The Art of Manliness - #475： How to Lose Weight, and Keep It Off Forever

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast if you're like

00:00:18.820 a lot of men listening this podcast you've likely made it a goal to lose some weight this year but

00:00:23.200 if you're also like a lot of men listening this podcast you've made that goal before

00:00:26.600 maybe even succeeded with it but you had to make it again because you gained all the weight back

00:00:31.000 my guest today argues that losing weight is actually pretty easy the real trick is keeping

00:00:35.060 it off his name is Lane Norton he's a professional bodybuilder powerlifter and a doctor of nutritional

00:00:40.160 sciences and today on the show we discuss all things fat loss we begin our conversation discussing

00:00:44.240 why losing weight is easier than keeping it off the mechanisms that kick into gear once we shed body

00:00:48.840 fat that causes to gain all of it even more back and why yo-yo dieting is so terrible for you we

00:00:54.280 then dig into whether there's one diet that's the most effective in helping you lose fat the

00:00:57.980 tactics you need to use to keep the weight off in the long run and the real reason exercise plays a

00:01:02.380 role in helping you to do so which isn't what you think it is after the show's over check out our

00:01:06.580 show notes at aom.is slash bio lane all right Lane Norton welcome to the show thanks Brett thanks

00:01:22.360 for having me I appreciate it so you are a pro bodybuilder powerlifter but also have your phd in

00:01:28.020 nutritional sciences give us a little background on that like about not only your career as a pro

00:01:32.860 bodybuilder and powerlifter but also when did you decide to go for the phd in nutritional sciences

00:01:37.380 well whenever I introduce myself I always refer to myself as a meathead who likes science or a science

00:01:45.600 geek who likes lifting heavy things so depending on my mood that day depends on which one I swing

00:01:51.380 towards but I would say I've always had an interest in science and when I was growing up I wanted to be

00:01:58.500 a marine biologist and I got picked on a lot in school so actually like way more than just like

00:02:07.760 everybody went through you know getting teased or whatever that's normal but this was like a whole

00:02:13.440 nother level you know in high school and middle school and elementary school there's like tiers of

00:02:18.740 status I would have been on that bottom rung of status so I got pretty not physically but like

00:02:26.760 emotionally abused by my peers growing up and I remembered one summer I was like I'm tired of

00:02:34.780 doing this I'm didn't do something about it so I started lifting weights and you know I my idea was

00:02:40.500 I would stop getting bullied and get more attention from girls if I got bigger because I was a really

00:02:45.040 skinny kid and lifting weights didn't do either of those two things but it did I did fall in love

00:02:51.620 with the process of lifting weights and you know by the time I was getting ready to go to college I

00:02:57.200 was really in love with bodybuilding and I was reading like flex magazine like I remember I have

00:03:03.140 like flex magazines in my backpack going to class and when I was getting bored in class I just whip out

00:03:08.640 flex magazine start reading that and so by the time I was getting ready to go to college I was

00:03:15.660 kind of rethinking my idea of being marine biologist come to find out it's very hard to get a job in that

00:03:21.500 they pay like which you know money's not everything but I would have liked to have made a good living but I

00:03:28.300 would also really like to have done something I'm passionate about I know I knew I did not want to do

00:03:32.460 what everybody else was doing and I came from a small not a small town but a modest sized town in

00:03:38.880 the midwest where it might as well have been an island because nobody left like you just grew up

00:03:45.200 if you went to college you went to University of Southern Indiana I grew up in Evansville Indiana

00:03:49.180 you went to USI or you went to University of Evansville and that was it like if you got fancy you went to

00:03:55.680 University of Louisville or you went to IU or Purdue or something like that but you didn't

00:04:01.380 you didn't leave the midwest that was just not something that happened that often and I just

00:04:06.700 knew that if I didn't leave I was going to end up like everybody else just working a kind of I don't

00:04:14.440 want to say average job or insult people who do that kind of thing but just your typical nine to five

00:04:19.040 and I didn't want that for my life I wanted to do something different so I decided to go to

00:04:24.700 Eckerd College I had some really good professors who steered me down the right path and I still remember

00:04:29.580 my general chemistry professor saying you should do biochemistry because if you still want to do

00:04:34.220 marine science in grad school it'll be there for you but if you decide you want to do something

00:04:38.060 different biochemistry will really set you up for whatever you want to do in science and so I did

00:04:43.700 that I changed my major to biochemistry the same time the summer after my first year of college I did

00:04:48.060 my first bodybuilding show won the teen division won the novice division and was completely hooked

00:04:52.760 and by the time I was a junior in college I was really convinced that I wanted to make a living

00:04:59.880 in bodybuilding or something to do with bodybuilding I didn't know how I was going to do it because I

00:05:06.100 didn't want to take steroids I competed in the natural bodybuilding organization so I didn't want

00:05:10.700 to do that you know no hate to anybody who does I don't have any disrespect or anything like that

00:05:15.660 it was more about I just never felt called to do it I never felt called to be Mr. Olympia but I love

00:05:20.560 bodybuilding but I didn't I didn't want to take that path personally so I didn't know how I was

00:05:27.220 going to make a living but I got to my junior year and I'm like well I don't know what I want to do

00:05:31.520 with my life I know I'm passionate about this thing I'm not sure how I'm going to make money from it

00:05:35.820 so how about going to more school I figured if I had a master's or a PhD it'd probably help with

00:05:42.440 whatever I wanted to do so I did exactly that I applied to different PhD programs I interviewed at the

00:05:48.980 University of Illinois and Penn State and Cornell I got accepted and I decided on Illinois because

00:05:58.740 I really vibed with my the advisor there Dr. Don Lehman and as it turns out that was probably one of

00:06:05.720 the best decisions I ever made in my life was to go to University of Illinois which is a great school

00:06:09.980 really really strong research and science-based school and especially for nutrition they're

00:06:17.360 they're like top three every year they're really great nutrition program and in particular Dr.

