Cori (00:00):
Hey guys, this is Cori from Redefining Strength. Welcome to the Fitness Hacks Podcast. This is the show where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips. I’m not going to ever fill this episode with sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a review or leave a five star rating or even better share it with somebody you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone. So let’s jump right in. Today I’m joined by my fabulous dietician, Julia, to talk about emotional eating. Julia, thank you for joining me today. I will let you take this away with what is emotional eating and how can we identify different triggers with it?

Julia (00:43):
Hi, Cori. I’m so excited to be here and be able to talk about this. This is something that I think is a really important topic and it’s pretty common and definitely this time of year where we’re not spending as much time outside, A lot of people may feel a little bit more boredom or sadness, which can lead to emotional eating. So definitely excited to be here and shed some light on it as far as what it really is. So it’s eating in a way that to suppress or soothe negative emotions that we’re experiencing. So this can be anything from stress, sadness, anger, fear, or this can even be good things like excitement or happy stress that we can be experiencing.

Cori (01:22):
I love that you mentioned it’s both negative and positive emotions because I think so often we do only think about it as, oh, I’m stressed. I went to the cabin and I grabbed out far too many chips or cookies or whatnot, and now I feel guilty about it. But we don’t consider the fact that we also do it in celebration. Food has become so much more than just fuel, and I even see it with patterns. The weather starts to warm up and all of a sudden I’m like, Ooh, margaritas and chips and guacamole, and I want these changes. Not that I don’t try and make an excuse for that at any time of year, but there are certain patterns and hidden things that we’ve conditioned ourselves to want. Can you talk a little bit about identifying those different things so that we can navigate the emotional eating to find our balance?

Julia (02:05):
Yeah, definitely. So like you said, it is really just kind of that brain pathway that we’re so used to taking and it’s comfortable for us and we’ve kind of wired our brains to go that way. So a lot of people think that we’ll do things like emotional eating maybe because, or just any compulsive behavior for that matter, because we lack willpower, right? I’ll always hear people say, I wasn’t mentally strong enough. I knew I shouldn’t have had it, when in reality we do it because it’s usually the only way that we know how to self soothe. So it’s just a comfort thing. Like you said, we use food in our culture to celebrate things. We use it as a comfort thing. So for example, most of us have heard of dopamine. It’s an important part of our brain’s reward pathway, which causes the body and our mind to feel good when we’re doing something pleasurable to us.

(02:52):
So highly palatable foods, things that are high in fat, salt, sugar give us an abrupt boost of dopamine as well. So it makes sense that when we are comfort eating scientifically, these foods do make us feel better. But the key takeaway here is that it’s usually not the food that we’re seeking, it’s the feeling that that food gives to us. And the issue with this is that it’s not really one solving the problem. So it’s really not fixing why we’re having those emotions. It’s more of just a bandaid in a sense. And then we’re also coping in an unhealthy manner. So this can contribute to things like weight gain and just health issues that we really don’t want to run into over time. So when this happens continuously, we’re just wiring our brain to immediately turn to food whenever we do feel stressed or scared or even happy. And it does take time to really rewire those pathways so that you’re coping with healthier alternative behaviors. For sure.

Cori (03:47):
I love that you mention wiring our brain to sort of repeat certain patterns and routines because it does become so unconscious at times. You don’t even think about it and you don’t realize why it’s a struggle. I even see with weekend versus weekday eating, we’ll say, oh, the weekends are when I fall off. Well, it’s because we’ve conditioned a certain lifestyle. There are different habits and routines and we’ve conditioned certain things to go along with them versus the weekday. So the more we can start to assess those patterns, see why we’re handling things in different ways, the more we can break those things down to create new patterns and routines and make unconscious habits conscious as we implement new things. And that’s also what makes it so difficult. We’re unlearning something as we’re trying to learn something, so there’s kind of an extra stress or strain, which does require a little bit of willpower, but if you’re constantly feeling like you’re just relying on willpower, there might be something else off as well when we’re going about this process. Any tips for trying to make some of those unconscious patterns more conscious?

Julia (04:47):
Yeah, that’s a great question. So that kind of ties into our big theme for this week is mindful eating and bringing that conscious awareness to our eating decisions. So the first step, like you said, is just acknowledging and bringing that awareness to it, right? This is the first step with any issue is just realizing, Hey, this is something that I’m struggling with, so I want to really be mindful around my eating. And then secondly, just working to acknowledge and reduce those triggers as well. So this could be something that maybe you’re not able to control as well. Maybe you have a really stressful work environment and that’s not a job you can leave at this time, so that’s just going to be a constant trigger for you, but maybe working to reduce your stress in other ways. Maybe that means indulging in something like doing meditation or journaling in the morning before work, and this is going to look different for every single person.

