Cori (00:00):Losing fat and building muscle at the same time is real. It's called recon and it's slow. It's worth it. And the scale is going to lie to you the entire time. So in this podcast, I really want to break down why the scale lies, what to watch for in terms of signs to see that recomp is actually happening. And then four essential things that you need to focus on, if you want the best results as fast as possible, because this is a process that requires a little bit of precision in that you can't just sort of say, "I'm eating clean and working out and expect to see the best results, especially the more advanced in exercise you are. " Now, before I dive into all of those things, I have an ask of all of you. If you wouldn't mind leaving your review and subscribing or following on whatever platform you're listening on, that would be fricking phenomenal.
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It helps me spread the love, get the podcast out there. And I love hearing all of your feedback to just keep on rocking and sharing more tips and tricks so that we can all lead our healthiest, happiest lives because that is my mission. Now, diving into recomp because I don't know about you, but even when I said I wanted to lose weight, it wasn't just that I wanted to see the scale change. I wanted to look cleaner. I wanted to have more definition. I wanted to look like I trained as hard as I did, and I wanted to see that muscle. But for the longest time when I would try and lose, and I even heard that fat loss as you're building muscle or building muscle as you lose fat was impossible. It isn't. It is a hard process and a slow process, but it isn't impossible, but I had heard it was.
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And so I would seek to see the scale change quicker, which I actually realized was sabotaging me to the extreme. It was causing me to eat less, train harder, which made me look, to use a term that I've heard come up a lot recently, skinny fat. I would lose weight. I would technically get smaller, but I never looked more defined. And I was like, "What the heck is going on? I'm in a calorie deficit. I'm training hard. Why is this not working?" And it was because all my dieting and training practices were optimized for losing weight, yes, but not controlling what type of weight was being lost. I wasn't controlling for fat loss while even trying to build and retainly muscle. I was simply trying to lose weight. So all the practices we often put into play to try and see that scale change faster are what ultimately hold us back from seeing the recap we want.
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And that's why we have to realize that the scale is lying to us. And we see these lies, especially if we've been dieting for a really long time, been doing this yo-yo dieting cycle even often where we lose weight only to regain it. And one of the biggest reasons why the scale lies is that often in this recon process, even when fat loss is our main goal, we will see ourself building muscle first. And this is actually part of our body's survival mechanism. It's part of our metabolism trying to heal. So if you've thought like my metabolism is broken, it's slowing down with age, it just gets harder and harder every single time I try and lose where I feel like I'm having to eat less and less and train harder and harder for worse results or slower results. It's often because we've seen our metabolism adapt.
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And our metabolism adapts because of survival mode that we sort of go into. And that's not the most scientific way to describe it, but it is what our body's trying to do. Our body is trying to survive on less because it's not sure when it's going to get enough energy to build, maintain, or truly thrive. So it is trying to regulate all functions to function off of what you have coming in. So if you're training really hard and eating less, your body is going to potentially allow you to fidget less, grow your hair and nails less because it's trying to conserve energy for the processes that allow you to stay alive. And what often happens in this process too is that we lose more muscle mass because muscle is metabolically costly. It requires more energy to be maintained. So if our body wants to become more efficient to survive off the less, it is going to try and find ways to conserve energy, which means losing muscle to lose weight.
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And so in that process, we end up not only moving less throughout the day, but we see just our energy expenditure go down because we don't have as much muscle. Not to mention when we're only trying to lose weight as quickly on the scale, we're usually not controlling our macros, which will help optimize body recount. So when we're training hard to try and build muscle, our muscle tissue is being broken down, but there are no readily available amino acids because we're depleted. We're not controlling for protein intake. And so what amino acid stores do we have? Our muscles, we're going to go after those muscles for those amino acids to try and rebuild. So it's kind of this point of tearing down to only rebuild with the same thing we have there, which is why we see a point of diminishing returns, especially the less and less that's coming in because those amino acids will go to other tissues that are even more important for our body.
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So the scale will lie to us when we embrace this process and start doing the right things to see recomp, eating more, dialing in our macros, doing strength training and cutting back on some of the steady state cardio, not trying to demonize cardio, but there are different types of cardio that are more or less beneficial. And even our strength workouts can't just become cardio when we try and cut out rest to feel more worked. But in the process of doing the right things, we won't see the scale change. And it can be really frustrating, but our body is trying to heal itself. It's building that lean muscle that we were asking it to build before, but it couldn't because it didn't have the energy to do so. So now that it's building lean muscle, what can often happen is we can see the scale not change as we're even losing fat, or we can see the scale go up, which is incredibly frustrating if you want to lose fat as you're building muscle and you want that weight loss process, but you have to embrace this because if you're gaining even one or two pounds of muscle when you're not losing fat, your recomp is going to improve A, but it's why you can say, "I'm getting stronger.
