Mark Bell's Power Project - The 3 Keys to Losing Fat Without Losing Strength

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Discover the simple secrets that make fat loss easy while keeping your strength strong—change your habits and see real results fast. In this episode of Mark Bell’s Power Project Podcast, hosts Mark Bell and Nsima Inyang share smart tips from episode 1140 to help you drop extra weight without giving up power.In this episode you’ll learn:• How rest helps cut fat and beat bloat• Ways to handle hunger and use breaks from eating• Tips for eating protein and mixing workouts to build muscleMark Bell’s Power Project Podcast keeps you moving with real advice for everyday guys chasing better health.Special perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained:   ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast➢ https://www.PowerProject.live➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerprojectFOLLOW Mark Bell➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybellFollow Nsima Inyang➢ Ropes and equipment : https://thestrongerhuman.store➢ Community & Courses: https://www.skool.com/thestrongerhuman➢ YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=enFollow Andrew Zaragoza➢ Podcast Courses and Free Guides: https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz/Chapters:0:00 Sleep Sabotages Fat Loss1:51 The Truth About Rapid Fat Loss5:20 How Staying Lean Improves Performance7:12 Balancing Fat Loss and Strength10:54 Sluggish Workouts? Fix Sleep and Nutrition12:52 How Hard Training Wrecks Sleep16:26 Why You Need Less Energy as You Get Fitter18:09 Sleep’s Hidden Impact on Weight Loss21:10 Mouth Taping for Better Sleep and Fat Loss22:43 Why Sleeping Earlier is a Fat Loss Hack25:47 Understanding the Scale for Fat Loss27:23 Habits That Can Kill Your Progress30:36 Track Weight Changes to Stay Motivated32:11 DEXA Scans: The Fat Loss Goldmine35:17 How Mirrors Can Help You Lose Fat36:52 The Bodybuilder’s Secret to Shredding39:58 Hungry? Learn to Manage It41:36 The Best Meat Choices for Dieting44:55 Short-Term Fasting for Fat Loss Boost46:30 Hunger Cues: Control, Don’t Let Them Control You49:59 Why Fast Weight Loss Can Backfire51:38 Keep Muscle While Losing Fat54:54 Adapting Strength Training During Dieting56:31 How Lower Reps Save Strength While Dieting59:47 Be Consistent for Long-Term Results1:01:26 Personal Assessments for Better Health1:04:24 The Nervous System’s Role in Fitness1:05:53 Simple Workouts That Burn Fat1:09:03 Lightweight Training for Recovery1:10:42 How Compliments Keep You Motivated1:14:00 Why Dieting is a Skill You Need to Learn1:15:25 Measure Progress to Break Plateaus1:18:38 Calorie Ranges for Easy Fat Loss1:20:11 Focus on the Big Lifts to See Gains

When you don't get good sleep, what's going to happen is you're going to wake up, the scale won't move, you're going to be puffier, you're not going to think you're making progress. So a lot of people, what they do is they're going to bring their food down more, they'll start eating less. The thing is, what's covering their fat loss, it's that they're not sleeping enough. Let's not forget that the hunger pulses, they hit you every day and you're going to have at least a couple of them them whether you eat or not. It's amazing what fasting will do because it can sort of restore and reset the way that you feel

with hunger. Your workouts and nutrition, I think it's important that they go together in some way. That might take a long time to learn. You really have to drive this idea home. You're learning how to burn body fat. You're learning how to lose body fat. You have to eat protein and you have to break down protein. And you have to do it repeatedly. You have to do it over and over again. You know what I hate? I hate that my hair grows in so fast all the time.

Super annoying. I gotta keep shaving it. You guys. You dick. You're a horrible human being. Wow. And I know it's not just me who's angry at you for that. Yeah, starting out with some heat.

Wow. Anyway, we're gonna talk today about how you can know that you're burning fat. My dad was bald. Okay, it's a genetic thing. It's in the family. It's in the family. Doesn't your dad have a gray head of hair?

