Barbell Shrugged - [Caloric Ranges] How to Eat More Food Without Gaining Weight w/ Zach Moore, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash #786

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Zach Moore is a highly sought after nutrition and exercise coach who has personally coached over 1000 clients. His clientele have ranged from top level professional athletes and physique competitors to health enthusiasts of all ages. Moore has worked with some of the most well known companies in the industry including Precision Nutrition, Nourish Balance Thrive, Indianapolis Fitness and Sports Training (named one of the top 10 gyms in the U.S. by Men’s and Women's Health magazines for multiple years), and consulted with several others. He is currently the Nutrition specialist for our team here at Rapid Health Optimization. He graduated summa cum laude from Indiana University with his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees, and holds a host of certifications in training and nutrition - Precision Nutrition level 1 and level 2 certifications, Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), a coaching certification through USA Weightlifting (USAW), and more. His past athletic background includes playing college tennis for two years before succumbing to two knee surgeries, which ultimately led him to what he is doing today. When he is not working with our clients at Rapid, you can find him playing with his 8 year old son, taking care of his backyard chickens, reading research, playing tennis, or lifting weights. Work With Us: Arétē by RAPID Health Optimization Links: Zach Moore on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram  

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrug, Zach Moore is coming in, and today we're talking about nutrition. Actually, a very, very cool conversation. I would say that there's very few times where my mindset and kind of like the framework that I understand nutrition, or kind of any of these subjects

after nearly 30 years of learning about them, are radically shifted. And today's conversation is really cool, talking about kind of the spectrum that your calories live on. The idea that you are not just designated to a specific number of calories, but as you get healthier, as you get stronger, as you build more muscle, as you have more energy, those numbers can actually go up where you're eating as much food as possible without actually gaining weight. And Zach today on the show is going to be digging in on exactly how he does that with our clients inside Rapid Health Optimization. And as always, friends,

you can head over to aretelab.com. That is the signature program inside Rapid Health Optimization, aretelab.com, A-R-E-T-E-L-A-B.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Warner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash. Today on Barbell Shrugged, our main man, the nutritionist, Zach Moore from Rapid Health Optimization. Dude, I'm fired up to have you on here today. Yeah, it's great to be here. I've been listening to you guys, goodness, I don't know how long, but a long time. At least like almost a year in meetings. Sometimes I'm like, man, why do all the coaches and everybody listen to this show?

They should be sick of hearing from us. But it's great. Well, I think Doug and I talked a long time ago, but I think I got started around the same similar time to when you guys did. Like when I became a strength coach was, I don't know, like 2012, 2014 sometimes. And that was like, gee days. That was like mash's first show. Yep. Down in Miami, mash was out partying, drinking whiskey on the show.

That was my favorite podcast today. We got to do some more in person. If you, if you rewind, if you roll back the roll back, the time hop on mash is that episode down in Miami, you have enough whiskey in your system to talk smack to the entire weight lifting and power of the community. You're like, I'm in Miami. I'm on barbell shrug. A little bit of sauce is going into my body right now.

And I'm about to just lay it down for, I'm going to tell the truth. Here's how I really feel. That like 2012 wasn't it i am dominant yeah exactly 2014 is probably something like that yeah that's too good i just told the truth is all i did i just told the truth yeah remove or rather didn't post a handful of shows because of the drinking. We were like, eh, I don't know. Let's rein it back in a little bit. Operate the alcohol in this show. People are listening.

On this health podcast. But this was like, it wasn't too much. It was just enough to get me honest. It was like. It was just enough to get me honest. It was like, it was, you know, we were in life. There's,

there was like a time in life where you're like, this is a really good idea. And you go, what would make it better? Maybe a little bit of drinking. And then you realize that makes it so much worse. And then you have to stop. It didn't.

I thought it made great. God told the same. I just told the truth. It was just a little, a little, you know, like everything in moderation. I just told the truth. It was just a little, you know, like everything in moderation. I love that.

People still refer to that house as the Miami Coke mansion in regular conversations. We put like, Oh gosh, on that house. The house was enormous on Miami. It was so much fun though. It was so,

so much fun. Good. Zach. That's when you started listening to barbell shrrugged, the behind the scenes here. Yo, let's roll into adaptive metabolisms. You brought this up pre-show and I loved kind of understanding your definition of that, knowing that many of the people think that they just are born with a metabolism and they're stuck with it forever.

