Achieving Body Recomposition Through Nutrition

Speaker 1 0:00

Hey guys , this is Kourt from Read-A-Finding Strength . Welcome to the Finis-Tax podcast . This is a show where I share all my free work on the nutrition tips . I'm not going to ever fill this episode with sponsorships or ask you to buy anything . All I ask in return is , if you're enjoying the podcast , to leave a review or leave a five-star rating or , even better , share it with someone you think it might help . This will only take a few minutes and would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone you know . So let's jump right in .

Speaker 1 0:28

I asked for your fat loss and muscle building questions on Instagram and I got some great questions that I want to go over , the top one being that I got multiple times was can you lose fat and gain muscle at the same time ? The short answer is yes . You can achieve amazing body recomposition . Many of us have heard this is not possible , and it's because we equate making aesthetic changes to only calories . So calorie deficit means we'll lose weight , calorie surplus means we'll gain weight , and when we focus simply on calories in versus calories out , we are not going to see the body recomp that we want . This is also why we can lose weight . Feel like you know , we're really progressing and not feel like we're getting any leaner . It's why we can be eating in the surplus and feel like we're not looking more defined while we're gaining muscle , because it's not simply about calories and versus calories out . Yes , that is the foundation , but macros matter most for body recomp . If you adjust your macros , you are going to lose fat and potentially gain muscle , or gain muscle without losing or without gaining fat . So you want to make sure that you're truly focusing on those macros and specifically protein .

Speaker 1 1:32

But you can lose fat and gain muscle , or gain muscle and not gain fat or even lose fat , as you're going to out that process . But it is a slower process and you've got to sometimes step off the scale . If you want to gain muscle especially , you've got to step off the scale because you might see that scale increase , especially if you're coming out of a calorie deficit and you just lost fat . As you're adding back in calories , as you're adding back in , potentially , carbs , your glycogen stores are going to become full . With that . You're going to gain water weight as well and because you're no longer in a deficit , you're no longer depleted , you're going to gain some weight . It is not fat being gained , but it is those stores you need to push hard to gain muscle and then you potentially will even have to eat more as you see the scale go up , because you are gaining more muscle and the more muscle you gain , the more you have to eat to fuel that lean muscle .

Speaker 1 2:16

If you are trying to lose fat and you're trying to see faster changes on the scale , well , you're probably just depleting your glycogen stores . You're losing water weight . You're potentially even putting yourself at risk for losing muscle mass , because muscle again takes more energy to be maintained and if you have less energy coming in , your body is going to do what it can to adapt to the energy and fuel that it's getting , and that will mean finding energy from internal sources and it's not going to draw from your fat stores that it can use later , which aren't costing it energy . It's going to potentially use your muscle , especially if you're training hard . That's why macros matter most . But , yes , you can achieve both . It is a slower process .

Speaker 1 2:49

It also means focusing on how you're adjusting your workouts . You need to focus on the strength work , sit , hit , steady state , cardio , walking all these things can be used because we want to improve overall health and especially interval work can improve different energy systems . It can help with our recovery . It can make sure that we're able to push that lack of threshold more , to lift more and have that strength endurance . So there's lots of benefits outside of just fat loss for different types of cardio and how we include it . But I think an underrated thing or two underrated things to focus on when we're talking about losing fat and building muscle is strength work and walking . Walking is going to help you move more , help you have a higher metabolic rate , burn fat without being a stressor or strain on your body , so you can train intensely , focusing on building that lean muscles , not only going to help you move better , but it's going to help you build a lean muscle which will help you remember calories at rest , be functionally fit , feel better . So we've got to focus on those two things in our workouts , as we're adjusting our macros to match and everything can be designed for the time we have . So how you design your breakdown of your workouts will really depend on the time that you have , going off of this best macro split and weight training cardio split , so you don't undo muscle gains .

