The #1 Key to Fat Loss | Kettlebell Fast Blast

Season 6 | Episode 10 Oh man, that title is super click bait-y right? I know it is and sorry, not sorry. Everyone wants to know the secret sauce, the ONE trick, the hack that is the ke Welcome to the platform podcast where we talk to coaches, athletes, experts, and real people to learn about their approaches to training, nutrition, mindset, and much more. I'm your host, Jordan Kunde-Wright, founder, and head coach of the Twin Cities Kettlebell Club. And I'm on a mission to help others build sustainable, healthy lifestyles. Before we jump into the episode, I want to remind you that registration is open for the second annual Twin Cities Kettlebell Open on October 22nd hosted by our friends at the Athlete Lab in Louis, Canada, Minnesota. Just as we did last year, we will include an option for video submissions for participants who are unable to make the trip in person. You will be eligible for all of the same prizes as an in-person competitors. Just go to our website, Twin Cities Kettlebell Club.com for details. This week, I am diving in on my number one tip for fat loss. I know that that sounds super click baity as a topic, right? And I'm not sorry about it. I want you to listen because I feel like this is a super important topic. I think people get this wrong. I think it is something that we fall victim to when we see these claims out there in the social media landscape and marketing landscape. But what the number one secret is, the secret sauce, you know, all that BS. So I wanted to talk to you about it and really explain what I think the actual answer is from a longitudinal fat loss perspective. So I hope you enjoy the episode. And of course, if you do enjoy the episode, please be sure to support the podcast. Give me a five star rating and review wherever you get your podcasts, but especially on iTunes. That's very, very helpful. And I'm, of course, very grateful that you listen to this podcast. The best way you could support me is to register for the Twin Cities Kettlebell Open. Come shake my hand, lift some bells with me and my friends here October 22nd. Maybe invite a friend or two, bring them along. You can go to our website, Twin Cities Kettlebell Club.com for details. And of course, last but not least, if you need help reaching your goals without wasting time, please fill out the coaching interest sheet that is linked in the show notes. I help athletes of all levels using my integrated coaching approach. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube at Twin Cities Kettlebell Club or email me at Twin Cities Kettlebell Club at gmail.com. Now without further ado, let's step onto the platform and discuss the number one key to fat loss. Welcome in to this week's episode of the platform podcast. We are live in the Kettlebell fat blast Facebook group. It is high noon on February 20th, 2022. And I am finally starting to feel a little bit better, although I hope I still have the the whiskey sunrise voice going on where I've still got the extra deep radio voice. I'm still getting over it's still getting over the cold, but I feel like I'm still about half an octave lower than I normally am in my speaking register, which is not a bad thing when you're doing broadcasts. Hopefully, hopefully you enjoy maybe it's dulcet tones. I hope so. This week, I am going to talk about what I consider to be the number one key to fat loss, the number one key to fat loss, right? That is super click baitie, right? I know I know it's super click baitie and sorry, not sorry, as my Canadian friends would say, I'm not sorry about giving you that super click baitie, baitie topic because everyone wants to know what the secret is. What what what's the hack? What's the number one thing I need to do? What's, you know, what's the secret sauce man, give me the recipe and it's it's probably not it's probably not what you expect it to be. I'm going to I'm going to preface with that so I'm going to give you a little teaser and say my answer is probably not what you expect it to be for what the number one key to fat losses. And there's a good reason for it, but I'm going to I'm going to tell you I'm going to tell you a couple of stories that while inspired by true events, any representation to any person actual actually living or deceased is purely coincidental some facts have been changed to protect the innocent, you know, whatever, you know, so these are examples that I can I can tell you from my from my career coaching and let me know if this sounds familiar to any of you so imagine that you know if you are a woman in her mid 30s who has grown up struggling to maintain maintain her weight and in her 20s she tried weight watchers and had good success with weight watchers and dropped 50 pounds and was pretty happy with with her results, but then her results slowed down and eventually stopped and then she got super discouraged because she still didn't look the way that she wanted to look and she's weighing in every week in front of other people in her peer group who have been her support group she gets more and more discouraged as her weight loss numbers continue to stagnate and eventually the scale starts creeping back up and she gets super frustrated and super dissolution and stops and then fast forward a couple of years and she has put all of those 50 pounds back on plus another 10 and so now she's up so now she's up 60 up another 10 from where she was and so she try she tries a different program and this time she's going to go keto and she goes keto and goes super low carb and has a whole bunch of success right away she drops like 15 pounds in the first week thinks this is awesome and then she she keeps sticking with it for a while drops another 15 another 20 pounds keeps working out but not feeling the best really low energy and life stress is coming