Fat Loss Made Simple
Episode Stats
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Summary
If one of your goals is to lose weight this year, Dan John has some great advice for you. And the reason why his advice is so great is because when the things you do are simple, the more likely you are to follow through on them and do them.
Transcript
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The Strenuous Life is an online, offline program designed to help men learn new skills, make new connections, and take action on their intentions.
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Through a system of weekly challenges and 50-plus badges, members develop mentally, spiritually, and physically and become more effective in the world.
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New members of The Strenuous Life are enrolled into a 12-week challenge, which is designed to help you form new health-boosting, mindset-enhancing, life-improving habits.
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You'll be asked to hit certain benchmarks in terms of daily physical activity and good deeds, earn at least one badge, and complete a diverse range of weekly challenges.
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It's the perfect way to start the new year on the right foot.
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The next enrollment of The Strenuous Life will open on January 2nd, 2024 and close on January 4th, 2024.
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Go to strenuouslife.co to get on our waiting list and be notified as soon as enrollment opens up.
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We're taking a break this week from new episodes, but here's a rebroadcast of episode number 767, Fat Loss Made Simple with Dan John.
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If one of your goals is to lose weight this year, Dan's got some great advice for you in this episode.
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And the reason why his advice is so great is Dan is all about making things as simple as possible.
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Because when the things you do are simple, the more likely you are to follow through on them and do them.
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We'll see you next week with a brand new episode.
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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And when it comes to losing weight, you can find plenty of complicated programs that involve long, intense workouts and strict calorie counting diet plans.
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But my guest today takes an approach to fat loss that's awesomely simple and even more effective because of that fact.
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He's a strength coach, a competitive thrower and weightlifter, and the author of many books about health and fitness, including Fat Loss Starts on Monday.
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Today on the show, Dan talks about the importance of not only picking a specific number of where you want your weight to be,
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but enriching that goal so that it lights up multiple parts of your brain.
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We then discuss how and how often to measure your weight, how to deal with the setbacks as you shed the pounds, and Dan's uncomplicated approach to eating.
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Dan also explains why he recommends drinking hot water with lemon, practicing intermittent fasting, and working out in a fasted state.
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We then go over the easy strength exercise program he suggests for fat loss and why these short weightlifting sessions always are followed by a walk.
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And we enter a conversation with how to break through a weight loss plateau by doing something called reverse rucking.
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After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash fat loss.
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I, you know, like I've told you before, I love your site.
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My friend, Gabriel Colasmo, uses your site with his students because he thinks that there's some gaps in modern education, which I agree with.
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And man, I watched this drop some things out of teaching.
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I get, we're reacting, but there were some things or some fundamentals I still think we need to deal with.
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I'm glad that the site's been useful for you and for folks you know.
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We had you on last year to talk about benchmarks, physical benchmarks every man should strive for.
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Wanted to bring you back because it's a new year and I know a lot of men who are listening are setting goals.
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And one of the goals some of these guys are probably setting is to lose some weight this year.
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And a lot of these guys who are making this goal have likely had this goal in years past, but they've failed.
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I'm curious, in your experience as a coach and working with people trying to, with body composition, body fat, losing body fat, what's the thing that holds people back from losing weight?
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Well, first off, I have to take a shout out to both Earl Nightingale and Derek Sivers for this little tool I use.
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And the idea is very simple, is you find two numbers that are important to you.
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Now, I use a physical goal, which is for this year will be body weight, and like a financial goal.
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I think a number helps because it's so clear cut.
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Like, if you have this vague, if I was to say to you, hey, you know, I want to lose a few pounds, well, that just floats off.
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The date that it's due is going to be February 12th.
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I want to get down to 211 pounds, which is 96 kilos.
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So at the start of last year, I weighed 251, so it's going to be a 40-pound body weight loss in a year and a month.
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Well, because this will be the 65th time that I have gone around the sun, okay?
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And when you turn 65 as a weightlifter, you move into the 65 to 69-year-old weight class and division.
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It doesn't mean anything except it's 96 kilos, and that's the class.
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Health is, I use Maffetone's definition, the optimal, you know, interplay of the human organs.
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Well, I know from blood tests and, well, blood tests and blood pressure and all the other stuff, I am healthier.
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So will my longevity improve at 211 versus 251?
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Well, I can think, well, yeah, logically, I think so.
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You know, I do the stuff you're supposed to do.
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So I think weighing 211 will help with my staying around for Leo and my other grandchildren, Danny and Josephine.
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So, you know, everyone still asks me to move couches and refrigerators.
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And then finally, when it comes to performance, I think I have a better chance of being an American record holder and maybe a world record holder at 96 kilos versus heavier than that.
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And then the final thing, and you can take this however you want to take it.
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Art Devaney a few years ago said that vanity after a certain years is a great reason to work out.
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Now, vanity comes from the old Latin, you know, means empty.
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But actually, at my age, 65, vanity is probably not a bad fifth reason to do something.
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But it's not just stepping on a scale and weighing 211, which is great.
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There's my grandchildren showed up in this conversation.
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To me, that's what you need when you look at a fitness goal.
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It needs to have, Brett, it needs to have, it has to be full.
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You know, if you're going to have a dessert, say like you're trying to lose weight, and
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someone says, do you want a bowl of vanilla ice cream?