00:06:23.040 Lehman was a fantastic advisor so he his specialty was protein metabolism which doesn't take a difficult

00:06:30.580 kind of stretch to see the connection between bodybuilding and why I want to study protein

00:06:35.340 and he was always very encouraging of that he was never ashamed of the fact that I was a meathead

00:06:39.540 you know he was very encouraging of that which I didn't get that vibe with a lot of different

00:06:44.480 professors a lot of different professors almost seemed like they were ashamed if you were

00:06:48.220 into lifting weights or bodybuilding but Lehman was never that way and so I got into that during

00:06:54.300 that time in grad school I also won my pro card in natural bodybuilding by the time I graduated I did

00:06:59.580 my first series of pro shows my only series of pro shows so far because I kind of I guess I'm like

00:07:05.100 semi-retired now but won my first pro show and then placed top five and all the other ones

00:07:10.560 so pretty successful run there then during that off season before that the that series I'd gotten

00:07:17.260 into powerlifting just kind of as a way to keep myself from getting bored in the off season because

00:07:20.980 if you're doing natural bodybuilding like you've got to take two three-year off seasons like you just

00:07:25.520 don't build muscle that fast that's why I see a lot of these kids out there or or young guys who

00:07:30.500 compete every year and you're really like it's a really terrible idea because you're limiting your

00:07:35.400 growth so I took a four-year off season between when I won my pro card and when I won when I did my

00:07:40.020 first pro shows and it really helped me but in that time it was I was finding it hard to stay

00:07:44.320 motivated for training without having something to shoot for so I decided to start doing some

00:07:48.780 powerlifting meets and it turns out I was pretty good at it in fact I'm probably better at that than

00:07:53.480 I was at bodybuilding so you know got really into that won nationals twice got a silver medal at

00:07:59.200 worlds won the Arnold set a well what was then a squat world record in the IPF the biggest powerlifting

00:08:05.240 organization in the world I'm at 668 pounds and yeah had a pretty good run there and gone through

00:08:12.000 some injuries and kind of rehabbing those right now and trying to come back and do it all over again

00:08:16.440 and then yeah you had your PhD right yeah so I finished my PhD in 2010 you know and during that time

00:08:24.220 like around circa 2005 I had been writing articles for bodybuilding.com and people had sent me a lot I get a lot of

00:08:32.960 emails I was probably getting 20 30 emails a day with people with questions and I loved helping

00:08:36.740 people I loved it and I but I realized man I'm spending a lot of time doing this I'm in grad school

00:08:43.620 now I've got to get some kind of you know compensation for my time so I started doing online coaching and was

00:08:51.040 one of the first people to kind of do that this is in 2005 this is before Instagram you know before 0.84

00:08:56.100 before you could stick your ass in the camera and call yourself a coach I was doing it right so

00:09:02.300 got into that by the time I was graduating grad school I was making a full-time living from it 0.98

00:09:08.980 but I said well I don't see the reason to go get a normal job let's do this so I was doing online

00:09:15.220 coaching full-time and yeah I've gone through several different iterations of my business tried

00:09:21.360 some different things and now I still do some coaching but it's mostly a lot of writing and

00:09:26.340 content production so we I have two ebooks that are out now that have been successful beyond what

00:09:32.060 I ever could have imagined and writing and writing another one and working on some other projects and

00:09:37.140 yeah it's been a it's been a good run it's been a good life it's awesome yeah that's really cool and

00:09:43.360 I'd like to talk about one of those books you wrote fat loss forever but before we get into the

00:09:46.960 details of that one I'm curious when you started doing your you know your biochemistry work and

00:09:52.300 your PhD work were you surprised like did I mean I read like muscle and fitness growing up too and

00:09:59.140 all this and like there's all this advice in there and you're like uh is this really true and there's

00:10:03.700 like I mean even then there's all the bro science and it's peripherally even more today like did you

00:10:08.980 immediately like start seeing contradictions for stuff that you saw in the bodybuilding or powerlifting

00:10:13.180 world or were some of the things like validated that these guys were doing that had no basis in

00:10:18.500 science but they got right just through trial and error that's exactly why I wouldn't get a PhD

00:10:22.940 because I got tired of reading every magazine and having it say one thing and then another magazine

00:10:29.740 say another thing or the same magazine say one thing one month and another thing another month

00:10:34.080 or the same magazine saying one thing and in the same episode contradicting itself so I was like well

00:10:41.800 I'm gonna go get more education that's not gonna hurt me and I'm gonna figure that out for myself

00:10:45.700 so yeah that was you know the quest for I guess there's a couple things that make a good scientist

00:10:53.240 one is you're always hungry to learn the quest for knowledge and two you're inherently skeptical

00:11:00.840 you don't just accept things at face value you question even the the things that we hold to be true

00:11:09.620 and I think that's what makes a good scientist somebody who just won't accept something as

00:11:14.660 fact without really digging into it but also the saying be open-minded but not so open-minded that

00:11:20.860 your brain falls out which I also see a lot of you know that's like when you get to the like there's

00:11:26.480 skepticism and then there's whack job conspiracy theorist nonsense that yeah I which I kind of deal with

00:11:36.240 on a daily basis now no I bet yeah going to that point about you know being skeptical I mean one of

00:11:41.200 the issues that I found with like popular health writing is that they'll they'll they'll talk about

00:11:46.000 the studies the research and then they'll look at the conclusion and say yeah this study says x but

00:11:52.180 then if you actually read the study you realize well the sample size wasn't that big yep um it actually

00:11:58.200 they weren't really you know it wasn't conclusive but the popular because you know these popular writers

00:12:03.480 need to turn out content and get clicks they just come out like well this new study says

00:12:08.020 coffee's terrible for you but then you look at the studies well it doesn't really say that no what

00:12:13.060 it'll say is there's a component in coffee that when they fed it to rats at a super high dose it caused

00:12:18.140 like carcinogenic effects you know it wasn't actually coffee and it wasn't actually in humans yeah that's

00:12:24.020 there was a study done where they um the the headline was that farts can help reduce the risk or

00:12:31.220 smelling something your partner's farts can help reduce the risk of breast cancer that was that

00:12:36.160 was that was the headline no what they did was they took short chain fatty acids volatile fatty acids

00:12:42.380 that are some of the things that you smell when when you fart and they looked at them at giving them

00:12:47.700 an isolated in a high dose to rats and saw an effect on cancer that is not the same thing as

00:12:54.860 smelling your partner's farts that like the the level of irresponsibility by the media and reporting

00:13:04.840 some of this stuff just to get a headline i understand it to a certain level because they

00:13:10.460 have to because it's so competitive if you don't have big headlines i mean it's like being on instagram

