SHAWN STEVENSON: Today, we're going to cover some critical components of building muscle and burning fat. And make sure to stay tuned to the very end because you're going to discover something about this process that most people simply do not know about. Now, even over 20 years ago, when I started off in college, working as a personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach. I was shown by my teachers the image that many people have seen by now, five pounds of fat versus five pounds of muscle and how the muscle took up so much less space than the fat did. And so that's why body recomposition was a big goal in the personal training field and also for clients and people who are hyper focused on what the scale is saying versus how their clothes are fitting and them actually losing body fat and gaining muscle.

Now, with that said, you had a choice to make, what were you going to focus on? It's time to choose your own adventure. Are you going to focus on building muscle or are you going to focus on burning fat? Because it generally wasn't believed to be something that the body can do efficiently at the same time. So you had to choose one or the other. And that's where we get in this paradigm. of bulking and then cutting, bulking and then cutting. Bulking up, bringing in a surplus of calories in an effort to build muscle and then cutting down the body fat later after you put on the muscle that you want to put on and then doing your best to try to maintain that muscle as you're losing weight because your body can also use that muscle for fuel. So that choose your own adventure paradigm was definitely an era and there's a lot of truth within that. Our bodies can efficiently do one or the other if we really focus on one or the other. But I'm here to share with you today that you can do both. You can get you someone who does both, but it takes a very intelligent strategy. And it really has a lot to do with the timing of the various pieces of this formula. And so that's what we're going to dig into starting right now.

Number one of these four things to burn fat and build muscle at the same time. Number one is to prioritize building muscle. Think of building muscle like a domino effect that results in greater strength, greater energy, and an improved physique. The first domino that starts this phenomenal process is to send your muscles the signal to grow. It's all about the signal. We have these incredible antenna basically on ourselves that are picking up information from our environment and commanding our bodies to change, commanding confirmation and changes in how these amino acids are structured. And think of these amino acids, i. e our muscles in this context as these Lego building blocks. And we can create some really incredible dynamic, you know, buildings. And my youngest son is definitely a glorified master builder creating all these incredible mechs. He put together a whole Voltron out of Legos and it's massive.

Or we could do some little rinky dink little stuff, you know, make a little Picasso, like what is that kind of thing with the formation. So to be intentional with this, we want to send the right signal to ourselves to build muscle. And that growth in how we're putting our Lego blocks together and that growth in our muscles is called hypertrophy. And the most efficient signal for hypertrophy comes from resistance training. Now, there are two types of hypertrophy, and I want you to keep this in mind because a lot of people don't know this. There's myofibrillar hypertrophy, and this is the growth of the muscle parts, the muscle contraction parts.

The other type of hypertrophy is called sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, and this is increasing the muscle glycogen stores, so the capacity of the muscle to store energy. Now, both of these are important and both of these are improved through resistance training, but for our intents and purposes, we are focusing on the myofibrillar hypertrophy, which is associated with gains in strength and speed, and to provide your body with the effective signal to stimulate hypertrophy. You essentially need two things from the resistance that you give your muscles. Number one, you need to have mechanical damage. And number two, you need to have metabolic fatigue. The mechanical damage to your muscle proteins stimulates a repair response in your body. And the repair of the muscle proteins result in an increase in muscle size.

So don't think about this as being damaged goods. This is creating what is often referred to as these kinds of micro insults or micro tears with these muscle proteins, and essentially that's going to signal the repair process to take place and your body is all about building back better. It doesn't want to be able to just do the stress that you put on it. It wants to be able to overdo it so that stress essentially doesn't take you out, right? It wants to be able to do that stress exposure to survive and have a little bit more in the tank. So that's what's really stimulating hypertrophy. It's the process of mechanical damage is the initiator of it and then your body's going to kick into action to build back better. Now the way that your muscles change and how they look. How you build your body "build your body" is going to depend on the signal that you give them. You can absolutely build muscle by providing your muscles with a lighter resistance. But you have to do enough reps that you create that second part, which is muscle fatigue.

So again, you need mechanical damage and muscular fatigue. So yes, you can grab a 10 pound dumbbell that you can curl 50 to a hundred times, you know, depending on you and where you are and get the potential for hypertrophy, right? With the fatigue, once you hit fatigue at, you know, say, that 99th rep and you're just like, Oh, you're like Ron Burgundy, right. I'm just 98, 99, but you really did like five, right. And shout out to everybody that's seen Anchorman. But in reality, Is that efficient because that's going to take a lot more time versus getting the mechanical damage and muscular fatigue from doing a heavier weight, say 25 pounds that you can only do for 12 to 15 reps.

And we're going to talk about rep range here as well. And what the science really says where the sweet spot is located, but just keep in mind, you need both and you can get there. There are many paths to the goal. But we want to talk about, especially if we're looking at building muscle and burning fat at the same time, we need to be focused on efficiency. Now before we go any further, and this is a very special Red Alert, you've got to know about this. When we talk about training to muscular fatigue, some people might conjure up ideas about training to muscular failure, right, where you just can't do one more. That's a totally different area from what the science shows as the sweet spot for creating hypertrophy.

Now, this is not to negate the benefits of training to failure because doing that from time to time is a great input, a great signal for ourselves. But oftentimes we're training to failure and the volume that we're looking to do, and we're going to talk about volume in a little bit. This can get into a situation where you're constantly trying to recover and you're not fully recovering and able to do the amount of volume that you need to do to create the hypertrophy that you're looking for. And so training to muscular fatigue does not mean that you have to train to muscular failure to provide a strong enough efficient signal for growth. In fact, many scientists and experienced gym bros alike would affirm that going to muscular failure too often can result in diminishing returns and unnecessary "junk volume" that slows your recovery time.

