Dhru Purohit Show - Why Auditing Your Calories is Key

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, everyone, have you ever heard an expert say, calories do not matter. Not only have you probably heard somebody say that, but you might have even heard me say that in the early episodes of this podcast because I looked up to a lot of people who at the time held this belief. And then, when presented with new information, I changed my mind. And today's episode is all about how and why I think it's so important for everybody that follows me in my audience that not only wants to look good from the outside, that means be strong, be fit, move closer towards your optimal body composition, but also feel good on the inside.

Starting point is 00:00:42 And I'm here to tell you that calories do matter. Now, are they the whole story? No, but they absolutely matter. And it is possible to overeat healthy food. I know because I had a major light bulb moment on my own journey, even though I'm somebody that never struggled with weight gain. I fell into the category of skinny fat, which is very common for my phenotype, individuals from Asia who are undermuscled. That's me. I grew up vegetarian, under eating on protein, not working out a lot, largely because I didn't feel like I saw a lot of progress in the gym because I wasn't having enough protein.

Starting point is 00:01:19 And even though I was active, I was flabby a little bit around the waistline and undermuscled around the rest of my body. I was skinny fat. In fact, when I first went in to measure my body composition, I was pretty surprised that somebody who was pretty skinny and lean like myself, even though I was 40 years old when I first did it, measured in at about 26% body fat. When I went to a few of my friends and started asking questions as to how this was possible,

Starting point is 00:01:46 I found out some pretty shocking truths. And some of those truths were I was under-eating on protein, I was overeating on fat, Even though all the fat in my diet was good source of fat, I was under-eating on fiber at various times in my diet. And even me, yes, even me, I was overeating in those instances when I would have a healthy processed food, like a lot of the things that they sell at Airwine and Whole Foods, I was overeating those calories without having something that we're talking about today, which

Starting point is 00:02:18 is calorie awareness. Calories are not the full story. But yes, I personally do believe, and the evidence supports this, and the guest today on today's compilation episode are going to dive deep into this, is that you can overeat even healthy foods and still gain weight, which is why we need to understand the power of calorie awareness, which is exactly what today's compilation episode is all about. The three people that we have featured today were part of the community that helped me change my mind and evolve my thinking to say,

Starting point is 00:02:52 absolutely the quality of the food you eat matters the most. But we can't throw calories out the window and say that they don't matter. That's a good recipe for under-eating on protein, under-eating on fiber, overeating on fat, and overeating on processed foods. And yes, that even includes healthy processed foods that are out there. You know, in this world of wellness, there are different camps and you'll often hear polarizing information. They'll be the people that say the only thing that matters is calories and quality of food doesn't matter that much. That's one extreme. And another camp that says calories don't matter and they're not a good way and a good direction of tracking them that leads to weight loss. And the truth is somewhere in between. And that's what today's

Starting point is 00:03:34 episode is about. Our first guest that we have featured was one of the first people that really helped shift my mind on this topic and bring a lot of nuance to the picture. And that is Dr. Gabriel Lyon. I'm featuring part of our interview together that was done in the past where Gabriel Lyon specifically talks about this idea of doing a calorie audit, why it matters and why it's so important. Now, before we jump into what Dr. Lyon has to say, I just got to mention this. As I've learned from all my friends in the space who are way more qualified than I am on this topic, if somebody has a history of disordered eating, they really need to be working with somebody who's trained in helping individuals work through that process.

Starting point is 00:04:16 Some of the advice that is here on today's episode, while it's largely beneficial to 99% of the population, it will probably not be beneficial to somebody who is dealing with disordered eating. So just note that. And in the show notes, we'll put some resources for those that are looking for resources. Let's jump into my first conversation for today's compilation episode, Dr. Gabriel Lyne, who talks about the importance of tracking with all areas of our life, but especially nutrition, and how at least auditing your calories for a short period of time, which is, what the guests are advocating for today could be something that could help you achieve your health

Starting point is 00:04:50 goals. So we already know you want to track protein because most people are under eating on protein. From there, what do you think about tracking other calories? Do you track your money? Drew. I think this is where people get confused because a lot of people have budgets, but they may not look at like the day they like have spending allowance. But overall, but you had to sit down and create a budget, right? Yes. You also track the gas in your car. And you also track the numbers of, I don't know, your blood pressure or your cholesterol numbers, you get a baseline. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:30 We get a baseline for everything. It is unfair to say that we should not track calories, at least in the beginning. You have to get a baseline. Beginning is how long? How long would you say people track calories? Two to four weeks. Okay, two to four weeks. Two to four weeks.

