Latest / The Body Recomposition Revolution | Fat Loss and Strength for Women 35+ / The #1, Research-Backed Habit for Fat Loss After 35 (Body Recomposition for Women)

Transcript

The #1, Research-Backed Habit for Fat Loss After 35 (Body Recomposition for Women) · The Body Recomposition Revolution | Fat Loss and Strength for Women 35+

0:11
Welcome back to the body recomposition revolution.
0:14
This is Robin and today we are talking about why food tracking
0:19
is the missing piece for your fat loss.
0:21
Why food tracking is a necessity if you are trying to drop fat as
0:26
a woman over 35 and is not just me saying that through my own
0:30
personal experience and the experience of my clients.
0:33
It is a lot of different research studies that cite daily
0:37
recordings of your food or food tracking.
0:40
Same thing lead to roughly double the weight loss.
0:45
And these studies are public. There's one from Harvard that I
0:48
was recently reading and I had posted on my Instagram along
0:51
with a multitude of others. There's a huge one by the Weight
0:54
Management Study, which I cite frequently in this podcast,
0:58
where nearly 1700 people who kept daily food records, they
1:03
all lost about twice as much weight as the people who did not
1:08
keep a food diary. That is a 200% difference that
1:12
is tied solely to food tracking. So let that sink in.
1:17
There was a group of almost 2000 people, the people who food
1:21
tracked daily. They lost two times as much
1:24
weight as those who didn't. And it's not the tool.
1:29
It's not the tool you are using to track your food.
1:32
Maybe you're writing in a notebook or using an app, what
1:35
have you. It's not the tool.
1:36
That does not matter. It is the act of tracking your
1:40
food. It creates awareness.
1:44
Another word for that is feedback.
1:45
You are having active feedback and awareness of what you're
1:49
putting into your body. So it is the ACT.
1:52
It is not the tool you use to track your food.
1:56
So if you are eating pretty well and you're working out
1:59
consistently and you're still not dropping fat, this episode
2:02
is for you. Because what is actually missing
2:05
is not your discipline. It's the feedback.
2:08
It's the awareness. And without that feedback,
2:11
without the awareness of what you are putting into your body,
2:14
fat loss stalls. It plateaus, especially after
2:18
35. Why?
2:20
Because your hormones start changing after 35.
2:22
I have experienced that first hand.
2:24
Your hormones are the messengers that are fluctuating throughout
2:27
your body at all times during the day.
2:29
They determine what happens when you eat to everything that goes
2:32
into your body. They they say, are we going to
2:34
store it here? Are we going to use it there?
2:35
What are we doing with this? Those messengers, your hormones,
2:40
they change after 35. And because of that, you do have
2:45
to be more keenly aware of what you are putting into your body.
2:49
And what is so great about body recomposition is it is not about
2:54
eating less for most women. It's about sending the right
2:57
signals to your body. And signals require feedback.
3:03
They require awareness. Now, throughout this episode,
3:06
I'm going to be citing some things from the book Atomic
3:09
Habits. I love that book.
3:11
It was a COVID read of mine. It really had an impact on my
3:14
life, my lifestyle. It still does to this day, 5-6
3:18
years later. And in that book, James Clear
3:20
explains that habits do not change through motivation.
3:24
Motivation does not matter. Remember that your motivation
3:27
does not matter. Your habits change through
3:31
feedback. When we can see what's
3:33
happening, When we see what we're eating, our brain
3:37
naturally adjusts. That's why food tracking works
3:40
for fat loss. It just does because it control.
3:42
It's not that it controls you, it gives your body clear
3:45
signals. Even on the days that I am just
3:48
haphazardly just putting food into my my tracker and I don't
3:52
really have my food prepped for the day and I'm not really being
3:55
proactive about what I'm going to eat, when I start tracking
3:59
it, I kind of naturally adjust. Like this morning I had two
4:03
protein balls that were pretty calorically dense.
4:05
I put those into my app and I was like, whoa, I'm already
4:09
about 300 calories in and I've only been awake for 14 seconds.
4:13
I am going to have to make a little bit of a smaller
4:16
breakfast this morning. I wouldn't have that awareness
4:18
if I did not put that into my app.
4:20
I wouldn't even be thinking about it.