(05:34):
I had a past client of mine who when dealing with emotional eating, she would just lay on the floor, but she was like, that’s what works for me. It helps me detach from the emotions, recover a little bit. So this is going to look different for every single person. It could be going for a walk, calling a friend, reading a book, whatever is kind of that self soother for you that just allows you to take a step aside from it and just ask those appropriate questions as well. Is this really the food that I want? Could I substitute something else like reading or going for a walk? Am I just trying to relieve feelings of sadness or boredom or am I at a party and I’m socially eating because everyone around me is eating? So really that first step is just bringing awareness to it and asking ourself those questions, checking in with ourself and taking a step back. I think it’s so easy for us. We get home from a long day of work, we’re stressed, we grab a bag of chips and we’re just snacking right out of it, right? We’ve always all been there. So just really bringing that awareness to it and asking ourselves those questions that may feel a little bit uncomfortable and hard to do in the moment, but will really help us bring awareness to our decisions overall and help us reach our goals in the longterm as well.

Cori (06:45):
Being more mindful is so important, and I think when people come into coaching, when people start a new program, we’re looking for, and I know I’ve been guilty of this, I’m looking for the magic macro ratio, the magic thing to do to stop emotional eating, the magic workout plan that’s going to get me X amount of muscle in X amount of days. We’re looking for a thing, a tactic, but in reality, what helps us truly achieve our goals and create lasting results and lasting lifestyle changes is simply reflecting inward. It’s asking ourselves those hard questions. It’s drawing awareness to habits we repeat and asking ourselves why we’re repeating them. Because I think so often we haven’t questioned our own self-imposed limitations. We haven’t questioned, questioned our own belief about ourselves. We haven’t questioned why we do different things, and if we don’t question it, we can’t make a change.

(07:34):
So with emotional eating, asking yourself, why am I repeating this pattern over saying, oh, I don’t have the willpower. Oh, I just, I’m a bad person. I feel guilty. Anything negatively associated with it, which only perpetuates the pattern in an odd way, we need to take that time to say, Hey, I’m human. I have issues. What can I do to address this? How can I move forward? How can I make this something I actually want assessing? What do I want? Is this important to me? Why am I doing this? I love that you bring up that question. I just think it’s something that we so under utilize, but it can be so important to help us make changes that meet us where we’re at. So in talking about all this too, you had mentioned eating disinhibition. Can you go into that a little bit because I think this is a very interesting subject that ties into all of this and something we need to be aware of when we’re talking about building.

Julia (08:23):
Yeah, sure. So eating disinhibition is really the tendency to overeat in response to different stimuli. So this can occur in a variety of settings. Say that you’re at a party and there’s a table full of really good looking food, or just say that it’s in response to emotions since we’re talking in the context of emotional eating right now. But it really just means that those normal inhibitions that prevent overeating are removed, making people more likely to overeat, which can lead to weight gain. There was a study done back in 2010 which identified a specific gene to be associated with it. So I love that we’re able to really test for that in our DNA testing and give people an idea if they are more inclined to this because it’s something to be aware of and then know that, hey, maybe I am someone who I need to bring more mindfulness around my eating choices because that’s really going to be key for me in order to reach my goals. Versus that other mindset of just being like, I just lack the willpower. It’s just how I am.

Cori (09:21):
I think it’s so important, that point and that differentiation between, well, this is just how I am. Yes, you may have the gene for it, but this is just giving you the power to control what you can’t control because you can’t control that tendency necessarily. But you can become more aware of it and come up with strategies for it, whether or not it’s giving yourself that visual reminder of, Hey, if I’m reaching for this, I’m probably doing this because I’m stressed. Is this a food I want? And even in that assessment, there are going to be times we make mistakes where we do exactly the opposite of what we’ve been trying to work to do. And the last thing we want to do is make ourselves feel guilty. We just always want to learn from those experiences. Say, Hey, how can I address this in the future?

(09:56):
Or if you do turn to something and be like, okay, do I want this? If you really want it after going to do something else, then have it too. There’s not one way of handling things and recognizing that tendency towards certain things can help us then find different approaches to navigate it in different situations, whether it’s emotional eating or even that tendency just because you have that food all in front of you to keep going back for more, which I dunno about you, but I’ve done definitely now off of this, there are reasons why we even don’t eat due to emotion, and I want to talk about that as well because I think there’s different responses we have to different emotions in our life, and the more we own our natural responses or our personal responses, the more we can plan for them and address them. So if you are somebody who instead of eating out of emotion, doesn’t eat when you’re stressed or tired or angry or whatnot, can you talk a little bit about how to handle that and what to do in those situations as well?

Julia (10:52):
Yeah, sure. So losing our appetite due to emotions can also be attributed to that same what we call that fight or flight response, which is also why we can overeat as well. So some will overeat as a way to sell soThe while others can’t shift focus on anything but the stress and find themselves constantly undereating. And again, this is something where it’s just bringing awareness to it and learning to meet yourself where you’re at, not force feeding yourself. Maybe you’re just going to have small protein rich snacks. Maybe you’re going to do things like meal replacement shakes during this time just to get that in. Or even creating an eating schedule to help you kind of find that balance during that time in your life where you know that you do have that stress, but you still want to nourish yourself and kind of meet yourself where you’re at and do your best there as well.