Starting point is 00:05:43 Put it in an app. Otherwise, could, you know, there's a way forward. There's a way forward that could take you a really long time, whether it's months or years, a way forward where you're just going to begin to clean up your diet slowly. Or you can say, you know what? Here's my target. I want to lose weight, build muscle, X, Y, and Z. They owe it to themselves to track.

Starting point is 00:06:09 I'm not asking for forever. I'm asking for two to four weeks. get a baseline and perhaps you never have to do it again. Get a baseline, get an understanding of where you are. After that, you should design a diet that is within your goals. And I put in a handful of tracks in the book, whether it is a longevity plan, whether it is a weight loss plan, or whether it is a muscle building plan. Build out your diet, you'll prioritize protein.

Starting point is 00:06:39 You can decide if you are metabolically healthy or unhealthy, meaning, do you have 10 or more pounds to lose? If you have 10 or more pounds to lose, perhaps lower your carbohydrate. You can either increase your protein or increase your fat, but lower your carbohydrate a little bit. As it relates to designing a diet, figure out what your macronutrient profile is going to be. Then track it and see what that looks like so you know. Once you know, then it doesn't have to be a complicated thing, but you do have to know because let's say tracking calories is a losing battle. There's a national weight registry. And we know that those individuals that do not regain weight, track their weight, and their calories. Say that one more time. So we know that people that do not

Starting point is 00:07:25 regain weight that they lost. Correct. They track their weight and they track calories. Yes. So that's your goal. If you want to improve your body composition, which is usually for people, they'll say losing fat, losing weight. What they really mean is losing fat. And for you, it would also be, hey, I want you to drop some fat and build some muscle, which also might be. And so many people in my gym, especially women, are so mind blown that actually their weight doesn't change that much, but they look incredible.

Starting point is 00:07:59 Yeah. I'm sure you have this all the time because you used to also. Did you compete? Did I? Yeah. Yeah, you used to compete. So you know that world firsthand. So really what people are looking for is body composition. That's what they're looking for. And again, if you, we have to hold people to a high standard. I know that you're saying and that many people say that people will not track,

Starting point is 00:08:20 but I think we can hold people to a higher standard. And I think by holding them to a higher standard, we can actually move the needle. And that is as it relates to body composition, as it relates to tracking, as it relates to exercise, you have to know what you're doing. And in every other domain in life, we track. We just do. And for some reason, this idea of not tracking calories, it doesn't have to be forever, but we do have to get a baseline. And I do believe calories matter.

Starting point is 00:08:48 And we do have to have a understanding of where we are to determine where we're going. And it doesn't have to be complicated. It can be simple as long as it's disciplined. Agreed. I mean, I wasn't able to really make progress until I started tracking. Now today, generally I'll still keep a mental note because I, you know, people eat the same things on a pretty regular basis. That's right.

Starting point is 00:09:12 And because I did some pretty hardcore tracking for, you know, eight months, nine months. I know the food, the amount, you know, I had to get a food scale in the beginning and I would measure everything. I know, okay, great, that tablespoon of olive oil. Okay, great. That Greek yogurt. Okay, that protein. Awesome.

Starting point is 00:09:30 I hit my X amount of, you know, goals. and that's kind of like the meal that I like to have in the morning. Okay, maybe one day I've varied up, I put strawberries. Other day I varied up, I put blueberries. People generally eat the same things seasonally. Yes. Especially if they have a family because it takes too much effort and energy to be thinking about, you know, different meals every day. Right.

Starting point is 00:09:49 And so then after that, you don't have to think about it every, you don't have to think about that much. But I'll travel like I did this summer and you come back and you're throwing off your schedule and you're jet lagged a little bit. And that's when you start to fall off track a little bit. And I know that every so often, going back into tracking everything helps me reset. You said something really important there. You are aware of where potentially you fall off and where you fail or where a weakness would be. I mean, it's not really a weakness, but you know that when you're going to go and travel, that potentially you'll fall off, but you have a game plan for getting back on track.

Starting point is 00:10:24 That is the key to success, knowing where you fall off and having a plan immediately to implement to get you back on track. If people just did that, they will do tremendous. Next up, we're talking to my dear friend Max Lugavir, who I invited on the podcast because he put together this incredible cheat sheet that we'll link to from his previous episode, which is 10 tips, 10 tips that he followed that are simple, straightforward, long-term ways to improve his body composition and reduce fat. And there's this beautiful part of the podcast where Max made this incredible argument,

Starting point is 00:11:03 which I really would love you to listen to about how we cannot ignore calorie intake when we're on the journey to lose weight. And we have to have some sense of calorie awareness. Max also in this next segment shares his number one pick for the kitchen, a kitchen tool actually, that can have the most impact on this process of losing weight and helping you with calorie awareness.