He does. Okay, all right, so get out of here. Yeah, and his hair was still, my dad's hair was still pretty dark until like he was like 60. I'm starting to get a lot of, well, starting to get a lot of grays. And then when it grows in more, it's a little grayer.

And anyway, we're gonna talk about, you know, actually like losing fat, losing body fat, which can be sometimes hard to tell. You might get on a certain diet, you might even try, let's say carnivore diet or something, and right away, week one, you might lose like seven pounds. But we know a lot of that can be water weight. That's not necessarily a bad thing,

but that can happen on some of those lower carb protocols. But really, we talk to a lot of people on the show and we talk about a lot of different things. And I think most people, what they're after is they wanna be leaner. They might not even really know it. They might just think I just wanna be a little stronger. I wanna look like I lift.

But if you wanna look like you lift, I think one of the fastest ways to get there is just to be lean. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Getting leaner is a big deal. And one of the things about it though too is like, it's tough because if you haven't been lifting at all and you're new to it and you just want to be lean,

that's probably not the best place to be. Like you want to develop. But if you've been lifting for a while and you're holding a bit of body fat, it's totally valid to want to lose some body fat. But one of've been lifting for a while and you're holding a bit of body fat, it's totally valid to want to lose some body fat. But one of the biggest mistakes I think people make when they start is trying to do a six-week cut, trying to do it way too quickly. Some people think that, you know, actually, if you do quick, fast cuts, it's not that

big of a deal, it's not that much of a problem, but I think it puts people into the cycle of losing and gaining and losing and gaining, and it's like, why not just lose a little slower, right? Focus on maintaining your performance over time, getting to that body fat, and then also feeling good when you get there, because you gave yourself some time. I think we had Bill Maeda on the show.

He was talking about, you about, Bill is very lean. And he said that that was really a byproduct of just the last couple of years. He hasn't just, he's always been lean, like let's make no mistake about it, he's always been in shape. But the leanness that he has now is something that has just kind of came around in the last couple of years

and he's like 55 years old or something like that. So, taking your time with this stuff is really important. For myself, after I finished up with power lifting and was still 275 or 280 or whatever amount of weight I was, I just remember being like, I wanna really lose a bunch of weight, downsize, and then just kind of stay there. And I remember saying to myself, okay, I'm like 280 now,

I want to get down to like 240, but I'm not going to do it in a month. Like in the next two years, it'd be great if I was like 240-ish and stayed there. And so I gave myself a lot of time and it worked well. You know what, I think as we continue on this episode, because we're both very lean, I think it's good if we give people some context

on our weight, kind of how long we've been doing this, and kind of how lean we are. Because one thing that I noticed, and I'm not knocking anyone for this, but a lot of people, they'll get lean for a period of time, and then they'll gain a bunch of weight and get out of shape, and then they'll get lean again, and it's like hard for them to hold on to it.

But, I mean, if anybody ever sees you any time of the year, you're always in shape. Anybody sees me any time of the year, I'm always in shape. And it's because a lot of things we're going to be talking about in this episode. So for me, I range, and I've been ranging between 240 and 250 for like, since 2017, 2018. 260 if you have some juice. 260 if I actually drink juice. 240 and 250 for like, since 2017, 2018.

260 if you have some juice. 260 if I actually drink juice. And we're talking about like actual like orange juice. What was it? It was the Simply Made Lemonade. Lemonade, yeah. Pink lemonade from, oh god, I could go through that. Now you're gonna order some again.

Yeah man, I'll get it to 260 so quick. But the thing is, is before that, I always kind of found it a little bit difficult to, and when I would get leaner, I would always feel like I need to get heavier. I couldn't perform well. And it was by kind of staying within this weight range for a while, it was 245 to 255, then it was 242 to 252, now it's like 240 to 250, where I can still be strong, still perform well, still do jiu-Jitsu, weight train, etc.