4:21
And I have been tracking food for 15 years.
4:24
It's all about just having that awareness and how it naturally
4:28
changes our actions throughout the entirety of the day.
4:31
And I would say that the core problem for women that I hear on
4:35
repeat is I eat clean, I don't snack hard, I work out
4:40
constantly. I don't understand why I'm not
4:42
dropping fat. You don't so much hear that for
4:44
women who are below 35 because our bodies just operate
4:48
differently. As I mentioned earlier in the
4:50
episode, you hear that for women after age 35 because our energy
4:54
needs are different. Our muscle is naturally
4:58
decreasing 1% each year after 35 and our muscle is harder for us
5:02
to maintain. Our stress tolerance is lower,
5:06
the margin for error is so much smaller.
5:10
That's why earlier in your life you could just hop on a
5:12
treadmill for an hour a day and be down 5 lbs by the end of the
5:16
week. That is not how it works for
5:18
women after age 35. This is why tracking is
5:22
imperative for us because we have to know how much protein
5:26
are we eating? We have to know what calories
5:29
are we consuming? Are we in a real deficit?
5:31
We have to have that awareness because without enough protein,
5:35
we will have muscle loss. Without enough calories, we will
5:39
have a metabolic downshift. Your metabolism will slow if
5:43
you're not eating enough. If you have way too many
5:46
calories, you're not going to drop fat.
5:48
That's impossible. Without that awareness, that fat
5:52
storage increases even when our intake doesn't feel high.
5:56
We have to have it in writing. We have to be able to see it.
6:00
So in the book Atomic Habits, behavior change does not come
6:05
from motivation, as I said, it comes from systems.
6:08
And one of the most powerful systems is feedback.
6:13
And you might be thinking what exactly is feedback?
6:16
What does that mean? And why do I need to have that
6:19
to drop fat? Imagine this, you go about your
6:23
day as normal. You are eating intuitively and
6:28
it just kind of feels like you had a good day nutritionally.
6:31
You had a salad, you had some chicken.
6:33
You went to Starbucks and you did not order your Cafe Whatever
6:36
Frappuccino. You ordered a black coffee.
6:38
You had a great day nutritionally.
6:42
You didn't track it though. So that continues on day by day.
6:46
And you're wondering, why am I not dropping fat?
6:48
I am working out all the time. Well, there could be two
6:52
different scenarios there. You're not getting enough
6:54
protein, you are eating too little, or you're eating too
6:59
much. How are you supposed to know?
7:01
You don't have feedback. You don't have data to guide
7:04
your choices. Now start that day over.
7:08
You begin tracking your food throughout the day.
7:10
You don't miss a beat. At the end of the day, you
7:12
realize, whoa ho ho. I was 60g short of what is
7:17
recommended for me to maintain my muscle. 60 grams and how is
7:22
it possible that I ate 90 grams of fat?
7:24
That's 40 over what I'm supposed to be eating.
7:27
You would not have that awareness if you did not track
7:31
your food. And that's a moment that I have
7:32
often and I have been tracking on and off for 15 years.
7:36
I consistently rely on the feedback that my tracking app
7:40
provides so that I can guide my choices in the future.
7:45
If I did not track my food, I would really not know where my
7:50
deficit is. I wouldn't know if I'm eating
7:52
too little protein or too much food in general, or too much
7:55
fat. I wouldn't know.
7:56
I would have no feedback. And so tracking your food is
8:00
empowering. Tracking your food is giving you
8:03
awareness. It is giving you knowledge.
8:05
And when you have knowledge, that is power.
8:07
You are empowered to make better choices with your nutrition.
8:10
You can hone in to shape your body exactly how you want with
8:15
the proper macro formulation. That's what I always tell my
8:18
ladies, yes. Is it a pain in the butt to
8:20
track your food? Of course, it's horrible.
8:22
If that's too much, we can scale it back, which I will mention a
8:25
little bit further in the episode.
8:27
So tracking works because it removes the guesswork, not
8:31
because it forces you to restrict.
8:34
And I want to address the mental block that women tend to have
8:37
because what tracking used to mean was making sure you were in
8:42
a really unhealthy caloric deficit, making sure you were
8:44
eating no carbs. So when you're in a really
8:48
unhealthy caloric deficit and you're eating no carbs, you can
8:50
expect you're going to feel like crap.