Starting point is 00:11:26 What do you think is, especially in the context of people who consider themselves healthy, what is one of the biggest mistakes they make when it comes to going down the weight loss journey? Such a great place to start. I think on social media there are these, especially within the realm of weight loss, there are these two seemingly warring factions. One group is the group that claims that calories don't matter at all, right? Like calories in, calories out is a fallacy.

Starting point is 00:11:59 It's all a big myth. It's all some big conspiracy pushed by the junk food industry. or fitness influencers, what have you. And so they completely ignore that fundamental tenet, the first law of thermodynamics, that does ultimately dictate whether or not a person gains or loses weight. It's important to recognize that that is the mechanism, right? It's not necessarily the method, which I'll get into, but it is the mechanism. So whether you're on a ketogenic diet or a paleo diet or a vegan diet or a low carb or low fat diet,

Starting point is 00:12:32 if you are losing weight, by necessity, you are going to, by definition, you're going to be in a calorie deficit. If you're gaining weight, you're going to be in a calorie surplus. And just to unpack what that means is a calorie deficit implies you are burning more calories than you're ingesting every day. A calorie surplus, on the other hand, implies that you are ingesting more calories than you are burning every day. So that creates a weight gain situation. And then, of course, particularly weight stable at maintenance calories and not gaining or losing any weight. So that does matter, unfortunately. I mean, it's sort of the, it is the, as I mentioned, the mechanism.

Starting point is 00:13:14 And there are many roads to take, you know, if you want to, as I mentioned, achieve a calorie deficit. You can go on any number of diets. They all work, provided you adhere to them. And unfortunately, on the other hand, most diets fail because people tend to adopt these extreme diets, right? So the other warning faction is the side that claims that calories are all that matter, right? So, of course, calories matter, but they're not all that matter because it's, you know, I think of a calorie as a unit. Well, a calorie is a unit of measurement similar to a mile.

Starting point is 00:13:51 Like a mile is a unit of measurement. Whether you are walking a mile uphill or downhill, it's still a mile, right? Obviously walking uphill is going to be more difficult than walking that mile downhill. They're both miles, but it's the quality of the road that makes the difference in terms of your subjective experience with traversing that mile, right? Now, when it comes to sustaining over, you know, on a chronic basis, a calorie deficit with the intent of losing weight, there are a number of variables that come into play that determine whether or not or that influence whether or not that is going to be something that is more or less difficult for you to. sustain. For example, one data point that we received over the past couple years from a seminal study funded by the NIH from Kevin Hall, who's a really highly regarded obesity researcher, is that if you're consuming primarily ultra-processed foods, which are foods that you couldn't

Starting point is 00:14:48 possibly make in your own kitchen, they tend to be shelf-stable, packaged-processed foods that line our supermarket aisles, you're essentially setting yourself up for failure. Because when consuming those foods to satiety, by the time you've consumed them to a point of fullness, you've already overconsume them to the degree of about 500 additional calories, if that's essentially all the food that you're provided to, provided over the course of a day. So by sticking to minimally processed foods, the kinds of foods that you were perhaps to create in your own kitchen, cooking at home, that's akin to making that mile that you inevitably are going to need to traverse to lose weight, the equivalent of the downhill mile.

Starting point is 00:15:26 It's going to be a lot easier because that same study showed us that when people are given only minimally processed foods to consume, they tend to effortlessly, to the same degree of satiety, come in at a calorie deficit of about 300 calories. So both variables matter. Calories do matter, but they're not the only thing that matter. People actually don't know how much food they're consuming because they've never really ever had to weigh it or kind of roughly. It doesn't mean that you track your calories forever, but roughly get an idea of how many calories for their regular meals they're consuming are. So they never, as you called it,

Starting point is 00:16:01 they never audited their portion size. Yeah. Let's see if, uh, Tessa, if you can bring up Max's Instagram. But Max, I think you know the image that I'm talking about. It was the image where,

Starting point is 00:16:10 I think it was from your friend, Meow Mix or whatever her account is, Amanda. Yeah. And she had, uh, three different photos of what looked like the same meal. Yeah. But the first one is titled, right?

Starting point is 00:16:23 Weight loss. Mm-hmm. The second one is, maintenance, like a meal that's made for maintenance. And the third one, which looked very similar, just a little bit more and has some extra bananas, was weight gain. And the whole idea of this image was if you're not careful and you haven't ever had a chance to audit or note down how many calories your favorite meals are, which again doesn't mean you do it forever, you can easily be in a place even if you eat healthy. And I think that's a lot of the people that we're talking to today.