But take it away, man. Yeah. So it's just something that, you know, a lot of clients that come into rapid, you know, they feel, you know, pretty good, but, you know, do they just have some issues? Like their performances went down, like, you know, maybe hormonal profile is not great. And one goal I have for a lot of clients, you know, we hear a lot about like too many people are overeating, you know, like we need to cut back, but for a lot of rapid clients, like I try to get them to eat as much food as they can while still kind of maintaining their weight,

if that's their goal. Because the idea is, right, we all have this range of calories that we can maintain our weight on. And because it doesn't make sense, right? If I don't consume exactly 2,327 calories, like I'm going to gain weight or lose weight. So we all kind of have this range of calories that's possible. Our body fights to stay the same. And so some people have a metabolism where it's very adaptive in that they can actually eat quite a bit higher calories and not gain weight like naturally what happens is when you eat a little bit more like you have different processes that happen in your body like body temperature will go up a little bit heart rate will increase

a little bit you'll start fidgeting a little bit more these adaptive people will typically also to like you'll start fueling other processes in your body, you know, takes away energy from testosterone production or heat production in your body or your gastric emptying actually can slow down like if you're on the low end. So all of these things in your body like the required energy, it's possible that your body is down regulating those are kind of slowing them to kind of just keep you where you're at. So my goal for a lot of people is, you know, if they're a pretty good body composition, let's get as much fuel into you as possible. So you're feeling good. You're revving on all engines. Like we see hormonal profile increasing, like body temperature going up. And a lot of people think of this as like, you probably heard of metabolic damage. Oh my gosh. You know, if you under eat, you're going to break your metabolism. It's not damage. It's a, it's normal process that happens as we lower our calories, right? Because our body doesn't want to starve. So that's kind of a, maybe a starting point. Yeah. When I, uh,

find myself call it like gaining weight, whether it's intentional or unintentional, I always notice that it's actually, it's not like a, ooh, I gained a pound today and then a pound tomorrow. It's like, I'm eating as much as I want. And I feel amazing. Like I'm eating high amounts of food and I feel so good about myself because the scale doesn't really move like at all. Your body's just like fine tuned.

It's like humming. You're burning all the calories. And then one day I wake up, I'm like three or four pounds heavier. And I'm like, oh, there it is. I crossed the line. I went. Yeah. And then I think people also on the other side, when they're trying to lean out, they

don't realize that it's the compounding of eating less versus like today I ate less and the scale might go down like, you know, half a pound or something like that. Just pure food volume, not being in your body. But it really isn't until you stack like two weeks of those habits on top of each other that you see like, oh, I lost three pounds this week. I feel great. Like, this is awesome. But the consistency of it, because your body, what do you see kind of in like the higher ranges? Like everybody kind of probably has an understanding of like body weight times 10 to get their basal metabolic rate and activity level on top of that. What do you see kind of those ranges being of like a

healthy caloric intake to stay inside of versus worrying about hitting like the exact number? Yeah. So it can vary a lot person to person. I mean, I typically say like, you know, for fat loss, somewhere between like nine to 12 calories per pound of body weight, you know, something like that, you know, maintenance can be somewhere between 12 to 16. And then to gain weight, you know, somewhere between 16. I mean, I've seen upwards of like 24 calories per pound, which is ridiculous. I mean, that's super high output. But that's usually a rough starting point. But I've seen extreme outliers, like, especially in this adaptive framework, like natural bodybuilders are kind of a good, cause they track everything, right? They're so meticulous with everything. And there's some extreme examples out there. Like, I don't know if you guys are familiar, like Eric Helms, like this guy, he can, I think he maintains his weight somewhere between

like 26 to 2,800, you know, something like that to lose weight. He has to lower his calories. Like, I think he's like around 1400. Like to lose weight. Sounds like breakfast. Minnow Henselman's is another example as super adaptive. Like he can get up to like 3,500, you know, and maintain, but to lose weight, it's like, you know, something crazy. So that's what I'm talking about with these ranges can really vary. And if you're always on that kind of that lower end, like I said, you're just not going to feel your best. Like you said, Andrews, you can go beyond that and then you start gaining weight. So that's where you have to be careful. But, um, you know, it's a very slow process of just, if things are humming along, if you're feeling good, like I want people to move more,

giving them more fuel. Like when you're just tend to move less, you know, performances down, you may feel okay. Like you're getting through the day, you know, you're doing your walks. Like you just don't have the intensity in the gym. You don't have like the go. And, um, so I just find like fueling someone. It's just so common, especially in our athletes, like just under eating when they could be performing better, recovering better. Yeah. Dr. Andy Galpin here. As a listener of the show, you've probably heard us talking about the RTA program, which we're all incredibly proud of. It's a culmination of

everything Dan Garner and I have learned over more than two decades of working with some of the world's most elite performers, award-winning athletes, billionaires, musicians, executives, and frankly, anyone who just wanted to be at their absolute best. RTA is not a normal coaching program. It's not just macros and a workout plan. It's not physique transformation and pre and post pictures. RTA is something completely different. RTA is incredibly comprehensive and designed to uncover your unique molecular signature, find your performance anchors, and solve them permanently. You'll be working with not one person,