00:13:15.800 like i'm really proud of the fact that i've got you know whatever 240 000 followers on instagram because

00:13:21.200 i'm not like i'm not some dude that's posting pictures of a shredded six-pack all the time

00:13:25.920 standing in front of a ferrari that he doesn't own that he's leasing and you know with pitbulls or

00:13:31.480 whatever and acting like i'm living some lifestyle i'm putting out educational content you know there's 0.99

00:13:36.980 substance but we're not a substance-based society you know people want that that that crap so

00:13:42.340 yeah i think that the it's it's difficult to parse out a lot of what's out there but

00:13:49.920 just listening to somebody and i'll tell people hey like you know don't take my word for it like

00:13:55.540 you know i have my own biases i try to be honest about them and upfront about them but everybody's

00:14:00.640 biased one way or another like and that's okay that's fine it's the people who aren't willing to

00:14:05.580 admit their biases there's a there's a gal called um what's her name nina nina ends with the t starts

00:14:12.440 with a t her last name but she's a she's a low-carb advocate big-time low-carb advocate and all of her

00:14:17.920 all of her a lot of her criticisms of the research out there are funding-based right so she says well

00:14:24.800 this study was funded by big corn or big this or big that you ever want to make something sound

00:14:30.080 scary just put big in front of it apparently and what she doesn't ever disclose is the fact that she

00:14:35.780 herself is funded by the meat industry like which is fine that's fine there's nothing wrong with that

00:14:42.460 my research was funded by the dairy council and the egg nutrition center board that's fine i have

00:14:49.360 to disclose that right like so if she's going to criticize all these other people she needs to

00:14:55.100 disclose what her biases are so that's a big part of it and and i think people get way too attached to

00:15:02.020 ideals rather than trying to deconstruct their ego and figure out what stuff actually says like i'll

00:15:09.280 tell people like i'm not if you're reading my books i'm not selling any one particular diet

00:15:14.000 i'm not i'm selling information and i'm trying to put it out there kind of as it is well let's talk

00:15:20.660 about a topic speaking of lots of different competing things on instagram is weight loss because there's so

00:15:27.500 many competing ideas out there now and it's gotten worse i think so you you wrote a book fat loss forever

00:15:33.800 yeah it's a new year i think a lot of men who are listening to the show a lot of them probably have

00:15:38.340 goals to lose some weight but i love how in the book you talk about you make this important point

00:15:43.280 that it's actually really easy to lose weight yeah the problem that people have because people do it

00:15:50.400 all the time yeah the problem people have is that they can't keep it off so what's going why why is it

00:15:54.840 so hard to keep weight off after you lose that 10 15 pounds there's a multitude of reasons there's

00:16:01.220 there's physiological there's sociological and there's psychological reasons physiologically

00:16:06.980 if you think about what weight loss is so we have this kind of let's call it a set point

00:16:14.740 of body fat that your body kind of likes to stay at it's where you've kind of settled that during your

00:16:20.400 life and if you've been usually it's your body defends against you getting too much body fat well the

00:16:27.740 reason people get obese is they can eat past that and we kind of i don't want to get way too far down

00:16:33.940 the rabbit hole but i guess there's if you talk about losing weight there's very tight regulations

00:16:40.660 what will happen is you get hungrier when you start to lose weight you your metabolic rate slows down

00:16:47.500 all these uh your your hormones like leptin drop your your you actually move less whether you believe it

00:16:54.760 or not um like just like little fidgets throughout the day but it can end up adding up to like several

00:17:01.180 hundred calories less per day that you're actually expending so all these things start working to

00:17:06.660 drive you back towards energy balance meaning you're you're you're not losing weight your calories in is

00:17:12.960 equaling calories out so it's trying to drive you back towards that to protect you because you have

00:17:19.760 if we're if we have this kind of regulation on body weight the set point that the body likes to be at

00:17:26.040 that means that it's trying to keep you from getting too big or losing too much weight right does that

00:17:32.500 make sense yeah that makes sense so so and and you know on the other end if you start to overeat

00:17:37.780 you'll have your metabolic rate goes up your hunger goes down all these sorts of things

00:17:42.100 so but on each end there's two different we always need to think about like what is

00:17:50.180 what is the evolutionary reason for this right because everything happens for a reason all the

00:17:55.500 systems in our body came about because of a reason you're dealing with two different threats

00:18:00.600 to your survival because keep in mind the goal of you your existence in terms of evolution is for you to

00:18:08.480 stay alive long enough to pass on your genetic material that's that's it that's the goal okay

00:18:13.440 now on one end you have starvation right if you don't eat enough you can starve okay on the other end

00:18:23.380 if you get too heavy there in there's an increased risk of predation right you can't you can't escape a

00:18:29.840 predator very well or the other one is you may not be agile enough to actually catch food but that kind

00:18:35.960 of would be self-limiting because you would be as you weren't able to eat you would end up losing

00:18:42.400 weight becoming more agile able to catch food well over the last several thousand years the risk of

00:18:49.800 predation is dropped to basically zero for most of the world or you know what i mean that just doesn't

00:18:57.140 exist whereas the risk of starvation we may not think about in western society but even up until

00:19:02.560 like even a hundred years ago in in the u.s like you know famine was a real problem so not so much

00:19:09.420 anymore so it's still a real problem so that is still hardwired into our dna at least this is the

00:19:14.880 hypothesis that some of these researchers this guy that had this particular hypothesis his name is

00:19:19.500 speakman so your body has much more tightly regulated controls on you losing weight than it does on you

00:19:28.120 gaining weight so plus we have a very obesogenic environment like if you're talking about now

00:19:35.360 non-processed foods right now i don't want people to get really excited about this because

00:19:41.040 there's nothing inherently fattening fattening about a processed food there's not it's not 100 calories of

00:19:48.560 a processed food is not more fattening than 100 calories of an unprocessed food per se but processed

00:19:56.080 food takes less energy to digest so i guess you could argue that it is a little bit different

00:20:00.880 but more than that it's just very highly palatable have you ever tried to eat like 200 calories from a

00:20:07.540 plain baked potato like plain nothing on it yeah it's hard it's hard it's really hard right have

00:20:12.900 you ever tried to eat 200 calories from snickers bar easy you just eat a snickers bar done yeah exactly