Cori (11:37):
And I’m bring up something that’s potentially going to ruffle a few feather, but intuitive eating, and I mentioned this because I think it’s so key with the whole theme being mindfulness in our eating and even eating out of emotion. If you think about intuitive eating and eating in response to what you’re feeling, emotion’s going to potentially impact that. And so you’re not going to just be eating for reasons of hunger. So the more we can learn, if we are striving to eat more intuitively, which should always be our goal, the more we can learn those cues and even track our nutrition in the process to see, hey, have I feel correctly, is this out of emotion? Or hey, am I not eating out of emotion as well? Because that undereating, if we train our body to constantly undereat, is going to be something that we’re going to have to address at a later date. Just because we don’t feel hungry doesn’t mean our body doesn’t need the fuel. So with all of this, I wanted to ask you a little bit about your opinion with the push towards intuitive eating, how that plays into being more mindful and even how to truly build a more intuitive eating style pattern, so to speak. Because sometimes it is something that we have to learn and many of us don’t naturally want to do it and we eat for other reasons than just fueling.

Julia (12:43):
Yeah, I love that question. And I do want to note here that there is a huge difference between emotional eating and kind of binge eating like you brought up. Whereas binge eating, we typically see that where we’re over restricting and we’re not giving ourselves enough. So the end of the day comes and we are like, I need to eat everything in sight. And it’s kind of that binge and restrict cycle that we really fall into. So I do want to point out that that is different than emotional eating, even though it may feel the same, whereas emotional eating is strictly more just related to the emotions and the binge eating is most likely because you’re really under fueling, like you said, and you’re not eating enough. And that’s where tracking really does come in and really does help us realize those patterns and see what leads to it.

(13:24):
Because there are times where it’s like, Hey, I did emotionally eat, but maybe that’s because I also did not eat very well during the day. I didn’t have balanced meals, I skipped my lunch, my blood sugar is all out of whack and now my cravings are all out of whack as a result of that. So there are scenarios where our eating choices can reflect on maybe choices that we made earlier throughout the day as well. And as far as just kind of learning to control that a little bit, I think your question was, and just how we can overcome that and tie in intuitive eating, it’s really just going to be, again, always checking in with yourself and also after meals like, Hey, how am I feeling after this meal? And do I feel satiated? Do I feel like I need to eat something else?

(14:05):
Sometimes I think we feel like if you have a sweet tooth after meals, or if we feel like we still need to eat after meals, we need to ask ourself, did I have enough in that meal? Did I have enough protein, enough healthy fats, enough fiber? Was it a really well-rounded meal, or am I just eating strictly out of emotion? So again, just checking in with yourself, there is this big kind of push for intuitive eating today, which can definitely tie into this and teach us how to still check in with those emotions, check in with our hunger signals as well, allow us to stop eating when we feel full from a meal and allow us to know when we need to have a snack as well.

Cori (14:44):
But it’s definitely something often that’s learned. So if you’re like, I don’t know what to eat, I’m not seeing results, just you’re eating quality fuel. Just because you’re trying to respond to your hunger cues doesn’t mean that you haven’t trained your body to respond in different ways. We train patterns, we train responses. So often, sometimes taking that reflection, that step back to track, to dial in our macros, to really assess our portion sizes, to even assess why we’re doing specific things, be it out of emotion or be it out of a pattern we’re conditioned to repeat is incredibly important. So sometimes you have to go through that data gathering phase in order to really learn what you need. Now, going off of this, let’s just say, and I know you gave us a lot of strategies to handle those emotional eating times and even try and prevent them, but let’s just say you find yourself in a situation where you have already eaten out of emotion next steps. And I know one of them is not to make yourself feel guilty. How can you respond and move forward after something like that? Because I think that initial response, because we’re human and we’re going to have those situations where we don’t do what we should or what we wanted, that initial response can really make or break how we approach things in the future. What would be your recommendation if someone found themselves in that situation where they had that emotional eating episode and they’re like, oh, no, what now?

Julia (15:57):
Yeah, I love this question. My best advice. Just own it, right? So many, I’ve had so many clients in the past where they’re like, Hey, this happened. I’m just not going to track it for the day. I just want to put it behind me. I know it wasn’t a good thing. Just put it in the past, close my eyes, not look at it, and I’m like, Hey, track it. This is awesome that this happened. We can learn from it, right? We don’t track always to be perfect. We track for that data, like you said, and that way we can look at it, we can see what else you ate during the day. We can reflect on what led up to it and we can know how to better approach it in the future. So something that I’ll go through is like, okay, what led to this?

(16:32):
What were your emotions? What happened during the day? What was the main trigger for it? And how can we better prepare for it going forward? And sometimes it is as simple as it was just a really busy day and I needed more things prepped, and sometimes it is a lot deeper, and we do need to tackle those stress and those emotions and all as well. But really just owning it and then that way you’re accepting it and that’s that first stage and that way you can work on it if you always just continue to ignore it and just be like, I know it was a bad thing. It’s in the past. I’m moving on. I’m like, no, let’s bring it back. Focus on it right now and see what we can do to better approach it and help you moving forward. Because if not, it’s going to be a cycle that you’re continuously going to go through. And like we said, that those brain wiring pathways, you’re constantly just going to lean on that food if you never really force yourself to learn why you’re doing it and find those other coping mechanisms.