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back to the show. I met a guy this weekend. I was buying a new, we got a masquerade ball this weekend. Sounds cool. But so I'm getting, yeah, I'm getting all dressed up. So I'm getting a new suit. The tailor there was saying that he was on a, he's doing intermittent fasting, but he's literally going 24 hours. And then he gets like a two or three hour where he can do, eat whatever he wants. Then 24 hours, then two to three hour where he can do eat whatever he wants then 24 hours then two to three 24

and i just didn't have it in me to be like man i mean like i mean yeah you could do that but like you're not gonna possible yeah i mean yeah you're gonna lose weight but you're not gonna you're not you're you're not gonna have the fuel to like to fuel those processes you were talking about that the body needs or like to have the energy to be able to you know be with your wife later that night and you know like there's it's there's just better ways man but that's actually i mean there's something called the warrior diet which is kind of that framework of like eat in a four-hour window you know stuff like that and omad is becoming popular this one meal a day. And what I usually find with that is,

yeah, people just, they feel pretty good during the day, but they're not doing much. Maybe they're just like, you know, kind of like thinking, so it can work for some people, but people want to feel their best through the day and just like get after it. Like you're just working also digestively. It's very hard to consume a large meal or a large bolus of food at one time um so i think there are definitely negatives to that um well yeah i think there's a ton of anything extreme like that i think you know the intermittent fasting can work just like anything else and like all most of the research would say like but it's just those big windows like that are crazy it's like plus then you get the bounce back that can be pretty you know pretty hard on people but you know just do it in moderation yeah yeah you may have heard the

term like low energy availability and a lot of people talk about that like in a given like you know over a period of time it can actually happen across the day so like not just in a 24-hour period but like if you are not fueling your body at appropriate times throughout the day. And again, I'm talking more about, you know, kind of athletes or, you know, people training, things like that. Then you can actually have, you know, issues of low energy availability by not fueling yourself around workouts or like during time. And I'm always, you know, always want to consider myself an athlete until I'm done, you know, like I want to be able to, you know, feel good

and to be able to, you know, respond to people in a proper manner. And like, you know, I know when I'm not eating, you know, well, like a lot of things are off, you know, how I communicate is off, you know, how I feel when I get home at night with my kids, you know, my wife is off you know how i feel when i get home at night with my kids and my wife it's off it's a there's just so many better ways to do it don't do 24 hour fasting but

yeah i wouldn't and one thing i mean like you said i'm not against time restricted feeding but one thing a big reason why people do it is they feel more satiated right on bigger, less frequent meals. But I've worked with people who do that. And eventually that stops working. Like you get used to those really big meals. And so then to go out and just have like a normal meal, like it's not satiating to you because one mechanism of satiety in our body is like our stretch in our stomach. Like that's one signal to our body that like, we've had a good amount of food, you know, we're done eating. And over time, like intermittent fasting, you know, I'm not against it at all. I think it's just something to be aware of. If you go into and you're like, wow, this allows me to eat so much

less. I get to eat these huge meals. Those huge meals aren't as satisfying, you know, after you kind of get used to it. And I find those people have a hard time going back to just the, you know, more regular meal spacing. Well, yeah. Well, even the, in the long-term research with intermittent fasting, it's the smaller, you know, having like the, the smaller windows of fasting tends to work long-term. It's just another way of limiting calories, though. You know, it's definitely, I feel like the only way you're ever going to optimize things

is doing, like, kind of what you guys do is find out what your body needs. But, like, if you're just trying to lose weight, intermittent fasting can work, and it can work for a long time. But it appears in this very, you know, much smaller smaller fasting windows you don't have to do the extreme ones and you know all you're doing is just finding ways to cut calories just like anything else but if you're doing one meal a day yeah easy to cut your calories down to a an amount that where you would lose body weight slash body fat and potentially muscle mass as well but how difficult is then to get enough protein if you're only eating one meal a day you're gonna smash it'd be impossible

yeah it'd be very challenging to get that much protein in um and most of the research does point to it's ideal to get you know at least two to three feedings, ideally, you know, just, there's a process called muscle protein synthesis and, you know, that needs kind of a protein feeding to, you know, to stimulate that process. So typically with clients I'm working with at a minimum, I like to see, you know, two protein feedings at least. And then, you know, for athletes or people who are looking to gain muscle, you know, ideally three to four, um, you know, for athletes or people who are looking to gain muscle, you know, ideally three to four protein feedings a day. You've said much of this already, but say I have an 800 calorie window where my body weight doesn't change between, you know, 1600 calories and 2400 calories. I can eat that every day, 1600 calories every day. My body weight stays the same.

I eat 2400 calories every day. My body weight essentially stays the same. Short and long term, like what are the pros and cons of just sticking around the 1,600 mark in this example versus sticking around the 2,400 mark in this example on a daily basis? Yeah. So like I was saying, there's something called, I think it's called the triage theory, where again, our body sends signals or energy to what's most important. So, you know, typically if we're on that low end of maintenance, it's very possible, like I said, that maybe thyroid output goes down a little bit, or you start just being a little bit cooler. Like you're not as, you know, warm. Your heart rate may

go down a little bit. Like you're, you're how quickly food moves through your digestive system could slow down a little bit. You know, we always hear like, it's, oh, it's so awesome to have like this slow heart rate. Like it's a good sign that you're an athlete, things like that. Well, people who under eat, and again, I'm talking more extreme, like long periods of time, not necessarily your example, but they tend to have very slow heart rates. Like people who have anorexia, like very underweight, like they have super low heart rates. And, you know, I've read examples of people where they go into the doctor's office and they're like praised for having this low heart rate. And that's not always a great thing if it's not from,