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Well, okay, that's a lot better than a, you know, I don't know, something, you know, would
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I spent six weeks putting this together, and I'm just going to light the match and flame
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Well, yeah, that's a little bit richer of a story than a bowl of vanilla.
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So, for me, I think what happens with most people's goals, is that they have very vanilla
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They have this, here, yeah, I want to lose a few pounds.
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You know, I'd like to spend more time with my kids.
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My kids, I'd like to, you know, do you see how blah that all was?
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But when I talk about stepping on the scale, the weightlifting meet, under 211 pounds, under
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96K, and then stepping on the platform not long after that, and snatching it, and cleaning
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the jerk, and that just, that just kind of makes me excited.
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Okay, so yeah, a lot of people just give up on their goals because there's really nothing
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You know, if it's just a number, that's not going to be too motivating.
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Yeah, you need to have, every goal you set has to enrich kind of several areas of your
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life, has to light up your brain in different places.
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You know, I got to tell you, you know, if I was a performer, one of the things I would
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try to do is, for example, maybe sprinkle the audience, this time of year, I put those
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cinnamon pine cones in front of a, I have this electric fan heater in the house, and
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I like to put those cinnamon pine cones downstream of the heater blower, you know, so it makes
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And if I was a performer, I would always be blowing cinnamon into my audience, you know?
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Besides just me being on stage with my guitar singing, you know, love ballads from the 1950s,
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I would try to, in light, light up every sense I can, light up every part of the brain that
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You got to make it, you got to be able to taste it, smell it, see it, hear it.
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And so when you're measuring this, so you set this goal, you want to lose body fat, the
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But do you have any other ways you measure fat loss that you like to use?
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Right here on my desk, as I'm sitting here, I have two things called tape measures.
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I suggest you measure, now it's difficult because your waistline, anybody's ever measured
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Your waistline, not the measurement, but where you put your tape changes a little bit every
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I think measuring your waistline every day is a really good little thing.
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And if it, and the other thing I'd recommend, Brett, is this, use a centimeter ruler.
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And the reason is, if you go from 39 and 15 sixteenths down to 39 and, I don't know, three
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But if you go from 104 centimeters to 99, that's just, we humans, for whatever reason, that's
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And if you can go, so I'm a big fan of measuring your waistline in centimeters.
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And if, Brett, if I can add one more, we used to call them movement buddies or bragging
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If you have somebody in your life that you can trust, I would move outside of people in
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your home, but somebody that'll give you a feedback on how you look and how you're doing.
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A bragging buddy, someone you could talk to on a weekly basis.
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It's, in fact, in the old Irish, the word is Anam Cora.
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A soul friend, someone you can just say, who will look at you and say, you look good.
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You look happy, you know, and be, oh, thank you so much.
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And the thing about a soul friend is you both, you have to listen to each other, which is
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How frequently do you recommend people measuring themselves for the, when they're gauging their
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Well, you know, guys like Clarence Bass say every day you should weigh in and do the, the,
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If you already keep a journal, if you already have a notebook that you keep the information
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If you're new to it, maybe you might want to have an event, you know, like, and boy,
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some people disagree with me here, but the Monday morning weigh in, you know, every Monday
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morning you make, if you don't have to, it could be Saturday, but it doesn't matter.
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But one day a week you pick to do the weigh in and the measurement and sort of make it
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Cause I feel like the, the Monday morning, the problem I've had there is that I'll have
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like a big Sunday night dinner at my in-laws place.
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I'm retaining water cause I, you know, some rolls and some cheesecake or whatever.
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But then like the next day, if I weighed myself on Tuesday, I would be back to normal.
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So I, I, that, I timed my weigh ins on when I'm thinking like, this is like a normal day.
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It's not like right after I had a big meal and that seemed to work for me.
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And if, you know, if, if you are someone who lifts weights three days a week, maybe Monday,
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Wednesday, Friday, Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, if you want to do something like that,
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where you have just a day where it's quiet and you, so your workout for that day would
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What's like a reasonable VAT loss goal for people?
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Like, so you, you've lost almost 40 pounds in 13 months, 14 months for a lot of people.
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If there's someone who's losing, who needs to lose 25 to 50 pounds, how long should they
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I mean, seriously, this is where we run into it.
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When I work with people, one of the things that comes up a lot, Brett, is that it took
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the person 40 years to put this weight on, but they want to lose that weight in two weeks.
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When I'm in Europe, most of the people that I trust will tell me about a kilo a month,
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which is only 2.2 pounds, that's only half a pound a week.
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And most people, if I put you on a weight loss program, a fat loss program, and you lost
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two pounds a month, I got to tell you, next New Year's, it's going to be very noticeable
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But what happens is, is people don't want that.
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When I, when I, my first month now with a fat loss client, and I kind of insist on being
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paid up front, is the first month is that, the first month, you have to drink two glasses
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And of course, I become your accountability buddy.
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And at nine o'clock or eight o'clock, whatever time I call you up, and the joke is always
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this, I call you up and the phone goes ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, because
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that's when you're drinking that second glass of water.
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And month two, we just find a parking space that's as far away from your office or whatever
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And I tell everybody that you work with, if you're not, if you've, if you don't park
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there, you're to call me and I'm going to fire you as a client.