Cori (17:20):
Owning it is so important. I just want to repeat, own it. Own it like a bazillion times. Because I think so often we do try and sort of rush past failure, so to speak, bad experiences, and then we never learn from them. And that keeps us stuck in a cycle of repeating them, not to mention associates, even more guilt with the situation instead of just saying, Hey, I’m human. This is something I can learn from. And in that we almost drop some of the emotion with it. We give ourselves power to control it. It’s not just saying we don’t have the willpower, we don’t have the ability to change it. And in giving ourself back that agency, we often can move forward a lot faster, and it starts to bring that pattern to the front of our mind a little bit more because we don’t feel so guilty from it, so we’re not running from it. So this has been all incredibly helpful, Julia, and I’m going to check for some comments, but any closing thoughts that you wanted to share?

Julia (18:13):
I just want to say it is really common, and I think people think that it’s something that they just struggle with themselves, and they do think it’s that lack of willpower and mental strength and all that. So just know that you’re not alone, and it will take time to change those habits. Maybe it’s not going to be something that happens on the first try, the first week, first month, first year, whatever it may be. But slowly over time, those little efforts are really going to add up to the big change, and it will get you there to make more progress. So don’t feel defeated. If it’s something that you’re working on and you’re not where you want to be yet, just celebrate those little victories, own the failures, and keep moving forward

Cori (18:47):
On the failures. Celebrate the victories and recognize it’s always going to be a process. Those are such key points because we do feel alone sometimes in our struggles, or we feel like we’re the only one struggling and no one else understands and we’re not alone. And a lot of times food is more than just fuel. And the more we own that fact, even the better off we’re going to be. Thanks for listening to the Fitness Hacks podcast. Again. This is the place where I share all my free work, workout in nutrition tips. I’m never going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a rating, review or share it with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes, and it would mean the world to me and possibly change life of someone.

*Please Note: this transcript is auto-generated and there may be some errors in the transcript

(00:00):
Hey guys, this is Cori from Redefining Strength. Welcome to the Fitness Hacks Podcast. This is the show where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips. I’m not going to ever fill this episode with sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a

(00:16):
Review or leave a five

(00:17):
Star rating or even better share with somebody you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone. So let’s jump right in.

(00:28):
I’ve made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot of hard lessons along my road to achieve better body recomp, improve my strength, overcome injury, and I wanted to share some of these lessons that I’ve learned with all of you to help you hopefully avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made, but also to recognize that so often we overestimate what we can accomplish short term and underestimate what we can accomplish long-term with consistency. So going over six hard lessons that I’ve learned, number one, stop saying it’s not forever, but it’s not forever. And what I mean by this is often we go into something being like, oh, I don’t have to track forever. I’ll even have clients ask, do I have to track forever? And I used to always say, oh no, you don’t have to track forever. It’s just a learning tool. And while that is the truth, you may not track forever.

(01:17):
You don’t necessarily need to track forever. I think planting that seed in our head makes us not embrace how much we’re going to truly have to change our habits and lifestyles because you can’t just do one thing to achieve your goal and go back to what you were doing. What you do to achieve a result will then shift as you maintain because you don’t necessarily keep doing the same thing. What you do to reach a goal is not what you’ll do to maintain it or as you work towards another goal and hanging onto those habits might hold you back. But we have to embrace that we’re making changes that are going to be something that are going to impact our lifestyle long term, that are going to be mindset shifts that change how we always are going to view things in the future. We are acting as if until we’re acting as we are.

(02:00):
So if we have this perspective, oh, it’s not a lifestyle change forever, it’s not something I’m going to necessarily do forever. We kind of fake the habits. So it’s not fake until you make it versus truly acting as if. So you’ve got to stop saying that it’s not forever, but also recognize that it’s going to change. And when you get to maintaining, you’re going to shift your habits. You’re not going to stay in a calorie deficit. Once you’re maintaining your results, you’re going to have to retrain your body to eat more. You’re going to shift how you train, you’re going to shift how you fuel. And then as you’re maintaining your results, that’s going to shift as potentially your lifestyle shifts. So one thing is not a lifestyle. A lifestyle is based on the fundamentals of understanding macros, understanding work, workout progressions, not doing the same workouts or the same macro ratios forever.

(02:40):
So it is but isn’t forever. Number two, not embracing minimums. It’s all well good to go all in, go do those six workouts or six days a week of training, do intense macro breakdowns, even potentially cut out foods you’d normally enjoy. I know there are phases where I’m like, okay, I’m not going to have my cheat day each week. I’m going to focus a little bit more on eating a lot of whole natural foods. I’m not going to let as many deviations in. I’m going to cut my cocktails for a little bit and I’m going to go really intense because I have a specific goal I want, but that doesn’t work at all times of year. There are times of year where I’m stressed where I just simply don’t care where there’s other lifestyle balances and things I want to work in. And at those times I would always sabotage myself by trying to enforce the same habits.

(03:22):
And when I couldn’t enforce the same habits, I would ultimately do nothing. So instead, I recognize how important it’s to do the minimum. Realizing that at certain times other things in your life have to take at the priority. But by doing the minimum as much as it doesn’t seem like your ideal, it keeps you moving forward. It keeps you maintaining the progress you’ve already built because so often if we can’t do the perfect thing and to keep moving forward, we do nothing or bad habits that lead to us sliding back down the hill. Why lose progress? Why not see maintaining itself as progress because you’re creating that new set point, that new launch pad off of which you can build when times do become a little bit more ideal when you can move forward plus often in doing the minimum and what feels like we’re not moving forward, we’re still inching forward.