at her and so she finds herself binging on the weekends particularly on carbs and before you know what she's not in ketosis anymore and she can't sustain the weight loss that she's had and she puts 10 pounds back on and then she tries to double down on that even more gets even more restrictive and then she can't maintain it and benches again this time harder she feels terrible about herself and puts another 15 pounds back on then she gives up on keto and goes back on her regular way of eating and now she puts all of the weight that she had lost back on plus another five let me know if that sounds familiar right another example you know say you are a man like me you're a fairly fairly fairly large framed individual you know over six feet tall you know over 200 pounds and have walked around as heavy as 370 pounds you know and you lose 100 pounds you get down to get down to 270 pounds and then you're like okay cool I'm happy you know my goal was to lose 100 pounds and I'm happy okay cool and so you slack a little bit on your diet you start drinking a little bit more going back to the way that you used to eat before you before you lost all the weight and you start creeping slowly back up and you get up to 290 and then you get up to 300 and then you're up to 330 you know et cetera right and so you see the scale going the wrong way and eventually you're like nope nope got to stop this and you get back into your super serious rigid routine and you drop 70 pounds again or you drop another 100 right and but you can't maintain it you can't keep it you can't keep it going right so what do you do well you end up putting the weight back on and more often than not you put on put the weight that you lost back on and plus some extra right so why does this why does this continue to happen right how many times are you how many times you're going to gain and lose the same 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 pounds over and over again like I know I know people who have gained and lost 100 pounds more than three times in their life right so and you know for a lot of women they've probably gained and lost you know 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds in their life many many times I know many women that have done that that have lost that have lost a significant amount of weight in their life multiple times right so is the tricky part is is it really that hard to lose weight I would argue know for most people you know not not for everybody some people do really struggle with losing weight and it's really a challenge for them but for most of us for most people that I work with at least and most people in my experience losing the weight is not the problem right it is actually maintaining weight loss that is the problem so there is my answer to what is the number one key to fat loss and it's actually maintenance maintenance is the key and notice I said fat loss not weight loss right the name of the Facebook group is the kettlebell fat blast not the kettlebell weight loss blast or weight loss or weight blast right because weight as we've talked about on previous episodes weight is simply one data point that measures the gravitational force of the earth on your body at a point in time it is a singular data point that measures your weight your gravitational force here on earth at that one point in time does not tell you anything about composition and this is a point I will continue to come back to and I have to have this conversation with clients often often even even this week one of one of my clients who who came onto who came onto the one of the team kettlebell sessions you know to train with us and she was she was like oh my belt is looser there's down a down a couple down a couple of belt belt notches but she was still frustrated she was still frustrated when she weighed in this week because her weight was her weight was not moving right not that it derailed her but she's like I thought I'd be lighter who cares I had to tell her that who cares if you if you weigh a particular number if you know that you're moving the direction that that you want to move you know you're improving your body composition like who cares if the weight has changed right and I'm not immune to that you guys have heard my struggles with the scale I mean I have my own I have my own challenges with that we are all conditioned to put more onus on the scale more pardon the pardon the pun more weight on the scale then then what it deserves it is a singular data pointed as part of many data points by which we can measure our progress in our success within a program right so I was I was pretty intentional with my with my title was number one key to fat loss is maintenance being able to not gain or lose weight is a skill and it is a skill that many of us fail to acquire especially if you struggled with your weight your entire life you can think about it how many times in your life when you think about you know longitudinal how many times in your life were you just trying to maintain the weight that you are at for a lot of us that answer is I can't remember a time when I was trying to maintain my weight most people were either trying to lose weight or well they were losing weight because they were trying to lose weight or they were gaining weight because they got frustrated with the approach they were taking and and got a case of the fuckets to quote to quote Audrey you got a case of the fuckets and we're just like not not doing it anymore fuck it all I'm going to I'm going to enjoy my life you get a case of the fuckets and the weight goes back up right so maintenance is actually the key to long term success long term success at fat loss requires maintenance there's a few reasons for that right so I'll give you I'll give you I'll give you a four four reasons why maintenance is actually the number one