[Transcript starts at 1:50]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people. And thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. If you are listening to this on the day that it drops, it is Monday, May 6th. We are talking about a topic. I never thought I would talk about fat loss. Listen, bear with me with this. So we're recording this episode.
We, by we, I mean me. Uh, actually it's Friday the 26th right now. I'm recording it earlier than usual because I'm heading out tomorrow morning to go to Vegas with Lex. This is my little life update before we hop into the episode. Um, we're going to go see Garth Brooks. He's got a residency there. I am so stoked about this.
We have super good tickets, aka super expensive, but super good tickets. So I'm going to report back on that after the fact. But, uh, like I said, no other life updates because I want to hop into this episode. This topic of fat loss is something that has been top of mind for quite some time now and I honestly didn't think I had enough to say about it to warrant a full episode so I started, started outlining a different episode only to realize that I couldn't shut up about this and I was like okay well this is gonna be the full episode so, uh, I am going to use this episode to have nuance because that's part of the beauty of a podcast.
You have so much space. Um, but I'm going to lean into the privilege that I have, which is that I don't really need to sugarcoat things. Y'all are a phenomenal audience and I can just speak. And I know that some other folks in the space need to sugarcoat things. And so I'm going to lean to the fact that I don't really need to, but working with Jill has brought me into the nutrition and fitness space.
And I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful people that I met. I really do enjoy working with the population, but front and center. In that space is fat loss and honestly, it's the fucking worst. It's the fucking worst. It just feels so unhappy and so sad. And I'm, I'm really thinking about like a, a specific subset here, right?
But it just can feel so good, right? In PT, physical therapy, we didn't talk about weight loss ever, whether or not that's a good or bad thing, but to me, The focus was on function and performance. And I loved that. And I still do love that. I do think that there's absolutely room for both, right? Where there's room to want weight loss.
I don't think you're a bad person if you want fat loss. I'm like, you're a bad person. If you coach fat loss, I think the discussion warrants nuance. And I also think the discussion warrants saying some things. Point blank and that's what I want to do today. So I recently had a really long conversation with my girl E Web and it gave me some language.
This is my shout out to you E Web. It gave me some language to use with this and kind of why I wanted to speak about it. I'm like, why does this bother me so much? And the word that came up was sadness. I just feel like there's so much sadness associated with this. Y'all know I am a fucking HSP. We were talking, you, Webb and I were talking about that and I got big feels about things.
And I really do believe that we are on this planet to experience joy. And so much of what I see around this weight loss, fat loss discussion is not joy. It's people like suffering through it. And I'm just like, this makes me fucking sad. And I think that's why it keeps coming up. And I'm like, why does this bother me so much?
And I think that's a big part of it. Right now, we know menopause and perimenopause, it is the new black. And yet it's the same shit, different flavor. Because it's still fuckin about weight loss, fat loss, being smaller, being a smaller version of yourself. Every now and then I hear someone talk about bone density, but what my timeline is filled with, and again, I know some of this is my own doing, Is weight loss that fucking menopause term?
Like, for the fucking love. I want to shake people and just be like, your aesthetic only goals are killing you. They're literally killing you. I get it. And I will acknowledge this. I have thin privilege somewhere along the line. And we could probably trace that. Now, you probably know. Society decided that what my physical default is, my genetic predisposition, what that is, is quote unquote good, but I'm also quote unquote only 5'6 In the sports world, that's not an advantage.
Being 5'9 being fucking 5'8 being 5'10 for sure, would be way better. Hopefully you're sitting there listening and being like, well, you can't change your height, so why be obsessed with it? That's dumb. Exactly. Exactly. The body composition changes that so many women are going after and that fucking the media promotes.
It's the same shit as trying to be taller. Six packs, they are largely genetic. Largely. Majority. I mean, yes, if you like starved yourself, everybody could like get to like the final product there. But like, just walking around, having a six pack. That's very largely genetic. Being teeny tiny, just being a small person, that's largely genetic.