And I'm perpetually between 7% and 9% body fat. I'm not necessarily trying to hold this body fat, but like this is a body fat where I feel good, I feel cardiovascularly efficient, I can perform, I can still gain muscle, I've been gaining quite a bit of muscle in my forearms and hands, right? And it's just been by kind of maintaining this over the past few years.

And for yourself, how about you? Yeah, you know, performance wise, we've talked many times in the show about how there's a lot of people in CrossFit that their North Star is their performance. What's my time in this particular workout? What's my score in this particular workout? What's my score in this particular workout? How do I size up against other people?

And we've seen it, especially from the females, they get in amazing shape and they're really just concentrated on their performance in CrossFit. And I think what CrossFit does a good job of, you're not only using weights, but you're testing your aerobic system, your anaerobic system, and you're also doing a lot of things where you're just using your own body weight.

They'll do air squats and lunges and a lot of movements like that that are very taxing. And what kind of happens in my opinion, with some exercises like that, and what's supposed to happen with running, but doesn't always happen with running, is that what you learn is those workouts are gonna be way more efficient if you're just leaner.

If you just weigh a little bit less, not like you're trying to really get rid of a ton of body weight, but you're trying to dump a little bit of excess body fat because a lot of times, it's not gonna be helpful for your muscle up. It's not gonna be helpful for some of the activities that you might have.

For myself, from a performance standpoint, I would say probably the most specifically, I have felt strength dips, but beyond a strength dip, I don't think a strength dip is that much of a thing to really get too worried about because you might have a little dip here and there because of leverages. You might have a little dip here and there because of leverages. You might have a little dip here just because you weigh less. And you'll especially gonna feel that in something like a squat. You don't have that same pressure.

If you're used to wearing a belt and you have a little bit of a belly, like that pressure actually feels really good when you're doing a squat. You might kind of feel a little bit of a dip in your bench press. But again, I don't think those are things to really worry about I think your strength can come back If we're talking about somebody losing like really significant amounts of weight like 50 pounds or something. It's very obvious

You are gonna lose strength Probably all around but again that strength can come back But one thing that I look at when it comes to performance is are you kind of struggling to like get through your normal day? Like is your energy really compromised? Is your energy like high and low at like weird times? Like you can't go to sleep well, but then during the day you're like sluggish.

When you work out, maybe you feel a little faint. Maybe you feel like you're gonna pass out. I've had those feelings before. And you're trying to like lock in your glycogen and trying to lock in your electrolytes and stuff like that too. And it can be really difficult. And so when you're trying to lose body fat,

as you progress and as you start to lose a lot of body fat, you can start to, your performance can really dip, but I would say the main thing to really, in my opinion, the main thing to really be more conscious of is your energy. Like do you have enough energy to get through these workouts and to still have a good performance? Yeah, yeah, okay.

You know, I want to kind of zone in on that because you also mentioned sleep and I think we should talk about that next. But instead of, it's good as you're getting leaner and it's something to pay attention to and we'll talk about ways to pay attention the way you look, et cetera. But focusing on your, how your workouts feel,

how you feel through the day and assuring that that is kept high. Like when you're working on the gym, do you generally feel pretty good? Don't get me wrong, there are going to be days where like, so you've had a hard week of working out, there are going to be some days where you don't have the most energy. So don't expect to feel energetic every single day with every single workout. But most of the time, you should be feeling pretty ready to do some decent work. And if every day you're feeling very sluggish,

that could be a sign that you might be dieting too hard. You might have your calories too low, and that's not something you can sustain, which is I think where most people head or start when they're going on a fat loss phase. They're too aggressive because they want to lose the fat super fast, and then the performance takes a hit.