you know, exercise, things like that. Also, like I said, you may just get to a point where, like I said, you just don't move as much. You just don't fidget as much. You just don't really have the desire to train or maybe your training intensity goes down. So, you know, your weight could stay the same, but you're not putting in as much effort. Maybe you slowly kind of lose muscle tissue because of that. You're not putting as much fuel into the system. So those are kind of the big things that stick out. You mentioned the kind of the the adaptability of kind of having like a range of calories based on what factors and how do they implement those factors? Can someone go from having like a window of 500 calories to 800 calories to kind of those extremes that you were talking about,

where it sounds like there's like a in order to lose weight, needing to eat sub 400, 1400 calories in a day, um, obviously like more movement, but are there other things, timing of exercises, et cetera? Is it more consistent throughout the day? Just 10,000 steps. Like what kind of levers can someone pull? Because that really is kind of the goal is to get from, I have to eat, you know, 2000 calories a day to maintain a stable body weight or I gain weight or lose weight. Um, to how do I eat between 1500 and 2,500 or 2000 to 3000. Um, that in my opinion is the goal of having a really healthy metabolism is it doesn't is it is adapting to whatever stimulus you are putting in and maintaining stable health despite the stimulus are there things that people can do in order to improve that um that that range yeah so it's really a matter of just honestly slowly upping

your food and seeing what happens i mean it depends on how meticulous someone wants to get i mean for some people in rapid i do have them track their food for a while and this isn't right for everyone, but I think it's just seeing how you feel, right? Like maybe you have fairly similar meals you eat each day or kind of this template that works for you. Just slowly, you know, maybe add a little bit of food to one meal. Because again, if you've been eating, let's say your range could potentially be 2000 to 3000. If you've been eating 2000 and you immediately go to 3000, you're going to gain weight at first because your thyroid's a little bit slower. Like I said, your body temperature is a little bit lower. So it's not that you can immediately go between these two ranges. You have

to work up to them. So that's what I usually have people do is slowly, let's just slowly, especially if they're, you know, I gave Doug the ranges earlier of, you know, some of these ranges like eight, you know, nine to 12 calories per pound of body weight, you know, fat loss. If someone right now is eating 10 calories per pound and they're maintaining their weight, I would definitely encourage them to try to bump up slightly and see how they respond. And again, it's a, it's fairly slow process because your body has to upregulate things, right? You give it more energy, you know, then whatever process it was down regulating that it feels most important will slowly start kind of increasing over time. So it's more just giving the

body more fuel to run more processes, but it is a slow process, um, to make sure you aren't gaining weight. Cause again, we all have a ceiling, right. Um, to where we get above that and we will gain. So, but it is more kind of like a, an increase in the calories and then finding stability at each increase or incremental increase versus I would, I would have kind of assumed that there was more like a consistent movement, movement side. And I'm sure that plays into it as well, but that would have been so many variables. Yeah. Yeah. You don't necessarily have to move more. Like I said,

if more energy is being taken away from testosterone production or, you know, your gastric emptying or all of these things, you don't necessarily have to be moving more. This is not just a component of NEAT, like non-exercise activity thermogenesis. This is also other things going on under the hood with your physiology. So it doesn't mean you have to move more, but ideally it makes you want to move more. Like you feel just more energetic because you're getting more essentially atp going through the system i mean kind of the you know crypt cycle cranking through so that's that's more of the strategy i mean there are strategies i mean obviously in rapid we have you know the

exercise plan so i usually coordinate with them like you know about that topic and seeing how we can get them more performance that way over time but it is a slow process but just for the individual it's you know slowly up your food track your weight so that's the question i ask so like when you when you find the window of food then do you say all right let's um let's we can comfortably shift when we're going to have a workout, we're going to give some extra calories, and we're at way less risk of it causing weight gain. Do you start to make strategy changes once you have the window, or is that irrelevant? When I have the window, I mean, yeah, there does come down to,

obviously, timing and stuff like that is important. But if the range is 2,000 to 3,000 thousand i want them trying to eat three thousand every single day and try to go to the high no matter what yeah i'm trying to keep up there i want them to eat as much as they can to again to feel good um and like will the body ever get adjusted to that and finally start to gain you know like or do you really find that they can maintain that body weight at that very high end forever? Yeah, I feel like they can. But again, if that high range allows them to train harder, perform better, maybe they gain more muscle. Sure. Possible that that shit, like maybe it goes from 2000, 3000 goes from, you know, 2400 to XYZ.

So, right. I mean, there is going to be a limit to that, right? We're all not going to be able to just keep adding muscle. I mean, there's, we all have genetic limits essentially, but, um, yeah, that's just what I'm trying to find for, for the clients to feel their best. Some people come in, I mean, they're seriously consuming like seven, eight calories per pound of body weight and they're not losing weight. And, you know, I mean, if they want to lose weight, do you cut their calories? I mean, I know, you know, we could talk about reporting issues, things like that. But I've coached so many people that it some people do just have a really low and you you do.