And thus this leads to excessive soreness and delay on when you can train those muscles again, which leads us to our next point. A meta analysis published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research affirmed that, " muscle hypertrophy can be attained through a wide range of resistance training programs". Essentially there are many paths to the goal of building muscle from powerlifting to body weight exercises. But this study sought to uncover what is the most efficient way to build muscle. And the data concluded that number one, a hypertrophy oriented program should employ a repetition range of six to 12 reps per set with rest intervals of one minute to one and a half minutes between sets, right? So six to 12 reps in one minute. One to one and a half minutes or 60 to 90 seconds of rest between sets. So we're not waiting around a long time. All right. We're not doing super high rep amounts or super low six to 12. And this is going to depend on the body part that you're targeting, the weight you're using, all that.

But you want to pick a weight where you're doing somewhere in the ballpark of six to 12 reps. This is why the standard 10 number is a good number. Tends to stick around and to be applicable for a lot of different exercises. 

Number two, compound movements are ideal. Compound movements utilize a variety and inclusion of different muscle groups at once. So a compound movement would be something like a chest press or a push up. The push up is activating your chesticle muscles, aka your pecs. It's also engaging your anterior deltoids, the front of your shoulders. It's engaging your triceps. But keep in mind when you're doing a push up, there's a lot of other stuff taking place. Your core is working. There's also muscles in your back that are helping to keep you stable. Your body isn't just isolating and doing this one thing by itself. All right, so it's a very dynamic exercise, but as far as the compound muscle activation and the signals that are really getting turned on for hypertrophy, a push up or chest press.

It's chest, front of the shoulders, triceps are the dominant muscles, but they're all working together and they're getting that cellular signal to change, to adapt, all in one go. So they noted again, number two, compound movements are ideal. Multiple sets and the pace of your lifting can make a notable difference. Now, this is important. They noted, "concentric repetitions should be performed at fast to moderate speeds". So this is where you're contracting your muscles. This is where you are. If you're doing the chest press, this is where you're pushing. The weight away from you as you're laying on your back you're pushing the weight away from you. And that should be at a speed of one to three seconds while the eccentric repetitions should be performed at slightly slower speeds. So this is where you're bringing the weight back down. That should be slower at two to four seconds, not big slower. Just a bit slower.

So faster on the press, slower on the decline, right. So that's the eccentric part of the exercise should be slowed down. This is what's showing up to create the greatest hypertrophy. Plus the most effective hypertrophy results was from adequate weekly volume. Now, this is where we get into the conversation about volume. How much should I be doing in a week? How many sets? So we know that six to 12 is the ideal rep range, but how many sets are we doing? Right? So if we're training our back muscles, all right, we're going to use that as our example. So this is going to be pulling exercises. So this is going to be lateral pull downs.

This is going to be seated rows or one arm rows with the dumbbell or a variety of different types of pull ups. So chin ups, pull ups, different arm angles of so many different ways that we can engage our back muscles. But it's not just our back muscles. Again, they're parts of our shoulder that are working. Our biceps are working. It's a compound movement, but overall, how many sets are we looking at per week to get the greatest benefit with hypertrophy? Well, the data is showing an answer that you're probably not going to want to hear. The answer is it depends on you. It depends on your level of training that you're at currently, because the number of sets, again, based on the data, is going to be between 10 sets and 20 sets per week.

Alright, 10 sets and 20 sets per week. Generally, if we're looking at getting to 12 sets and above, this is going to be for people who are, "more trained". So people who've been training for some time and they have achieved a level of adaptation with their muscles. So more volume can be very helpful in that context. But again, even the most trained individuals, once we get past 20 sets is really not necessary. You're probably not getting other inputs, cellular signal inputs from those sets, which is potentially increasing the amount of weights you're doing, increasing the number of repetitions or playing around in that ballpark rather than trying to do a bunch of more sets because again, we get into diminishing returns and a lot of junk volume.

Now, even as I say junk volume, you've got to understand, I get ideas conjured up of the disrespect that goes to junk, all right? I think about Junkyard Dog. Shout out to the WWF. Junkyard Dog was a wrestler. He had value. Just because he was, you know, tinkering around in the junk, you know, they say one's man trash is another man's treasure, right? So junk volume is all about perspective too. There is a place for doing more volume. So I don't want to negate that. None of this is absolutely this or that there's one path to the goal. Everybody should do it, be doing this one thing. But we are talking about today. What is most efficient, what is most efficient based on the largest body of data that we have.

And so we want to aim for those compound movements, 10 to 20 sets per week. Now once you get in, if you go into the gym, for example, and you've got a great plan ahead of you, right? So let's just say you're training back and you're going to do some lateral pulldowns at a weight that you can get. We'll say eight to 12 reps and be very near muscle failure, right? You don't have to get to muscle failure, but get close. All right, you won't be able to whisper in its ear. All right. So eight to twelve rep range and you're gonna do three sets of that. We're gonna do three sets of seated rows and you're gonna finish off with three sets of reverse grip lateral pull. So you're gonna turn your hands around so that your hands are supinated.

All right, so supinated you can hold soup in your hand. All right, you're gonna turn your hands around you're gonna do basically a chin up with the lat pulldown bar. Or you can again, you can alternate these exercise swap in. doing pull ups and chin ups. But for our intents and purposes, we're coming into the gym. We've got a plan. We're going to do three sets of lat pull, three sets of seated rows, and three sets of reverse grip lateral pull down. We want to make sure that our weight is in a place where once we get up to that, cause we're aiming for eight to 12 reps. Once we get up to that 10, 11 rep range, we're struggling.

All right. We're struggling. We could still do it, But we want to be mindful that we have a weight that is at that place that challenges us once we get into that rep range. Now if you do the math, how many sets of exercise did we do for our back? 

That's nine sets. All right, we're coming in. Of course, maybe we warmed up. We did a little of this and that. My favorite warm up, by the way, is to do the exercise that we're about to do. But just with lighter weights, right? Get your body doing the thing that you're about to do, I think is one of the best and most overlooked forms of, "warm up". And so, but your actual working sets, that's what we get from the warm up sets to the working sets.