So it's great to, whether it's like your workouts in the gym, whether you're someone who does Jiu Jitsu or anything, it's good to make sure like if I'm still able to perform pretty well, I'm still able to have at least two workouts during my week that feel really good, right? Maybe your other three or four workouts, they're decent and then one of your workouts

is like kind of something where you back off a little bit, but you better have two good workouts during your week. Because if every single workout during your week is sluggish, that's a sign that you need to either eat a little bit more or the next thing we're going to get into, I think that makes a very big difference in terms of making sure that you're losing body fat and not muscle is making sure that you're losing body fat and not muscle

is making sure that your sleep is great. Oh man, your sleep is, yeah, your sleep is really important. Sleep, stress management. I think that those are huge factors. I don't know how like, I do know that when you have a bad night of sleep that the way that you utilize glucose in the morning, like if you eat some carbs in the morning, it changes pretty drastically. Like your reaction to carbohydrates is gonna be way worse if you have a poor night of sleep.

It is for some people, it can even register as you being like pre-diabetic, even when you're normally healthy. If you only have like four hours of sleep or a lot of interrupted sleep, it can be compromised massively. So your sleep is a huge part of it, but also your stresses in your day to day.

And I think something that came to mind when you were just talking right there, I was kind of thinking to myself, I wonder if one of the reasons why I like frequency over everything else to be able to catch enough volume for myself is because I've been perpetually losing weight for a long time.

And so while I will have days where I'm like, this is awesome, I'm gonna continue, I'm gonna just blast myself with this, because I'm running and because I'm lifting, it's very, very rare that I have like a one hour lifting session and like a one hour lifting session and like a one hour run in the same day. I would much rather for myself,

even just watching John Heck work out in here the other day, he just poured his heart and soul into some leg training. I was like, whoa, I have not trained like that in a really long time. It was impressive to see the intensity that he brings, but he's a guy that is bringing in a lot of calories. And he's, you know, he's bodybuilding, and he's after a very certain effect.

So for me, I like to kind of spread things out a little bit more, and that allows me to have the energy that I need every day. And it also feels like, I don't know if you've felt this before, but if I over train, I don't sleep well. If I train really hard, like I can, I can like, I can doze off, you know, watching TV or something like that, like maybe easier.

But actually trying to sleep, my body just hurts and I like don't know what to do with myself. Yeah, yeah, that's okay. So there's a bunch of things that are a big deal here. First off, when you do train really, really hard, I think one of the reasons why it can really negatively affect sleep, and I've kind of experimented with this over time

to see how can I still get good sleep if I've had multiple hard training days. And I found that there is a trend, at least that happens with me, when I train really hard, I also end up kind of sometimes getting in meals later at night. And when that happens, when I'm-

I feel like I need more fuel, so I just keep eating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the thing is, is also closely trend with that is when I eat closer to bed, I have a higher heart rate when I sleep, I always get worse sleep quality. I cannot sleep well if I eat like an hour before bed.

Just can't, it just doesn't work well for me. We're such babies. Hey, hey! But I think like, we're so sensitive, it's great. But this is the thing, we pay attention to these things, you know what I mean? Like, because either way, we're still gonna work through it, but the thing is, is like, can this be fixed

so that you can have hard training days, sleep well, wake up feeling good? And one of the things that kind of fixed that for me is even if I have a hard training day, even if I feel super hungry before bed, I just don't allow myself to eat. Like, I always make sure without fail these days, my food is always three hours before bed.

I'll rarely ever have food two hours before bed. But the reason why is I've noticed it's an absolute 100% trend when my food stays farther away from bed, I always have a higher HRV, I always have a lower heart rate, I always have better sleep quality. When my food is close to bed, right, it's always much worse. I always wake up a little bit heavier, a little bit more bloated. Like I can literally, I can see it in my body, right? Versus when I keep it away, I wake up,

lean, water's not there, it's just like, and I just feel better in the morning. So it's one of those things where it's like, you kinda, I'm not gonna call it a sacrifice of not eating before bed, that's too fucking major. But you need to make the rational choice not to follow what your hunger tells you to do in those situations and just do what's gonna be best

for yourself the next day. And normally you're just not that hungry, you know, you just probably had a pretty good meal. Drink some liquid. Sometimes those evening snacks are the equivalent of like waking up in the morning and you slept eight and a half hours And you had a perfect night of sleep