(04:02):
So all of a sudden when things are less stressful, work has calmed down. We can go back to the six days a week of training or we can do a little bit more and push harder in our training because we’ve overcome that injury, whatever else it is, and we can go a little bit faster ahead. We have that solid foundation and it’s almost easier because we stacked those other habits. Maybe tracking for the longest time was hard for us. And then we got into tracking some very intensive macro breakdowns with specific foods and now life is busy and we can only track protein Tracking has now become so normal and natural that we don’t even think about the fact that we’re still doing a minimum that was above what we used to do, which was not track. And so when we have to go back to those ratios, all of a sudden that might be easier because we’ve kept in that one habit.

(04:42):
So embrace doing the minimums because that keeps you moving forward and often keeps you maintaining your result, which leads to body recomp still snowballing even though we don’t feel like we’re necessarily doing a ton to achieve that. Number three, realize that the closer you get, the harder it gets and you can’t rush the process. So when you think about 10 pounds, the last 10 pounds, we have to think, well, it’s only 10 pounds, but those 10 pounds are probably going to be the hardest 10 pounds because even losing five of those 10 pounds, you’re losing 50% of the weight you have to lose. So if you think about if you had 30, 40 pounds to lose and you had to lose the 15, 20 pounds, how long it took you to do that and that 50%, this is 50% still, so it’s going to take you a lot longer than you think.

(05:23):
Just because it’s five pounds doesn’t mean it’s going to faster. And the more you try and rush that, the more you risk losing muscle, the more weight we have to lose, the more wiggle room we really do have, because some muscle will be lost as we won’t necessarily need all the weight that we have on as we do achieve that body recomp. But the closer we are to our goal, the more we’re pushing potentially a boundary we’re not used to pushing. We’ve never pushed before that our body doesn’t necessarily want to push. And so the harder it’s going to get and the slower we have to go so that we make sure that we’re not creating any metabolic adaptations, losing muscle, creating hormonal imbalances that will ultimately sabotage us maintaining those results. So what might’ve been one pound per week when you had 30, 40, 50 pounds to lose now as you’re getting towards the 10 pounds is probably going to be a lot slower because it is, again, each pound you’re losing is a higher percentage of the weight you have left to lose than when you had more weight to lose.

(06:12):
So just remember that and recognize that and also recognize that in this process, and this is one of the other hard lessons that I learned, you may feel like you look worse before you look better even though you’re moving forward. And it’s often because you’re losing off of areas that you don’t care about as much. While the areas that you do want to lose from are not changing. And because other areas are becoming smaller, other areas look bigger. So just recognize that as you are leaning down, as you’re losing weight and you’re losing those last few pounds, you’re going to feel like you’re in a dead zone where nothing’s happening. But that’s often the point when we want to quit and that’s where we have to keep going. I know at 30 days when we’ve been working really hard, when we don’t feel like we’re continuing to see progress or six weeks because we are at those last few pounds, we just have to stay the course.

(06:53):
That’s really what it’s, we have to stay the course then recognize that everything ebbs and flows. Life is never standing still. Your motivation is not going to always be there. You’re not always going to have the perfect situation. Stressors in life are going to change. You’re going to have priority shift. And the more you can constantly be evolving to meet yourself where you’re at, the better results you’re going to see. I can tell you that macro breakdowns that work really well for body recomp. At one stage, if I change up my training, add in something else or have a different focus, or even as wimpy as I’ve now become with Southern California weather in the winter when it’s colder versus the summer, I know my activity level changes. And if I try and force something that worked on one time at another time, it might not work any longer.

(07:34):
And if I don’t ebb and flow with the activity level, if I don’t ebb and flow with my stress, I’m going to ultimately sabotage my long-term consistency. I know we want to strive for this ideal that we see out there, this idea perfect, but more we can meet ourselves where we’re at, the more we’re going to continue to move forward during every phase of life. And if you’ve ever thought like, oh, this is not the right time. I’m not going to start now, that is exactly the right time to start because only starting during these perfect times is why we don’t learn how to ebb and flow when things do get stressful. It’s why we don’t learn how to do the minimum. It’s why we end up sabotaging ourself because we haven’t stacked those habits in a way that they’re sustainable when life gets in the way, which is a majority of life, life getting in the way.

(08:12):
So off of even my other tip about not feeling like you look better and hitting that dead zone, I think it’s a very interesting phenomenon that I noticed as I maintained longer and longer and didn’t have those big swings because I learned how to ebb and flow with life. But you may feel like you truly look worse while maintaining your result. So you might end up stepping on the scale and be like, okay, my weight’s the same. Okay, my measurements are the same, but I feel like I don’t look as good. And this is a strange phenomenon with maintaining that I call the comparison game. I think we are creatures of comparison, and I think a lot of times we do something in reference to another point. So when you’re first losing the weight, you look better than you looked before, right? The clothes fit better than they did before.