Starting point is 00:16:51 They think of themselves as being healthy, but every year they keep on adding more weight. And wondering like what's going on and how do I maybe reverse it a little bit to look as good as I did when I was 18, 19, 20. So if you're not careful, you can just easily overconsume. And I think my last point on this is that there are, and we've all benefited from this, there are so many healthy tasting, wellness junk food that's out there that still they're clean and still they're a healthy part of a regular diet. But they're so good. It's easy to over. overeat, nut butters, keto snacks, anything like that, food that has olive oil and this thing in it, that thing in it, is just so easy to overdo those if you're not paying attention to

Starting point is 00:17:38 these 10 cheetos. Yeah. Well, this is a massive misconception, I think that pervades the wellness industry, is that you can overeat super high quality food and still get fat in so doing, right? Like, that's why this polarity doesn't do anybody any favors, right? It's counterproductive. We can't make it all about calories, but we can't also make it only about food quality because if you're overconsuming avocados and extra virgin olive oil and grass-fed beef and nuts, foods that are super healthy, right? Like, we know how beneficial nuts are from the standpoint of health, extra virgin olive.

Starting point is 00:18:18 But you can over-consume those things and get fat in the process. So we have to like take the middle ground where we recognize that like, yeah, food quantity matters. And so does food quality. Quality influences quantity, right? But at the end of the day, that mechanism, you know, you have to hold that mechanism in the back of your head that if you're ingesting more calories than you're burning on a daily basis, you are going to put on fat. And the one thing that I'll add, so you brought up this like food auditing and portion size auditing with it, which I think is super important. Also in the wellness industry, we live in a time where, you know, there's endless, there's an endless barrage.

Starting point is 00:18:58 Your average wellness interested person is inundated by an endless barrage of marketing for biohacking tools, gizmos, gadgets and things like that. And my house, trust me, is loaded with them. Like, I'm very much a consumer of these kinds of things. But I will say that the number one biohacking wellness tool that a person can have in their kitchen, by a long shot is a digital food scale. Like the digital food scale is like the number one investment from like a technology standpoint. It sounds rudimentary, but from a technology standpoint, it's the number one investment that you can make in your, in your health.

Starting point is 00:19:34 It's like 10 bucks on Amazon, 10, 12 bucks. It's super cheap. Yeah. I mean, mine was like $16. And so just explain to people who have never used a digital food scale. What are you using this for in your day, right? When you're thinking, I don't know if you do meal prep or you're planning out your meals, exactly or you know how you cook at home but walk them through how you're using a digital food scale and how that's tied into you dropping down to you know you probably lost how much fat total do you think you lost i probably lost like 15 15 to 20 pounds of pure fat yeah and as you can see on there i've actually increased my skeletal muscle your skeletal muscle yeah which is not which is not the most not necessarily the easiest thing to do for most people.

Starting point is 00:20:20 Anybody who's tried to do it, it's tough. Yeah, but it's actually pretty easy when you follow the cheat codes, when you keep your protein high and when you train intensely, when you keep your training up. It's actually, so this is what's called body recomposition. So losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time. Many people think that that's an impossibility, but it's actually not an impossibility.

Starting point is 00:20:37 And particularly for somebody who's naive to training, like you can very easily gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. And the leaner you get, it becomes more difficult, but provided you're keeping your protein intake up, it's still possible. It's still very much possible. It's not inevitable that you lose muscle is the whole point, which is really important. Because, again, nobody wants to come out of a diet looking just like a smaller, more gaunt version of themselves, right? They want to look more muscular, more able-bodied, right? Whether you're a male or female.

Starting point is 00:21:07 Yeah. And so the digital food scale, I think, is really important. For one, all the calorie counts of all foods, well, there's a few, there's a few reasons. For one, the calorie counts of foods are determined by food weight. So volume can lie, right? But food weight typically doesn't. Like the volume of a food, I mean, we see this on, you can see this on food packaging, right? Like the volume is foods are measured and packages are filled with accordance in accordance

Starting point is 00:21:36 to their weight, not necessarily their volume. Food settle over time. So that's one. Two, just the mere act of observing the serving size that you're consuming and the number of servings that you're consuming is actually there's a phenomena called the Hawthorne effect where when a person is being observed, they tend to act more morally, morally sound, right? Just because they feel like they're being observed. So it automatically influences the way that we behave. So I've actually applied this effect to just observe. the amount of food that we're eating, observing ourselves, essentially.