8:53
So why would you want to track? That is not something you should
8:56
be excited about, but that is diet culture and that is in the
9:00
past. Now we have enough research that
9:03
is widely spread to understand that's not healthy.
9:07
That's not how we body recomposition.
9:09
That is not going to build muscle.
9:10
That is not going to help us drop fat.
9:13
It's not going to get us stronger.
9:14
It's not going to increase our lean muscle mass.
9:16
None of that couldn't can coexist with the way diet
9:20
culture used to be. Diet culture, as you know, used
9:24
to be starve yourself. It was South Beach 0 Carb, it
9:27
was keto, it was Weight Watchers.
9:29
It was just eating less and less and less and doing more and more
9:33
and more. And when you combine those two,
9:35
especially for women, that results in skinny fat, health
9:39
problems, metabolic disorders, a lack of muscle.
9:43
It's not good. And not just physically.
9:46
You will have a whole host of unseen health problems when you
9:51
follow diet culture and how it used to be.
9:53
And that is my mission in life as I take these women who have
9:57
been a product of that, myself included, and I help them
10:00
reframe their mind, mind to accept science.
10:04
Science says carbs are good, they fuel our muscles.
10:07
Science says protein is good, it builds our muscles.
10:10
Science says lifting, heavy lifting and hypertrophy that
10:15
builds our muscles. That is what we need to drop fat
10:18
and get the toned look they all aspire to have.
10:22
And it's a huge mental block. It's a hurdle.
10:24
It's something we have to actively squish every single
10:28
day. Because when you think about it,
10:30
women's food intake and their physical activity, whatever end
10:34
of the spectrum either of those things fall on, is a very
10:38
emotionally loaded topic. It really is.
10:42
I don't know how men feel about that.
10:43
I'm, I'm not a man and I don't primarily work with men, but for
10:46
women, it always has been. And I hope that in the future
10:49
that that narrative will change. And a big part of my mission, I
10:54
would say, is to help women separate their emotions from
10:59
data. You want to take data for what
11:02
it is, which is just feedback, and use that feedback to guide
11:07
your decisions. Is it, is it really horrible to
11:10
jump on the scale in the morning when you're first getting
11:13
started? Yes.
11:15
But the more you do that, the more comfortable you become
11:19
stepping on that scale every single morning, putting that
11:22
number into your app or into a notebook, The more you learn to
11:26
separate your emotions from the data because we use that data to
11:31
guide our decisions. And when you are stepping on the
11:34
scale every single morning and you see that number change and
11:37
you can look back at the graphs that whatever app you use
11:40
provides, you can see when you have off weekends, you can see
11:44
that, oh, maybe I need to put myself into a tiny bit steeper
11:49
of a deficit or, hmm, I'm dropping weight really fast.
11:53
I don't want to lose muscle. I think I'm going to increase my
11:56
daily caloric intake by a couple, 100, what have you.
12:00
When you put that number into the app and you separate that
12:04
number from your sense of mental well-being, you can use that
12:10
data to guide your decisions. And it is a powerful tool.
12:14
Data is an incredibly powerful tool.
12:16
I still to this day struggle a bit to get on the scale when I
12:20
know I've had an off couple weeks, you know, I will get on
12:23
there and I'm not happy sometimes.
12:25
But I know that that is just a reflection of some of the
12:29
nutritional choices that I had been making.
12:32
And when I look back at the graphs that my app gives me, I
12:36
use that to guide my decisions. I view it as data.
12:40
It's feedback and now I am aware, I have the awareness
12:44
that, hey, I've been in a build phase for a month now.
12:48
I think I'm going to gradually taper that back and go into more
12:52
of a maintenance phase because now my body weight is getting
12:56
into the upper end of my what I'm comfortable with range.
13:01
Because I have a range that I know from years of data
13:04
collection where I can keep my body weight within that range
13:08
and know that on one end I have enough caloric intake to build
13:12
muscle, In the middle I have enough caloric intake to at
13:15
least maintain and build a bit, and if I go to the left, I know
13:18
I'm going to be dropping fat. I have that range because of the
13:22
years of feedback I've accumulated through data
13:25
collection to getting on the scale when I don't want to and
13:29
taking that number and putting it into the app and looking
13:32
through it and letting it guide my decisions going forward.