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Because one of the things we need to establish first in a fat loss protocol is building up
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So the letter B, the letter J, F-O-G-G, he's a Stanford psychologist, and he believes in
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So you actually make, when you're trying to do a life change, you don't say, I'm going
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I'm going to get a doctorate in two different fields and I'm going to fly to the moon.
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No, you say, I'm going to floss one tooth every day for the first month.
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Well, that's, that's actually a standard start because it's so small and so believable.
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I mean, there's more to it than this, this, that you start to have this, this, the snowball
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This little habit builds to a bigger one, to a bigger one, to a bigger one.
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My best client I've ever had, we did the one year thing.
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And the first month was the glass of water thing at the end.
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This is off the charts at the end of the year, he had lost 100 pounds of body weight
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But what happened was, was once he got the momentum of the habits, everything just started
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And he was shocked at, he began to look at some of the things he was doing in his life
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and it was like, there were just so many obvious things for him.
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But once he got into the habit of doing things, he really started getting momentum.
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To me, fat loss is just like an athletic career.
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Or maybe you're going in different directions, but once you get the momentum, things just
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Like if, if I was to train you as Brett, as a discus thrower, you might say, I've never
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even heard of what the discus is, but all of a sudden you'll be online.
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And all of a sudden these things will just, you'll be open a book and you'll see a discus
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For example, when I read the Odyssey, Ulysses is a discus thrower.
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There's a very famous story in the Odyssey where he wins the discus competition, where
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So when you're trying to lose fat and you start to get those habits, the snowball begins
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All of a sudden you see these little things in your life that you used to do.
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Remember, you are the sum of your habits as you sit in this chair as we speak.
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Like what you look like, what you have as income, what you have as in your social and
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It's all the accumulation of the habits you've had since really you started having your own
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free will, basically when you started walking for yourself.
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So it sounds like rather than just focusing on the number you want to get to, just focus
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And as you do that, things are going to start to gel.
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Um, yeah, well, see, one of my habits is to weigh in every day, but I don't even, I
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don't even think about it like that anymore, to be honest with you.
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I don't think about it as, isn't that interesting?
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So I, I weigh, I do the waistline every day now and I do the weigh in every day, but I didn't
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But once I started seeing that body weight accelerate down, boy, I got to tell you from
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But when I got to 224, which is the 102 kilo weight class, and I lifted in three meets as
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And I started weighing in every day because it was kind of exciting.
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So you've had, you've had some serious momentum this year with your own fat loss.
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Have, did you ever meet any like plateaus or roadblocks along the way where you're like,
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Here in Utah, it's called the winter, winter, winter's tough.
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You know, all of a sudden you just, last night at 11 o'clock I was, I was shoveling and this
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And when I went outside to work out at 930 today, I didn't want to go back out in the
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And I just wanted to, I really just wanted to put a blanket on and, you know, eat something
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So the big, the big roadblocks for me tend to be winter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the
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same roadblocks all of us have, I don't know how much of your audience is American, but
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basically once bowl season comes around, I tend to sit around a lot and watch college
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And then when I'm sitting around my choices for, my choices for beverages go South, my
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choices for, you know, all of a sudden I find myself eating, the other day I was eating
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Well, and I kind of just caught myself like, why am I eating pretzels?
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You know, I just, it's not a food I eat and yet I was eating it.
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And I think, I hope you're following along here, Brett, because we all have the same
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What's nice about where I'm at now is the next day I actually spent some time.
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We're only doing audio here, but right now I'm picking up this little, it's a little notebook
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And every day I write in a few ideas about how I can get my body weight down to 211.
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Well, after this college football bowl game incident, I decided that next week I'm going
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to start doing, I'm going to do once again, Rusty Morris Fat Loss Boost.
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I've done it once before, it's just two weeks, but basically it's chicken and vegetables every
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This isn't for everybody, but I decided that, because I really want to weigh 211 on this weight
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lifting me, that when we get back from the Rose Bowl, I am going to, you know, take care
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of business in two weeks, which nice is it, it's almost, it'll be what, almost a full month
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I gave myself permission to make a mistake and then I came up with a plan.
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You can't just say, oh, I'm eating pretzels and drinking this thing I shouldn't be drinking.
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I'm just going to, you know, I'm going to wait until the next decade to get in shape.
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You know, address the issue, look at it, come up with a positive plan and reboot.
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So first thing, make your goals rich, measure yourself daily or weekly.
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And then if you have set, like plan for setbacks, there's probably going to be setbacks along
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There's weddings, there's anniversaries, there's birthdays, there's all kinds of things.
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Here's one interesting thing I have noticed, though.
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I started telling people, so some of the people I work with go to these all-inclusive vacations
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And one of the things I tell them now is, here's the weirdest thing.
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Most people come back from all-inclusive vacations lighter.
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When they step on the scale after an all-inclusive vacation, they're lighter.
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And they'll look at me like I'm crazy and go, no.
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When you go to the buffet and it's all you can eat, for whatever reason, people, when
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they're given all you can eat, they relax, they de-stress, and they come back lighter.
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So, even when you decide sometimes, if you actively decide, I'm going to go on this vacation, I'm
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going to go on this vacation in June, and I'm going to have a great time, and I'm not going
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Very often, people come back lighter on the scale.