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I'm gaining muscle in the gym, but I'm not looking leaner." You haven't yet lost fat because your body doesn't yet trust to lose that fat because it's not sure this energy is going to keep coming in. It also has been trained to function off the less. So it takes time for all those processes to turn back on. So yes, you're building lean muscle, which will burn more calories at rest, but all the other processes haven't yet adapted to the energy intake. So they haven't sort of shifted out of conservation mode. So you have to give your body time with that, which is why you have to maybe even step off the scale. Now that's easier said than done. And a lot of us do have ego in the number or want to see a certain number or we might say, "Well, I have a lot of weight to lose so shouldn't the opposite happen?" No.
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Your body's always going to heal first. It's going to always try and come out of survival mode first before it then prioritizes losing anything you have to lose. So you have to embrace that retraining process and you've got to get your calories up to a certain point, especially if you've been under eating, you've got to potentially back off that cardio to not create more of a deficit. You've got to allow your body to trust in you again, so to speak. And it's got to recover from this. So that means often doing less and seeing the opposite of what we want to have happen happen, which is why we have to measure success in other ways, because the more ways we measure success, the more ways we give ourself to be successful, but the more ways we actually see these habits are paying off before they build towards the ultimate goal we want.
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That weight loss is a real lag measure, no matter how much you have to lose. And especially I'll even have clients coming and saying, "I only have a few pounds to lose." Well, guess what? Losing 50% of those five pounds is the same as losing 50% of potentially more weight, which is why the results can seem slower. And the more you try and rush it, the leaner you are, the more you're going to put yourself at risk for losing that muscle and create those metabolic adaptations, at some point you're going to have to reverse. So it's better to go slow with that and make sure that you're trying to maintain your metabolic health as much as possible. So in terms of what other signs we need to look for, inches are the best sign of reccomp because there's been that sort of saying of like one pound of muscle weighs more than one pound of fat and it doesn't.
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They both weigh a pound or muscle weighs more than fat. They both weigh a pound, right? A pound of muscle equals a pound of fat. However, because of the density of muscle, it takes up less space. So we can actually look leaner, lose inches because we're losing fat. And that's where you even want to track where you're losing inches from. Is it from areas that you have more fat on? Is it from areas that you have more muscle and are leaner? Because that can help you see what you're controlling for where inches are being lost. But inches being lost if the scale's not changing, that is like the epitome of recomp. That means you are losing fat as you are even building and retaining the muscle. That is honestly optimal, but we don't see it that way. Especially again, if we do have more weight we want to lose and we know we do have some weight that should be coming off, but you want to see those inches being lost because that is going to show you that recomp is truly happy.
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You are going to end up looking leaner and more defined exactly the way you want if you trust in that process and don't try and rush it. You want to measure maybe based on how your clothes are fitting or you can use the circumference measurements. If you want to use those different scans or body fat measurements, you just have to recognize that they are very like volatile. You have to watch trends just as much as you do on the scale because they can be so impacted by hydration. But those can show you changes in fat mass versus lean mass. But again, they're also going to be impacted by inflammation from workouts, all those different things. So I love inches a little bit more, knowing that those still, again, will even fluctuate. You might be more bloated one day. You might have more muscle tissue damage from a hard workout.
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So muscle might be inflamed and you might not see the inches change or it might be a little puffy at that time. So it's still about watching trends, but clothing, how it's fitting. I would also say progress photos, not just the measurements can be really key. Just make sure you take them in the same place with the same lighting, otherwise the lighting can impact how muscles are sort of viewed. So you want to try and do that consistently at points, but also track your performance at the gym. If you are feeling stronger, if you're feeling more energized there, if you're seeing your numbers go up, if you're seeing improvements in all those other things, you know you're doing the right things in that habit and you're going to see that pay off in other ways. If you're tracking your food and you're seeing that consistency, celebrate that as a win too.
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I know we don't like to celebrate those as wins because they don't directly pay off or, well, they do directly pay off, but they are not immediately paying off. And so it's really hard to say, "Well, I'm hitting my ratios consistently. I'm including more food diversity." But give yourself challenges there. Things that will make you do more of the good habits that you know will pay off and measure that as success. Set a performance goal for yourself too that you know you have to fuel and train intensely towards. But watch your energy, watch your sleep, watch if your hair and nails are growing a little bit better. All these are signs. Is your skin feeling healthier? Is it clearer? Maybe you do get some blood work done to see those metrics, but measure success in other ways because then you'll see all the ways that the habits are paying off to not quit.