You have to build them up first. I've taken people up over time to where they're actually at a much better place where they feel good for a while. And then you can cut, and it doesn't take quite as much. Okay, so you take a guy who's got super low calories, and you find that window, and you hold him at that window for a long time. And then you say, now, we've built your processes up, you know, potentially, you know, you got your, your, your hormonal system is built. All these things are kicking. Now let's start to drop again. And then you start to lose even probably less than where you were before.

Is that what you're saying? Yeah. That's kind of the idea, but normally you don't have to hold them there very long because it will take a while to get up to that top end. To find it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, so it's, you know, every two weeks you might bump a small amount. I mean, this is if we're micromanaging every small detail. But I think it's something people could really start paying attention to because it's just not talked about a lot. Like under reading, low energy availability, like, availability like and just you know maximizing your output um so many people want to obviously have possible so many people are afraid of gaining weight and they're eating as little as possible to like you know afraid they're afraid of gaining weight you know we all have especially now social media like everyone's shredded to the bone that's not always healthy like that's not that's not always an awesome thing to be um ai is a beautiful thing too you gotta oh yeah yeah i know yeah

everyone we see is just shredding happy all the time um yeah and it's good to have a little i mean you want a little bit of body fat i mean that produces hormones things like that and some people are not sustainable i mean you know there's genetic variability across how you can stay and hold well god you said eric helms i mean like 100 like if whatever he says it takes to lose is right because like we've had him on the show have we not like i feel like he's been on yeah am i yeah i don't think yeah it's been a long time and so but like like if that dude says he has to cut that much to't think it's been a long time. And so, but like, like if that dude says he has to cut that much to lose weight, it's what has,

it's true. Yeah. And they have another athlete under their coaching company, Dirk Emmerich, who won like, I mean, he's like really good, but he's a lightweight. I think he comes on stage at like one 30 to one 40.

He's the opposite. His metabolism, not adaptive at all. I think he maintains again he's like small dude to cut i mean i think to maintain he's around like 2600 27 maybe 28 to cut i think he's like at 2200 and he gets all the way to the stage it's probably the most shredded natural out there i mean i think he won the yorton whatever i'm not super familiar but um again he doesn't have a super wide range um so it can vary yeah the example that you were talking about earlier was someone they coming in and they're

they're eating seven eight calories per pound of body weight they're radically under eating they're still not losing weight they're still not getting leaner um if you're the if you're that person you probably are afraid to bump your calories like you just you're just going to put all this weight back on that maybe you just lost before you put yourself in this hole um or you're a trainer or coach of some type and you get something that comes to you and they're like i can't lose any more weight and they show you their diet and the calories are excessively low and then you're like man should i bump this person's calories like i don't want to get them as a client and then the next week they gain two pounds then they're like bail them somewhere else

i know exactly like i want and then they go tell their friends like i want to lose weight he told me eat more food and i gained a bunch of weight what an idiot you're fired yeah it's really tricky how do you handle that situation it's a really tricky spot like a macro tweak in there somewhere as well yeah it's very possible it could be macronutrient composition, could be food. I mean, we know that like, you know, foods that are highly processed, like let's say I have 100 calories of chips versus 100 calories of an apple. Those calories are not equated. So, I mean, there's definitely a difference, right? Because our body has to break down the apple. You know, the processing makes it easier for us to digest store. So there's definitely differences like that. But I think

ultimately, it's just a hard conversation you have to have. Do you want to be the coach that cuts their calories to five calories per pound, you know, and helps them lose weight? Awesome. And then they leave you and they're stuck. Like, what are they going to do now when they start to increase their calories, they're going to they're going to gain weight right away. So really, you have to play the long game. You have to explain to them, you know, we're not going to lose fat right now, to be honest. Like, we're not. Yeah. What we're going to do is we're going to build, you know, build you back up to be healthy, to feel good. And ideally, we don't gain weight. So we'll increase calories slowly. Again, getting things revving again, assuming all else is okay, right? There's not an underlying dysfunction, you know, I mean, something going on behind, you know, that's serious medically, something like that. Then we are just going to slowly increase as high, you know, as high as we can start until we start feeling good. And when it's time, you know, we do it. But you have to help them understand that it's, it's not going to be quick.

Like it is going to take time. Yeah. So first you make sure they're eating high quality food, kind of the, the basics of not processed whole foods, et cetera. And then you're making sure their macros are at least somewhere in the ballpark of, of reasonable we'll say. And then, and after that, what are you like a hundred, 200 calories a week, that type of thing.