00:20:18.300 so we we have a what's called an obesogenic environment where we have free access to extremely hyperpalatable

00:20:27.260 high calorie foods and we don't move as much as we used to so we can very easily eat past that set point

00:20:36.520 but it's hard to get under the set point because that's still a hardwired into our dna

00:20:42.340 this is the body treats dieting like controlled starvation so your metabolic rate drops your hunger

00:20:49.140 goes up these hormonal these hormonal signals to your brain they really there was an interesting study

00:20:57.320 back in the 1940s they took conscientious objectors to world war ii and basically starved them for six

00:21:04.740 months and then looked at the physiological changes well just to show you how powerful dieting is on

00:21:11.680 motivation to not be dieting there was originally 15 subjects in the study it ended with 12 because

00:21:18.240 one of them cut his thumb off in order to get out of the study we believe that and then the other two

00:21:23.720 literally stormed and assaulted the kitchen for food and of the people who completed the study

00:21:29.060 half of them went on to work in the food industry or become professional chefs wow so um but if you've

00:21:37.000 ever dieted like some people like they die and they end up watching the food food network all the time it

00:21:41.020 becomes an all-encompassing like thing for your brain so but the real the major problem is that

00:21:48.440 people look at dieting and weight loss as something with a set start and end date they go well i'm i'm

00:21:55.000 doing i want to lose 20 pounds so what do they do they lose the 20 pounds and then they go right back

00:22:01.000 to doing the same that they were doing before they lost the 20 pounds well what do you think is going to

00:22:06.500 happen when you do that whatever behaviors you had to incorporate in order to lose the weight

00:22:11.660 you will need to incorporate those same behaviors to keep the weight off that's why i say we don't

00:22:17.880 really have a knowledge problem because any diet will work i mean low carb low fat intermittent fasting

00:22:24.320 whatever anything that allows you to create a calorie deficit will work this we shouldn't even 0.84

00:22:30.200 spending time arguing about this it's stupid like maybe like higher protein diets tend to work a 0.98

00:22:36.740 little bit better because they're more satiating and you spare lean body mass and they they have a 0.99

00:22:41.440 little bit more of energy expenditure that's great but if somebody can't stick to a high protein diet

00:22:48.000 or they can't see themselves doing that for the rest of their life then it's not going to work for them

00:22:52.540 right any diet can work even like a super high carb super low fat low protein as long as they're in a

00:22:59.900 calorie deficit will work for weight loss it's been shown in many studies and before i know some of

00:23:06.020 the listeners are probably saying well what about insulin sensitivity 95 to 99 percent of the health

00:23:12.880 benefits of of dieting are strictly due to weight loss and have nothing to do with the type of diet

00:23:19.080 you're on that that was done there was two meta-analyses done on this and they looked at equating calories

00:23:25.860 and looking at different ratios of carbohydrates and fats and their effects on blood markers of

00:23:31.720 health and found that basically weight loss explained 95 to 99 percent of it so if that's the

00:23:38.520 case if it's weight loss that makes the biggest difference for health then the best diet is probably

00:23:43.680 the one you can stick to and see yourself doing for life because i'm going to go on keto that's great

00:23:50.020 bro if you're never going to eat carbs again in your life then that can work for you but if you can't see

00:23:54.560 yourself doing that six months or 12 months from now you got to rethink your plan because it's going

00:23:58.480 to fail it's it's behaviors that make the difference it's the same reason like that people are broke

00:24:04.600 it's the exact same reason people are broke how do you not be broke earn more money than you spend

00:24:11.380 and there are people who make thirty thousand dollars a year who can who can save money it's happened i've

00:24:17.260 done it i've made thirty thousand dollars a year before and saved money it's hard it sucks but it

00:24:24.740 can be done there's also people who make a million dollars a year and don't save money right so is it a

00:24:32.280 knowledge problem because hopefully everyone knows that in order to save money you need to make more than

00:24:38.780 you spend and we have that knowledge that knowledge is there but what do people get caught up in

00:24:45.100 instead of focusing on uh the things that actually um help with wealth accrual people focus on oh uh

00:24:53.620 they get into pyramid schemes and they they oh this one neat trick it's the same you see in the fitness 0.96

00:24:58.880 industry for fat loss you know oh these three neat tricks to burn belly fat no that's crap like if you 0.80

00:25:06.340 want to lose fat you want to keep it off it's going to be really really hard because only five percent of 0.80

00:25:10.820 people are able to do it that's the statistics right yeah like 95 of people yeah five percent

00:25:16.500 only five percent are able to keep it off we're gonna take a quick break for your word from our

00:25:19.860 sponsors and now back to the show so let's kind of recap what you said there's a lot to unpack there

00:25:26.480 and i want to go some some different directions with some of the stuff you were talking about

00:25:29.680 so the reason why body fat is hard to lose because your body is basically saying i'm we're now in

00:25:35.600 starvation mode fat we're losing body fat but it's like i don't want to lose that body fat because we

00:25:40.780 need that for to keep ourselves going in case the starvation goes even further so it just gets harder

00:25:47.680 that's your body's you gotta always think about your body fat your body's uh adipose stores as your

00:25:54.680 energy reserve because that's exactly what it is right so your body's like no leave this alone this is

00:25:58.800 ours you're taking that away we're not gonna let you do that but also besides you know when you stop the

00:26:04.400 diet you gain the weight back but also there's a tendency to gain more body fat or more weight than

00:26:09.360 you were before you started the diet yeah that's a phenomenon called body fat overshooting and it 0.99

00:26:14.120 really happens a lot in people who do what we call weight cycle or yo-yo diet and um really interesting

00:26:20.020 study we included this in the book it was in rats so some people will get their their hands up in the

00:26:25.980 air but rats actually pretty metabolically similar to a human now and there is some human data to

00:26:32.480 support this as well but what they did was they took them through two different diet cycles so

00:26:36.780 they had them diet down to they had them kind of eat up to a certain weight and then they died them

00:26:42.040 down and they observed what rate it took for them to reach that weight to sort of diet down to that

00:26:50.460 weight then they had them relapse to the previous weight they just gave them food and let them say hey go

00:26:55.860 go for it go crazy eat whatever you want right they regained the weight in half the time that it took

00:27:03.120 for them to take it off then once they reached their their previous high weight they had them diet back