Starting point is 00:22:13 When you observe that you're consuming three servings of a food, right? It's just a, it adds a little bit of friction, right? Like, you, because you see the amount of calories per serving and like, are you really intending on consuming three servings of a food? Like, is that really what you need right now? or are you just pouring mindlessly, you know, the rotini from the, you know, from the box, because, I mean, that's super, it's super easy to overconsume and like, you know, we have no sense of how much we're consuming when we're just pouring mindlessly.

Starting point is 00:22:47 On the other hand, when you use a digital food scale that weighs on a gram to gram basis, it's just a lot easier to audit and become, and thus become conscious of what it is that you're eating, which I think is just so important, bringing a little bit of like mindfulness to our food, right and so yeah and so i think that that's like a big a big boon to health to make sure that we're not overconsuming food and to just put a little bit of attention on the food that we're on the foods that we're consuming last year i turned 40 and it's funny you mentioned olive oil like i am such a huge olive oil fan and like i go on olive oil tastings during my vacation it's like a big part of and i and i love going to italy and my wife have been a few times so for my 40th birthday i took my whole family to

Starting point is 00:23:29 Italy. And we were at this villa and we had set up this olive oil tasting. And you know, you're generally there and you're eating a lot and other stuff. But I go ham on olive oil. Like I go crazy. So then I came back and I said, all right, largely in part of like interviewing really great guests on this podcast, some of the people that have been on your show as well to Dr. Gabriel Lyon and other individuals. I said, okay, I'm 40. I know that I'm under muscle. I grew up vegetarian. I wasn't really eating protein. You know, I got to focus on that and I got to start strength training. I kind of started to get into it, but I haven't been like working out since high school like you. So I was like, let me get serious about it. So I knew I needed support. I signed up

Starting point is 00:24:07 with this group here in LA called Ultimate Performance. Love it. And they were the ones that really were like, okay, we're going to look at every single thing that you're eating. You're going to take a photo and they made it simple through an app and everything. And initially, because I had some very strong goals, I needed to not only take photos of it, but I had to use a food scale for it. And I actually had to enter into the app. They have their own custom app, but there's plenty of apps that are out there that people can use. And I got a chance to see firsthand that I was having, in one of my sort of big fat salads or whatever, I was having like a quarter of my total calories just from like olive oil and dressing alone. And when you are trying to, in my case, I was trying to drop fat

Starting point is 00:24:51 because sure it was right after the trip, but I came in, I didn't do in-body scan, but they did caliber testing, right? Multiple point body caliber testing. I came in at 26% body fat. Wow. Right. Probably before that trip, I was probably more like 22, still out of my ideal zone of what a, young, healthy male should be. So I started at 26% body fat. I started tracking things. I started following, we were kind of on a simpatico journey, but I didn't know your cheat codes at that time yet, but I was kind of following it with this group, who was also respecting the fact that, hey, I don't like to eat a ton of carbs, because when I ate a ton of carbs,

Starting point is 00:25:28 some of my markers on my life force get out of whack, my fasting insulin, my glucose variability is all over the place. I can't focus as much. So I don't want to eat no carbs or low carbs. I just don't want to eat a ton of carbs. So they were willing to work with me on my journey. I want to have some questions for you on that. and just through regular strain training and cutting back on some of these things, following a lot of

Starting point is 00:25:52 these cheat codes that you have here, keeping my protein high, by January I'd gotten to 12.5% body fat. Amazing. We'll have to throw up a little before and after. Wow. I went from skinny fat to skinny lean, and now I'm just trying to add muscle mass, you know, just add like 0.8 to a pound of lean muscle mass a month through strength training and things. And I think that was a big aha moment for me, similar to some of the things you're talking about. I don't study nutrition.

Starting point is 00:26:19 I'm not writing about it like you. I'm definitely not the expert. I get just to ask great questions to people like you. But even I found myself in that position of the confused individual thinking, I'm eating really, I'm eating so healthy. I'm eating all these clean foods. I'm even watching all these glucose spikes and watching my continuous glucose monitor. my fasting insulin is in the optimal range. It's like a 2.5.3.

Starting point is 00:26:48 And yet still, I have all this belly fat around me, right? I'm in the skinny fat category like a lot of Indians are. And I had to go through this own process myself to see, oh, wow, you cannot ignore the whole calories conversation. I think a lot of people are waking up and having that moment as well. How do you think? If you would think from the other side of things, right? Like you said there was two groups.

Starting point is 00:27:11 There's the extreme energy balance people that even say like it doesn't even matter to have extra chemicals in your diet. Everything is a chemical, right? That's one of your favorites. To this other group is like, look, whether it's extreme carnivore or fat people that just say, look, just eat whole foods and nothing else matters. How did the whole foods extreme fat people, if you would stress test their sort of framework how they got there, not to lump them all together, but kind of have to for the sake of this question.