13:35
That is feedback, that is knowledge, and that is power
13:38
that translates into making real, solid choices that will
13:43
only bring you closer to your goals.
13:46
Without having that awareness, without having that feedback,
13:49
without having that data, how are you supposed to know what
13:52
direction to take so that you can achieve your goals?
13:55
You can't. You need it.
13:57
It's a necessity. And you don't have to use
14:00
tracking for the rest of your life.
14:02
You can just use it as a temporary tool for data
14:05
collection. You can use it as a tool to
14:08
learn. You can use it as a tool to
14:10
develop a much higher understanding of your body and
14:14
what it does when it's given certain nutrients.
14:16
It doesn't need to be forever. They can just be for now.
14:19
And is it going to be hard? Yes.
14:21
But you can do hard things. I will always remember when I
14:26
was living one of my roommates after college her parents came
14:30
over to help with something. Who knows?
14:32
I've actually known her since I was born.
14:34
I grew up next to her. Her dad was standing there and I
14:38
was talking about how my student teaching placement was 40
14:43
minutes away from our apartment. And that's just kind of where I
14:45
wound up. I really didn't have a say in
14:47
it. It was just the way it was.
14:49
And at that point, I was not used to driving 40 minutes at 7.
14:53
AMI was not such an early riser as I am now, and I was dreading
14:57
it. I had no idea how I was going to
15:00
do it. And I was voicing that to her
15:04
dad. And I will always remember what
15:05
he said because it sticks with me and it's so simple.
15:08
But he said you can do anything for a year.
15:12
And he said it was such confidence.
15:14
He said it was such certainty. And I knew he was right.
15:18
I knew that I could do anything for a year.
15:20
I can do that for a year. And every time I take on a
15:23
challenge or start something that is difficult, I actually go
15:27
back to that moment in the hallway where he says you can do
15:30
anything for a year. And I tell myself, I can do
15:33
this. I can do anything for a year.
15:35
Don't sell yourself short. You, you can do anything for a
15:38
year, OK? You can track your food for
15:40
three months. But I tell you what, if you do
15:43
it for a year, you will be a new person inside and out by the end
15:48
of that year. I promise you.
15:51
Now, if you refuse to track your food because you've done it
15:54
before and to you, it's just it's not happening at this
15:58
moment. It's too much for you to take
15:59
on. You don't care about my
16:01
motivational sentence of you can do anything for a year.
16:04
You don't want to do that thing for a year.
16:06
There are options for you. There are.
16:09
You don't have to cannonball into the tracking pool.
16:12
You can just dip your toe in for a bit and see if you like it,
16:15
see if it's something that you might be able to dabble with
16:18
more in depth in the future. But there are options.
16:20
There's 3/3 that I have current clients doing at this moment.
16:24
Number one, track your protein only.
16:27
So for my clients, when they come on board with me, I do a
16:30
custom macro formulation and I give them the a series of
16:33
quizzes, a carb tolerance quiz, a macro typing quiz, and just
16:36
kind of like a general lifestyle quiz.
16:39
And we use those 3 quizzes to develop this macro formulation.
16:43
And some women have a high carb carb tolerance, some women have
16:47
a medium low, what have you. But I will give them the exact
16:50
amount of protein in grams, the exact amount of carbs in grams,
16:54
and fat in grams, including caloric intake that they need to
16:58
shoot for on a daily basis to achieve their aesthetic, their
17:02
physical, their health goals. And sometimes that's just too
17:05
much. It's too much to take on.
17:07
So I give them this first option, which is protein
17:10
tracking only. You're going to track your food,
17:12
but you're just going to track your protein.
17:14
You don't need to worry about the carbs and the fat and the
17:17
calories. Just track your protein.
17:19
You're going to shoot for 30 to 40 grams per meal.
17:22
If that's something you're interested in, shoot for that
17:25
amount, 30 to 40 grams of protein per meal if you're a
17:29
woman. It's just a very broad strokes
17:31
number, but it will do. It will do do in terms of muscle
17:34
preservation, not promising you any fat loss on that because you
17:37
will most likely not be in a deficit, but that will preserve
17:41
your muscle. Option number two, time bound
17:44
tracking. You're going to track everything
17:46
for just 7 to 14 days, 7 to 14 days.