00:27:08.880 down again to the weight that they achieved previously right they lost weight twice as slow

00:27:16.000 the second time right and that's what at the same calorie level right that's pretty nuts then they

00:27:23.660 regained it when they let them regain it again they regained it three times as fast wow every time

00:27:30.340 they went through one of these diet cycles their metabolism got slower and they got more efficient

00:27:34.760 at putting on body fat and every time you diet you activate your body's self-defense system okay and i

00:27:41.760 again this is one of the things i talk about in the book your body has a self-defense system in place

00:27:46.660 to keep you from starving yourself and basically what it does is i i i kind of this isn't in the

00:27:52.920 scientific literature this is just kind of my description i call it a three-pronged attack

00:27:56.360 you have a metabolic adaptation which when you start dieting or when you're dieting your body

00:28:02.920 slows your metabolic rate by by the way slows it disproportionately more than you would predict

00:28:09.200 by the amount of weight you lose because if you lose weight you have less metabolically active tissue

00:28:13.140 you know you know your metabolism is going to slow down some anyway but you your metabolism slows about

00:28:19.420 15 to 20 percent more than you would predict from just from the weight loss then while you're dieting

00:28:28.700 your body is already ramping up systems that will increase your ability to store body fat okay why would

00:28:38.260 it do that well let's think about from an evolutionary perspective if you had gone through a long famine

00:28:43.200 and then all of a sudden boom you find out i mean let's just do the stereotype you find a big old

00:28:48.900 woolly mammoth and it's dead and you can eat it right and you can just kind of gorge yourself well you

00:28:53.540 couldn't really keep meat for very long back in the day right and you couldn't keep a lot of foods for

00:28:58.160 very long so they're going to get as much out of it as they can well you would not want to be wasteful

00:29:03.480 with that energy you would want to capture as much of it as possible you'd want to be very efficient

00:29:08.580 at storing that energy and not wasting it so that's why the body's going to ramp up those systems that 0.99

00:29:14.160 help you store fat because if you're in a deficit if you're in an energy energy if there's a body

00:29:22.040 senses an energy gap it is going to make it easier for you to store fat because if you come across the

00:29:29.100 food stores your body's going to want to be able to capture it does that make sense that makes perfect

00:29:33.020 yeah so and then the third phase is they've actually observed in people who who diet or people

00:29:40.380 who diet pretty aggressively if they then regain the weight really really quickly there actually

00:29:48.160 is some evidence that they may actually be able to manufacture new fat cells so we usually if you if

00:29:55.100 you diet or you lose if you lose or gain weight usually what happens is your fat cells just shrink or

00:30:03.000 expand okay but there you can eat past that there is a maximum threshold for your adipocytes it's about

00:30:10.940 100 micrometers i think and so once they get across that bigger than that we can have what's called

00:30:17.400 pre-adipocyte differentiation and these pre-adipocytes are like these little tiny nascent inactive

00:30:24.460 potential fat cells that are in the adipose tissue that can differentiate to fully form fat cells if

00:30:32.820 your body needs them so that's how people can get really like really obese because they can start

00:30:37.900 triggering this fat cell differentiation but there seems to be even if you don't approach that that

00:30:44.820 maximum size if you've been in a deficit and then you you just kind of start massively overeating after

00:30:52.240 that like put a lot of weight really quickly you're they've actually they actually showed in rats that

00:30:57.780 they could increase their their fat cell number by 50 which is a real problem because now your set

00:31:03.300 point is going to change because since you have more fat cells the size of each individual cell is

00:31:08.760 now smaller so it would still your theoretically your body would still sense a deficit even if you've

00:31:16.260 gotten back up to your original body fat and that's why i think a lot of people when they weight cycle

00:31:21.240 they end up at a higher body fat and then have trouble losing body fat from that level of body fat

00:31:27.200 because that's now their set point because they have more fat cells that's my theory anyway

00:31:31.800 and yeah it's pretty scary actually if you read my if you read fat loss forever the chapters one and

00:31:38.080 chapters three will scare the crap out of you no yeah they did so it makes it sound like man losing weight

00:31:42.940 is impossible but it's not it's not we'll talk about what you can do to make it sustainable

00:31:47.140 but you know you mentioned a lot of the the sort of diets that are really popular with people

00:31:51.860 particularly online there's the low carb diet keto there's now the carnivore diet that i'm seeing a lot

00:31:57.520 about yeah and with all these these different diets they all claim that there's something special

00:32:02.380 about these specific diets that allow people to lose weight right by not eating carbs you reduce

00:32:07.300 the amount of insulin pumping through your system so like you know insulin can't shuttle glucose

00:32:12.200 into fat cells or whatever but i mean it sounds like you're saying like no it's not really that

00:32:16.260 it's just that these diets allow you to eat fewer calories and that's why you lose weight is that

00:32:21.240 what's going on that's exactly right so for example let's take the carnivore diet for example

00:32:28.360 it's really hard to overeat on meat like it's really hard to overeat you can do it you can do it

00:32:34.960 especially if you're eating really fatty meat but for the most part meat's tough to overeat on if you

00:32:40.380 look at something like you know i was talking about this the other day everybody's got something that

00:32:44.360 kind of i call it tripping their algorithm right so people like with keto i'll hear this a lot people

00:32:51.200 say man i tried everything out there and keto i just i wasn't hungry on it and it's just easy for

00:32:56.580 me or they'll say that about intermittent fasting for me it was flexible dieting you know like flexible

00:33:01.760 dieting where i'm just i have my protein carbon fat targets and i hit those but i can eat whatever i

00:33:07.040 want to hit those that tripped my algorithm because that that felt not restrictive to me i didn't mind

00:33:12.960 for some people they hate tracking for me it doesn't bother me at all if i know i can have

00:33:16.800 what i want if i track but all these can work i mean like for example just a great example i was

00:33:21.760 talking about was there was a professor at the university of kansas state named dr mark haub

00:33:25.820 i actually interviewed him a while back when i had a podcast and he did as an effort to to prove that

00:33:32.300 calories matter and matter more than anything he did what was called the twinkie diet so he literally

00:33:37.860 ate all junk food now he only ate 1800 calories a day but it was all from junk food and but he also

00:33:45.840 took a protein shake and a fiber supplement just to make sure he was getting all that stuff and he