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So, I think we humans have to just acknowledge that there are times to plant and times to
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And I think the mistake is just saying, I am overweight.
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So, you've got, let's talk about the how of how to lose fat.
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So, you've got this really surprisingly simple outline for fat loss that you've based on
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And we'll talk about each of the components of your approach, but it all starts with food.
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You co-authored a book with Josh Hillis, and you guys suggested when it comes to food, people
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should focus on three things, quantity, quality, and ratio.
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Can you walk us through those three components?
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This is what I was told at the Olympic Training Center by the dietician.
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And I remember looking at her going, I'm in the wrong career field, man.
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But it comes down to, honestly, my good friend, Pat Flynn, he talks about this first.
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If you focus on getting enough protein in your diet, I'm going to up my protein.
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Because protein has this ability to make you feel full, all the other things seem to work
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My personal approach is, I try to eat eight different vegetables every day.
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And what you need to do is just have, I worry about, because this is more Josh's field than
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I'm just a, you know, I'm just, I just kneel at his feet.
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But I think the key is this, pick something like Pat says, I'm going to make sure I get
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Pat's a big believer in starting the day with a protein shake.
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For me, if I, because I, it's easy for me to get my protein in.
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It's always been easy because I grew up in the 60s with Strength and Health magazine and
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But for me, the vegetables has always been the issue.
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So for me, by focusing on getting the vegetables in, I take care of the protein just naturally
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So when it comes to things like quantity, if you have vegetable soup and a big salad at
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every meal and a protein source, after you have that big bowl of, the vegetable soup that
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The salad that I make probably is negative calories.
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I don't, I don't, I really, and then there's this, this protein.
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And after you eat that, then feel free to eat anything else to fill you up because here's
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Anything you eat after that is something you want to do to make your taste buds happy and
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make that, you know, that infant part of your brain happy.
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When it comes to quality, you know, I used to make this joke about this diet I had invented
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where you had to eat every day, two pounds of salmon, a dozen eggs, a container of cottage
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It was, it was a list that they had in men's health magazine.
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And I said, after you eat all that, feel free to eat anything else you want.
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Well, of course, if you can push down two pounds of salmon and 12 eggs every day, you're
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So that's where the quality side of things comes in.
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You probably can eat a lot more fried chicken than you, than you can bake salmon.
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Or even like you can eat more potato chips than you can just like a baked potato.
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You can eat more calories and potato chips easily than you could bake potatoes.
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Those are the big rocks of nutrition in my world.
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If you're not used to eating a lot of protein, focus on protein sources.
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If you're like me and you struggle on the vegetable side, get your vegetables in.
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And really, I don't even know why we even talk about this anymore, but, you know, drink
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And I'm fine with any, any calorie free drink you decide to do.
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Somebody not long ago said something to me because I, when I go out, I tend to drink diet
00:29:13.320
It's the, I'm, I'm, you know, on a Friday night, I'm having a diet soda.
00:29:19.220
That's the problem in this with my body is that.
00:29:26.220
Sometimes, someplace, everything's bad for you.
00:29:29.000
It's going to make a very difficult for you to move ahead on your fitness and longevity
00:29:34.640
We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.
00:29:40.080
Well, so for those who are just starting out, you know, for you, you've been doing this
00:29:49.240
So you have a good idea of like, okay, this is, this has this amount of proteins probably
00:29:55.020
For those who are just starting out, would it, would it be useful to measure things out
00:29:59.000
and kind of look at a, like a buddy, fitness buddy or whatever, fitness pal?
00:30:04.720
If you have, if you have the ability to do that and keep doing it, that's money.
00:30:10.220
For most of us, we just use the, I'm looking at the palm of my hand.
00:30:14.180
Make sure you have a palm sized protein in every meal.
00:30:19.240
And then I would say, and then make it the most, everything else on the plate is as colorful
00:30:27.000
One thing I have in trying, a friend of mine mentioned this, is eat fruit separately.
00:30:40.340
I'm just saying that this one person said to me, make fruit your snacks.
00:30:54.980
How much protein do you think you're getting those two meals?
00:31:00.320
Because I mean, like, I think what's the measurement they give you?
00:31:02.240
It's like one, I mean, 0.8 grams per pound of body weight.
00:31:06.380
So if you're, I mean, if you, I mean, or you can just round it up to like one gram.
00:31:09.480
So, I mean, if you're a 200 pound male, you're looking at, you know, close to 200 grams per
00:31:19.120
So if you're a 200 pound male, you're basically 90 kilos, 91.
00:31:25.800
The protein shakes that I buy at the store here called, they're 30 grams of protein per
00:31:36.340
I take the cereal called Fiber One and I put it in a bowl.
00:31:39.720
And then I take that, I think it's called, I don't know the brand name, but it's 30 grams
00:31:49.860
And the reason I'll eat something like that is if I'm trying to push hunger off until, say
00:31:55.660
like dinner tonight's at seven, I ate brunch at 11 and dinner's at seven, maybe at three
00:32:00.700
or four, I'll eat that Fiber One protein drink meal and the amount of fiber and the protein
00:32:07.180
So it is strange to talk to people about protein because some people like, how do you get enough
00:32:17.360
And then I'll look at what they eat on a typical day.