And you just wake up for like 20 minutes and go back to bed like you obviously don't need more sleep and the same thing happens with our food is just hard to have perspective on it because We dopamine stack you're watching TV or doing something with family or friends or you're out at night You know for dinner or something like that something with family or friends or you're out at night for dinner or something like that. One thing I wanted to mention that is probably maybe not so recognized, but I remember working a little bit with Brian McKenzie, who talks a lot about nasal breathing

when you're training. And he sent me a picture and it was of me running. And he's like, we're gonna be running like this. You're gonna run into a lot of problems, a lot of issues with like your energy. Like what? And it was, my mouth was open while I was running. And you know, I wanted to make all these excuses.

I wanted to be like, that's a hill and go ahead. Yeah, so I was going to ask, like, was it an intense run? I didn't have a good excuse. It was like, it was just like a normal run, but I was running on an incline, but I just took his advice because he's very smart and knows what the hell he's talking about.

But to his point, I mean, the reason why I'm bringing this up is because over time, hopefully, you're going to get more and more fit. As you get more and more fit, you'll need less and less stuff. For me to make it through the Boston Marathon, I needed a gallon of water. What does that tell you?

That tells you I'm in shitty shape. I did the best I could with the circumstances that were in front of me, but a high level, I mean, at the highest level, they don't need anything for the whole time, you know? And they'll also just get it done way shorter, way shorter time than me. They'll do like, you know, close to two hours or some wild shit like that.

And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because sometimes like when we're training and sometimes we just, we think that we need all this fuel, over time you're gonna become more and more efficient and you just, you won't need nearly as much to get through your workouts and you'll have all the energy you need. You don't need your intro workout,

although those have a place and they can be effective. Even electrolytes, like I know that you love electrolytes, I love electrolytes, but to go to a jujitsu class, you don't really need them necessarily at this point. They might help you to perform a little bit better, but if it's like easy roles with like local guys that aren't amazing, you don't necessarily need them. If you went to like a four hour practice

where there's some nasty people there, that's like, okay, well now because your heart rate is gonna be elevated the whole time That kind of changes the game. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's that's one thing that's gonna happen. You'll become more efficient As you're getting in better and better shape, which is gonna get it's it's gonna lead to It's gonna lead to a higher performance But one thing also that will kind of make a, that'll make a very big difference there. And it's, it's kind of going back to sleep again, because I've noticed this when I worked with a lot of people that were doing bodybuilding shows, notices myself, when you don't get

good sleep, what's going to happen is you're going to wake up, the scale won't move. And we're going to talk about those things soon. But you're going to be puffier. You're not going to think you're making progress. So a lot of people, what they do is they're going to bring their food down more. They'll start eating less. But the thing is, what's covering their fat loss isn't that they're not eating little enough food. It's that they're not sleeping enough so that they

are as stressed. They don't have as much cortisol running through their system. They're not holding on to as much water. And that masks your fat loss. So many instances where I've worked with people where it's like they were eating the same amount of food for a few weeks. They were fairly lean and they're like, coach, I don't think that I'm losing fat anymore. I'm like, okay, you know, let's just take a break this week.

I don't want you to just have lighter workouts this week. I want you to get to bed on time every night. I don't want you to stress, let's have the cardio. Boom, what happens? The weight, literally, it's like they have a whoosh of weight loss. They'll lose four or five pounds in that week. Their body will, you'll see all these different lines

and veins and they're like, what happened? It's like you finally are less stressed because you haven't been sleeping well and you've been stressing yourself out. So realize that sleep is going to be your best friend and letting you understand the consistent fat loss that you're actually making. And before you try to eat less food,