Speaker 1 3:54

I bring this up after this because there is no one best . We are searching for a perfect macro ratio that will work for everybody . I can tell you that not only do I cycle ratios personally as I change progressions based on time of year , based on how I'm even feeling , based on previous ratios and the goals that I want to achieve . You're going to cycle ratios throughout your entire life , and you really should . The more we do that , the more we're going to find something sustainable , the more we're going to see results continue to progress . If you are trying to lose some fat , potentially after you gain muscle , you might find that you go to a higher protein ratio . I can tell you , ultimately , if you're going into a deficit , higher protein becomes even more key . If you want to maintain that lean muscle you fought so hard to build , then avoiding going straight to a ton of cardio .

Speaker 1 4:35

Cardio and strength aren't really either , or there's a continuum . You can work along with one rep , max heavy power lifting on one side with long rest periods and that steady state , endurance , marathon , ultra marathon , that type of cardio on the other end . In between you have metabolic conditioning , metabolic strength . All these different things you can use with different interval work to really make the workouts work for you based on the schedule you have , because if you have more days to train , you might include more set cardio days . So , on that cardio end of the spectrum and more slower lifting days , versus if you have three days to train , you might have to be more in the middle to get some metabolic benefits while also building strength . You want to cycle your workouts and your macros over time as well , because it's constantly like you're doing a little too much one way and then a little too much the other way . So maybe you do add a little more cardio and you're doing more interval work and you're not focused quite on building the muscle as much and you want to blast out a little bit faster . So you are still focused on that strength work , but more metabolic strength work . So , okay , you go that way . You lose a little bit of fat . Now you want to focus a little bit more on belly muscles shift . So it's not these big dramatic changes where we have to be in a cut or a bulk . We want to stay in that middle and we want to focus on macros and that strength work and then implementing cardio strategically .

Strategic Approach to Body Recomp

Speaker 1 5:41

And when we implement cardio strategically , the one caveat I will give you again is include a lot of walking . That's a great city state . If you're an endurance athlete , this doesn't mean you have to cut it out . But then don't think more is better . So often where we get in trouble with hit and sit is that we're not actually using it as hit or sit . We're not actually doing that high intensity work because we're trying to stretch these intervals out for an hour and you can't maintain the same level of intensity over the hour . If you're doing something super intense , it's automatically going to be shorter , and the only way would be longer is if you're doing that sprint work where you work for 10 seconds and then yet truly rest for 10 , 11 , 12 times to really recover from that true sprint work , because you're going at that 100% intensity . So the only reason to have a workout longer is because the rest periods are getting longer , including more mobility work , not because you're trying to add in more wasted volume .

Speaker 1 6:28

So I would tell you there is no one best , anything . It's about designing for the time you have and making sure the systems work together . If you're doing more cardio , you might need more carbs . If you're less active , you might need fewer carbs . But as long as you focus on protein and then sort of adjust and cycle the carbs and fat , you're going to see the best results and truly maintain that balance and get in a diversity of food which will ultimately help your body run more efficiently . So next thing , I wanted to go over cardio midlife how many times per week is good and how long per session intensity and I want to bring this up in terms of body recomp because it goes back to that . You want to be using a diversity . I actually commented on the best cardio for fat loss because someone asked about what they should be including and it said that walking is best over steady-state cardio and what over the downsides and upsides of that more steady-state endurance training that we often see people doing when they want to lose fat and how we'll go to more . But our body adapts to it . There's other , even downsides to it , with hunger cues increasing , potentially with some steady-state cardio and it being more catabolic to muscle mass .

Speaker 1 7:29

But this is not to demonize it . I think too often we hear something isn't valuable for something else and then we don't break down the nuance of it . We hear strength work is really key if we want to see that body recomp which it is . But that doesn't mean not to use intervals . It just means use them strategically , based on how you're designing your strength workouts . If your strength workouts are more circuit based , you might be getting a lot more cardio in than you realize . You're working different energy systems in that way . So then trying to add in all this other straight cardio might be holding you back from seeing the muscle gains you want as you're trying to lose fat , and you might end up looking a little bit softer than you want in the fat loss process , versus if you're doing more strict , slower lifting . Maybe more interval work is truly needed , and it goes back to your schedule too . Again , if you have six days a week to train , it's going to look very different than three days a week .