00:32:20.520
They'll start their day with orange juice, two pieces of toast, a bagel.
00:32:28.360
Well, yeah, you're hungry because you haven't eaten any protein and you haven't had any.
00:32:32.880
And the problem with toast and bagels and stuff like that is your body really processes
00:32:45.100
You know, if you like Pat Flynn's approach of starting your day with 30 grams of protein,
00:32:49.360
some people tell me, yeah, I weirdly get hungrier starting the day with a protein drink.
00:32:55.520
And my thought is, well, you know, why don't you eat, just eat, then three eggs is, you
00:33:00.620
know, about the same, four eggs, you know, whatever it is.
00:33:04.420
So yeah, it, to me, I have a hard time believing you can't get enough protein in your diet until
00:33:08.880
I talk to people about what they eat and then it makes more sense.
00:33:13.000
It sounds like what's interesting here is like, you're not overthinking this stuff too much,
00:33:16.560
at least the nutrition part, just like get protein and then vegetables and that's it.
00:33:22.980
Like if you're doing that, you're probably doing good.
00:33:27.580
Well, that's what she told me at the Olympic training center, eat protein and vegetables,
00:33:33.100
And then the great line, I don't know why people make it such a big deal.
00:33:37.920
So on this drinking water, you had this bit I read somewhere.
00:33:46.240
This is, cause it sounds like, well, this sounds like, I don't know.
00:33:57.300
Years ago, I was at dinner with the Pavel, you know, Pavel, the kettlebell guy.
00:34:01.700
So we're sitting around and this, we'd, we'd had dinner before and any, in, after dinner,
00:34:08.640
he orders the two of us hot water with lemon and he kind of elbows me and says, it's proved
00:34:16.780
So after this big dinner, and trust me, when you go out with kettlebell people, your dinner
00:34:24.320
And, uh, you know, I'm sitting there drinking this hot water with lemon.
00:34:30.820
A couple of years later, my daughter Kelly is telling me about the benefits of drinking
00:34:35.620
Well, then I had a friend say, well, that's just basic Ayurvedic medicine.
00:34:40.260
So I went out and I purchased as much as like Ayurvedic medicine is the traditional medicine
00:34:50.460
He's over at Life Spa in Denver and he recommends for fat loss, drinking hot water with lemon.
00:35:03.720
And this other person says, and so I started doing it in the afternoons.
00:35:07.880
I have a hot pot and then I have those bottles of concentrated lemon juice, you know?
00:35:34.960
I'm the person at the movie going, once I started drinking hot water with lemon, it stopped.
00:35:43.640
And someone said, well, that's just because it clears out your mucus.
00:35:46.500
And I'm like, hey man, as long as I'm not making noise at the movie, I'm happy with that too.
00:35:51.180
So, okay, whether or not it actually clears out mucus, I don't know.
00:35:57.880
Whether or not that assists with fat loss, I think it might.
00:36:14.180
While I'm drinking hot water, I am satisfying my taste buds, my throat, my tummy, and I'm sticking something in my mouth that isn't caloric and isn't adding to my body fat density.
00:36:33.780
Or, and then finally, let's go to the, because you always have to go to the extreme.
00:36:38.260
It's a magical substance that goes into your fat cells and eats them.
00:36:46.940
I was like, after I read that, I was like, oh, I'm going to try this.
00:36:49.220
And something I noticed, like when I was drinking, I got pretty sweaty.
00:36:54.500
Just from drinking hot water, which was interesting.
00:36:58.340
It was a way to drink liquids that was different from just drinking lukewarm tap water.
00:37:05.100
And at least, it's helping you get more water, which is essential for health.
00:37:10.220
If all it is, is that, okay, for me, I stopped doing the nonsense.
00:37:21.920
Maybe it raises that basal metabolism up a few drops.
00:37:26.160
Maybe it is, makes the body have to work a little harder to cool that stuff down.
00:37:34.340
Or maybe, which is the only correct answer, is that the hot water and the lemon go out
00:37:41.460
and actively kill fat cells, like, you know, kind of like Luke Skywalker and Death Stars.
00:37:53.500
But having said it, though, and this is so hard to say this without kind of going,
00:38:00.820
without shaking my head, which I'm doing, it seems to really work for me.
00:38:06.740
And by the way, gentle listener, how much do I make on telling you to drink hot water
00:38:14.640
It's like me telling you to sleep more, drink, you know, sleep more, drink hot water.
00:38:19.020
You know, I'm not going to make a billion dollars on this.
00:38:25.600
So like we've talked about the, the nutrition component and it's pretty easy.
00:38:29.880
Nothing to, you don't have to think too hard about it.
00:38:32.400
You mentioned you're a big fan of intermittent fasting for fat loss.
00:38:39.420
Well, I'm not proud of what I'm about to say, but I got to the point as an athlete
00:38:44.620
that if I didn't, if I wasn't shoveling something down my throat every hour, I felt like I was
00:38:54.100
And then, uh, you know, I just, but, and I never really learned to discern the difference
00:39:08.380
And what I learned, and it's, there's nothing new to it.
00:39:12.060
Every, every faith tradition has fasting as part of it.
00:39:18.600
One day I just kind of, I was listening to all these people talking about this stuff and
00:39:24.260
I'm like, and, and I started to fast and I realized what a gap there was.