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Because we've also trained a pattern of quitting often at a certain point in time if we haven't seen the scale change or if the scale then plateaus. And guys, the plateau is like three to four weeks with no change, which most of us don't make it to before we want to make a change and like jump ship and start something new, not just slightly tweak. So the more ways you measure success, the more ways you give yourself to be successful and see that reconp happening. But you've got to find ways to really trust in the process when even the opposite is happening and the scale is lying to you, especially at the start, in that retraining process to see that reccomp happening if you have been under 80. Now I want to talk about four essential key things in terms of habit changes that are so important.
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And I'm going to tell you, number one is first focusing on your workouts over your nutrition. And what I mean by that is that so often we jump to diet for fat loss, but in that we go to eating less and we don't think about how our training is impacting our nutritional needs. So I actually like to start by first focusing on how am I going to adjust my workouts? What does my workout routine look like? Because as much as I'm saying don't do the study state cardio, if you're an endurance athlete, that might be a key component that you have to keep it in some form. So you can account for that and then how you structure your other strength workouts and then how you structure your nutrition. But I will tell you when looking at your workouts first, it's not that you want to demonize cardio, but if you are really, really serious about this recount process and especially about building retaining lead muscle, steady state long distance, run, rides, those things are more catabolic to muscle mass.
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They do make it harder to see that reccomp happen. Now things like sprint interval training, power work, even some strategic hit, if you're eating enough and you dial in your strength workouts correctly, can all be great. Walking is of course an amazing tool as well. But I will tell you, sprint work especially can be amazing for your metabolism. It's a good stressor as we get older to really maintain our metabolic health, optimize hormone levels for growth, all those different things. So you want to use cardio strategically, but then you want to focus on your lists and not just turning them into cardio workouts. Now that doesn't mean you only work in the three to five rep max lifting range, but you want to use the diversity of reps, even higher reps. I know they've gotten a little villainized recently, but they can have a lot of value for activation work, but also that strength endurance and taking a muscle to full fatigue.
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But you want to make sure that you're really challenging yourself with weights and not just cutting out rest to make your strength workouts more cardio. And then you are using that cardio strategically. So tip number one is the lifting. Tip number two is the cardio strategically, timing it even correctly with maybe some walks after your lifts for those stubborn areas where you have maybe more fat that might have been mobilized by the workout to then burn off. So like if you have more fat in your upper body, you might consider a walk after your upper body lifting to utilize more mobilized fatty acids or you might consider your sprint work after that as well. But you want to use the sprint and walking as much as you can, especially for fat loss as the main focus with recomp because the main focus could also be building muscle and then you want to be more conscious of getting back on the cardio if muscle is prioritized over the fat loss while you want to do both.
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But then you want to second dial in that lifting routine to really make sure that you're building muscle. I can tell you, if you want to focus on one thing for your workouts, even if you want fat loss as the focus, it's building muscle. Workouts are always about building muscle, not just about burning more calories. So those are the two things from the workout side that you really want to focus on. Then in terms of the nutritional side, macros matter most. We so often go to the math equation of calories in versus calories out, and that simply is why we see fast weight loss on the scale, but we don't see the recomp happening. And I will tell you that macros matter most to the point that I will have clients start with their current intake, not when they're undereating. When they're under eating, we'll do a little reverse etting.
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But even if they're overeating or eating and maintaining their weight and they're eating higher calorie, I will start with that calorie intake and first just adjust macros because simply by adjusting the portions of protein, carbs and fat, they will already start to see reccomp happen, especially generally because they'll increase protein, which will then put them into a slight deficit without even them knowing it, just from the standpoint of the thermic effect of protein, also the fact that then they're building lean muscle, they're still moving as much, like their activity level doesn't change, that will help them already start to see recom and that lean muscle mass being built and even a calorie deficit is slightly starting to be created because of the change in where their energy is coming from. And then from there, we might create a small deficit or small surplus based on the main focus of the recom goal, but I will even start by just changing macros and prioritizing protein, which a lot of us have heard.
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Now, the other tip with nutrition that I think doesn't get enough love, although I have seen it come up a lot more, is fiber. And so I'm not talking about any of the other ways of dialing things in the calorie deficit that you need, but fiber as an important thing, and partly because I mentioned how important protein is constantly, probably you guys are sick of hearing about how important protein is for me, but protein is the most essential thing. They've shown that if you overeat calories and you're high in protein, you can actually avoid gaining unwanted fat. If you're in a deficit, even more aggressive a deficit, usually you can preserve more lean muscle mass for longer and avoid more metabolic adaptations by eating higher protein. So protein is kind of this magical macro. But with that, if you've ever been like, "Gosh, I hate increasing my protein.