17:49
Do it for two weeks. If it is completely unfathomable
17:53
to continue on, you can stop. But at 14 days, if you are not
17:57
motivated beyond belief to continue going forth because you
18:01
will see physical changes, OK, after 14 days you will, albeit
18:05
mild, maybe you will see some and that in and of itself should
18:09
motivate you to continue going forward.
18:12
And if not, hey, you did it. Check.
18:14
You can go down to the protein tracking only if tracking
18:16
everything is too much. So option one protein tracking
18:19
only. Option two, time bound tracking.
18:22
So you know, two weeks of tracking and your final option,
18:26
which this would definitely prepare you to be a full blown
18:29
tracker because a lot of it is just eating consistently the
18:33
same things on repeat. So option #3 just eat your same
18:37
meals during the week. You're going to prep your food
18:40
and you're going to eat them on repeat.
18:43
OK, same meals during the week. So when you have fewer
18:45
variables, you get a clearer signal.
18:48
And if that's something, I've done that with one of my clients
18:50
and we just kind of sat down and listed out some food she was
18:53
willing to try or that she liked, and she prepped those
18:56
meals for the week. And when she was comfortable
18:58
with that, we moved into going the protein counting only.
19:03
And then after that, she was a full blown tracker.
19:06
Now, none of these three options will fully replace the efficacy
19:10
of tracking everything, but they will bridge the gap.
19:13
They will prepare you mentally and they are the shallow end of
19:17
the pool. You're going to get a
19:18
temperature for the pool. You're going to dip your toe
19:20
into the shallow end, and you will be prepared to go in a
19:23
little bit deeper after you sit there for a while.
19:26
Now, I have to make this clear distinction before I tie off
19:30
this episode, but there is a difference between weight loss
19:35
and recomposition. There is a clear, clear
19:39
difference and why tracking matters so much for both of
19:44
these, but it is so crucial for body recomposition is because
19:49
recomposition is tissue focused. It means that we are literally
19:52
changing the composition of your body.
19:56
When we are focusing on body recomposition, our goal is to
20:00
drop fat, eliminate the fat in your body, and build the muscle.
20:05
We want to do those two things simultaneously because as the
20:09
fat melts away and as we continue to build your lean
20:12
muscle mass, your body will completely.
20:15
Transform. It will look like something you
20:18
only imagined in your dreams. You could look like because it
20:22
will be that toned look you've always wanted to have.
20:25
That's recomposition. Weight loss is scale focused.
20:30
Weight loss is when you are only learning about being in a
20:34
caloric deficit and you will drop weight.
20:36
You will. I was just talking to a client
20:39
on the phone about this this morning.
20:40
You will drop weight while being in a caloric deficit, and you
20:43
need to be in a deficit for both recomposition and weight loss.
20:47
But the difference with weight loss is that that's the sole
20:51
thing you're focusing on is eating less than you need to
20:54
maintain your current weight. And when we're not, when we're
20:57
not thinking about protein and carbs and fats, when we're only
21:01
thinking about calories, what happens is as we drop weight, a
21:05
lot of that comes from the muscle we already have, which is
21:09
not what we want to do. We do not want to give up the
21:13
most expensive tissue in our body.
21:16
We want to hold on to that. We want to build that with
21:18
weight loss. You're giving that up.
21:20
You're also giving up the fat, but you're giving up your lean
21:23
muscle mass. And as you become weaker and
21:25
your muscles go away along with the fat, yes, that is going to
21:28
be reflected on the scale. You will become smaller and
21:32
lighter, which is great. That's, that's great if you have
21:35
a lot of weight to lose, but ideally every woman I work with
21:40
would be a recomposition client. And why is that feedback, that
21:45
data a non negotiable for recomposition?
21:48
Well, because muscle requires adequate fuel.
21:52
It requires enough protein. Fat loss requires precision.
21:57
We need to dial in what your BMR is, what your TDE is.
22:01
We need to dial in what percent of a deficit we're going to go
22:04
into to control the rate of fat loss.
