's say, eight to ten hours at a desk, you're really not moving a lot. Okay, so that, that means you're neat. Your activity thermogenesis is quite low. So how can we incorporate more neats into our lives? You can start doing simply just walking more. So if you're ever listened to a podcast or a YouTube video, instead of just watching that on the couch, try watching that on a treadmill or try pacing around the house. Try pacing around the block around the neighborhood and walk as you're learning. And I do that all the time, even at my workstation where I have a lot of my online clients that I see. A lot of times, anytime that I'm taking a Zoom call, they know that I'm actually walking at the same time. So a 30 minute Zoom call yields 30 minutes of caloric output. I am not just speaking, which is burning calories because I speak a lot, but I'm also burning a lot by simply walking. So that's a lot of neats right there. And even I incorporate my kids and a lot of my I guess chores and fatherhood activities and I make that more neat. So instead of just playing with my kids and sitting still, I incorporate my kids into, let's say, my exercise. So before dinner time, before lunch and meals, I actually throw my kid on my back and we do pushups. And that's not really planned exercise. That's just me doing that's like you just doing jump like jump rope or push ups right now while listening to the podcast. So there are so many ways in which if you change and modify your habits, if you can learn to fit in some sort of activity, exercise even a little bit like planks, push ups, squats into your daily life. Then you're going to get more NEAT and therefore all that accumulation of NEAT is going to result in fat loss and overall more caloric burn. Okay, so let's talk about number three. Number three is protein intake. So why is protein so important? Protein is actually considered the god of macros. When we're looking at the Greek, I believe the Greek means of utmost importance or of first rank. Protein is the most important macronutrient compared to carbohydrates and fats. And here's why. So protein is what builds muscular tissue. Protein gets broken down by either meat source, protein powder. I can link some stuff down below, but also protein gets broken down into amino acids and that's what helps you formulate muscle tissue. So we break down tissue when we're working out and when we're strength training and running and doing cardio, but we need to rebuild that tissue. So if you're not getting enough protein throughout your, let's say you're working out a ton, but you're not consuming enough protein and not putting enough emphasis there, then you're not rebuilding that tissue. And therefore, those muscles aren't getting stronger, and therefore, you're not actually building more muscle mass. Like I said, building more muscle mass yields more caloric output, even at rest. With protein, you want to be getting in anywhere between 0. 8 to 1 gram per pound of protein. Especially if you're doing higher intensity workouts, or you're working out more frequently, you may want to stray more towards that gold standard of 1 gram per pound of body weight. If I'm 153 pounds right now, I get in a bare minimum of 153 grams on the daily and I track that through an app, okay? So protein, not just that, but protein also, if you look at the equation, the total daily energy equation, you have your resting metabolic rate, which is your genetic metabolism. That's part of your caloric output. Then you have NEAT, which is what I just talked to you about. And then not just that, you also have the thermic effect of food. T E F makes up maybe about five to maybe maximum five to fifteen percent of your total metabolism. So if you consume more protein is harder to break down from the small intestine. The small intestine and your stomach has to work harder to break down a piece of chicken or steak. versus breaking down Cheetos. It actually takes energy in order to break that down. That is why protein is often times more satiating, it's often times more filling, so therefore it's going to prevent not just over consuming calories because protein actually keeps you fuller but also it's going to lead to an increased TEF which is going to actually help With the increased caloric output. Okay, so protein is by far the most important constituent So what I'd suggest is use an app like my favorite app is called macro factor You can also use my fitness pal or anything on the market and simply start tracking for at least 7 to 14 days You're oftentimes given a free trial. So there's no really excuse They really the excuse is whether you want to actually track it or not And I'd suggest that everybody in the world should have some sort of definitive knowledge around how much they're consuming because it's not just going to show you whether you're, let's say, over consuming, that's leading to caloric surplus, you're eating out of maintenance, which means that your weights just simply stand the same, or maybe you are in a caloric deficit, but in order to, let's say, speed up the fat loss, you may need to incorporate, again, more NEAT. Or start consuming more protein, which is going to help burn more. I kid you not, like when I can start consuming more protein, I not just get more restful sleep, but I also perform much better in the gym because I'm recovering better from workouts, eating more protein. And also, my body starts to recompose because I am burning more at rest, eating more protein as well. Okay? Number four is higher volume and lower calorie foods. If you look that up, it's pretty simple, and it makes sense in the grand scheme of things. We oftentimes will over consume calories because we're so fixated to foods like, again, Cheetos, Oreos, cake, all these foods that are extremely high in fats, very high in calories, and oftentimes are much lower in volume too, right? If you ever looked at Boba. Boba or Cheetos, it's like you can consume just a little bit and it's already 100 calories. However, you can consume, my goodness you can consume like a ton of strawberries, like a whole bowl of strawberries and it's only, what, like 30 to 40 calories. Blueberries, watermelon I oftentimes really fixate myself on apples and oranges because you can eat like the biggest orange. I