00:39:29.680
Now I'm not bragging, Brett, but I, I have tremendous self-discipline except when it came
00:39:37.780
And what I did is I realized this team of horses that was food was just pulling me around
00:39:47.160
So for me personally, intermittent fasting did first taught me to deal with what hunger
00:39:56.200
And then I started noticing something is in those periods where I'm not constantly shoveling
00:40:06.960
I'm a big believer in the gut biome stuff too, you know, having a healthy colony inside
00:40:12.540
the floor and fauna inside of your, your, your gut.
00:40:15.580
But by not constantly shoveling things down there, they had to be a lot more, I enhance
00:40:25.920
And I also began to notice that if I could fast, and so I, I just, I don't just react
00:40:34.260
So I have this, a better skillset to go, Dan, do you want, do you want some banana bread?
00:40:42.520
Let me, let me get some, you know, and whatever.
00:40:45.480
Uh, I'm going to eat some kimchi with a, you know, I'm going to have a little salad, a piece
00:40:52.120
And then when, then they say, do you want some banana bread?
00:41:06.920
The other thing now I was at a workshop one time and this person who said something I didn't
00:41:10.580
agree with said that fasting cardio has no value at all.
00:41:14.380
And I thought, I think you're missing the point.
00:41:17.260
They were thinking of the body as a machine, which is fine because parts of our body is
00:41:23.100
It's, we are machines in certain places, but I think they missed the point that when you're
00:41:28.860
doing something like fasted cardio, like in my case, fasted workouts, I can work out really
00:41:35.620
hard in the morning now because I'm not also digesting breakfast because I, I don't eat until
00:41:46.780
So Pavel said one time that what he likes so much about intermittent fasting is how it
00:42:01.380
And it's that eyes that a raptor has when it's looking for food.
00:42:04.680
When I'm, when I'm fasting and I've got to write something, my eye, I mean, I am glued
00:42:13.000
to the screen when I'm fasting and I go work out like today, it was cold and I hadn't had
00:42:18.240
any food and I was shivering and I was doing my workout and man, even right now, as I'm
00:42:23.900
explaining it to you, Brett, my eyes are like all filled like, let's go take, let's go fight
00:42:28.140
this, you know, war and yeah, and so that, that's why I like it so much.
00:42:33.180
I like what it does, my ability to deal with food first.
00:42:41.380
And then I really like what it does for my focus in my workouts.
00:42:46.340
And if intermittent fasting is something you want to do, there's different protocols.
00:42:51.760
You could certainly, I mean, you could, you know, you could do something as simple as fast
00:42:55.720
modified diets, that's Walter Longo's work where once a month you take a three or four
00:43:03.480
You could do the five, two where two days a week you fast.
00:43:07.460
Another great one, one day a week you eat dinner and then you don't eat until the next dinner.
00:43:16.380
Anything you can do to kind of get control of your, don't take this wrong and I'm not against
00:43:25.560
capitalism, but every time I turn on the television set, they are selling me, you know, I was just
00:43:32.540
watching, I don't want to mention the brand, but it's this, this fried greasy chicken sandwich
00:43:39.600
and it's, and it's mouthwatering or something like that.
00:43:42.940
They said, well, I watched that and it'd be like, I can now turn off mentally that commercial
00:43:49.640
my skill, because I fast, I'm, I built up the muscle of turning off, uh, instant gratification.
00:44:00.760
And there's a few listeners who are probably going, I think I know what he means.
00:44:06.120
You know, you'd be able to slow things down when it comes to shoveling things down your throat.
00:44:15.560
When do you break, when do you break your fast?
00:44:17.920
So I basically almost always eat between five and six o'clock at night at dinner.
00:44:23.040
I get up at about most days, five or six in the morning.
00:44:34.200
I write whatever I have to write at about nine o'clock.
00:44:42.400
We work out till about 10 30 and basically about 11 I eat.
00:44:54.360
But for me working out in a fasted state is, uh, to, to use the phrase money, money.
00:45:03.060
So talk about the exercise program you recommend for fat loss.
00:45:06.920
Give us a big picture overview of the exercise we're focusing on here and like how many times
00:45:12.520
But there's the, there's the million dollar thing at the end of it.
00:45:15.600
So if you can, in your perfect world, if you want to, if you want to do the Dan John method
00:45:22.460
of easy fat loss, uh, if you can come into your workout fast, that's well, of course,
00:45:29.580
technically, if you're not shoveling food down your throat right now, you're fasting.
00:45:33.220
I mean, technically, but the idea is this, all you're trying to do is, and this comes from
00:45:38.860
Rusty Moore is get yourself to free up some free fatty acids.
00:45:48.100
So basically we're going to do a vertical press, an overhead press, dumbbell press, kettlebell
00:45:53.440
press, barbell press, uh, maybe three sets of three, some kind of vertical pull that can
00:45:59.960
be lat pull downs, chin ups, pull ups, get about a total.
00:46:03.560
If it's chin ups or pull ups, maybe two sets of five.
00:46:06.380
If you can do that three sets of three or lat pull downs, you might have to do more, some
00:46:17.260
The ab wheel is one of the most underrated pieces of equipment in the world.