(08:56):
At some point A, when you hit that maintaining level, you’re going to have sort of bumpers where you will gain a little bit and you will lose a little bit, but you’re cycling very close around that weight. But there’s still ebbs and flows. So if you hit that bottom a little bit higher will look worse. But also you stop having that comparison because for just look that same way. So if you have a little bit of bloat on that day, you might feel like, oh, I don’t look that good, but it’s just a little bit of bloat. It’s not that you’ve lost progress. It’s not that you’ve sabotaged anything. So you have to recognize that you’ll lose that comparison when you’re maintaining. So you’ve got to stay focused on other metrics, other ways to keep yourself within those boundaries. Are you doing the habits you need?

(09:31):
Are you tracking those? Are you tracking progress in different ways? Are you even setting performance goals? Because we don’t do well with no direction, we get very lost with no direction. So you always want to be setting that direction because you won’t have that clear, necessarily aesthetic comparison. And if you let that start to sabotage you, you might start to lose more even though you don’t need to, or you might end up giving up on healthy habits that are really working for you. The last tip I wanted to go over, a hard lesson that I learned was take breaks to focus on other priorities. It’s really hard to say, Hey, I have to put this goal on a back burner, especially if you still have 20, 30 pounds you want to lose. If you have more weight you want to lose, it’s really hard to say, Hey, I’ve got a slow down on my focus on the school.

(10:10):
But I think sometimes owning that other things in our life have to take priority, help us ebb and flow and move forward no matter what, but trying to white knuckle our way through willpower our way through is what ultimately leads to us giving up and never accomplishing a goal. And it even becoming harder each and every time we try and reach it because we’ve created other issues and even other negative mindsets towards tools. If you think about tracking, a lot of times we have a negative association with it because every other time we’ve tried to trap, we’ve restricted, we haven’t seen our results. It’s just a negative experience overall, which makes it really hard to want to use that tool again in the future. So the more you can say, Hey, this is what my schedule is right now, how can I plan for this so that I can give what should be a priority right now, the necessary attention that it needs while still being consistent.

(10:54):
So if work has gotten busy, hey, okay, yes, I do six days a week usually, or five days a week usually, but I’m going to go to three days a week and I’m going to go to 30 minutes. That owning of the other priority allows you to still do something. And a lot of times that’s something moves you forward a lot faster. Not to mention, you might find that by not having that mental strain of that other thing and given your whole focus to the thing that should take priority, you ultimately see results snowball better, you feel better and even want to do more. I think that’s something we forget is the importance of the success mindset. Because when you set six days a week, if there are other priorities and you’re not owning them and you can’t get into the gym six days a week, you start to feel like a failure when you miss one session, even if you still got in five.

(11:33):
But if you set your priority or not your priority, but your expectation of three sessions with your other priorities, and then you get those three sessions, you feel successful often you want to do more because sometimes missing workouts, then we go, well, what’s the point of eating? Well, who even cares? And then more workouts are missed versus, Hey, I did my three workouts. I feel great. I want to even dial in my nutrition a little bit more. So the way our momentum is going can really impact the results we ultimately get and the habits that we can allow to snowball and build. So just for recognize that it is okay sometimes to even say, I need a dieting break, or I need a deload week just because my priorities have shifted and this keeps me doing something, it gets me re-motivated even often faster to keep moving forward. But all these hard lessons really come back to the fact that so often we do prioritize or value more hard work. We do value doing more. We don’t often value time and consistency and balance and meeting ourselves where we’re at, but the more we stop pushing for the short-term fix and embrace that over time, we can really see the results snowball the better off we’re going to be.

(12:40):
Thanks for listening to the Fitness Hacks podcast. Again. This is the place where I share all my free workout nutrition tips. I’m never going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a rating review or share it with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and it would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone I.

*Please Note: this transcript is auto-generated and there may be some errors in the transcript

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(00:00):
Hey guys, this is Cori from Redefining Strength. Welcome to the Fitness Hacks Podcast. This is the show where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips. I’m not going to ever fill this episode with sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a review or leave a five star rating or even better share with somebody you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone you know. So let’s jump right in.

(00:28):
I asked for your fat loss and muscle building questions on Instagram, and I got some great questions that I want to go over. The top one being that I got multiple times was, can you lose fat and gain muscle at the same time? The short answer is yes, you can achieve amazing body recomposition. Many of us have heard this is not possible, and it’s because we equate making aesthetic changes to only calories. So calorie deficit means we’ll lose weight. Calorie surplus means we’ll gain weight, and when we focus simply on calories in versus calories out, we are not going to see the body recomp that we want. This is also why we can lose weight, feel like we’re really progressing and not feel like we’re getting any leaner. It’s why we can be eating in the surplus and feel like we’re not looking more defined while we’re gaining muscle because it’s not simply about calories in versus calories out.

(01:15):
Yes, that is the foundation, but macros matter most for body recomp. If you adjust your macros, you are going to lose fat and potentially gain muscle or gain muscle without gaining fat. So you want to make sure that you’re truly focusing on those macros and specifically protein, but you can lose fat and gain muscle or gain muscle and not gain fat or even lose fat as you’re going throughout that process. But it is a slower process and you’ve got to sometimes step off the scale. If you want to gain muscle, especially, you’ve got to step off the scale because you might see that scale increase, especially if you’re coming out of a calorie deficit and you’ve just lost fat. As you’re adding back in calories, as you’re adding back in potentially carbs, your glycogen stores are going to become full with that. You’re going to gain water weight as well, and because you’re no longer in a deficit, you’re no longer depleted, you are going to gain some weight.