And you're, you're meticulously tracking their tracking their body weight to make sure that it's not increasing at a rate that they're unhappy with. And then once it starts to go up, then you can say, okay, we kind of hit the limit. Now you're starting to gain weight, maintain there for a while. They're at the top end of their range and then start to ratchet it back down with high quality food and a good macro split. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, again, if we're being super meticulous, I would have them track their weight. We would take the average across the week and then it'd be every two weeks is when I make the decision. Cause again, the body can, you know, it can hold water, everything like that. So it usually takes two

weeks to assess like, okay, are they truly gaining, truly losing? Um, and then we'll make a bump and the bump depends on how, you know, if I have someone that's 300 pounds, I mean, you know, like two 50 heavy, like an athlete, I'm able to make slightly, you know, bigger jumps than someone who's eating, you know, not very much, but yeah, somewhere between, I mean, if it's on the low end like 50 to 150 if it's a bigger person you know we may go you know 150 to 250 potentially and then it's just every couple usually i will try though so i won't right away let's say we get to a two-week period and they actually gained a little bit i won't immediately pull back i'll actually hold there another two weeks if they stay stable

there i'll try to bump again it's usually like if I have two to three in a row where like the weight is going up, that's when I'll, I'll be like, okay, we're back. And you just have to, I don't know, you really have to convince them like to, to be patient, to understand, like we have a plan. We have a few weight contested athletes from, you know, boxing, weightlifting, things along those lines. Do you find that it's easier for them to cut weight? Because they're doing it kind of like having this like massive weight cuts, call it quarterly, maybe every six months if that's where their career is at. If they are able to get to these higher levels and maintain kind of the higher end of a stable body weight, let's say that gets to 3,000 calories

or something along those lines. Do you see the weight drop more efficiently going from 3,000 to 2,800 to 26? Or do they still need to get kind of all the way down to those really low numbers? If they're playing at the higher end, is the lower end of stable that far away from kind of the,

the median or are you able to start cutting weight at what may have been in the past, like eating in a surplus? So it's usually that you still have to get very low down. The thing is, is that it's easier, right? Because you're coming from a place of like,

there's really this idea of diet fatigue. Like you just, you know, you're always feeling sluggish. Psychologically, it's much harder. Unless them eating a lot, they're able to be better body composition, then usually that low end is still there. You can't move that unless you truly kind of shift their body composition wise. So they do usually have to get low, but it's an easier process because again, you're not fatigued from it. They have more diet structure in place, all of those things. And they're already like in a place of moving more, right? That's a big factor. If you're coming from a place of pretty low calories, not moving a lot.

And then when you cut calories, you know, your, your knee is already super low. It's hard to bump that up more. I would imagine if they're, if they're with the activity level of that height, it's a much easier process. Not that it's easy to go that low in anything, but having that activity level training multiple times a day and just the consistent cardiovascular, uh, work that they're putting in just rolling or whatever it is. It's, it's got to be a slightly easier process. Yeah. Well, and you're coming from a place like, I mean, if your hormones are in a better place because you're eating more than that initial cut is going to be easier. Like you're going to lose weight faster, but usually to eventually get as lean as

they need to get, you have to cut low, but the process is probably going to be faster. Like it won't take as long because again, they're already starting from a place of, you know, just a higher metabolism. Yeah. The calories will eventually have to get to that low end to get as lean as they need most likely. Even in a, where is it in non-weight contested sports? Um, where do you see kind of like the, the highest levels of energy? Is that also kind of associated with eating at like the higher end of that range? Or is there more like a median when it comes to really like the optimizing performance or somebody kind of like mashes clients that may

have like a four or five day window where they need to play two or three matches in a day? Like, how do you kind you stabilize that? Personally, anytime I was competing, I always remember thinking, I don't enjoy eating that much, but also I probably wasn't that good at competing. Maybe what better athletes are doing is eating a lot more throughout the day.

I never really felt like I needed that much food on game days. No, you for sure did. Yeah. Like I never really felt like I needed that much food on game days. It was always. No, you for sure did. Yeah. Yeah. Mash is telling me I didn't even touch my best. Imagine what I could have been, dude. Slightly more above average.

That's where there's strategic, you know, like ways to increase caloric density without feeling too full. So that's why I have someone who has those days where they have super high energy outputs. That's where I would include some easy to digest carb sources. So I'd most likely keep, let's say we work their calories up on average to 4,000, you know, something crazy because they have high energy output. I would keep them there like all days, but on those double days, that's where we include some very easy to digest, you know, carbohydrate sources around their, their training. And that makes it easy to then adjust. So then on the off day, they have this template. Um, you know, for most of our clients, we give them a

meal plan. You know, that meal plan would be pretty stationary across days. It would just change then around their training. And I hear it all the time, like how much better performance is when we do include, you know, more fuel intro just in terms of recovery. Oh, 100%. You might have to even because you got to change or consider the fact you're going to be nervous. So like, you know, there's going to cortisol is going to be a little higher. So it is harder to eat on those days so but for me it worked to drink most of my calories you know like i would i would even my protein my carbs i would drink the majority and it changed it was a game changer from you know you see most you know powers you think oh it's not that

important it's for sure important. It's for sure important. Well, that's what you come to the final deadlift. I felt great. They were like tanking. So, yeah, we talk about a foundation of whole foods and that is great, but that's where like, for example, in an athlete, if they're eating a whole food diet of 4,000 calories, they're going to feel like trash. I mean, they're going to feel, they're going to feel slow.