try to get better sleep to be able to really see what's going on. Try some hostage tape, tape your mouth shut. We understand when it was mentioned to us, we were like, huh, I don't get it, what is this about? But there's now a couple of books on it, there's a lot of people are talking about just how it's more efficient to breathe

in and out of your nose and simply taping your mouth shut could be something that could really help. I had a friend recently, he ended up having a surgery which I haven't heard a lot about these surgeries but he had a sleep apnea, severe sleep apnea and he had an apnea machine and all these different things and he's just recovering from that surgery

and I was like, oh, do you know about mouth tape? He's like, oh man, I don't know. I tried everything. And I was like, no, you like, this is where you tape, you tape your mouth shut at night. People think it's crazy stuff. Yeah, he was like, he's like, what? And I said, well, the surgery that you had,

it might help you to breathe in and out of your nose a little bit more, but it's not gonna really prevent your mouth from potentially opening up. I was like, do you know if you, you know, open your mouth and you sleep? He said, oh yeah, but it's not gonna really prevent your mouth from potentially opening up. I was like, do you know if you open your mouth and you sleep? He said, oh yeah, my wife's always like, your mouth is open and you're drooling all over the place. And I said, well, this would be perfect for you.

So just try some of these different things because we are talking about how do you know if you're losing body fat, but you wanna really protect your sleep. We've heard Brian Johnson recently talk about how he doesn't eat nine hours before bed, but that's what he found, and he has these perfect scores when he sleeps.

So, these are things that we're not just talking sideways out of our mouth, we are testing these things out constantly. We're trying these things and hostage tape has been something that's been around with us for a while. Like it's not, you might see some things come and go. There might be things that we try and we're like, ah, you know, I don't need to do that that often. But there's a lot of things that have stuck

and we continue to utilize those things and it's because they work Yeah, we've been doing these mountains for years. There's one last thing I'm gonna mention for sleep and I'm curious your thoughts on this mark if you agree, but like, you know There's a lot of research to show how you get more deep sleep the earlier you go to bed because that's like that's when you go Through that sleep cycle. So if you're someone who goes to bed consistently, I'm sorry for the shift workers or for the people that have to work late,

that have to go to sleep at midnight or 1 a.m., but most actually, pretty much everyone gets that type of restorative sleep earlier in the night, or they get more of it, a higher ratio of it. You'll still get- They say every hour you go to bed before 11 p.m. equals like two hours of sleep. Yeah.

So I mean, you could take that to an extreme and go to bed at seven, but I don't think you're gonna get to a point of diminished returns. Yeah, and again, like, again, I have these, I might have too many things to track, but you know, I have my eight sleep that tracks, and when I was using my aura ring a lot,

I would pay attention to the times when I would go to sleep at 10, 30, 11 p.m. and how much deep sleep I would get. And then when I'd go to sleep at my actual best bedtime, which is around 8, 30 to 9 p.m., without fail, when I go to sleep at that time, I always wake up better, I always get more deep sleep, I always wake up feeling more refreshed.

And sometimes it's like, it feels like an annoyance to go to bed at 9 p.m. I always wake up feeling more refreshed. And sometimes it's like, it feels like an annoyance to go to bed at 9 p.m. Because I'm like, I don't feel that tired, but I am tired. And there's part of me that wants to stay up, but I know that going to sleep at that time will help my brain recover better,

will help all of the work that I've put in from the day on my body will be able to recover better, which will help my performance the next day. So for all of you people that, you know, you don't want to necessarily go to sleep early, I mean, I feel like you might be shooting yourself in the foot a little bit for your fat loss and the way your body feels and your performance. It probably isn't your best interest.