(02:03):
It is not fat being gained, but it is. As stores, you need to push hard to gain muscle and then you potentially will even have to eat more as you see the scale go up because you are gaining more muscle and the more muscle you gain, the more you have to eat to fuel that lean muscle. If you are trying to lose fat and you’re trying to see faster changes on the scale, while you’re probably just depleting your glycogen stores, you’re losing water weight, you’re potentially even putting yourself at risk for losing muscle mass because muscle again takes more energy to be maintained. And if you have less energy coming in, your body’s going to do what it can to adapt to the energy and fuel that it’s getting, and that will mean finding energy from internal sources, and it’s not going to draw from your fat stores that it can use later, which aren’t costing it energy.

(02:41):
It’s going to potentially use your muscle, especially if you’re training hard. It’s why macros matter most, but yes, you can achieve both. It is a slower process. It also means focusing on how you’re adjusting your workouts. You need to focus on the strength work, sit, hit, steady, state, cardio, walking. All these things can be used because want to improve our overall health, and especially interval work can improve different energy systems. It can help with our recovery. It can make sure that we’re able to push that lack of threshold more to lift more and have that strength endurance. So there’s lots of benefits outside of just fat loss for different types of cardio and how we include it. But I think an underrated thing or two underrated things to focus on when we’re talking about losing fat and building muscle is strength work and walking. Walking is going to help you move more, help you have a higher metabolic rate, burn fat without being a stressor or a strain on your body so you can train intensely.

(03:30):
Focusing on building that lean muscle is not only going to help you move better, but it’s going to help you build that lean muscle which will help you more calories at rest be functionally fit, feel better. So we’ve got to focus on those two things in our workouts as we’re adjusting our macros to match and everything can be designed for the time we have. So how you design your breakdown of your workouts will really depend on the time that you have going off of this best macro split and weight training, cardio splits so you don’t undo muscle gains. I bring this up after this because there is no one best. We are searching for a perfect macro ratio that will work for everybody. I can tell you that not only do I cycle ratios personally as I change progressions based on time of year based on how I’m even feeling based on previous ratios and the goals that I want to achieve, you’re going to cycle ratios throughout your entire life and you really should.

(04:13):
The more we do that, the more we’re going to find something sustainable, the more we’re going to see results continue to progress. So if you are trying to lose some fat potentially after you’ve gained muscle, you might find that you go to a higher protein ratio. I can tell you ultimately if you’re going into a deficit, higher protein becomes even more key. If you want to maintain that lean muscle you fought so hard to build and then avoiding going straight to a ton of cardio. Cardio and strength aren’t really either or. There’s the continuum. You can work along with one rep max heavy power lifting on one side with long rest periods and that steady state endurance marathon, ultra-marathon, that type of cardio on the other end. And in between you have metabolic conditioning, metabolic strength, all these different things you can use with different interval work to really make the workouts work for you based on the schedule you have.

(04:56):
Because if you have more days to train, you might include more set cardio days. So on that cardio end of the spectrum and more slower lifting days versus if you have three days to train, you might have to be more in the middle to get some metabolic benefits while also building strength. But you want to cycle your workouts and your macros over time as well because it’s constantly like you’re sort of doing a little too much one way and then a little too much the other way. So maybe you do add in a little more cardio and you’re doing more interval work and you’re not focused quite on building the muscle as much and you want to blast out a little bit faster. So you are still focused on that strength work, but more metabolic strength work. So okay, you go that way, you lose a little bit of fat.

(05:29):
Now you want to focus a little bit more on belly muscles shift. So it’s not these big dramatic changes where we have to be in a cut or a bulk. We want to stay in that middle and we want to focus on macros and that strength work and then implementing cardio strategically. And when we implement cardio strategically, the one caveat I will give you again is include a lot of walking. That’s a great steady state. If you’re an endurance athlete. This doesn’t mean you have to cut it out, but then don’t think more is better. So often where we get in trouble with hit and sit is that we’re not actually using it as or sit. We’re not actually doing that high intensity work because we’re trying to stretch these intervals out for an hour and you can’t maintain the same level of intensity over the hour.

(06:04):
If you’re doing something super intense, it’s automatically going to be shorter, and the only way it would be longer is if you’re doing that sprint work where you work for 10 seconds and then yet truly rest for 10, 11, 12 times to really recover from that true sprint work because you’re going at that a hundred percent density. So the only reason to have a workout go longer is because the rest periods are getting longer. You’re including more mobility work, not because you’re trying to add in more wasted volume. So I would tell you there is no one best anything. It’s about designing for the time you have and making sure the systems work together. If you’re doing more cardio, you might need more carbs. If you’re less active, you might need fewer carbs, but as long as you focus on protein and then sort of adjust and cycle the carbs in fat, you’re going to see the best results and truly maintain that balance and get a diversity of food which will ultimately help your body run more efficiently.