key for fat loss the first one should seem obvious but it's one that we often neglect you stop moving backwards and what I mean by that is if the goal is to reduce body fat you have a period of success and now we all know like those those things track weight loss and fat loss tend to go tend to go hand in hand now you can also lose weight by up you know via glycogen water muscle right you can lose weight any number of ways so it's we're changing changing tissue stores but we tend to understand that if we're eating sufficient protein and strength training that if we are seeing weight loss on the scale a lot of that is due to fat loss right and you see that in composition changes right so if the goal is if the goal is fat loss then doing a period of maintenance means that you have stopped moving you you stop moving backwards when you're not in a period of fat loss because what happens as I alluded to in the in the intro with some of the stories right is is what most people do is as soon as they stop losing fat or stop losing weight they don't they don't maintain their new their new weight they immediately start gaining weight back right they immediately start going backwards right so if you take five steps forward and stop and just stand still and then you take five steps forward again and stop and stand still right that will get you to your destination your desired destination faster than someone who takes five steps forward and three steps backward five steps forward three steps backward stops five steps forward three steps backwards right that is going to take you and that's that's assuming that's assuming that you you put on less weight you put less weight back on them what you initially lost so you're saying five steps forward three steps back you're still moving forward incrementally by two every every time you iterate that right you're still incrementally moving forward you know towards your goal by two but if it's five steps forward five steps back five steps forward five steps back you didn't move you didn't move fucking anywhere or if it's five steps forward seven steps back take another five steps forward seven steps back right now you're moving to your losing ground you're you're going backwards to every every time you go through that iteration right so periods of maintenance are super important because you stop moving away from your desired destination right you're not moving towards your desired destination either but you're not moving away from it and that's what most of us miss on is we we're either moving towards it or away from it and we can't stand still so the ability learning how to stand still and maintain your weight maintain your body composition is incredibly challenging for a lot of us it is a skill that needs to be acquired is a skill that needs to be practiced as well right so that's reason number one it's it stops moving you away from your goal that would have been a better way of saying it's instead of saying it stops moving you backwards but it stops moving you away from your goal right number two reason is it helps you psychologically right periods of maintenance are incredibly important because let's be honest about fat loss it is hard as fuck it is challenging it requires energy it requires focus it is a stressor on the body to eat in a caloric deficit that is required to create fat loss right the training intensity required while in a caloric deficit the sleep the steps the hydration the food quality food prep meal prep tracking you know all of those things if you do it that way right those things take psychological energy it takes focus it takes effort it is not easy if it was easy everyone would do it everyone would be at the composition that they want it is not easy now there are ways we can make it easier there are ways we can make it more fun but if we're being honest fat loss is challenging it takes time it takes effort right so psychologically that takes its toll right it takes mental energy and if you don't build in periods of maintenance that's how you end up with the fuck it's that's how you end up with benches right you are not accounting for the fact that you are a human being with limited capacity limited discipline limited willpower everyone's willpower runs out eventually now we have varying capacities for discipline and willpower and etc some people are incredibly incredibly disciplined and can just keep their eyes on the prize and for extended periods of time and are really really good at that and their high achievers etc like Tom Brady comes to mind yeah I got you Audrey I know I got you Matt Tom Brady kept his eyes on the prize for 20 years Michael Jordan one point Michael Jordan said something to the effect of you know if you want to if you want to beat me you have to give up your life because that's what I did to be as great as I am right it takes a toll psychologically to be that dialed in it takes a toll psychologically to be on point right look at figure competitors right it takes a toll they it is hard for them they get moody they get cranky right if you've ever been around somebody who's on a on a cut for a contest prep they can be a miserable prick to be around especially the last couple of weeks right not sleeping well tired hormones are down regulated they look good but they feel like shit and psychologically they're tired and then when they get a break when the show is over that most of them need the break they need a period of recovery now ones that do it well go into a period of maintenance or into a reverse a very intentional reverse ones that do it poorly they they just go off the wagon and they're like ah hit the goal now it's time doing whatever the fuck I want right because psychologically it takes its toll to be dialed in right so maintenance periods give you a break psychologically they allow you to