They're going to feel like trash i mean they're going to feel yeah they're going to feel slow they're going to feel heavy so this is where selective food choice like strategic food choices really helps because it's very possible i love the fact y'all do that more right because you were consuming like you know a lot of fiber a lot of whole foods you know like that's where you have to play with this and you know even if you feel good in the moment, I guarantee you if you had the ability to add more fuel to your system and your body needed it, you would have felt better. Totally. Yeah, it's not the place for chicken breast, broccoli, and your almonds.

It's a place. You just get it in however you can best get it in where it can be digested. Such a game changer. When I started drinking my calories, because I would get nauseous. I would be in the back and I would try to eat. I started to drink it or find strategic ways to get in the calorie, even excess that day, the day of competing, because you got to consider that I just had that horrible weight cut.

It was a huge game changer for me and that's another benefit of eating more too is you can get in more micronutrients so if you're eating i'm a huge fan of micronutrients like we hear macronutrients all the time carbs fats proteins all of that but micronutrients are so important for how you feel your overall health totally and. A zillion times talking about different ones. And when you're eating more food, that gives you more opportunity to get in more, you know, more micronutrients. So for an athlete that's consuming 4,000 calories a day, he is easily going to get in his micronutrients unless he's just eating. And I've seen it. Same thing.

Like, I mean, you know, it's that's going to be hard but you know you're more likely to get those you know hit those micronutrient targets if you you know are consuming more food i know andy it was andy or is it dan that said that the macros are there for what you look like and it's the micros is how you feel and how you perform that it was a game changer for me when they i think it was probably dan it was dan but like calories and the size of your body macros or what it looks like and yeah my micro is how you perform right and i think it's if you're below i think it's 1600 calories what is it i think it's almost impossible to hit the rda for micronutrients if you're below

something like that um it's just very hard i mean unless you're just like i mean i'm not i'm not talking about multivitamins athletic grains things like that but if you're eating whole food so i think if you're below like 1500 to 1600 it's very challenging if not impossible so you would have to do things perfectly. That's what I love about, you know, Rapid, is that you guys give them those three options. And it's like, you know, a guy like, well, let's just, I don't know if I should say his name,

but let's just say I got one of the world's best pickleball players. And like that dude, like he has to have choices because like, you know, he'll have to, they'll fly him to Paris and be like, now you got to work with all these people that do gets in everything we ask him to do. But he has the choices, you know, he's not going to be able to have his little meal perfectly done out. He'll just have to get it in where it fits in those days. That was, I mean, that's brilliant. It's just, it's real life it's not real life to say every single day you're gonna eat four meals and you're gonna have broccoli and you're gonna have all these

like it's not real like you got a marathon coming your way too that uh that was his his number one question he was like i don't want to be on this like overly crazy thing he's like i got a life to live he also runs like two and a half hour marathons guys total freak um he's just like i'm like dude you've run two and a half hour marathons we got you don't worry let's go like 90 good and then one day a week eat like perfect how's that sound he's like i got you like you're good man you're you're out there just hammering the pavement and uh it'll be all right energy output you have so much opportunity to get in yeah enough food and therefore micronutrients travis mentioned like the three types of meals he really is referring to what we call optimal

sufficient convenient meal plans we have kind of like different categories of meal plans we don't it's not always perfectly like that for every person depends on the specific client needs but zach can you dig in that into that a little more kind of like the different types of meal plans. We don't, it's not always perfectly like that for every person depends on the specific client needs. But Zach, can you dig in that into that a little more kind of like the different types of meal plans that we provide for people? Yeah. So you said there are three different ones. Um, optimal one is to be honest, I don't love the name optimal. Like it doesn't mean if you don't follow that exact one, you're not optimized, but it's more of like a teaching tool. So it tells the exact foods to eat, like the exact time list out the calories, the macros, the fiber, the saturated fat. I mean, it lists everything for that person. Um, the sufficient one is more, it's, it's almost

identical to the optimal, but it's more like, instead of me listing broccoli, it would say, Hey, have a serving of vegetables. Um, instead of saying like chicken breast, it would say, hey, have a serving of vegetables. Instead of saying like chicken breast, it would say have a lean protein. You know, so it allows you that flexibility to choose foods that you enjoy. And allows you more variety because I don't expect you to eat chicken breast and broccoli on the meal plan every single day. And then the convenient one is more of just non-perishable food items like travis said we have some athletes and more than just athletes we have people that travel all over the world you know right options if they're in an airport if they're you know or taxi or they you know they can't find a restaurant like i always describe it to people

how do you get jacked in a gas station that's a real strategy i don't know what to do that's absolutely i'm so using that in my videos you said the most brilliant stuff yeah exactly like i've been there you go in there and you you find you get some uh like the was it beef jerky you know like two or three yeah beef jerky two or three bananas and apple yeah beef jerky, two or three bananas, an apple. It's weird. Nobody even knows that in 7-Eleven. Yeah, 7-Eleven has bananas and apples, every single one of them. Nobody goes in there for it, not when there's a slurping staring at you.