Starting point is 00:27:45 What do you think led them to that conclusion that calories, you know, didn't matter? Yeah. Not that they weren't important, which is what you're saying here. You're kind of somebody that I see that's in the middle, but they got to a place where they were like, hey, calories don't matter at all. You don't even need to really be tracking them or thinking about them. Yeah. I mean, just because somebody doesn't count calories doesn't mean that calories don't count, right?

Starting point is 00:28:08 A lot of people make the mistake of adopting these diets, whether it's the ketogenic diet or the carnivore diet or whatever. And it's just so dramatically different from their prior diet, which in often cases is the standard American diet. So somebody on the standard American obesogenic way of eating will, you know, they'll get caught up in one of these diet tribes on social media. Typically how it happens, you know, whether it's a ketogenic diet or the carnivore diet or the vegan diet. And any diet generally, any dietary modification, any added attention that one puts on their diet is going to be better than the standard American diet. And so they'll start to see progress, right? They'll start to see an improvement, whether it's in their health or their body composition,

Starting point is 00:28:50 especially when adopting a diet like the ketogenic diet, which is, you know, going to be higher in protein, higher in fat, a carnivore diet, which is typically going to be way higher in protein. Again, protein's most satiating macronutrient. And so these are diets that are inherently more satiating than their standard American diet counterpart, right? Same with the vegan diet. The vegan diet, you know, maybe it's, maybe they are more protein conscious if they, you know, if they're on ramp to it was like, you know, a more rational, reasonable, you know, advocate for it. But even if not, I mean, the vegan diet tends to be higher in fiber, which is satiating, right? So generally people will adopt these somewhat more satiating diets and they'll lose body fat.

Starting point is 00:29:34 to a point, right, until they start adding in the fat bombs or they start, you know, or their carnivore diet is composed primarily of really fatty meat, right? And then they see their weight loss stall. And that's typically what you'll see happen, right? People on, you know, ketogenic diets, you know, they're putting lots of butter in their coffee perhaps, right? Which don't get me wrong, I think, you know, buttery coffee is delicious. But, but that's when people will start to see these, like, weight loss stalls. And they're wondering, like, what am I doing wrong? I'm doing all the things that I'm supposed to be doing right. And that's where it becomes clear that they're neglecting the fact that, or maybe they just haven't been told that calories still matter,

Starting point is 00:30:13 regardless of what your dietary way of eating, you know, what your preferred way of eating is, right? And so there's this fallacy that calories don't matter because it got them to a certain degree of progress. It led to a certain degree of progress. But if they neglect to acknowledge that calories do matter, then that oftentimes can serve as a pitfall where they stall. And that's where you really start to have to look at your diet and be like, okay, well, where can I remove, maybe I can cut back on some of the fat calories. I thought it was really cool when Sean Baker, who's a well-known carnivore advocate for the carnivore diet, he's a fairly aggressive personality on social media, but I, you know, I enjoy his content. He only eats meat, right? And he acknowledged

Starting point is 00:31:00 recently that he aspires to get leaner and to get leaner, what's he doing? He's cutting back on the fat calories because he already doesn't eat any carbohydrates. So to get leaner when you're on a carnivore diet, turns out calories do matter after all. You do have to reduce the fat calories. And you see this all the time with the carnivore diet, ketogenic diet, because if the carnivore diet and the ketogenic diet, you know, if for whatever reason calories didn't matter on those dietary plans, then everybody on those diets would be shredded. And they're not. Like I look at people all the time on social media. I go into people's accounts and usually it's the people, it's those that have their, you know, carnivore diets, you know, carnivore diet or

Starting point is 00:31:35 ketogenic diet are in their bios. Hashtag. Yeah. It becomes like that's part of, that's their, that's suddenly their tribe. And they're not, they don't have like, they're not, they don't have like great body compositions. So we have to acknowledge that that that calories do matter, but they're not all that matter. It's kind of like one group is saying, hey, look, it doesn't matter that you save. It's all about how much money you make. Yeah. And the other group is like, no, no, no, it's about saving. And then it's actually like if you're really trying to build wealth in your life, it turns out it's a little bit of both. Right? It's how much money you make. And it's also spending because we've all read those stories of celebrities who made a ton of money and yet ended up

Starting point is 00:32:13 bankrupt because they were spending a ton of money. Yeah, absolutely. Like for me, somebody who was starting out at 15, 16% body fat and is well aware, for example, of the benefits of extra virgin olive oil. Like I was consuming extra virgin olive oil liberally and I was healthy. And we know that Extra virgin olive oil is the healthiest oil to consume. It's got an anti-inflammatory effect. Meta-analys show, and it's a staple in the Mediterranean dietary pattern, which we know is associated with positive health outcomes and the like. So a perfectly healthy food, right?