(06:50):
So next thing I wanted to go over. Cardio midlife, how many times per week is good and how long per session intensity, and I want to bring this up in terms of body recomp because it goes back to that you want to be using a diversity. I actually commented on the best cardio for fat loss because someone asked about what they should be including, and it said that walking is vast over steady state cardio and what over the downsides and upsides of that more steady state endurance training that we often see people doing when they want to lose fat and how we’ll go to more, but our body adapts to it. There’s other even downsides to it with hunger cues increasing potentially with some steady state cardio and it being more catabolic to muscle mass. But this is not to demonize it. I think too often we hear something isn’t valuable for something else and then we don’t break down the nuance of it.

(07:36):
We hear strength work is really key if we want to see that body recomp, which it is. But that doesn’t mean not to use intervals, it just means use them strategically based on how you’re designing your strength workouts. If your strength workouts are more circuit based, you might be getting a lot more cardio in than you realize you’re working different energy systems in that way. So then trying to add in all this other straight cardio might be holding you back from seeing the muscle gains you want as you’re trying to lose fat. And you might end up looking a little bit softer than you want in the fat loss process versus if you’re doing more strict slower lifting, maybe more interval work is truly needed. And it goes back to your schedule too. Again, if you have six days a week to train, it’s going to look very different than three days a week.

(08:12):
So I would tell you if you are in midlife, if we are going through menopause perimenopause, struggling to lose fat, we need to focus on the stressor. And right now I see cortisol being demonized so much where it’s like, oh, I don’t want to raise my cortisol levels. No, you don’t want to chronically raise your cortisol levels. You want to force your body to have to have these hormone fluctuations to have to be stressed and recover from that stress, but you have to make sure you’re recovering. That’s the thing we often think, but we’re just under recovering. So with the cardio midlife, consider using all different types. You want some steady state, you want some interval, you want some sprint, you want to work all those different energy systems because that is going to help improve your conditioning, your lack of threshold, all the different things that make you healthier.

(08:53):
Not only cardiovascularly healthier, but be able to lift more, be stronger. You’ll see improvements in your strength work by including some cardio work. So I would tell you include the diversity, but focus on the stressor and the intensity over just doing more. The last thing I wanted to go over that was a great question on body recomp was is it possible for an intermediate lifter to body recomp at any stage in our journey, we can achieve body recomp, but the more advanced, the more experienced you are, the slower the process is going to be. And I’m going to bring this up with muscle gains. So Lyle McDonald actually did a great study of muscle gains estimates for women and men over the year. So for women with one year proper training, it was 10 to 12 pounds over the year, which is about one pound per month, two years of prior training experience, five to six pounds over the year, so about half a pound per month, three years of training experience, 2.5 to three pounds a year 0.25 pounds per month.

(09:45):
If you have four plus years of training, which many of us have, even if it’s sometimes been a little on and off 0.75 to 1.5 pounds a year, so 0.1 pounds per month, it gets slower, it gets harder. But yes, you can achieve it. It just means being more precise. And again, this is where macros matter most. If you are a newbie lifter, potentially not even changing your diet and just starting to train intensely, you’ll start to see body comp. You’ll start to see muscle being gained. You’ll start to see fat being lost because you’re gaining muscle and you’re not even changing your diet. Then the more experience you become, the more you’ve adapted to different training stimuli. So the more you have to add in different ones besides just adding loads, that’s where tempos different training techniques can come into play. But you also have to be more precise with your nutrition.

(10:27):
Again, being very strategic in the calorie surplus or deficit, not going extreme either way because that can ultimately backfire in losing muscle or gaining fat, but really focusing on those macros and constantly cycling them and then being consistent past the point you want to quit. Because most of us, if we’re not seeing that one pound per week change in weight loss, and the closer you get to your goal, the less you’re going to see that unless you want to risk losing muscle. But if we’re not seeing these dramatic changes in other ways, we assume nothing’s happening when results are really snowballing. And if you think about it, you’re gaining one pound of muscle per year potentially, which could be a huge dramatic shift in your body, would comp in how you look, but it doesn’t seem like it. But you’ve got to be consistent past the point you want to quit.

(11:04):
So yes, you can always build muscle and lose fat. You have to have a primary focus, whether or not it’s slightly towards the gaining muscle more efficiently or the losing fat more efficiently. And I can tell you if you’re not at the level of leanness that you want or the last few pounds, focus on that fat loss first a little bit more being strategic with a very small calorie deficit protein, strength work, all that jazz. If you are at your leant level, maybe you shift a little bit more towards those muscle gains because you don’t necessarily have a lot of body fat to use as fuel, so you’ve got to be in that little bit of surplus, but you can achieve both. It’s just a slow process, but you got to be patient. I know we don’t want to be patient, but you got to be patient. But that is the jazz on body recomp. You can achieve it at any age, at any stage, and it is using a combination of strength or cardio and really focusing on those macros. Thanks for listening to the Fitness Hacks Podcast. Again, this is the place where I share all

(11:52):
My free work, workout, and nutrition tips. I’m never going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a rating review or share it with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and it would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone.

*Please Note: this transcript is auto-generated and there may be some errors in the transcript