recharge your battery regain mental focus regain clarity and also take some pressure off the stress you know period periods where where the goal is not to lose weight or lose body fat allow you more space it allows you more calories it allows you which which more calories allows you more dietary flexibility right you can enjoy things a little bit more things that were the maybe you couldn't if you were going to be making progress on your goals right so it helps psychologically and now reason number three which I've already started to allude to reason number three is that it helps you physiologically right what does that mean well when you eat in a caloric deficit your body's job is to maintain homeostasis homeostasis is the goal of maintenance right but when you eat in a deficit physiologically you are putting a stress on your body and you are doing so intentionally to create a change that you want to happen well what happens is your body eventually fights back against that and adapts that's really the thing it's not even a fight it's not even a fight it is your body is adapting to the stimulus because it is trying to maintain homeostasis to keep you alive that is its job keep you alive so that you can procreate and it that is the the fundamental function right so if you are in a caloric deficit so you're eating at 2000 calories and you cut that down to 1400 calories to create weight loss then you do that for a period of time your body is going to make adjustments so that your intake and your output match well how does it do that well it's going to decrease your hunger hormones right so that you aren't seeking food as often it is also so that's Grayland it's the Grayland is the hunger queue hormone so you'll see people that have been in deficits for a significant period of time they their Grayland levels go down so you just don't get hungry as often because your body is adapting to the fact that okay we're only eating 1400 calories I'm going to I'm not going to send the queue of the amount of Grayland that when we were eating 2000 calories because clearly 2000 calories aren't available right now so we're not we're going to down regulate the hunger cues right so you'll see Grayland levels decrease well with that you will also see a decrease in thermogenesis of all activities not just your exercise output but that that would be the first thing your body will get more efficient in your in in your calorie output that happens for a couple of reasons a ostensibly if you are eating in a deficit for a significant period of time you're going to lose some weight so you will be a smaller physical organism so you you won't require as many calories to maintain your body and it also won't expend as many calories to move so think of fuel economy like a truck versus an SUV or a truck versus a compact car excuse me right a truck a big ass you know quad diesel Ford F 350 is going to get you know 16 miles to a gallon whereas a small you know Ford hatchback is going to get 26 miles to a gallon the smaller the vehicle the less fuel it takes to move it right that's the the basics of that analogy so when you get smaller you burn fewer calories and your body decreases decreases the energy expenditure of exercise but it also decreases it decreases your energy expenditure across all other things digestion sleep at rest et cetera and it also interestingly enough people who are in a caloric deficit move less that you just and you it's not even conscious subconsciously you move less so you stop fidgeting as much you stop and you just stop having the desire to move if you've if you've ever been really sick right you you you're like God just the thought of getting up and walking to the kitchen sounds like too much because you're depleted right the same thing happens on a less on a less acute scale but the same thing happens when you have been physiologically eating in a deficit for an extended period of time your body decreases the cues to move and so everything becomes less of an output your your body your your body physiologically adapts to try and decrease your need for food because you have put it in a deficit and so it is adjusting so that it can get you back to a homeostatic state that is the goal of your metabolism so the metabolism is never broken it's adaptive it's adapting to the to the stimulus that you put on it and the longer you put it in a particular state the longer it's going to take to restore it to a different state. So this is where manipulating food and periodization comes in right you guys have heard me talk about that so that's where that's where we we we get into the physiological manipulation using periods of maintenance using periods of reverse and periods of deficit depending on the goals and depending on the stress and training volume that is going on at any given period of time that's where integration comes in right understanding those things. And so this is also why eating at maintenance can be super tricky because it is a moving target it is always a moving target based on the other factors going on in your life based on your exercise activity based on your food choice based on the quantity of food that you eat based on your sleep based on your hydration based on the stress in your life at a given time based on your diet history based on genetics epigenetics there are so many factors that go into it that eating in a deficit or I'm sorry eating at maintenance can be very very tricky for a lot of people figuring that out because one day of the week 2500 calories might be maintenance for you and the next day that 2500 calories might not be maintenance it might be 300 extra or it might be 300 200 to little right so eating at maintenance can be can be very very tricky for for people especially if you don't have solid habits in place right so reason number four why maintenance is the