I'm a pretty small person. I have a small frame, it's from my mom. But you look at Lex, you all have seen Lex, she's a very lanky woman. My waist is still smaller than Lex's. We go home, I walk the dog and we have this like, fuckin fanny pack thing that has the dog poop bags in it and the dog treats. And every time she walks the dog, she makes it the fanny pack bigger and then I put it on and it falls off.
And I'm like, stop making the fuckin fanny pack bigger, I walk the dog the most. Like, what all to say? It's genetic. I can't fucking change that. Jill? Have you seen those legs that Jill's got? She's had those legs since day one. So much of a genetic predisposition for these things. Where you gain weight, whether or not you gain weight, where you store it.
I It's genetic. I struggled with writing some of this, this outline, this part of the outline because I don't want folks to hear it and be like, well, then what's the fucking point? And just give up on whatever goals it is that they have. Like, part of me is like, okay, but maybe you can change those goals.
But what I'd love for you to hear what I'm saying as it relates to the genetic component of things is Get a good coach, right? A good coach. And I know there's a lot of fucking charlatans and grifters out there, but a good coach, irrespective of what they're helping coaching you on, they will help you set appropriate goals, reasonable, realistic goals, different goals.
They will be honest with you. And they can introduce you to objectivity that perhaps you cannot. I'm thinking about myself with, uh, business, the clients I work with. I will tell them that you're not going to make that much money on that launch. That that's not reality. You know, someone may lie to them and be like, Oh yeah, you could totally do that.
No problem. Y'all know, you see me on social media, you know, I show up and I'm like, no, that's not possible. You're not going to go viral. Definitely not in that amount of time. You're not gonna make that much money that much time. Like, let's be realistic. Let's change the focus. And then we'll go after that.
Ideally, a good coach is going to do that for you, whatever your body goals are. I want you to notice that one of the terms I've been using here, um, and I'm going to use it a lot more moving forward is body composition changes. If you're going to go after aesthetic goals, let's use science. And the look that most folks are after as it relates to aesthetics means more muscle.
It doesn't mean fat loss. You want to be more toned or lean, whatever fucking word. You want more muscle. You want to quote unquote, look fit. You want more muscle. And I'm going to say something about fitness and a really good doc list quote, but further colloquially as it's understood and used. You want more muscle and at the heart of that is working fucking harder.
I will say it, most folks do not train hard enough. Not nearly hard enough. Myself included. I know how hard I can train. I could put on more muscle. I don't want to because I got to work fucking harder. I, I've trained harder than I train now. I was a division one athlete. I ran a 548 mile. I was a crossfitter who got crushed.
That's, that's a lie about that. I weighed about 125 pounds all the time, but I had a 150 pound clean and jerk, which for me and my size, that was good. And that was really fucking heavy. I had a 200 plus pound back squat. I was benching 135. I knew what it was like to go to failure. Meanwhile, I see folks out here and you have like a thousand fucking reps in reserve.
If you don't know what reps in reserve are, that means how many reps could you still do after you stopped. When we're thinking about growing muscle and we're thinking about actually getting the most out of our workouts, we want to be leaving only like one to two, maybe three reps in reserve. Where, meaning you could only do three more.
If you test most people, they are leaving, they could do like 10 more reps, 15 more reps. You're not training hard enough. Why? Cause it's hard, right? Training hard is hard. Jill trains really fucking hard. Her success, both financially and physically, is not a fluke. I don't like doing her workouts. I'm like this bitch crazy.
I had to do her workouts one time. She had a program she launched and it's when her arm had fallen off, right? She hit the tree and then snowboarding and dislocated her shoulder. And I had to do the, I offered to do the demo and I was like, this is too much for me. There's a reason she looks like she does, right?
The goals that most folks want, the goal that you perhaps listening to this want, those aesthetic goals. You want more muscle, right? That is the science behind us, the physiology behind that. And at the heart of more muscle is working harder. It's training harder. So that quote that I alluded to earlier, phenomenal quote from Douglas, uh, and I was listening to this podcast episode yesterday.