00:46:21.600
One set of 10 is all you need because with this program, you're going to do it three to
00:46:30.900
If you know how to kettlebell swing great, if not, whatever it takes, but if you're going
00:46:37.640
to do kettlebell swings, it'd be about five sets of 15 and you're just trying to get your
00:46:43.080
So overhead press, three sets of three pull ups, three sets of three, three sets of three,
00:46:48.560
three sets of three in the deadlift, one set of 10 in the ab wheel, go out the door and
00:46:56.640
As you're walking, your body's just released a whole bunch of stuff.
00:47:02.920
Once you start walking, your body now has a chance, according to Rusty Moore, and I think
00:47:07.460
he's right because it's worked so simply for me, is now you freed up the free fatty acids
00:47:13.060
and now as you walk, your body is like a Pac-Man eating those free fatty acids.
00:47:30.680
So this short workout, we're looking at 10 to 15 minutes of a workout and then the half
00:47:37.180
hour, 45 minute walk has just been the most illuminating change in my career.
00:47:42.200
And again, like the nutrition stuff, this is really easy.
00:47:46.140
I mean, I think a lot of people think they got to spend an hour in the gym.
00:47:51.700
You just need a kettlebell and a pull-up bar and you'll be-
00:47:57.360
And if you can't find a place to do pull-ups, just do rows or something like that.
00:48:02.840
And no matter what I say, of course, people are going to throw up, you know, what about,
00:48:10.120
I mean, you can do calisthenics, but the idea, get those calisthenics in, don't kill
00:48:21.980
I honestly think that most people put themselves in such a state of not just physical exhaustion,
00:48:30.840
but even like, you know, when people think about losing fat, very often they go to the
00:48:38.000
seven deadly sins and they think it's a sloth or sloth and gluttony.
00:48:43.200
And so I'm going to counter that by eating rabbit food and making myself a physical wreck.
00:48:49.180
And the problem is all that does is hurt your joints, makes you lose lean body mass.
00:48:54.040
You'll lose lean body mass, but keep the fat because you're freaking your body out.
00:48:58.160
What I'm trying to do with the easy strength for fat loss protocol is coax your body and
00:49:05.940
Things are, yeah, we fasted, we had a workout, but now we have a nice meal.
00:49:15.020
And the body looks up to me and says, oh, thank you for being so kind.
00:49:23.060
And then we send Luke Skywalker in with that hot water with lemon and then shoot, no.
00:49:30.540
Yeah, you're not putting on a hair shirt to lose weight.
00:49:35.160
And here's the funny thing is that this is a thing that we've lost in the fitness industry
00:49:46.500
Could you imagine, I always use, when I talk about weightlifting, I always use the idea of
00:49:51.920
Could you imagine if you had someone standing next to you as you were learning to type,
00:49:56.080
screaming in your ear, it's all you, you know, hit that A, hit that A, you know, with your
00:50:04.180
What would it look like on the screen if someone was screaming at you where the letters were?
00:50:11.020
So how you learn how to type is you go in every day and you type and you make a mistake,
00:50:16.220
you correct it, you make a mistake, you correct it.
00:50:18.280
Pretty soon there's less mistakes, pretty soon you flow.
00:50:20.660
And one day you end up like where I'm basically at now, where I can type almost as fast as I can
00:50:27.680
And it's not ever because anyone's ever slapped my face or, you know, made me drink an energy
00:50:35.460
I just nudged myself daily for a long time to become a better and better and better typer.
00:50:41.140
So if you nudge yourself, if you fast and then you do this gentle, this workout, you push
00:50:49.800
There's nothing wrong with going heavy and getting those loads up.
00:50:53.060
And then you go for a walk and then you come home and you have protein, veggies and you
00:50:58.520
And then later on you have more protein, more veggies and drink some water.
00:51:01.560
Maybe later on that day you have more protein, more veggies and drink some water.
00:51:08.920
And if someone does offer you some kind of delightful delight that they worked hard on
00:51:16.560
Just don't go to the machine and throw some cash in or use your card and get some, you
00:51:21.580
know, 500 calorie candy bar, you know, pick and choose, be an adult.
00:51:29.860
So you're going to do your 15 minute workout in the gym and then you're going to go for
00:51:34.460
But you've also thrown in some ways you can make the walk a bit more strenuous.
00:51:50.360
It's something I came up with a couple of years ago.
00:51:52.820
So I'd had a lot of success with some clients who were in the mid 300s body weight work with
00:52:00.120
And honestly, all I tried to do, well, it would be the simple thing.
00:52:04.160
You know, first we'd start off with the two glasses of water and then, you know, but once
00:52:07.940
we got them walking, you know, like the one client I had weighed 350 and boy within, I mean,
00:52:15.940
He was down to 320 and I'm thinking, man, I'm good, you know?
00:52:20.080
And then he got to about 290 and everything stalled.
00:52:23.400
And then I had noticed that this had happened to somebody else years ago.
00:52:28.900
If you go for a 20 minute walk weighing 350, you are doing a loaded carry and your body
00:52:38.840
But here's the problem is as you lose weight, okay, as you get lighter and lighter, you become
00:52:45.280
the curse of what fat loss exercise is all about.
00:52:49.780
Fat loss exercise is about being as inefficient as you can be.