So your working sets, that's nine working sets, alright? We're not quite there, and we'll just say that we're a reasonably trained individual as well. So that's nine working sets. In my first session of the week. So maybe we'll say this is Monday. All right. I need to get in more volume this week. And that's the benefit. Now, I could add in two, three more exercises and just completely obliterate my back and my biceps. And I've done that. I've done that a time or 20. All right. But that's when I was constantly, chronically walking around sore all the time. You know, it's kind of like Bruce Banner, you know, when he was, when he showed up with the Avengers and they're like, don't you need to change into the Hulk?

Don't you need to get angry? He's like, that's my secret. I'm always angry and then he turns into the Hulk and punches his big ass alien ship. For me, that's my secret. I'm always sore, right? So it's just like, Shawn, how are you, how are you able to do? That's my secret. I'm always sore. We don't need to be living like that. And actually it's not as efficient because we're dipping so far into, it's not just a muscular issue, it's also our nervous system. Alright, our body is complex. There's a lot of stuff going on at the same time. And so we can start digging too deep of a hole and not allowing yourself to recover. And so to get that additional volume, what I'm gonna do today is add in another day where I'm training my back, right?

So maybe I trained on Monday and then on Tuesday, I train legs. Wednesday, I train, you know, the presses, so chest press and those kind of front upper body muscles. And then maybe I take a day off there, right? And just focus on recovery and do plenty of walking. And then I'll come back on that fifth day, which I could have did on the fourth day, I could have circled right back to my back. But if I want to get a rest day and a little extra little recovery, which we'll talk about. But on the fifth day I'm back to training back again and getting in more volume. So maybe I'd do another nine set, so that's putting me in that 18 sets for the week. That's a nice amount of volume. Plus I feel good. I get to go and tinker around in the gym. And now I can also do different back exercises if I want to as well, right. So maybe I'm doing a T bar row. Maybe I'm doing a dumbbell pullover. Maybe I'm doing a pull ups on this day and really focus on my pull up game, right. Or maybe assisted pull ups, you know, for folks that are working on doing their pull ups and they want to get in more volume. All right. So again, there's many ways of slicing dices, but based on the data, what we want to do is train those muscles more frequently by doing less volume in a day, being intelligent, strategic in the muscle groups that we are targeting, and then having another day in the week, at least another day where you're getting in some more volume on that same body part. 

Now there's a separate camp by the way, and especially this is great for people who are just getting started where they do a full body workout multiple times a week, right? So maybe they're just doing two sets per body part, right? So two sets for their press muscles, two sets for their pulling muscles, two sets for their legs. But they're doing that ,you know three to four times a week. They can get a nice amount of volume and some significant changes with their body, their body composition, and most importantly, hypertrophy.

All right. But folks that really want to specialize, if there's a body part that you really want to focus on to bring up or to accentuate, or, you know, something that's already pretty stellar that you just enjoy training, this is a great way to get all this in. Now there's a very specific reason that building muscle was the first one of these things to focus on. And this is because, and this is often overlooked. One of the fastest ways to reduce your body fat percentage is to build some muscle. I'm not talking about because of the metabolic benefits that having more muscle on your frame brings us. I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking about simple math.

All right, we'll just say for simplicity that somebody is 150 pounds and they want to reduce their body fat percentage. If that 150 pound person focuses on building five pounds of muscle, automatically their body fat percentage goes down because they now have Five more pounds of muscle on their frame. Their muscle percentage, their lean mass percentage has gone up and thus their body fat percentage has automatically gone down. It's just math. Two plus two is four, minus three. Quick math. Shout out to Big Shock. All right, the UK rappers are out here, by the way. Shout out to everybody in the UK. They're doing their thing.

Now, by the way, this isn't a new phenomenon. There's a guy named Slick Rick. All right, the rapper with the eye patch, the original Nick Fury, right? There's, it's been, been in the, in the culture sphere for a while, but now UK rappers are really doing their thing. All right. So again, we started off on this list of these four specific things to do to burn fat and build muscle at the same time. Number one is prioritizing building muscle. And this is for the reasons that we've covered. All right. And again, this will automatically change your body fat percentage. And so look at, you've got to just stop, take a moment and write out a schedule for yourself to get in the volume that you need to get these results that you want, especially if you don't want to spend a lot of time in the gym or working out. You got to just be strategic in this. All right. But some people love being in the gym. They're a gym rat. And that's another, that's another disrespect right there. All right. Why you gotta be a gym rat? All right. Why can't you just be somebody who likes to go to the gym? Who, who really likes rats besides the Ninja Turtles? But anyways, if you enjoy being at the gym, that's one thing. But if you're trying to be efficient and train maybe 30 minutes a day, 30 to 45 minutes. 

You could do less by the way, but you need to be very strategic and write it down. Like, what does your week look like? Do you want to train for three days? I gave that example of a three day split, right? You could train like that. And so your week is going to change every week. You're just going based on what's up next, right? So every Monday isn't going to be National Chess Day. Alright? But you can do that if you want to structure your workout so that you are obliterating and you're getting in all that value doing a bunch of sets in one day, you can do that.

Many pass the goal. Is it most efficient? No, it's not. So you want to get in more value by splitting up the sets in the week. All right. So that was number one on this list of four things to burn fat and build muscle at the same time. Number one, prioritize building muscle. That should be a given, but I had to start off the show by talking about that because it's so important. Just give you a couple of little nuggets, little insights that sometimes are overlooked or not talked about. Now we're going to move on to number two and that's about to get, it's about to get a little bit more juicy. Number two on this list of four things to burn fat and build muscle at the same time.

Number two is to walk in a fasted state. During low intensity exercise, like walking, your body relies primarily on aerobic metabolism, which means it's using oxygen to convert your body fat into energy. Fat is a more efficient fuel at low intensities because it provides a steady, sustainable source of energy over longer periods. However, when the intensity of the exercise rises and your body is experiencing higher amounts of stress, other energy sources are utilized. Anaerobic metabolism, which doesn't require oxygen, can start grabbing the stored glycogen from your muscles, and your liver to fuel the exercise that you're doing.