ate an orange that was like 280 grams, like a large orange the size of a softball, and it was just under 90 calories. So you want to be eating more foods like that, because intuitively, the higher volume, lower calorie foods is going to help satisfy your cravings. It's going to make you fuller faster, okay? So I, it's, that's why a lot of people do consume a lot of let's say vegetables and things, because it makes sense. Although I would caution you that sometimes eating like a ton of vegetables, you want to be consuming foods that are also not just water, because water you'll be able to pee it out, right? So that's why people that eat a lot of salads and a lot of vegetable greens, yes, you want maybe a moderation of vegetables. But a lot of it is a lot of water content, so you're going to pee that out quicker. So you may want to consume more foods like even potatoes. Potatoes are not just going to help energize your workouts and give you carbohydrates to fuel those workouts, but it's also extremely satiating to eat like a large yam or a large potato. And it takes up more space. Okay, and also they are very high in a lot of vitamins and minerals. And I think a lot, potatoes get a kind of a bad rep because potato chips and fries, they're fried in like canola oil, they're pro inflammatory. But if you actually eat an actual potato, super satiating, quite low in calories and it's going to give you better performance during your workouts. Okay. So number five, the last and final thing I want to talk to you about is sleep quality. And I would say as a busy dad, this is probably the one that I struggle with the most. Okay, because not only was I in chronic insomniac prior to fatherhood, I had very hard struggles with sleep. But also, considering the minutiae of fatherhood where your kids are going through these sleep cycles, you gotta make do with what you have. But I would say the times that I can get, actually get a full seven to nine hours of sleep is one, I'm more productive. Two, I crave things less. So from a physiological standpoint, When you're not getting good sleep, your brain is more fatigued. And in order for your brain to feel like it's getting the energy sources that it needs, it wants to consume more calories, right? From an evolutionary standpoint, we actually consume more calories to try to feed the brain what it needs in order to function. Okay? And the brain, it relies a ton on glucose. It relies a ton on carbohydrates in order to function. When you're looking at just keeping the brain alive, your brain is going to do everything in its power to still stay alive. But by getting poor sleep, you actually, one, you increase ghrelin. And you also, you increase cortisol. So those are two hormones. Cortisol is your stress hormone. And in, in turn, that also increases ghrelin, which is also going to make you hungry. It's your, basically it's your hunger cue. So the more ghrelin that is secreted into the brain, the more you're going to crave more food and you're going to overeat. However, look at it this way. When you start to get better quality sleep, maybe one to two hours more sleep, You're going to down regulate that ghrelin, and you're going to increase leptin. And increased leptin is your satiety hormone. That's the one where, which actually is signals that you're full. Okay, so when you actually consume food, you actually start to feel the signals of less hunger, and therefore you're starting to make better decisions about your food. Okay? So that's why good quality sleep is really important. Not just that when your body is super sore and super tense. That also makes you more fatigued and that also makes you want to eat more too. So by way of getting more sleep. Sleep is what helps regenerate tissue, right? There are three phases of remodeling of tissue in the inflammatory cycle. There's inflammation, there's proliferation, and there's remodeling. So those are the three phases of healing. So when we work out, if we don't want to feel as sore, if we want to feel like we want to crush the next workout, then we have to be getting at least seven to nine hours. of good quality sleep. So as you can see, there, there's way more benefits. You can read, I've read a ton of books on sleep, but if you're looking at sleep in terms of controlling hunger making sure that you're also recovering from workouts, making sure that you're actually building more muscle tissue, a lot of times it starts with sleep. You just fix sleep, and a lot of times a lot of things start to get really good in your life, from improved productivity, improved body recomposition more PRs, better performance. Less, less hungry, more full, I mean there's so many benefits obviously from sleep, not just that, it will prevent a lot of Neurological diseases in the future like Alzheimer's etc. So those are my five five honestly, the five basic fundamentals right there if you can take all those five into account from strength training to getting more neat to Getting more protein intake higher volume low calorie foods and sleep quality and just rinse and repeat that process You can follow the same exact thing that I did to lose. I 24 pounds Get down to 9 percent body fat and be in the best shape of my life. And all I did was simply just repeat that process, not over days and weeks, because sometimes your weight will fluctuate. So a lot of times you'll get emotional about that, but simply staying with on that process for months and even years down the road is where you can see those dramatic changes, not just to your health, but also maintain a much lower weight for the long term. All right, so if you found this helpful, definitely let me know in the comments. The comments, if you can leave a five star review, that would be extremely helpful so that this stuff that I put out can be, can reach more people. And also if you have any questions or want different topics, definitely reach out to me via email, jason@flexwithdoctorjay.com. I read all my emails personally and I'm glad to. Help provide some insight through my podcast, and I'll leave you always with the quote that I always leave all my viewers, is that we only have one body, one life. Make every action you take be one that makes you a better version of you. Take care and have a beautiful rest of your day.