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I get constipated. I get bloated. I don't feel as good." A lot of that is actually related to the protein fiber ratio, we'll call it. And what happens is not only when we increase protein, do we often cut out some of the things that we use to eat to increase our fiber, but we're not conscious of that hydration fiber balance. And so I say hydration, fiber balance, because fiber also plays an important role in our hydration levels. So while we're increasing water with our protein intake, we want to be very conscious of that fiber because I was actually going through and breaking down all the reasons that fiber is important. We know the normal ones, like it keeps us fuller, it helps control blood sugar, it can help us control calorie intake and make that deficit a little easier, especially because it's usually higher volume foods.
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Our gut health is super important to lipolysis or the fat loss process. So we know some of those things, gut health, satiety, all that jazz. But also it's very important because if you think about high protein diets and what make them not sustainable, it's that they create digestive issues, which making sure our fiber level is actually there is really important. So like 25 grams at minimum for women, we really want to even shoot for 30, 35 can be really valuable as you're increasing protein, which can be difficult to start and you want to make small incremental changes. But a lot of times when we see the things that we blame on protein, it's that our fiber isn't where it needs to be. And so even increasing fiber with that can be so important to help prevent those digestive issues so we embrace higher protein, but it also really improves our comfort level.
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A lot of times it helps increase that satiety as we increase our protein and helps us not feel like we're eating just protein because we're focusing more on those high volume foods that add that diversity to it. So it has an odd effect of actually making the higher protein ratios a little bit easier. And it's something I really focus on, especially during mini cuts for clients. Also, what I think is an interesting thing to discuss with fiber is that it helps with nutrient partitioning. So really diving into this, not only does it help enhance insulin sensitivity, but when we're thinking about it, it helps direct calories towards muscle versus fat storage because we don't think about how much our gut health is really important to how we're digesting foods and actually efficiently using the nutrients in them. So when we see some of our nutrient deficiencies pop up, it's not only the quality of our diet, but also our gut health and how our bodies optimize to utilize the things that we're taking in as efficiently as possible.
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So increasing that fiber intake and focusing on fiber can help with fat loss from the simple fact that it can help our muscles get the nutrients they need not only and help create that hormonal balance, which will help with fat loss too. So as unsexy as it is, and as much as we only usually go to fiber when we're constipated, those different things like there's bowel movement issues, stomach issues, we want to focus on it for these other reasons because it really does help create that lifestyle balance and expedite fat loss. So it's really community focused on it. And a bonus tip, which is not one of the four that originally I wanted to talk about, but came up with this because I was just thinking about how it's like not the most sexy thing fiber, right? And it's not the most direct payoff we'll say in a weird way.
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It's the thing we can't feel the changes of other than with digestive issues is sleep. Guys, if you are trying to dial on your macros and creating all the stress over that, and you're trying to dial in your workers and creating all this stress over that, and you're not owning the lifestyle stress that you have and what your sleep is actually like, you're not going to see the results you want because as much as we can try and add in more effort, if we're not recovering from that effort, then we're not going to see the results we want. And we also increase our cravings, right? You'll see your cravings increase. If you're not sleeping well, you'll not be as motivated to go work out and push this hard. Your 100% intensity will dip and you won't recover, right? We can only train as hard as we can recover from and our nutrition and our sleep are key components of that.
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So I do just want to add in sleep if you're really like, "Well, I'm really consistent with my macros and I'm pushing hard on my workouts and your sleep quality has gone down, you want to assess A, are those really promoting optimal sleep, those two different things, or am I creating too much stress?" But also B, how can I focus on improving my sleep to then help with these two other things? Because that whole system needs to work together if we want to see recomp really happen. So yes, you can lose fat and build muscle at the same time. It's called recomp and you need to have a primary focus. And so if it's fat loss with muscle building, that's going to be a little different again, as I said, with a slight deficit with macros versus if it's building muscle as you lose fat.
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Again, as I mentioned with the cardio, that will have a slightly different take, but you can do both at the same time. Again, it is slow. The scale will lie to you the entire time, which is why you have to use those other signs I mentioned, but it is worth it because it will help you not only create that lifestyle balance and lasting changes so you don't just regain the weight and fall back into old habits, but your metabolism is actually healthy, happy, you feel fueled and energized to conquer your workouts and you get the definition you've wanted, not just losing weight to not only rebound as you try and work harder, not looking skinny fat, but you actually see all of your hard work in the gym paying off and you got that bicep you want to flex and show off. So hope this helped.
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Would love to hear which key you're really focusing on this week, but remember the scale will lie to you the entire time. I'm just going to highlight that one more time, measure success in other ways.
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