It's not good or bad. It's just your body making an adaptation to fulfill the job that you're placing on it. Now, here's an important revelation today. Regardless of what we want our bodies to do, Our bodies are incredibly intelligent and our bodies are all about efficiency. They're adapting to the jobs that we place on them, but doing it in the most efficient way possible. And we evolve to use stored body fat when we are doing less intense things. So the process of walking is something that if we're looking at something being very parasympathetic or sympathetic, right? So we've got the sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight nervous system kicking on in a much more pronounced way when we are strength training, when we are running, you know, jogging, when we're cycling at moderate to high intensities. When we are sprinting and doing things very fast. We're going to have more of a sympathetic dominance taking place. Whereas walking can almost be something that is parasympathetic, that can be relaxing in a way, but it definitely is not turning on that high intensity fight or flight energy where your body is going to be acclimated or prompted to go and start cleaving off stored energy from your muscle glycogen, from your liver. 

And instead it can just use, Hey, We're chilling. Let me just use this slow burning body fat that my person has hanging around, you know, to fuel this process, right? So I want you to keep that in mind. Our bodies are not a one trick pony and just using one form of fuel. At one time to do this one thing it is intelligent it's going to adapt based on the signals that we're providing it with.

Biochemist, dr. Sylvia Tara shared with me that our bodies really work on a hierarchy of energy needs and if we're wanting to burn body fat for fuel, we have to be mindful of this energy or currency exchange that our body is doing. And as we're doing more intense exercise, our bodies are first going to go for any of the easily metabolized energy that's around. Why break down stored body fat and stored glycogen if there's some glucose cash on hand, right? So the glucose cash on hand, where would that come from? Well, that would come from the food or the beverage that you just had You know, around that time of doing your training. Your body's going to go and grab that up first. Not good or bad. Just if our goal is using stored body fat for fuel. Again, we're talking about something different than building muscle right now.

We're going to tie all this in a neat bow, but if we're looking at burning body fat for fuel, when we're not strength training, we don't want to have that glucose cache on hand if we're trying to just walk and burn some stored body fat, right? So this is why we want to walk in a fasted state because your body will first use that glucose cache on hand. Especially if we're getting into more intense exercises, glucose cash on hand, then it will use what she referred to as the checks of the system. So we've got glucose cash, then the checks would be writing a check for the stored muscle glycogen, the stored liver glycogen that your body can break down, right? It's like writing a check. It's been a minute since I wrote a check. I remember, Learning about writing checks in class. It was like a finance class, which was super weird.

The teacher was like obsessed with Garfield, but that's a whole other story. Garfield the cat, that is. Now, keep this in mind, that it's going through this hierarchy. Glucose, cash on hand, writing a check now for muscle glycogen, for liver glycogen. Now, now, then and only then, it will go to breaking down stored body fat for fuel. Because why would it do that if this energy demand is for something that's very glycolytic, very fast, you know, we need something that we can use very quickly. And so breaking down this slow burning fuel in the form of stored body fat is something that your body just wouldn't be acclimated to do with higher intensity exercise.

And so how does this all show up in the data? Let's consolidate this. A study titled the effects of increasing exercise intensity on muscle fuel utilization in humans was published in the Journal of Physiology. The study found that whole body fat oxidation. 

So body fat over your whole body increases with progressive intensity exercise, but diminishes as the intensity reaches a threshold where the body uses more stored fuel from the muscles. Again, with progressive low intensity exercise, your body is fine with using stored body fat for fuel, but as the intensity increases and you hit a threshold where your body is going to start using the fuel from your muscles. Alright, so again, we've got really sound data on this. Multiple studies showing that our bodies will switch gears and use different fuel. When we're doing more intense exercises and there's a place for that. We've got the epoch, right? We've got the post Calorie burn that happens after doing intense exercises. That's all fine and dandy But let's not go eat candy. All right, we want to keep this in perspective because right now we're looking at efficiency for building muscle and burning fat. There's a huge energy demand to build those muscles when we're doing our resistance training. Walking operates in a couple of different dimensions.

Yes. We get some extra fat burning activity, but also it's. low intensity. So it's not dipping in to that nervous system, but it's also not digging us deeper into a hole with our nervous system expense with our muscular expense and us being able to recover, to get back to training when we're ready to train, we're ready to do our strength training and to lift some weights, right? So we want to be active. Low intensity exercise like walking is truly the way to go. Now again, the emphasis here is walking in a fasted state. Now this is very important for efficiency. There is no wrong time to walk, alright? Anytime that we're walking, whether it's after a meal or not, walking is good. It has so many benefits.

But we're just looking at the optimal plan. If we're really targeting burning fat and building muscle at the same time, we have to be a little bit more strategic. And so walking in a fasted state because after a meal or even, you know, depending on if you've ever used a continuous glucose monitor, for example, to track this stuff, you might notice that, you know, your blood sugar is still high an hour later. It depends on how you metabolize your food. All right, so doing it right after a meal. We'll just say after meal up to like 45 minutes, your body is going to be essentially completely shifted away from burning stored body fat because insulin is active. After you eat food. Insulin literally blocks the body from using stored body fat. Insulin is our body's primary energy storage hormone. It's trying to do its job and store stuff. Why on earth would you be releasing energy when insulin is on its job? Alright, so keep that in mind. So again, for our intents and purposes, as part of an overall plan to build muscle and burn fat, walking in a fasted state is ideal if we pick the best time to walk. So this is going to be. Primarily first thing in the morning before you have any caloric intake. If you can get 20 to 30 minutes of walking in, that's just going to be a free time of fat burning in many instances.  So, and again, this might not be something that is going to be accommodated by the weather at all times a year, but if you can, ideally if you get 30 minutes to walk in now, listen, this isn't just from my perspective and even the perspective of the science. 