00:33:51.320 lost like 30 pounds and now what's funny is people say well yeah well what about his health though

00:33:58.040 uh actually they they he kept track of all his blood markers and every single blood marker improved

00:34:03.080 like drastically that's because when fat cells expand they secrete all kinds of hormones that

00:34:12.920 can disrupt metabolism and decrease insulin sensitivity when you lose weight fat cells shrink

00:34:21.500 they become extremely insulin sensitive and they stop secreting or they they reduce their secretion of

00:34:27.220 these hormones so and they increase secretion of things like adiponectin which increases insulin

00:34:32.960 sensitivity so yeah just losing the weight is the biggest part of it now i'm not suggesting that

00:34:40.100 somebody now if you talk to mark he said he actually didn't really care for the diet because even though

00:34:45.480 it was junk food like 1800 calories of junk food doesn't go very far you know that's like seven

00:34:51.020 snickers bars you could over you could eat seven snickers bars pretty easily throughout the course of a day

00:34:56.980 and not feel that satisfied so yeah he didn't like it because he seems like you know i'd rather had a big

00:35:02.900 salad or something like that so i could have felt you know fuller so i think the point is that you

00:35:09.600 know anything can work keto can work intermittent fasting can work any diet can work you can you can

00:35:16.480 look at any diet and they can find testimonials of people who have lost weight so therefore any diet

00:35:21.380 can work if it creates a caloric deficit the question then is which diets lend themselves to being

00:35:29.980 sustainable so that people can continue them and continue to keep the weight off you know for

00:35:35.860 some people keto works for them and they feel satisfied they do not feel uh like they need to

00:35:40.840 go out and and and eat junk food or anything like that it works for them it doesn't work for everybody

00:35:45.480 i know people who put on 30 pounds during keto because they overate butter and bacon you know so i think

00:35:51.540 if somebody you know i i did a debate on mark bell's podcast with sean baker who's the biggest

00:35:57.700 proponent of the carnivore diet and um you know i said i don't think the carnivore diet is the

00:36:05.660 healthiest thing you can do i mean you know saturated fat isn't the great evil we thought it was but it

00:36:10.340 certainly doesn't have a protective effect on heart disease like polyunsaturated fat does

00:36:13.960 and you're also like if you're only eating meat you're you're like you're not eating fiber which is a big

00:36:21.200 problem and actually sean admitted that you probably should be eating vegetables he just doesn't but um

00:36:28.460 i did say hey you know if somebody told me if somebody was obese and they told me this is the

00:36:34.780 only diet that works for me like everything else i feel like i just can't stick to it but this meat

00:36:39.540 only diet i can stick to chris bell says that mark bell's brother chris bell says that he's lost like

00:36:43.720 i want to say like 40 pounds on the carnivore diet and his blood markers have improved because he's

00:36:48.980 lost weight so if somebody says hey this is the only thing i can do and keep the weight off then

00:36:52.640 that's probably the best diet for you to be honest so yeah i think we need to start stop looking at

00:36:58.740 like this debate over which diet is best because it's going to be for the individual and you said

00:37:04.120 you you've read the book so you know that i don't advocate for any one diet i spend a whole chapter

00:37:10.520 debunking claims from fad diets but i don't suggest any one diet i just kind of say hey here's

00:37:18.860 different diets people will try i mean you should try some but here's here are the series of

00:37:24.060 behaviors you're going to have to have in order to lose weight and keep it off and those are

00:37:28.680 self-monitoring cognitive restraint exercise exercise is a huge one people people who generally

00:37:36.200 people who lose weight and keep it off they exercise if you're not exercising most the vast

00:37:41.580 majority of people don't keep that weight off and also they don't snack like they really don't snack

00:37:46.520 very much and they usually weigh themselves daily and they form they do some form of cognitive

00:37:52.860 restraint for example whether it's calorie tracking macro tracking they're not eating carbs time

00:37:59.940 restricted eating you're going to have to do some sort of restriction if you want to lose weight and

00:38:04.640 keep it off like there's going to be a restriction on your lifestyle but you can pick the restriction you

00:38:08.880 want so for me the restriction on my lifestyle is i have to track my intake but i'm not restricted

00:38:15.400 from any foods i want to eat because i just i practice flexible dieting if you don't want to

00:38:20.940 track your food intake well maybe you could do something like keto and maybe that will work for

00:38:25.000 you or time-restricted eating intermittent fasting carnivore whatever you want to call it for me

00:38:30.800 flexible dieting works best but i'm not arrogant enough to think that it's going to work best for

00:38:34.860 everybody so i think we really need to focus on giving people choices and focus on behaviors rather

00:38:42.600 than bickering over which diet is better than another diet right we like we like to feel righteous

00:38:48.240 so that's oh that's that's why people who get into nutrition now are like they would have been

00:38:56.400 religious zealots right it's just ridiculous how entrenched people get in their beliefs like i have

00:39:04.880 the thing about being a scientist and like publishing literature is you have had yourself absolutely

00:39:12.760 crushed your ideas crushed your theories crushed so many times that if you're doing it right

00:39:23.260 you just don't get that married to any one idea you don't because you know that you could be wrong

00:39:30.240 like i'd like to think i get it right more than i get it wrong but that's why i'm not selling any one

00:39:36.340 particular diet in the book because i can't very well say well hey the keto diet doesn't work when

00:39:41.460 there's thousands of people who are losing weight on keto so how can i say that right so i think that

00:39:48.400 that people they just want to feel like what they're doing is better than everybody else yeah and

00:39:53.060 you know this is with vegans keto warriors carnivore you know if it works for you fine just don't tell me

00:40:00.960 it's magic that's the only thing i tell people well you know i i actually uh posted a study a while back

00:40:06.080 that basically um showed that low carb diets did not cause more fat loss than high carb low fat diets

00:40:15.040 when calories and protein were equated and i had an interesting response on twitter so i posted that

00:40:21.440 and somebody said well that's not true i lost 50 pounds on the ketogenic diet

00:40:24.700 so this is an example of what i say and what a zealot hears are two different things so i said it was not

00:40:33.660 better what that person heard was he's insulting my religion and said i lost 50 pounds on this and i said

00:40:39.700 well i'm sure you did it's just not magic right yeah we published an article like do carbs make

00:40:44.980 you fat and we highlighted that research it's basically it's just it's calories it's not the