We'll link it. Thank you, Courtney. Fitness isn't a look. It's a skill. One more time for the folks in the back. Fitness isn't a look, it's a skill. To that end, that's why I said early people who want to quote unquote look fit, they're thinking more muscle, but we should not assume, honestly, that someone that has more muscle is more fit.
We just kind of, we like, aesthetically, we like the way that they look, but if you talk, think about, like, cardiovascular fitness. A marathoner's fucking amazing. They probably don't have that much muscle on them, right? So I love this idea of it being a skill. It implies. Work, you got to work. And listening to that podcast episode, it was very obvious to me that, uh, in addition to her sheer brilliance and she speaks very quickly and also note folks, we are bringing her on the podcast.
Uh, what attracted me to her, uh, is her focus on performance, right? She's got a penchant for function and I love that. Um, as the goals to be focused on, right? Uh, specific episode that she did that I was listening to that. I was like, this is that that's probably what put me over the edge. And I was like, I'm going to make it an episode as well.
Um, that was episode 64 of her podcast. Um, and the title of that episode was training for performance versus aesthetics. So we'll link that. Thank you. I think the podcast is actually called the messy middle. Uh, we will link that, but. Coming back to this fat loss, weight loss, fucking discussion. I don't want to yuck your yum, right?
So if you like have these goals, these fat loss goals. But for the love, let's assess what our goals are doing for us. Like I said earlier, I truly believe that we are on this planet to experience joy. And I just find it so hard to believe that obsessing over 5 pounds, 7 pounds, 8 pounds, Is joy, obsessing over a scale.
I can't find, believe that that's joy, especially when it's to be smaller on that scale, I'm saying this cause I'm, as I'm letting the words come out of my mouth, I'm like, yeah, some people will chase a five pound gain on their deadlift or in five MPR, I wish that folks would celebrate, you know, and focus on increasing the amount of weight they could lift the way that they fucking obsess over losing weight.
I wish, I wish. All right, but all that to say, if, you know, that five pounds, that obsessive, that five pounds that you're obsessing over is bringing you joy and obsessing over is bringing you joy, like stop listening to this episode. Go ahead. If that obsession is causing you suffering, let's chat.
So folks, I get it. We live in a time where physical performance. Perhaps isn't as celebrated or as necessary as it once was, right? You don't have to be physically fit to be rich or have power. I think it's largely the opposite. That people always see in power. I'm like, you look like you're about to die.
Are you okay? And in that same vein, like looks and aesthetics, they do seem like a form of currency, right? You can, it helps you get what you want. People treat you differently. I get it. Get it? I do. I'm not an idiot. But the HSP in me just sees such sadness around this endeavor, this pursuit. Right? And such futility.
Such futility surrounding this fat loss pursuit. And this obsession with aesthetics. Especially as that aesthetic goal ties into the fucking scale. So, yeah. Here we are with this podcast episode because it just seemed like a good action item. I was like, I can't just be sitting here complaining and complaining in my head.
Let me make something. So my thought here is an action item here is perhaps you lean into both, right? Perhaps we have aesthetic goals, preferably understanding that that aesthetic goal means more muscle. And we're looking at how you look, not just what the scale says. And we also have a physical performance function goal.
Ideally that physical performance and function goal being our main goal, our bigger goal. No, you do not need to like sports. I want to play sports to have that performance goal. I understand that I am fortunate that I do. I love sports. And the flip side of that is that a lot of my self worth is tied into performance and sport, which means I got high highs and low lows, but this isn't a topic for another.
As well, it's a function. Let's just think about what do you like to do? How do you like to feel? Like, how do you want to feel when you do it? That's performance. That's function. Can you feel better? I do believe that modern, so modern problems require modern solutions. So we are thinking about, you know, folks who perhaps today are like, I don't like lifting weights.