This is the perspective of some of the most talented coaches with some of the most important jobs with body fat management with performance of their athletes and one of those is Mike Dolce. Multi time mma trainer of the year working in the ufc specializing in nutrition and Building muscle for his athletes.That's what they would ask first, mike share with me. Him and his team would be like what do we got to do to increase the muscle mass on our athlete Because they know that that's going to help everything in that domino effect. And so one of the things that's a hallmark for Mike Dolce and for himself, by the way, in his personal life is getting in that morning walk, right?

That low intensity, steady state cardio. So that's the first thing that he does every day. He's been doing it for years and years and years. And Mike is one of the fittest people that I know. I believe he's in his mid forties right now, but he's just super fit. Soup, just incredibly functional, not just fit, but functional. And he has a body fat percentage that is remarkable for, you know, his supposed age bracket, but he's just doing these things that the body expects and works on in a very intelligent fashion. So. LIS, right? So that's the acronym LIS, Low Intensity Steady State Cardio. First thing in the morning is what he would have his athletes do.

Not necessarily getting up and going for a jog, but that might be part of their training. The jog for the training, but not for the purpose of that body recomposition. He would have his athletes do low intensity, steady state cardio, where he could just use stored fat for fuel first thing to start the day. So if you can get outside for 30 minutes to start your day, That's going to be ideal. If today, by the way, we fortunately have access to more things that can support our goals than ever before, but we also have access to a lot of garbage and a lot of, a lot of junk, a lot of noise, a lot of distraction.

But now today you don't even got to buy a treadmill to walk. There are walking pads. They're like this very compact little. walking pad, I don't know how else to put it, that only takes up a few feet of space that is like all the rage for a lot of people right now. And they're much more cost effective and I'm not advocating for the walking pad by the way, I'm just saying I'm, I'm much more in the camp of get your feet on the, on the natural On the el natural walk, all right. Because if you have any of these contraptions, these devices, like a treadmill, like, you know, the walking pad, it's taking a part of our normal gait out of the equation because the ground is moving under you. You're not propelling yourself in the same way because again, the ground is moving right as that a conveyor belt is moving. And so it's a little bit weird, but of course you can use that as a supplement to get that walking in to get those steps in, but make sure that you are also, if you can get some, L natural walking in as well.

And, uh, I can tell you, you know, I've countless times seen people walking at the mall, you know, there, of course you can go to the gym and, you know, get your low intensity, steady state in as well. 

There's many ways to go about it, but. It's just for efficiency's sake, doing it first thing in the morning, just it's more efficient, more logical. You don't have to do that though, because walking in a fasted state doesn't mean like an overnight fast. This would be something that is great in between meals, right? So we'll just say, you know, you have your breakfast at 8am and then you have lunch at 12:30, right? Around 10 o'clock, from 10 to 1230, we'll say.

That can be acknowledged as a fasted state because insulin is not active now. Alright, so you can get that walking in then. It doesn't have to be first thing in the morning. So again, I don't want any of these things that we're sharing, if it's of interest to you, to be a barrier of entry. Because we've got to acknowledge our own life structures and, you know, but still find a way to achieve the goals that we have for ourselves. Now I'm going to emphasize this one more time. There is no wrong time to walk. There is no wrong time to walk. We're just looking at what is most efficient for burning fat in the moment, in the moment. And that's going to be walking in a fasted state, but there are incredible benefits walking post meal with insulin sensitivity.

And our muscles have this remarkable ability to uptake and pull in glucose without the activity of insulin or the activity of so much insulin. It's going to reduce your body's need or output for insulin. Increase your insulin sensitivity. Decrease the amount of insulin your body has to produce to clean up all that glucose from your bloodstream. All right, it's still going to be active If you are walking post meal insulin is still going to be turned on but everything works better again. So it's just what benefit are you looking for in the moment? There's no wrong time. But for our intents and purposes, walking in a fasted state is number two on this list.

We want to develop a LISP, all right? A Low Intensity Steady State Practice, a LISP. Not like Mike Tyson, not like that. But, it's in the sphere right now, all right? The whole fight, you know, with the little Jake Paul, whatever. It's out there. All right. I'm also thinking about, uh, you know, Mike Tyson's punch out. There's the thing that's going around pre fight with this video game. And this was the first video game that I saw. I witnessed somebody beat the game. It was my stepfather and he had Mike Tyson's punch out and I was struggling getting past the first couple of people, you know, um, but one of the characters, apparently they're saying like Nintendo predicted the future. Looks eerily similar to jake paul and that character was glass joe, right? He was a character at the glass jaw, right? You find out the little codes and patterns and that was the same thing and this is such a great reference with beating a video game and being able to achieve our fitness goals. There are certain patterns to everything. There are certain strategies to everything. There is a way there's a path and leaning on the experience of people who figured a lot of these things out and applying it. 

But it's going to be in our own unique way. Everybody isn't going to hit the joystick in the same way, but we can all figure out the patterns and do it in our own unique way at our own unique time. And that's what it's really all about. So in closing. How much walking should we be targeting if we're looking at efficiently burning store body fat? What does that number look like? Well, a lot of this communication is done in step count today. So somewhere between 8, 000 and 10, 000 steps is going to be a pretty good spot.

If we're getting in fasted, low intensity, steady state walking right now. There are other forms of low intensity, steady state. Exercise that we can be doing of course, but we're just talking about walking here eight to ten thousand steps a day if we're looking at really maximizing this. But even if you're getting four thousand six thousand intentional fasted steps in you're going to be so far superior to other folks that are trying to proactively burn fat with a bunch of other stuff. So it's a huge benefit here. So maybe you get in four thousand fasted steps and then later on you get 4, 000 steps, you know, uh, post meal at some point, but target eight to 10, 000 steps a day fasted walking, but any fasted walking that you can get in, it's going to be helpful. All right, we're going to move on to number three on this list of four specific things that you need to do that you need to target in order to build muscle and burn fat at the same time.