key to access is it it is it is ultimately the outcome that we should be aiming for unless you are unless you are just a masochist or sycephus and if you don't know who sycephus is he was the the man from Greek mythology who is a damned to push a rock up a hill for eternity you can never get it to the top he pushes it to the top and then it rolls back to the bottom he has to go back down and push it and push it back up again unless that's who you want to be I would suggest acquiring the skill of maintenance because nobody wants to be gaining and losing weight for the rest of your life right now you could just get a permanent case of the fuckets and say whatever I don't care I'm not going to I'm not going to lose weight for the rest of my life or gain weight for the rest of you know gain and lose weight for the rest of my life I'm just going to eat how I want and do what I want and let my weight be what it is okay cool that's fine if that's your choice but you will be making a choice that that likely significantly shortens your life if that's okay with you that's fine I mean enjoy your time you know good on you it's your rodeo you write it for as long as you want I'm trying to stay on the ball as long as I can so you know I'm going to try make choices that support that so ultimately in my opinion the outcome we should be aiming for is is maintenance you want your periods of fat loss you want your periods of muscle gain you want your periods of recovery right but ultimately I think the goal that everyone wants to strive to is you have the body composition that you want you walk around it at a healthy body composition and wait for you you feel good you look good and you're generally happy and healthy and you don't have to track everything that goes into your body you have a good you have good habits it's not it's not draining for you to eat and live the way that you want that's ultimately the goal I think for most people and I would argue that's the goal that's what the goal should be but that like anything else requires reps that requires iterations you have to learn the skill of maintenance what does it mean to eat at maintenance for you right now with the understanding that the answer will shift over time to you have to learn the skills to be able to adapt to later to different to different variables and different points in time in your life and that's the real trick right and that's where coaching comes in that's we're having an accountability partner comes in right having someone to help you guide you right because this this should isn't easy if it was easy everyone would do it right it's not easy but it's it's doable we interrupt this episode to announce a new sponsor for the platform podcast driven nutrition is now the official supplement company that I am affiliated with for the Twin Cities Kettlebell Club as well as for the Twin Cities Kettlebell open in 2022 they offer a wide range of high quality supplements and I am very very excited to partner with them they are a small company that communicates really well good customer service and I really love the quality and the taste of all of their supplements and they have everything that you need basically from from jump you can get creatine monohydrate high quality proteins as well as sleep aids fish oil all of the quality supplements the basics you know the the fundamental supplements that I recommend for for all of my clients and for all of my athletes so check it out at driven nutrition there's an affiliate link in the the episode notes and you can use code TC KB to get 15% off of your order all right and so how do you get started well I'll tell you how I start with my with my clients we do an intake and through that process we we calculate a BMR estimate now that's based for me because I'm a nerd I do an ensemble of three the three most popular estimate models there's the catch McCartle the Harris Benedict and the Nifland St. George they're all supported by academic research for being fairly reliable and valid but within certain you know there's always there's always the caveat that they're that there's margin of error and so to minimize margin of minimize the you know the bias across of any one model I ensemble the top three to get an estimate of what somebody's what somebody's BMR is and then from that number we don't I don't stop there because that's very very basic frankly and this is where most online calculators really get it wrong is there's no individualization to it so I take that number as one input to the to the model and then after talking to someone and understanding their life their lifestyle their training their their his their exercise history et cetera we do an activity multiplier you know or a lifestyle multiplier right so that that can vary from 1.2 to like 1.7 1.8 and that's to adjust for total daily energy expenditure so BMR is is just how much how much does your body need at rest right and the activity multiplier is very very important right activity your daily activity on average accounts for a pretty significant variance in what your output is so we do an activity multiplier and part of that is your diet history and exercise history because as I mentioned your body adapts so somebody who's been doing high restrictive Chloric deficit diets for a long time I'm going to give a lower multiplier to then somebody with the same this all of the other same variables but that doesn't have the diet and exercise history because that that pattern of diet and exercise that pattern of diet history actually decreases your your longitudinal metabolism because your your metabolism is going to have adaptive to that state of deficit so it would take us longer to get you back up to a higher multiplier so we do an activity multiplier and I also do an adjustment for stress because stress level in someone's life is very