I don't like formal exercise. Okay. But if what you want as a goal is the outcome of physical activity, Then you have to go and do physical activity, figure out what you like, but you got to do it. I also understand that part of what people are looking for with these goals, but these, especially these aesthetic goals, the outcome is out of their control because the outcome is how the world treats them.
They want the world to treat them differently. I get it. Not fucking sucks. You cannot change. You can't control the actions of others. Right? But what we can control is how we treat others and looking at what are our own biases? Are we contributing to these problems? And how do we view ourselves? I do believe that we teach people how to treat us.
It's still going to decide at the end of the day, they're still going to decide how they treat us, and then we get to decide how we, if we interact with them. But how we view ourselves, we can control that. So as it relates to this modern problems requiring modern solutions, we sit around all day, Staring at screens and, you know, tired as fuck, stressed out as fuck.
But we want our bodies to look as if we move all day, as if we exercise, as if we have lots of joys, if we have minimal stress, as if we're eating the finest food that we actually had to go and spend energy and effort to get. We can't have that. Do you see, we need a modern solution to this. And to me, part of that Madden Solution is going to be tracking, if you want to track your food.
I tracked my, I don't do it now, but when I was trying to gain weight, I was like, I don't have any fucking clue how much I'm eating. And part of that ties into that modern problem, is that, let's call it the Oreo problem. We have these highly, super palatable foods. You can consume like a billion calories in a second, like so fucking easy.
Alcohol, you can literally get it delivered. To your house. You don't even need to spend a little bit of energy driving, sitting and driving to go get it. You could get it delivered. We're like one step away from having to just like pour it into your mouth. So to me the solution there, the offset, the balance, is that you want to know how exactly how much you're consuming.
Tracking. Nothing wrong with that. Of note, perhaps consider, and perhaps you can kind of look at language here, and instead of saying calories, you could think of it as energy. Do you need that amount of energy that you're consuming? Probably not. Are you expending that much energy? No? Then we can look to change things.
But this ties back into the first thing, which is like train harder, need those calories, need those, that amount of energy. I do believe that some of the aesthetic goals, the sort of like outcomes can come from performance based changes. Yes. Diet is absolutely important. Nutrition, but you're looking to fuel the performance.
That's what we want to be focusing on. If you focus on fueling for performance, things will change. So flip the script here. What if the aesthetic goal. Was to gain more muscle. Of note, you can stay the same size and gain muscle. It's a body recomposition that we were talking about before. You might even gain weight.
Which is why I said if we're gonna have that aesthetic goal because I understand people have fucking eyes. I get it. So if we want to have that aesthetic goal, let's have it be that I want to gain more muscle and it's not tied to the scale. It's not I want the scale because the scale may go up. Do you like what you look at?
Would you like what you're looking at? I get it. Like we, I can't just say like, Oh, forget about it. Don't worry about how you look. That's crazy. Talk to me again. I don't want to yuck. Anyone's yum. And to be like, you're, you know, your goal is stupid. I don't want to say that. But the HSP side of me is just like, God damn, these women out here obsessing over five fucking pounds.
It just feels sad. Like it's, it makes me sad. Right. Is that five pounds going to make a fucking difference? And then is it, how are you going to be able to maintain that? Are you going to spend the rest of your days trying to like, I got to hold onto this because the scale, like what? But, something I talk about is the difference between shrinking, right, and expanding, and how shrinking is finite.
You can only get, but so small. Like, you're going to, you only, like, get rid of so many things. You can only restrict, but so much. When Mead talks about it, right, you can only save, but so much, but you can earn. Or, you know, you can cut back, but so much, but you can earn. Like, that doesn't have a limit. Same thing for, for this.
You can only cut back and lose, but so much, you're gonna literally fucking die. Whereas if you talk about gaining, Gaining possibility, movement, potential movement, capacity, performance, the hope and the striving there. There's no limit. And that is what allows it to continue, right? Performance and function based goals.