Number three is to eat healthy. according to your routine. Another secret that should not be a secret is that you're going to eat a little differently on the days that you're strength training versus the days that you're not. And you're going to eat differently around the time of day that you're training. Now, why is that? Let's dig in a little deeper. A recent study titled perspectives regarding the role of dietary protein for the promotion of muscle hypertrophy with resistance exercise details the role of protein in building muscle. The scientists affirm, "skeletal muscle supports locomotion and serves as the largest site of post meal glucose disposal. Thus, it is a critical organ for physical and metabolic health". This is something we already talked about. But going further, they stated, "skeletal muscle mass itself is regulated by the process of muscle protein synthesis and muscle protein breakdown. Both of which are sensitive to external loading and aminoacidemia".

Essentially, the researchers are stating that we need the loading slash resistance signal to start the muscle building process. And then we need an adequate, and this is the key, an adequate supply of protein to help the muscles to build back better. Now the question is, what is that optimal amount of protein? The researchers found that we do indeed need ample amounts of protein to induce muscle protein synthesis. But too little and too much protein can reduce the maximum ability for muscle to grow. It's far more likely, however, keep this in mind, that people are not consuming enough protein. The researchers honed in on about one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day to effectively build muscle.

Or we can sidebar based on the work of Dr. Gabrielle Lyon and say, you know, One gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight per day. So if somebody is, say, 200 pounds and their ideal body weight is 170, they target 170 grams of protein per day. Now this is the amount that's shown in multiple studies to support the most efficient and effective hypertrophy and to prevent muscle loss when someone is in a calorie deficit. The researchers noted that you need an even higher ratio of protein than that one gram per pound of body weight per day. If you are in a caloric restriction, you need even more protein to protect your muscles so that it's not getting used as fuel if you're in a calorie deficit. Now, the aspect of reducing muscle protein synthesis by consuming too much protein is actually something that's pretty challenging to do because we're looking at consuming twice as much as that one gram per pound of body weight.

So we're talking a lot of protein. So if somebody's consuming 400 grams. If their target is 200 grams, they're consuming both. All right. It is very difficult to reduce muscle protein synthesis by consuming too much protein, but it is a thing. I just want to be clear on that. All right. We can, it's not just shoveling in as much protein as we can to just support this muscle protein synthesis and repair and repair and repair. There's only so much build back that you can do before basically blunting the signal. What happens is it decreases muscle protein breakdown when we have too much protein available coming into our system again and again and again. All right. So basically it's preventing the body from efficiently breaking those muscles down to build back better. And again, this is according to these researchers. So number one, eating according to our routine, we've got to get in ample amounts of protein. The cool thing about the protein is that we don't need to be super strategic in where we're getting it in our routine. Unlike some other things we're going to talk about.

So just getting it in, in that kind of 24 hour period of the day. And this again, based on the work of my friend and colleague, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, the muscle centric MD. It's really about making sure we're getting in that adequate protein somewhere in that day, whether we're strength training or not. So we'll use the simple 150 pound example targeting, we're really on it about our lifting. We're on it about our walking in a faster state, we're targeting 150 grams of protein. Now, let me be clear again, this is not hard as it has to be. But just striving for that, getting somewhere in that ballpark because we're all different. We have a unique metabolic fingerprint, unique microbial fingerprint in what we're assimilating. Also the sources of food, it's not going to tell us exactly how many grams of protein. We're just getting estimates. We're getting estimates and our body is not a calculator as well. It's going to do different jobs. And so striving to get somewhere around 150 grams is ideal. All right, so that might be one day for you, proactively, you're eyeballing or, you know, reading different labels and stuff like that, and it's 130.

That's totally fine, versus most people on accident who are targeting those kind of numbers are getting in like 60 grams of protein a day and wondering why they're not getting the hypertrophy benefits and the metabolic benefits they're looking for. So how do we get that amount of protein in if we're eating, we'll say three meals a day, right? So we're getting in 40 grams in three meals, ideally, and then we're getting in another 30 grams of, say, a protein supplement, a high quality protein supplement. This is very doable. This is very doable. Some people prefer to split it up and get in four meals or whatever the case might be. There is this long running, bodybuilding paradigm of eating, like, Five, six, seven meals a day.

That's not necessary. It's not necessary, but we've got to do what's right for us. All right. And so if we're spending a lot and you could still even get your fasting time in. But if you're getting in just three meals a day, you can hit this target if you're 150 pounds relatively easy. For somebody else that doesn't want to eat a lot of food you might want to get in two servings of a protein supplement or you know, some time tested things like Greek yogurt and the like. But if we're looking at a protein supplement, there's one that is really affirmed in the data study after study after study, including a randomized double blind study published in the Journal of Nutrition found that overweight test subjects who instructed to consume whey protein daily, For 23 weeks, lost more body fat mass, had a greater loss in waist circumference, and had a greater reduction in circulating ghrelin levels, which is our body's major hunger hormone, compared to test subjects having soy protein or an isogenic carbohydrate drink.

Now what's really interesting about this Is that in this study test subjects were instructed to not make any other dietary or lifestyle changes. Just adding in more protein led to these results. Just adding in more protein led to them losing Body fat mass and having a greater reduction in their waist circumference and their waist size. Please hear me. We have been misguided.We've been led astray We didn't land on protein restrictions. Protein restrictions landed on. Sorry. Shout out to Spike Lee and X. Alright, but keep this in mind. We were miseducated about our protein intake. There's been these battles going on for years about low fat versus low carb and protein. It's been just like the footnote.

It's been like the member of the R&B group Who is just like, why are you in the group? What do you do? Never get, they never get any lines. They never get, you know, they don't play any instruments. You know, maybe they do some of the, maybe they're there for the harmony. I don't know. But they get disrespected. And low key, they might be producing all of the music behind this, and I'm specifically talking about Devontae, or if we're talking about Jodeci. I was like, why are you here? Right. He's not one of the singers, but he's there for the swag and is also producing the music as well. So did I just equate Devontae to protein?