Speaker 1 8:12

So I would tell you , if you are in midlife , if we are going through menopause , premenopause , struggling to lose fat , we need to focus on the stressor , and right now I see cortisol being demonized so much where it's like oh , I don't want to raise my cortisol levels . No , you don't want to chronically raise your cortisol levels , you want to force your body to have to have these hormone fluctuations , to have to be stressed and recover from that stress , but you have to make sure you're recovering . That's the thing we often think we're over training but we're just under recovering . So with the Cardio Midlife , consider using all different types . You want some steady state , you want some interval , you want some sprint , you want to work all those different energy systems because that is going to help improve your conditioning , your lack of threshold , all the different things that make you healthier , not only cardiovascularly healthier , but be able to lift more , be stronger . You'll see improvements in your strength work by including some cardio work . So I would tell you , include the diversity , but focus on the stressor and the intensity over just doing more .

Speaker 1 9:06

The last thing I wanted to go over that was a great question on body recomp was is it possible for an intermediate lifter to body recomp ? At any stage in our journey we can achieve body recomp , but the more advanced , the more experience you are , the slower the process is going to be , and I'm going to bring this up with muscle gains . So Lyon McDonald actually did a great study of muscle gains estimates for women and men over the year . So for women with one year proper training , it was 10 to 12 pounds over the year , which is about one pound per month . Two years of prior training experience is five to six pounds over the year . So about half a pound per month . Three years of training experience , 2.5 to 3 pounds a year . 0.25 pounds per month . If you have four plus years of training , which many of us have , even if it's sometimes been a little on and off 0.75 to 1.5 pounds a year . So 0.1 pounds per month . It gets slower , it gets harder but , yes , you can achieve it . It just means being more precise .

Speaker 1 10:00

And again , this is where macros matter most . If you are a newbie lifter , potentially not even changing your diet and just starting to train intensely , you'll start to see body recomb , you'll start to see muscle being gained , you'll start to see fat being lost because you're gaining muscle and you're not even changing your diet . Then , the more experience you become , the more you've adapted to different training stimuli , so the more you have to add in different ones besides just adding loads , different tempos , different training techniques can come into play . But you also have to be more precise with your nutrition , again being very strategic in the calorie surplus or deficit , not going extremely either way , because that can ultimately backfire and losing muscle or gaining fat , but really focusing on those macros and constantly cycling them and then being consistent past the point you want to quit . Because most of us , if we're not seeing that one pound per week change in weight loss and the closer you get to your goal , the less you're going to see that , unless you want to risk losing muscle but if we're not seeing these dramatic changes in other ways , we assume nothing's happening .

Speaker 1 10:51

When results are really snowballing and if you think about it , you're gaining one pound of muscle per year potentially , which could be a huge , dramatic shift in your body recomb , in how you look , but it doesn't seem like it . But you've got to be consistent , past the point you want to quit . So yes , you can always build muscle and lose fat . You have to have a primary focus , whether or not it's slightly , towards the gaining muscle more efficiently or the losing fat more efficiently . And I can tell you , if you're not at the level of leanness that you want or the last few pounds , focus on that fat loss first a little bit more , being strategic with a very small calorie deficit , protein strength work , all that jazz . If you are at your leanest level , maybe you shift a little bit more towards those muscle gains because you don't necessarily have a lot of body fat to use as fuel , so you've got to be in that little bit of surplus . But you can achieve both . It's just a slow process but you got to be patient . I know we don't want to be patient , but you got to be patient . But that is the jazz . On body recomb , you can achieve it at any age , at any stage , and it is using a combination of strength work , cardio and really focusing on those macros .

Fitness Podcast No-Sponsorship, Free Advice

Speaker 1 11:48

Thanks for listening to the Finis-Hacks podcast . Again , this is the place where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips . I'm never going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything . All I ask in return is , if you're enjoying the podcast , to leave a rating review or share it with someone you think it might help . This will only take a few minutes and it would mean the world to me and possibly change life with someone you know .