You got to learn how to get jacked in the gas station. I did a whole 30, and I could still stop at a gas station. There's options. You've got to be creative. You've got to be able to shop at a gas station. You've got to know what you're looking for is what it is. Or go get that big 100 in your life. It's like a double candy bar with a little bit of protein.

Get after it. Yeah, the big one. Oh, yeah. They still make those things. Oh they oh my gosh oh yeah you got it you probably have to go to the gas station that hasn't up re-upped their protein supply in the last decade but they're out there you're probably still digesting the first one you had years ago so it's probably still in your belly we're gonna get hit by an asteroid the aliens will come back like next civilization civilization will come back and they'll be like what is this big 100 bar the super cook has survived until they eat it and they'll understand

they'll be like oh i see why they have these i see how we took them over so easily yeah i love those things this is my favorite protein bar ever yeah i put them in meal plans all the time. They nailed it. Not really. Um, that, what about, what about food allergies? Do you like,

can you develop food allergies over time? Let's say you eat too much of the same foods over and over and over. Can you develop allergies or is like, what causes someone to be allergic to a certain type of food? So I've heard that. I don't know if that's true. Maybe one food so i've heard that question i don't know if that's true maybe one of you guys comment on that i don't i don't believe in research to support that idea that i because i've heard that like you consumed eggs too often like you develop an allergy i don't think there's any i don't know don't quote me on that but i don't think there's

any truth to that yeah i was asking like i love shrimp the research on it and i developed allergies and intolerances so an allergy is like your body you know has an immune response and like you know you have issues like major issues like the most common ones i think are eggs and nuts um dairy is fair somewhat common yeah there's also intolerant fish maybe yeah you don't do well with their particular food so definitely differences there yeah it broke my heart because i love shrimp and shrimp and grits it's like a lowland i never had it growing up because in the mountains it's not a big thing but my wife introduced me to shrimp and grits and i love it you can't like anyway shrimp or no like all of a sudden one day we were eating like shrimp and i you know my face was getting red and i started

getting you know filling my throat get all like i was getting like choked on things my throat was swelling i'm like dang it it broke my heart so then i just i said it had to be something else so i tried it literally like two other times. I literally almost killed myself with an EpiPen and you're going, it's gotta be something else for sure. The final time it got dangerous. We were at Sorenix and I like thought I was going to have to call 911 and like,

damn it. I'm so mad. Yeah. My wife can't eat shellfish either. Yeah. Somebody out there needs to find a cure to that. I would. Oh, I'd be upset.

I love. What is a grit, by the way, man? Living in the South, you see people with a big old plate of grits, and I go, what in the. This is a grain, isn't it? I don't know what it is, to be honest. I don't know. Is it grain? People try to explain it, and I still can't know.

It's like they explain it like you are right now, and I go, still answer yeah that's uh yeah actually yeah um zach where can uh where can people find you man yeah so i'm on i'm not super active but i'm on instagram i think i'm zach m fitness um so that's probably the best doesn't remember his handle that is impressive sir i know i know um i see what you guys do you guys get those super smart dudes who just aren't going to do social media and then you do it for them really they're out there honing their craft i work on the computer all the time you think i'd be more tech savvy and i i can barely even share a story i had to message flop you guys had flabby on two weeks ago i was like how do i share the like the new website thing?

I would much rather just do my work. It's brilliant. I'd much rather just do my craft than social media. Like I'd rather coach. I'd rather do what I do instead of worrying about what story I put up. Like I, you know, I want to create the story and let someone else put it up,

you know, like, yeah, I want to do what I do. Yeah. Like I want to, it's and let someone else put it up. I want to do what I do. Yeah. It's my craft. I lost my way for a minute. I started wanting to do social media.

I'm not a social media person. I keep telling myself I'm going to. I don't know why, but then I don't. I just get somebody to do it for you if you feel like you need to. I'd rather just work for Rabbit and just bring me these world-class athletes and let me crush it. I love it. Yeah.

Hell yeah. So much fun. Doug Larson. Oh, MASH. You were just talking. I forgot about you. Where can the people find you? Well, if you really want to get jacked, go to Rapid. And get the whole kit and caboodle.

But otherwise, go to matchlead.com. But be the ones, find me. Kit and caboodle. Kit and caboodle. You guys ever heard that word, kit and caboodle? Yeah. Not on the Shrug Show, but yeah, in life. Now you have.

I feel like my grandma probably said it once. Oh, kit and caboodle, baby. Douglas E. Larson. I'm on Instagram, Douglas E. Larson. And we just started an Instagram account because we haven't had Instagram before. Oh, look at that. We were just talking about that. Arte Performance Lab on Instagram.

Check it out. And I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. And we are Barbell Shrugged to Barbell underscore shrug. And make sure you get over to ArateLab.com. That is where you can learn about all the lab lifestyle and performance, testing analysis, program design, and all things to make you feel and perform your best. And you can access all of that over at ArateLab.com. A-R-A-T-E-L-A-B.com.

Friends, we'll see you guys next week.