Yeah, I guess I did, but keep this in mind. This is critical for fat loss. It's critical for Building muscle and the protein supplement that I've been utilizing personally for years, for years is the grass fed whey protein from Onnit. Check them out, go to onnit.com/model. That's O N N I T. com forward slash model. You're 10 percent off. They're incredible. whey protein, but also again, if you are on a plant protocol, they've got an amazing plant protein as well. But again, just keep in mind, most of the studies by far, the lion's share of studies on protein supplementation are done in affirming the benefits of whey protein.

And it's very, for people that might have a little bit of unrest with dairy products. I found that this whey protein even for me, like I can't, I can't dabble with too much dairy. All right. But it's always been great. Feel good. Feels good. Highly digestible. Now this is not for everybody, by the way, again, but for most people getting a whey protein is going to be a game changer. All right. So head over there, check them out for sure. Go to onnit.com/model for 10 percent off store wide. Now this leads into truly eating for our routine. Protein is a given. But what about those other two macronutrients? Fats, carbohydrates. We know that to get that fullness of our muscles, it's going to require the intake of some carbohydrates, alright?

There are these cams that demonize carbohydrates. Cams that demonize protein. That demonize dietary fats. That's it. We evolved having all of them. Humans have all of them, and there's so many different foods that we have eaten as a species. All right, there isn't a category that is bad. But the sources of where we're getting these things can really mess us up. Traditionally we weren't getting access to a lot of carbohydrate dominant foods without a lot of other stuff coming along with it without rich amounts of vitamins and minerals and enzymes And today we could just get straight up That pure, uncut, if we're talking about drinking soda, if we're talking about, you know, the, the cookies and the cakes and all these different things, and not to villainize these things, but maybe they should be, you know, maybe they should be.

And so keep that in mind. What we want to do is to fuel our workouts, fuel our performance. And most people experientially feel better when they have a little bit more carbohydrates in. And around when they are doing their strength training, it really just helps to replenish the muscle glycogen that's going to get used and also just fueling that repairing process because A lot of processes in our bodies are running on glucose. All right, so we have to target the amount of carbohydrates that are right for us. Now, this could range substantially. This could be anywhere from a hundred to several hundred grams a day, but here's the emphasis. This is the tip. We want to make sure that we're getting in adequate amounts of carbohydrates on the days that we are lifting. Specifically the days that we are lifting. And on the days that we are resting, recovering, we can reduce our intake of carbohydrates on that day. All right, so strategically, give yourself a little bit more carbohydrates, whether that's rice, Fruit, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, having a little treat here or there, you know, a little waffle, a little whatever.

Those are the things that you want to have on the days that you're training. Alright, you don't want to go too buckwild. Alright, you don't want to go too buckwild, but those are the days to get it in. On your days that you're not strength training, go low carb. Low work carb, let me be clear. Lower carb. Not low carb. We're not necessarily targeting low carb. You can, but go lower carb on those days. And this is because the action of insulin, the more that we can keep insulin down on those days, the more that our bodies are going to be using stored body fat for fuel and also provide that muscle sparing benefit because we're getting in adequate amounts of protein and dietary fats.

We don't want to skip on getting those fats because it's critical for the function of our nervous system in particular, in this context, our brain, the list goes on and on. Now, with this being said, to circle back a tiny bit, that's the benefit of walking as well, is that it is muscle sparing. So, we want to ideally train for our routine on the days that you're lifting, get in a little bit more carbohydrates, on the days that you're not, reduce those carbohydrates a little bit. But we're not skipping out on any of our macronutrients. But you don't want to overdo it with any of them because you will get diminishing returns, if not some problems going too hard on the paint on just about anything. But that's just life itself. And so eating according to your routine, these are the little tweaks, these tiny micro changes that can make the difference with building muscle and burning fat at the same time.

Just being mindful of that. Now we're gonna move on to number four on our list. And this is Right here, this is the one that so many people, experts in this field included, do not talk about. They don't teach people about, and you are about to learn the benefits. Number four on this list is to give yourself the advantage, and this is the keyword, the advantage of a real recovery. Specifically in this domain of real recovery, we are focusing on high quality sleep. And it's because this is an aspect of fat burning and building muscle that most people are not educated about. Fat loss is sleep dependent. Please hear me. This is one of the biggest takeaways of the day and of your lifetime. Fat loss is sleep dependent. A randomized crossover study conducted by scientists at the University of Chicago found that when test subjects were placed on the same diet, in this same controlled conditions, the amount of sleep they got dramatically affected fat loss. In one condition, the test subjects were allowed to get eight and a half hours of sleep nightly for two weeks. In another condition, they were sleep deprived and restricted to just five and a half hours of sleep nightly for two weeks. Now, keep in mind, they're all on the same calorie restricted diet in the same conditions. And after compiling the data, at the end of the study, the participants lost 55 percent more body fat when they were able to get eight and a half hours of sleep.

I just want you to think about how remarkable that is. When they increased the amount of sleep that they're getting, we're not talking about activity. We're not talking about eating. We're talking about sleep. They lost 55 percent more body fat. And not only that, the study published in the annals of internal medicine reveals something shocking to do with muscle. When the participants were sleep deprived, their bodies began burning off their muscle for fuel at a faster rate. The participants' loss of fat free mass, including their muscle, increased by 60 percent when they were sleep deprived. This was accompanied by what the researchers called neuroendocrine adaptation that shifted their body away from burning fat for fuel and turning it towards burning their muscle for fuel.