00:40:48.160 carbs it's calories me yeah the same same response people like well i lost weight on keto i'm saying

00:40:53.540 yeah you could lose weight on that i'm not saying you can't just saying there's nothing special about

00:40:58.220 it except you're eating fewer calories well here's another interesting so okay losing weight to be

00:41:03.060 sustainable pick whatever thing works for you in the long run you're gonna have to exercise some sort

00:41:07.840 of constraint you need to exercise actually physical exercise that will increase lean muscle mass

00:41:13.140 which also helps increase your metabolism well actually you know what the the the research on

00:41:18.680 that is really underwhelming okay for for like the the amount of increase because muscle mass is

00:41:25.480 actually way less metabolically active than things like liver or intestine like those lean muscles

00:41:31.140 so the question is why would we exercise right because lean body mass doesn't the exercise itself

00:41:38.440 seems to actually be the interesting thing about your body's so good at self-regulating so if you

00:41:45.340 exercise more what tends to happen is your body you just move less throughout the rest of the day

00:41:49.340 right like you don't realize it but your body just actually like you do less fidgeting and you move less

00:41:54.280 so your body's conserving energy because it knows you're exercising right so you're not getting as big of a

00:42:00.180 calorie burn as you might think then like if actually just an example of that when i was prepping for my

00:42:06.360 my pro shows and bodybuilding you like i had a dvd out the time i i've watched it the years later

00:42:12.580 i talk slower and i even blink slower i'm not kidding you like and i talk way less i'm a very

00:42:20.620 talkative person i'm a very extroverted person but like i was just like my whole personality changed

00:42:27.420 when i dieted because my body was so hell-bent on conserving energy so so why exercise then why is it so

00:42:34.980 associated with with keeping weight off because it doesn't really add to your total daily calorie burn

00:42:38.920 the lean muscle you add sure you burn a few more calories but it's not super significant the biggest

00:42:45.680 reason that exercise helps is one well two reasons i think the major one is that it sensitizes you to

00:42:55.520 satiety signals okay they did a study in the 1950s looking at bengali workers and they looked at sedentary

00:43:02.940 people people with a lightly active job a moderately active job and a heavy labor job and what they

00:43:09.100 found was from the lightly active to heavily active jobs people pretty much match their match their

00:43:15.220 intake so without even trying they just ate more calories right and they remained in calorie balance

00:43:20.260 what they found was the sedentary people actually ate more than every other group except for the heavy

00:43:26.080 labor jobs so when you don't exercise you have much lower sensitivity to the satiety signals in your

00:43:35.920 brain so you're it's easy for you to overeat whereas when you exercise you get more sensitive to those

00:43:42.700 satiety signals pretty cool stuff that is really interesting that's very very interesting and then the

00:43:47.580 other thing is exercise increases uh oxidation fat oxidation in fat cells it increases fat fat metabolism

00:43:54.400 turnover which seems to have a benefit for limiting fat regain gotcha okay so that all makes sense

00:44:01.320 well here's another thing you talk about in the book and i think a lot of people have problems with

00:44:04.680 is whenever they do decide to start losing weight they'll lose weight really fast that's probably not a

00:44:12.220 good thing to do correct well so this is where i gotta i gotta give the whole story the research shows

00:44:19.900 that people who lose more weight initially tend to keep more tend to tend to be the ones to keep it

00:44:25.960 off well however it has to be with the caveat that so so they found that people who maintain weight loss

00:44:32.880 they usually lost a good amount of weight at the beginning that's i think losing a good amount of

00:44:38.080 weight at the beginning is okay because it helps you with motivation but what you're not seeing that

00:44:42.780 statistics a little bit deceiving because they're not asking the 95 who failed right like how much did they

00:44:48.540 lose initially so there'd be a lot of people in that in that sample size of the 95 who failed to keep

00:44:54.580 it off who also lost weight really quickly at the beginning and didn't sustain it so i think it's

00:45:00.280 okay to lose some weight quickly at the beginning so long as it's something that is still sustainable

00:45:06.540 for you but if you're doing something like 800 calories a day you know how long can you keep that

00:45:11.600 up for not probably not very long now i will say there was a case study of a guy who did not eat for a

00:45:18.480 year did you hear about this i have not heard about this yeah so he was very obese he didn't

00:45:23.140 eat for a year and he lost i think it was like something like 150 pounds in a year but obviously

00:45:28.220 like that that can't keep going uh and i would like to see where he's at today because the metabolic

00:45:34.020 adaptation to that would have been enormous but it also goes to show that that you know fat is your

00:45:39.420 body's energy reserve so you know i think that whenever you're looking at any plan it's okay to lose

00:45:46.820 weight quickly at the onset as long as whatever you're doing at the onset you can see yourself

00:45:52.180 continuing to do gotcha and then like i mean as you lose weight i imagine you have to make

00:45:57.360 adjustments like so if you want to lose more weight do you have to like reduce calories more

00:46:01.300 for example say like you you lose you know the 50 pounds right and then like what you've been

00:46:05.900 eating say it's like 20 2 000 calories a day whatever i'm gonna say right like is that is that

00:46:12.560 say you're doing that at a point you stop losing weight are you gonna have to drop calories a bit

00:46:16.800 more to keep to keep the weight loss going right so your your stalls are inevitable during weight loss

00:46:23.340 anybody who's lost weight for a long period of time i'm assuming you've probably done this before

00:46:28.120 where you went on a diet and after whatever four six eight ten weeks you stopped losing yeah right

00:46:33.660 yeah right so that is your body's metabolic rate slowing down to the point where eventually it

00:46:39.940 matches your intake right so that's the that's your that's the first prong of the body's self-defense

00:46:44.300 system so what has happened is you have come back to energy balance so this is also why people get

00:46:51.160 confused about a calorie deficit they'll say well i was eating in a calorie deficit i didn't lose weight

00:46:54.960 well no you were eating in what might be predicted to be a calorie deficit or maybe it was a calorie

00:47:00.360 deficit for a little while but it isn't now see people get confused because they think calories in and

00:47:05.040 calories out are like two independent variables but they aren't they're tied together because

00:47:09.560 calories in affects calories out so what has to happen is when you hit one of these plateaus you

00:47:16.080 either you need to recreate that deficit whether it's with consuming less calories increasing your