Starting point is 00:32:42 But one tablespoon of oil has as many calories as a large honey crisp apple. And when you're looking to economize in your diet and to reduce the calories so that you can drop some body fat, it's a lot more, I think, in terms of. enticing to look at where you're ingesting all of these added fat calories so that you continue, you can continue to eat really satiating whole foods like a honey crisp apple, for example. I'm just using that as an example. And ultimately, it's only 500 calories a day that you need to cut and maintain on a consistent basis to lose a pound of fat a week.

Starting point is 00:33:20 And so if you're ingesting two tablespoons of oil, which if you're eating out on a regular basis or if you're consuming, you know, as I often recommend a salad a day and you're just liberally pouring the extra virgin olive oil and without auditing it, right? You could be ingesting hundreds potentially of calories of just pure fat that could be sabotaging your weight loss. Yeah, even though it tastes great and you had a little bit of salt, it's just so easy to consume. Yeah. Like I go to a salad chain frequently. There's a salad chain, you know, like there's a few of them on the coasts. I don't, you know, they're probably fairly ubiquitous at this point. And I would get my salads made with a custom dressing of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, right? And the

Starting point is 00:34:04 person behind the counter, underpaid staff asks you, would you like your oil light, medium, or heavy, right? They're not measuring it. They're just kind of willy-nilly squirting it in there. And you're essentially leaving your fat loss progress in their hands without properly auditing that fat. And the swing is likely massive, right? It makes a lot less of a difference with the balsamic vinegar, which has negligible calories, but with something like oil, which is, again, the most calorie-dense food that exists, yeah, it can be a big barrier to somebody like losing, you know, and it could also be a source of like unintentional fat gain, right? Because we talk all the time about how healthy extra virgin olive oil is for you. But even that needs to be, like we need to,

Starting point is 00:34:45 I think it can be really helpful to audit, right, like where these added fat calories are coming from. It's so true. Our final guest on today's compilation episode is one of my friends, JJ Virgin, who's been on this podcast multiple times. She's a celebrity nutrition expert and one of the go-to authors and authorities in the space of merging both the world of wellness and traditional performance. And she's one of the go-to authorities for individuals who are learning how to manage the quality of the diet with the quantity of the diet and also the importance of training. In this section here, AJ talks about developing the skill, literally exercising the muscle of how to track properly.

Starting point is 00:35:30 She goes deep into sharing about her favorite tracking apps for calories as well as her top dues and don'ts. Let's listen in. So let's talk about tracking, right? Some people feel like it's intimidating. Remind us again why it's so key. And then what is the best way to go about it? Like, what are some of the tips that are there to actually make it part of your life? But for somebody to feel like, oh, my life is not consumed by tracking. Right. And this is not you're going to track for the rest of your life. So that in itself already should give people some ease.

Starting point is 00:36:02 Right. And with anything I do, I go, why don't we just do this for a week or let's just do this for 21 days? Can we agree we could do anything for 21 days? We've had to track other things. So it's not like this is out of the ballpark. We're just going to start with this. Just let's do it for a week and see. And the research is so clear that people who track.

Starting point is 00:36:22 are able to maintain their weight better. So, I mean, just that. So for me with tracking, the first thing I like people to do is just track. Don't make a change. Just track. And let's track for a week and let's see where you average land. How many calories are you average eating a day? How many protein grams are you eating per day in at each meal?

Starting point is 00:36:46 How much fat? How much carbs? How much fiber? That's it. Let's just track. Let's just check it out. And do you have a best app or thing? Obviously now we have so many great technologies.

Starting point is 00:36:55 Back in the day, people used to have use like workbooks and a little calculator. So when I first started this, I made people write this all down. And then finally they were like emailing it to me, texting it to me. I was like, I don't care how you do it. You just must send it to me because I want to make sure you're actually tracking it and measuring it. It's so much easier now. So there's two that I love. I love Lane Norton's Carbon app.

Starting point is 00:37:18 And I also love just this is a free one. It's chronometer. Chronometer. Yeah. It's so easy. It's free. Yeah. And I don't know about chronometer, but like can you like scan a barcode?

Starting point is 00:37:32 So typically like if you get eggs or this, you can scan it. And then it remembers. It learns your stuff. So generally most people are eating minus eating out. They're generally eating the same meals. You know, they probably have like 13, maybe 20 go to meals. that they're making on a regular basis. So once you get them in, you're just pulling that same meal up or that same food up.