This is what's happening when we're depriving ourselves of sleep. And this should be well known. If our goal is to burn fat and build muscle, the fastest way to do the opposite, to not do those things is to sleep deprive ourselves. And so truly fat loss is sleep dependent and so is building and protecting our muscle. And I really want to emphasize that today. And so we've got to keep all of these things in perspective for ourselves. Be gentle with ourselves. Look at how we can add these things into our life without overstressing, overdoing it. But we need to have a life that is built around giving ourselves healthy movement inputs and allowing ourselves to rest. Today, more than ever, we've got so much stuff that is siphoning our energy and our attention because for many of us, like, even these four steps can seem like a lot. But thinking about how much time we waste with all these television apps, with all the social media and things like that, we can construct a life to where we're getting in an hour of movement a day.

We can do that. There's so many paths to that goal and allotting adequate time for us to sleep. And In this domain, unfortunately, something that we just as a species, every other species sleeps. Like they, it's not a thing, you know, there isn't like a hyena walking around. Like, you know what? I'm just, I got insomnia, bruh. All right. It's us. It's us. And so today with all the things going on in the world, if we're going to be educated in this subject, we have to be proactive. And this is because we have a society that is constructed to fight against us sleeping. And so this is why I focused my, my first major book. And I'm very grateful to say that it is an international bestseller.

It is now translated in. It's getting close to 30 different countries and languages and that book is called Sleep Smarter and there's 21 clinically proven strategies. All backed by science to improve your sleep. Not just your sleep duration. But the quality of your sleep because it's really sleep smarter, not sleep more. For some people they do need more but it's really optimizing the menace that we're getting. And so we've talked many times here on the model health show about improving your sleep quality. And we'll definitely put a couple of links to some of those episodes for you here to dive into. 

If sleep, If you really today you just like really got it and they click like I really need to focus on improving my sleep quality. I'm messing myself up, making my life harder. I'm making my fitness harder because I'm not getting the sleep that my body needs. And so I really want you to keep this in mind that fat loss is sleep dependent. A couple of quick tips. Number one, we want to be mindful of the number one sleep deterrent today in our modern world, which is our technology. Our technology is sucking the sleep right out of us. All right. And we've got to keep that in mind because researchers have affirmed again and again, one of the most recent studies on this, that being on our devices in the evening, that light spectrum beaming into our eyes is affecting every cell in our bodies.

Our vision is a place of data input, but it's not just our eyes. By the way, our skin picks up data. Our skin has photoreceptors is picking up information. Our body is constantly trying to figure out what time of day it is so that it knows. The appropriate hormones and neurotransmitters and cellular activity overall to do. So we know that number one, the light coming from our devices suppresses our melatonin production and increases our body's production of cortisol, specifically when we're on them in the evening. It's not the same response when we're on them in the daytime, because again, our bodies are synced up with a 24 hour solar day.

We're connected to all of life here in this universe. We're a part of it. But this stuff is new. We have not adapted to this exposure and it really disrupts what's happening with our hormones. In particular, what's happening with melatonin, which is a huge driver of our sleep quality. All right. So give yourself a screen curfew to the best of your ability. If you're going right from your device to bed every night, it's probably not, it's probably not a good idea. So. Start with a 30 minute sleep curfew. Give yourself a little bit of time. Of course, you've got blue light blocking glasses and all those cool things, but some screen free time period is ideal. 30 minutes, an hour if you want to get crazy. All right. But you got to fill that time with something that you really value and enjoy as well. You know, this could be, you know, uh, reading a book. They still exist. This could be a listening to a podcast or an audio book. You don't got to stare into a screen to do those things. This could be talking to your significant other.

This could be a little mobility work, a little massage, you know, working on some with some mobility tools. My friend, Dr. Kelly Starrett, this is one of his favorite things to do in the evening. You know, do a little rolling the lacrosse ball, a little foam rolling, and you get some kind of parasympathetic activation there as well. This could be not just self massage, but massaging, or getting a massage from somebody else, alright, which could lead into some. Now it doesn't have to, sometimes a massage is just a massage, alright, for the lovers out there, but human touch, we need that. We need that. All right. And so another tip is to optimize that sleep environment.

And so, again, we've talked a lot about this on multiple episodes of the show. This light, especially it's being dubbed the light pollution. And so if you've got a lot of external lights out there outside your window, making sure you're getting some blackout curtains. And if you still for your own psychological feeling of safety and comfort, and you want something that is, you know, a light in the room itself, something that is a hue or a spectrum of light that we evolved with, right? So something of the more orangish, reddish hue, lower light, right? Is going to be ideal and get the environment cool as well. We sleep better when the environment is cool. We got a lot of science on that too. Number four is Giving yourself the advantage of real recovery, right? So sleep is the tip of the spear with this one. Also walking is a big part of recovery.

That's why it's a part of this plan. It's muscle sparing and it's very good for that kind of parasympathetic tone. And just giving yourself some time for relaxing activities. So whatever that looks like. Just giving yourself some time to chill, to have some down time to relax. And if you can do that without the use of technology, without being on your phone, give your body, your brain, your nervous system a chance to just unplug. You know, that's really gonna be helpful with that real recovery. And so today's episode is really focused on body recomposition. All right. We're not doing a either or approach to either burn fat or try and build muscle, AKA bulking and cutting. We're looking at a strategy to where we could do both at the same time. And it's going to take a little bit more strategy. All right. And also, Being more kind and graceful with ourselves as well. Overall, no matter what approach you're taking and knowing today more than ever, you have to make a decision. You have to take responsibility. You have to take back your own health, your own sovereignty and decide, I am worthy of an investment into my health.

I'm worthy of an investment into my fitness. because there's so many things vying for your attention and pulling you away from you. So give yourself back to you. Give yourself permission to invest in your own health and fitness. I appreciate you so much for tuning into this episode today. We've got some epic masterclasses and world class guests coming your way very, very soon. So make sure to stay tuned, take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon. And for more after the show, make sure to head over to the model health show. com. That's where you can find all of the show notes. You can find transcriptions, videos for each episode. And if you've got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well. And please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that the show is awesome. And I appreciate that so much and take care. I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.