different across people some people are more adaptive for their type of stress just based on personality type some people also just have significantly more stress in their lives and their seasons in life like if you just have a third kid and you know a couple of weeks ago your stress is going to be significantly higher than somebody who has three kids but their kids are all grown up and out of the house right so we're looking at we're looking at BMR which is a calculation based on age weight age weight gender and body composition and then adjusting for your activity adjust and adjusting for your stress from there you will get a macro prescription a baseline calories and then a composition that I recommend is across the three macronutrients and we say okay let's eat at that number without making any other changes for for two weeks so you track your food using you know my fitness pal or whatever whatever tracking mechanism you want to do and I have a spreadsheet that we use we track your numbers and I say let's do it for two weeks without making any changes so no no significant changes to exercise no significant changes to anything we're not we're not making dietary changes yet because all we're trying to do is establish baseline so we're going to track our food and weigh in for two weeks every day for two weeks so then we can see we can see what is our baseline look like and we're going to average average out your macros and average out your weight and see based on that number how close were we to actually hitting the number that was prescribed that's you know point number one if we're on that number and we're pretty close and then we can see how did that affect your weight then we have an idea of of baseline but we only make adjustments after establishing this baseline and if you're giving a macro prescription and you're unable to hit it for two weeks then we have to work on it again then we have to work on adherence right so first and foremost right we can't make adjustments if we don't have adherence to the plan because then we don't have a valid measure so we then then we would have to work on adherence and until we until we have a high enough level of adherence to make an assessment of baseline we're working on adherence habits first and then we establish do we have a baseline for your maintenance and if we have that so let's assume you hit you hit at high enough level of compliance and you hit the numbers and we see zero changes you know on average fluctuations are normal day-to-day fluctuations are normal that's why we take a longitudinal view that's why we look at a period of time how long enough period of time already feel like we can get an average so we look at two week period of time and if we're able to hit at a high enough adherence and we don't see any significant changes on the scale by significant that'll be based on the percentage of your weight right so a bigger person will have bigger fluctuations a smaller person smaller fluctuations right so if we see that we see minimal change within the margin of error based on your size over that two weeks with high enough adherence then we have a good estimate of your baseline maintenance numbers and that then becomes where we start from right we start from there so then we build the plan for weight loss muscle gain performance depending on what those numbers are right so that's how you can that's how you can start is start with the start with a calculator make an adjustment for your weight law or for your for your activity level and then also take into account your stress level the more stress you the more stress you are the more stress that's present in your life the more calories you need so adjust for your stress level as well and that starts as an estimate and understand that it's an estimate and then eat at that and track your weight and see and from there that will help you establish your baseline right that's that's really that's really the key to to getting started and hitting maintenance and then understand that if you then go into an eight week weight loss protocol or fat loss protocol that at the end of that this number this old number is not going to be your maintenance number because you're going to have just done two months of deficit and ideally have lost some weight so we would we would repeat that formula again we would repeat that based off of the new number and we would adjust what we think your maintenance number is and we would repeat that process where we would we would eat at maintenance for a period of time and track right with the goal of no significant weight regain and to give you the psychological break and the physiological break that your body needs right so that we can restore homeostasis at that new number without regaining weight and then from there we decide are we doing another cut are we doing a period of maintenance are we doing a reverse et cetera so that is my diet tribe on the number one key to fat loss the number one key to fat loss is maintenance so and that's longitudinal fat loss the number one key to longitudinal fat loss is maintenance all right well I hope you enjoyed this episode of course if you have any questions hit me up 20s kettlebell club at gmail dot com and follow me on the socials you know how to get at me I hope you enjoyed this episode tag me share it with a friend leave a five star rating review on iTunes all that good all that goodness and I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all soon peace thank you for listening to this episode of the platform podcast we'll be back with a new episode soon please be sure to leave a rating and review of the platform podcast in your choice support our work by supporting our affiliates and of course if you have questions or you want help reaching your goals reach out to me until next time thanks for listening