00:47:22.280 activity or a little bit of both gotcha so this is gonna it's a process and you also talk about it

00:47:27.020 you know one one option too as if you're trying to lose a lot of weight like take breaks every now

00:47:31.360 and then just for the psychological rest so you say you lose 20 pounds all right we'll just kind

00:47:36.800 of maintenance that for a month and then go at it again yeah absolutely i think i think the grind of

00:47:41.940 long periods of dieting can just like wear you down so like giving yourself like saying okay i'm gonna

00:47:47.980 lose 20 like let's say somebody had 100 pounds to lose saying i'm gonna lose 20 and then i'm gonna

00:47:53.400 give myself a month where i'm just eating at maintenance and just trying to maintain that weight loss

00:47:57.080 and that can be helpful for two reasons one it's a mental break and two whatever you go on that

00:48:03.520 maintenance phase it will help you maintain your metabolic rate a little bit better so there's

00:48:09.100 actually research on diet breaks that shows that if you use a diet break where you're eating at

00:48:15.300 maintenance for a period of like a week or two it can actually prevent metabolic slowing a little bit

00:48:20.640 better than if you're just straight dieting so you there's a double effect you get uh the benefit of

00:48:27.400 you can maintain your metabolic rate a little bit better and you have a mental break from the diet so

00:48:33.140 i think that's actually a really good way to construct things for people who are trying to

00:48:36.960 trying to lose lots of weight or even with my regular clients i'll do like a lot of times i'll do

00:48:41.360 two weeks dieting and then one week break or three weeks dieting one week break or three weeks

00:48:45.960 dieting two week break you know that those sorts of things or four weeks dieting two week break

00:48:49.920 so i'll use different iterations of that in order to kind of help keep things going right it's like

00:48:55.780 a deload week with barbell yeah kind of yeah exactly let's say you want to you know you want to get

00:49:01.560 into running but you're also trying to lose weight or let's say you want to get into barbell you know

00:49:05.120 power lifting or whatever is like increasing performance in those you know athletic domains

00:49:09.900 and losing weight are those like diametrically opposed goals like these should go for one or the

00:49:14.500 other or can you do both at the same time you can do both at the same time i think the thing to

00:49:19.180 keep in mind especially like running because you're as you get lower weight you're going to

00:49:23.380 be more efficient i think the thing to keep in mind is that if you're if you're doing something

00:49:29.880 like power lifting or bodybuilding or something like that you're not going to build as much muscle

00:49:35.240 and strength as you would as if you weren't restricted but that doesn't mean you can't get

00:49:39.600 stronger and that doesn't mean you can't build muscle you absolutely can especially if you're somebody

00:49:44.320 who's has a lot of body fat you can still build muscle when you're when you're dieting because you

00:49:49.160 have that even though you're in a calorie deficit you have so much adipose tissue that your body can

00:49:55.600 kind of use that as a cushion to spare protein for building muscle but as you get leaner and leaner

00:50:02.820 it'll become more and more difficult to do that but no i don't think they're necessarily

00:50:07.120 diametrically opposed i just think you have to be honest that okay if i'm going to diet and i want

00:50:11.560 to lose weight i'm probably not going to get as strong as i possibly could as if i was not dieting

00:50:17.460 but keep in mind in powerlifting you might actually get relatively stronger for your body weight because

00:50:24.580 we do have body weight correctional scores right so even though you may you may not get as strong as

00:50:30.540 you possibly could have absolutely your relative strength may actually be higher is that does that

00:50:35.980 make sense yeah that makes sense like that's like the wilkes score exactly well i actually just

00:50:39.780 recently changed it to something else but yes it was your wilkes score for about 50 years

00:50:43.380 right well lane this has been a great conversation is there some place people can go to learn more

00:50:47.980 about your work yeah biolane.com is my website all my stuff's on there you can there's we got a bunch

00:50:53.920 of free articles we also have a member site i think you said that you were on the site yeah i'm a member

00:50:58.820 of the site awesome so we have content but i think a lot of people they use it for the workout builder

00:51:04.180 which is basically we have about 30 plus training templates on there for anyone from beginner to

00:51:11.200 advanced for people who want to build muscle get stronger or and we also have female specific 0.77

00:51:18.120 routines although that's probably not my demographic on this podcast but um and that's for you can you can

00:51:25.240 get access to that workout builder for uh 12.99 a month and i always say well you know that's about what

00:51:30.820 you'd pay for the price of a cup of coffee uh at a starbucks every week if you just went once a week

00:51:36.060 so i think it's a pretty good deal to get you know customizable programming for that and then if you

00:51:41.920 guys want to check out my ebooks you can go to the biolane store.com and click on the accessories tab

00:51:47.040 or the direct links to each ebook i have the complete contest prep guide which is you know if you're

00:51:53.860 interested in doing a modeling show it'll show you everything to do from point a to point z

00:51:57.980 and that you can get that at contest prep book.com and then fat loss forever which we've been kind of

00:52:03.380 discussing i mean really a fat loss manifesto it's almost 400 pages and basically we'll show you

00:52:11.800 everything from from how to lose weight how to keep it off what are the behaviors you're going to need

00:52:18.720 what about the diet after the diet we really spent a lot of time on it we've already sold like 5 000

00:52:24.260 copies in just a few weeks and people are raving about it and if you want to get that the direct

00:52:29.220 link is how to lose fat forever.com and check those out then i'm on social media as biolane on pretty

00:52:35.680 much every platform fantastic well lane norton thanks for your time it's been a pleasure thank

00:52:39.700 you brett appreciate the time man my guest today was lane norton he's the author of the book fat loss

00:52:44.760 forever you can find out his website biolane.com also check out our website aom.is

00:52:49.940 slash biolane where you find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic

00:52:53.900 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website

00:53:09.440 artofmanliness.com where you can find thousands of well-researched thorough articles on just about

00:53:13.420 anything personal finances how to be a better dad fitness you name it we've got it if you haven't done

00:53:18.260 so already i'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review on itunes or stitcher it helps

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00:53:25.540 or family member you think would get something out of it till next time this is brett mckay

00:53:29.400 encourage you to not only listen to the aom podcast but put what you've learned into action

00:53:48.260 you

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The Art of Manliness - January 22, 2019

#475： How to Lose Weight, and Keep It Off Forever

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