00:52:55.120
So if you're an outstanding dancer and we take a dance class together, I'm going to be dying
00:53:02.800
next to you while you just go step ball change, step ball change.
00:53:06.480
So as this person went walking at 350, 340, 335, that added load of their own body mass made
00:53:17.160
Once they slid to about 290, they began to become more and more efficient as a walker.
00:53:22.800
So what we began to do then was add a very simple, a school backpack is just fine.
00:53:29.320
And at first, it doesn't have to be very much weight.
00:53:31.460
You can throw in a single five pound weight or a single 10 pound weight.
00:53:35.640
Now you got to be careful here because most people are going to overdo what I'm about
00:53:39.740
And as they drop now to 280, maybe you want to increase that to 15 pounds, 270, 260, maybe
00:53:48.380
Once you get around 30 to 35 pounds, 15 kilos, there is not a lot of value in adding weight
00:53:56.760
Now you're going to get people on your show who are military and they'll say, well, I carried
00:54:05.860
But for fat loss, when you get to around 30 pounds, you kind of peak out with the ruck or
00:54:13.920
So it's called reverse rucking because you're adding weight as the person.
00:54:25.580
Once you get to a certain weight, then I would put on ankle weights.
00:54:28.800
Ankle weights are great for anybody with all kinds of issues.
00:54:31.960
The ankle weight makes you improve your gait without even thinking about it.
00:54:35.680
And then after, and I wouldn't go much over five pound ankle weights.
00:54:38.640
And then I like to put heavy hands, weights in the hands.
00:54:42.540
And I've discovered that honestly, three pounds per hand, you get those little dumbbells at
00:54:52.700
They are pink, but they're still perfect for walking.
00:54:55.760
So now you always tell one of my clients, because you see them walking down the street
00:54:59.900
with a backpack, with a plate in the back, with bright green ankle weights and pink heavy
00:55:07.100
So I thought, you know, you got a Dan John person right there.
00:55:11.520
So yeah, the goal here, you're just trying to make the walk a little bit more efficient
00:55:23.640
The problem we have when you work with building into running, and you can, this isn't my phrase,
00:55:28.960
but it's called the fat jogger syndrome, where the person runs more and more and more
00:55:37.180
It's not universal, but it does happen with some people because they become very efficient
00:55:43.040
at running and they start doing what the runners call garbage miles.
00:55:46.980
I'm a former track coach, so I can use the phrase.
00:55:49.680
It's just called garbage miles where you just get out there and it doesn't really help for
00:55:58.100
I mean, we talked about a lot and it's pretty simple.
00:56:00.840
I mean, recap, make sure your goals are rich, that your weight loss or fat loss goal is rich.
00:56:06.360
When you eat, get protein, vegetables, maybe intermittent fast, maybe drink some hot water
00:56:18.180
And then at some point, maybe make your walk a bit more inefficient by adding some weight.
00:56:25.000
Well, we've been doing this for a while and I wish I could go back in time.
00:56:30.180
And I wish when I first started coaching in 1979, I was having my people do this because
00:56:35.500
it's so much better for fat loss and people are happier.
00:56:41.140
The nice thing is you're not exhausted from the workout, so you make better choices on
00:56:49.540
It is, if I beat you to death, if I just beat you down on the workout, Brett, you're going
00:56:58.300
And I want you to eat, you know, chicken thighs and a salad and vegetable soup.
00:57:03.980
Well, Dan John, where can people go and learn more about your work?
00:57:06.720
Yeah, well, oh, and by the way, I talked to Brian.
00:57:09.360
He's extended that discount to your listeners again, okay?
00:57:12.260
And make sure if you could put that in the notes, it'd mean a lot to me.
00:57:17.400
And if you put one word, art of man, make art of man one word, you get this massive discount.
00:57:25.160
And a whole bunch of your listeners used it last time, and we've opened it up again for
00:57:33.180
And there's just, I've got, I mean, there's probably thousands of pages of downloadable,
00:57:44.600
Lots of articles in one of the best forums on the internet.
00:57:50.140
And also, too, there's a thing on there called the workout generator, where you can just plug
00:57:55.360
in what equipment you have, how many days a week you want to work out.
00:57:58.900
You press a button, and it gives you your workouts, really, for the rest of your life.
00:58:03.440
It's, it's, I just, it's what I wish I would have had when I first went online in 1998.
00:58:10.500
Brett, it's just, it's just as incredible how it takes, it's the inside of my mind, but
00:58:16.060
it's working with what you're telling us you can do.
00:58:20.120
It's just, it's, it's, this to me was the promise of the internet.
00:58:31.760
And that's really, you know, it's the highest praise I can give somebody.
00:58:38.940
He's the author of several books on health and fitness, including Fat Loss Starts on Monday.
00:58:42.460
Make sure to check out his website, danjohnuniversity.com and use code ARTOFMAN for a discount on his programs.
00:58:48.500
Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash fat loss.
00:58:57.400
We have some more articles there on fat loss, weight loss, getting healthy in the new year.
00:59:12.460
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.
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Make sure to check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives,
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as well as thousands of articles written over the years about pretty much anything you think of.
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Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think would get something out of it.
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As always, thank you for the continued support.
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Remind you to not listen to the AOM Podcast, but put what you've heard into action.