They endure because it makes you ask, what else could I do? I'm thinking about my girl Tracy right now. See in her post, she's fucking crawling on the floor with Venus. Her journey started with walking and weightlifting many years ago. Now she coaches weightlifting, and now she's doing animal flow. I mean, she's like, what else can I do?
We see the growth, it's not how small can I be. So this is a good segue for the last part here, which is, what am I saying to those of you who coach weight loss? Live your life always. I understand that fat loss sells itself. I understand that it gets people in the door. I understand that it's what people say they want and it's important to deliver, you know, and speak to what people want as that as opposed to being like, well, what you actually mean is.
I will say on the other side of this, your top of funnel messaging can absolutely impact and influence what clients say they want by educating them. So if selling weight loss and selling fat loss doesn't feel good to you, don't fucking sell it. Understand that body recomp, muscle building, getting stronger.
improving function, improving performance. It's probably a slower sell, but it does sell. And more importantly, it'll be aligned with your values. So the action items, the summary here to wrap this up, as always, I think the answer is both and right. Go ahead. If you have aesthetic goals, go ahead and fucking have them, but let's have performance goals as well.
And maybe let's prioritize those performance goals with those aesthetic goals. Perhaps let's focus on Our eyes not on the scale. Let's base those aesthetic goals in science and reality, right? Consider striving for body recompense at a fat loss with a focus on muscle gain as measured via performance.
Some resources here, because earlier I said maybe hire a coach. It's one of the best things that you can do. I got a bunch here. So, first off, my girl Tracy Townsend. Tracy Townsend, if you're over 50, even if you're under 50. But she specializes in women over 50. She's fitness with Tracy. We will link all of these in the show notes.
Uh, another person. Another woman specializing in women over the age of 40 50, my girl Tina Tang. She is iron strong fit. Another one, my girl Anna Wilson. She is rock that fitness. If you are looking for really performance based things and one of my, you know, I brought them on the podcast a bunch, we got Meredith and Alex Root.
They're just amazing. So it's actually Meredith Root and Alex Parker. They're amazing. They are tactic nutrition. Anyone that's looking at kind of what we call hybrid training, concurrent training, That's going to be my girl, Doc Liss. Again, I'm bringing her on the pot net by the pot net. I'm bringing her on the podcast.
She is Doc Liss Fitness. Uh, someone that if you're looking for someone that's kind of got a laid back approach, um, he's great on social media as well. Good buddy of mine, Forrest Jung. He is, I know Forrest. I actually, I'm saying Jung and I'm like, I think it's Jung. Uh, but either way, he is, I know Forrest on Instagram.
Next up, my girl, Betsy Foster. You looking to fucking get swole? You wanna get strong? She has just, her physique, I'm just like, Betsy! You are just, she's just, it speaks to the, uh, dedication. I've watched her put in the work and that's why I sang her physique. But what I'm largely thinking about is the work that she's put in, because to me, it is a symbol of that work.
I've been privy, I've had a front row seat. For the past, I don't know, since, since 2019 to her lifting and, and just putting in so much work and dedication. So she is, uh, foster underscore strength. And then lastly, for those of you that maybe need some help with body image, uh, that's going to be my girl, Jordana Edelstein.
She is at Jordana Edelstein on Instagram. We will link on the screen. All of those. Okay. So hopefully you found this episode helpful. Hopefully I never have to talk about this again. Uh, if you want to chat, if you want to let me know what you thought, I'd love to hear from you. Uh, you can DM me at the movement maestro.
You could text me 3 1 0 7 3 7 2 3 4 as always endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you until next time, friends maestro out.
Watch this episode on YouTube!
The Messy Middle Podcast: The Training for Performance vs Aesthetics
My favorite fitness resources:
Traci Townsend – @fitnesswithtraci
Tina Tang – @ironstrongfit
Ann Willson – @rockthatfitness
Meredith and Alex – @tacticnutrition
DocLyss Olenick – @doclyssfitness
Forrest Jung – @iknowforrest
Betsy Foster – @foster_strength
Jordana Edelstein – @jordanaedelstein
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