Starting point is 00:37:55 It is a pain to start and then it gets very easy. And it also can be a challenge when you're eating out. But it's so mission critical because now of a sudden you are actually asking the questions that I always teach people to ask that they don't ask. You're really looking what you're ordering. How much protein is in that dish, right? So you can do it and it will change your behavior so quickly. So that's why just like week one, you don't have to change anything.

Starting point is 00:38:22 All you need to do is track. Just by tracking, guess what will happen? You will start to change your behavior like, oh my gosh. Because it also will make you think if you are going to grab that extra keto cookie. Because it all counts. Too much healthy foods unhealthy. And I'd argue with a lot of the stuff out there. It's amazing after the virgin diet, you know, I had to field so many questions of all this gluten

Starting point is 00:38:48 free junk food. And then keto had a resurgence and now there's all this keto junk food. You know, it's like for the most part, the closer we can get to nature, we're going to be better off. So the first thing you do is start with tracking. And I like to do one thing at a time because if you give people too many things, they do nothing. Yeah. Right. So my first thing is if all you started with was to start tracking. And I will no longer, I work with a couple clients now and we actually are doing this with groups. If you won't track, I will not work with you. Won't do it. Everyone, it's true again. You know, I told you at the top of this episode, I changed my mind

Starting point is 00:39:29 on this topic because of my own personal experimentation. What I didn't mention is that even though I came in at about 26% body fat, my metabolic labs look still pretty good. In fact, they were optimal. My fasting insulin was around 3, 3.5. My A1C was in the optimal range. Everything else in my metabolic health, except for my LDL, which historically, genetically, I've been a hyper-reabsorber of cholesterol. Everything looked good. So you wouldn't even necessarily know. But we know at that body fat percentage, I wasn't building up my reserve of lean muscle mass, which has all sorts of protective aspects to the body and will help me as I age. And not even that. I didn't feel strong. I didn't feel strong carrying on that extra weight and not being as muscled as I'd like to be. The other thing that I didn't tell you is that when I got serious about this and I started developing calorie awareness, it doesn't mean that I track every single thing that I eat forever. It means that I have awareness of what I'm putting in and I'm prioritizing protein and I'm tracking it and I'm making sure that I'm getting enough fiber and I'm not overeating on the foods that I used to overeat on.

Starting point is 00:40:34 When I developed that calorie awareness, which is really the action item that all three guests today, J.J. Max and Dr. Gabriel Lyon talked about when I developed that awareness, things drastically changed my life. I started working with the trainer around the same time, and by prioritizing protein, making sure I was having the amount that I needed, not overeating, especially on the high quality fats that I over ate on, like olive oil and my favorite dressing, primal kitchen dressing. I used to pour it like crazy. And I just said, okay, let me just dial it down to an actual serving, not five servings that I didn't know that I was adding to my salad, getting the appropriate amount of fiber. And obviously, I mentioned I was resistance training through this process.

Starting point is 00:41:10 When I did that, in a matter of under a year, it was about 10 to 11 months, I went from 26% body fat down to about 12.5% body fat, which felt a little bit too lean for me. So I kind of stabilized right around like 15% body fat during that time period. I added about 10 pounds of lean muscle mass. Again, all tracked through caliber testing. I didn't have a Dexa scan. Otherwise, I would have compared it to that. And I felt stronger. I felt more confident. I also looked better as well. My wife noticed it. And I'm not saying my goals or your goals. You have your own individual goals. do feel that my audience has been sometimes at a disservice for individuals that tell them calories don't matter at all. Now, there's so many nuances and I have all the experts that come

Starting point is 00:41:55 on the podcast that talk about this. There is something unique that happens to women, especially when they're going through that perimenopause phase into menopause, that their body changes, the changes in estrogen, and that does redistribute fat in different parts of the bodies. And yes, still, though, largely from the evidence that I've seen, calories are important to have awareness on because at any stage of our life, young, middle, or old, we can overeat on healthy things. And if we just get a better sense of our favorite foods and the impact that I have on our body, when we overconsume them, then we can decide whatever we want to do. If you want to continue tracking, great. That long-term tracking of calories doesn't seem to be a viable solution

Starting point is 00:42:37 for a lot of people unless if that works for you and floats your boat. Amazing. But I have seen the people that develop calorie awareness, they don't always need to long-term track, but they have enough awareness to know when they need to dial things back. All right, with all that being said, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. And you got a little bit of an opportunity to go on the journey that I went on when I was presented with information from my friends and peers that helped me evolve my thinking on this super important topic. I'll see you later on this week for another episode of the Drew Perot podcast.

Dhru Purohit Show - Why Auditing Your Calories is Key

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