22:08
And with the only way we can do those two things is by tracking
22:12
your food consistently. In closing, if fat loss has felt
22:18
super confusing and completely discouraging and you have no
22:23
idea what you're doing wrong, this is your missing piece.
22:27
You need to track your food. It really is.
22:29
It is the feedback you need to guide your decisions.
22:32
It is. And you have this tool at your
22:34
finger to free, free tracking apps.
22:36
I love macros first. That's what I've been using for
22:38
years and years. I also have my own personal A
22:41
that a lot of my clients track their food with.
22:43
Great. You have all these as at your
22:46
disposal. All you have to do is scan your
22:49
food, put it into the app, make it a habit, do it on repeat
22:53
every single day. Back when I was tracking my food
22:56
in college, we didn't have apps, we didn't have smartphones.
22:59
While I was pretty stubborn, I wouldn't get one for a bit, but
23:02
I would use pen and paper in a packet of printed foods.
23:05
That was an alliteration, a packet of printed foods that I
23:08
ate all the time and just you, you don't do the math was
23:12
horrible. You guys have apps that you can
23:15
use. Why not use them?
23:17
And this is the best part about women.
23:19
They they innately just work hard.
23:23
They work hard in everything they do.
23:26
So when they are given a set of instructions from me or another
23:30
coach as to what they need to do to get where they want to go,
23:34
they do it. You just have to start.
23:37
You just have to start. So you might be thinking, where
23:40
do you start? Well, you can go online and find
23:42
a free macro calculator that will give you a, they're kind of
23:47
all over the place, but they'll do for now.
23:50
That will give you exactly how many calories you need to eat
23:52
protein, carbs, fats. And you will take that formula,
23:56
your protein, carbs and fats and pump it into whatever app you
24:00
want to use and you'll just track your food.
24:03
There is My Fitness Pal, there's macros first.
24:06
You just go on there and in your App Store and type in food
24:09
tracking and even the apps have some sort of calculator that
24:12
will help you determine what numbers to put in there.
24:15
I also do custom macro formulations.
24:17
I mentioned that earlier. I have a series of three quizzes
24:20
I use to give you a really precise formula that will help
24:24
you just get to your goal more efficiently.
24:28
As I said previously, some of my women are they can do a high
24:31
carb intake, some are moderate, some are low, some have thyroid
24:34
disorders. I take all that into
24:36
consideration when I do your macro formulation.
24:39
And if that's something you're interested in, you can always
24:42
e-mail me that is RAC Fitness, RAC Fitness MN like
24:47
minnesota@gmail.com or you can find me an instant message me
24:52
there That is RAC Fitness under score.
24:56
My friend is just giving me a hard time the other day because
24:59
I think I called it an under dash, but under score rack
25:02
fitness under score on Instagram.
25:04
And with that, you will get a really detailed PDF, two page
25:09
PDF indicating how you need to eat, when you need to eat, what
25:13
you need to eat, why you need to eat it.
25:15
I've had a lot of really fun interactions with women from all
25:18
around the world, honestly, as we kind of figure out their
25:21
macros together. And Full disclosure, it usually
25:24
takes me about 72 hours. There's, there's a lot of back
25:26
and forth with me and a lot of time making your PDF extra cute
25:31
and personalized. So if you don't want to do that,
25:34
please empower yourself, Go online, find a tool.
25:37
They're free. Use them because again,
25:41
knowledge is power. That feedback, that data, it
25:44
will give you the knowledge you need to make those changes that
25:47
you want to change. So ladies, thank you so much for
25:50
listening. And if you have any questions,
25:52
again, please don't hesitate to reach out to me on Instagram or
25:55
e-mail. And I have to say, I have so
25:58
enjoyed interacting with you. You know, I get comments in my
26:02
e-mail, just comments, things that they like.
26:06
Someone had said, I bought this book you recommended, it was so
26:08
great. Or another person said, wow, you
26:10
really helped me figure out how much protein I should be eating.
26:14
And I've seen huge changes over the last few that I have
26:18
goosebumps even saying it as my mission.
26:20
I want women to be powerful and strong because they need to be.
26:24
They need to be for every single person that surrounds you in
26:28
your life. So again ladies, thank you for
26:31
listening and you will hear from me next week.