Your sleep impacts everything. Impacts your mood, impacts your decision making. So if your decision making's not as good, then maybe your cravings are a little different. So we're just going to keep hammering through this list. So if your decision making is not as good, then maybe your cravings are a little different. So we're just gonna keep hammering through this list. I think another great thing to talk about, I think is another great thing to mention here is like we're talking about how you can know

that you're burning fat. That's what this is a list of, how you know that you're burning fat or how you know that you're losing fat rather. And there can be a little difference between burning fat, you could be burning dietary fat versus actually losing body fat. But this is, we're gonna talk specifically

sometimes when we narrow it down, we might be talking about somebody like getting ready for a bodybuilding show because that's like the most, that's like the most drastic version and that's something that everyone can clearly see. Like that person lost a lot of fat. And then there's also just people that are very heavy and how can they know and learn that they're losing fat?

But I think a really easy one is the scale. I think the scale is a great measure. I'm a fan of weighing yourself nearly every day, but there are people that the scale really seems to mess with their head. And no matter how you try to explain it to them that it shouldn't mess with their head, that's not really for you to determine. If it really does mess with someone's head

to weigh themselves all the time, then as a coach or as somebody that's maybe helping somebody or even just giving somebody some advice, you gotta kinda come up with a different strategy. Yeah, no, it is kinda come up with a different strategy. There's a lot of other measurements you can take. I wanna say this though, for those who the scale messes with your head,

that is totally valid, especially if you came up and just came up in a weird household where there's weird stuff with the scale, and that makes sense. But I do think it's worth it to learn to not be afraid of it because it is a really good tool. Learn to use it maybe at least once a week. If you're trying to lose body fat

and you're on this specific plan, it would be good to, at the very least, weigh yourself probably once a week. If you're trying to lose body fat and you're on this specific plan, it would be good to, at the very least, weigh yourself probably once a week. At the very least, right? Because one aspect of the scale being messed up for some people is they look at the scale, they're a little bit heavier, and they judge themselves for it, right?

And it's one of those things where it's like, you don't have to judge yourself, but it can also help you to see how your actions are affecting your outcomes. If you went to sleep really late the last night, you, let's say you, yeah, let's say you went to sleep really late the last night, you woke up and you're two pounds heavier and you feel puffy and you don't feel good. It helps you actually understand like, hey, when I get better sleep, I don't see this outcome in the morning and I don't see my face isn't puffy and I don't look this way, right? It's good to have that tool because

if you have these bad habits, but you don't necessarily have a way of seeing how these habits are affecting you, it's very easy to give yourself excuses to keep doing those things because you'll never really have something that tells you that, hey, that bad night of sleep or that late night, that alcohol you had last night, it's negatively affecting you. So you keep doing the same thing because you are blind to the effects of these things.

And it's one of those things where it's tough because it's like, how can you learn that the alcohol you're drinking or the potential food that you're eating is negatively affecting you if you don't necessarily have anything that gives you that input, right? Obviously, you can see how your clothes are fitting over time. That's an over time thing, the belt, right?

Maybe even your lifting belt. It might be like one of the first places where you see a change, you're like, oh, that's kind of cool. There's a lot of people we know that see those changes in the lifting belt, you know? And that's good. But I do think that, you know,

learning how to overcome the fear of the scale is going to be very good for you. And being able to get to a point where maybe you can weigh yourself every few days. Because I know once a week is, don't get me wrong, once a week at minimum, I think at minimum you need to have the courage to step on the scale once a week. If you don't, you're shooting yourself in the foot. But a few days a week I think is going to be good just again so that like if you're

listening to some of the habits that we're talking about and you partake and you keep being blind to how they're affecting you, it's not gonna help you out in the long run. Yeah, I don't love only weighing yourself once a week, just because like, it could be a day where you have a little extra water on you, you know? Like, there could be pretty good shifts and it's important for people to know. I actually think it's great to play this game with yourself

if you weigh yourself often, to guess your weight before you get on there. And you can kind of, like, if you just kind of like jump around a little bit or move around a little bit, you can kind of almost tell. It's very rare for me nowadays to be off by more than like a pound or two with guessing. And then also if you're being honest with yourself,

you know what you ate, you know kind of like what you did. And for me, like certain meals or, I mean, I don't really drink beer, but holy crap, like if I had some beer and let's say like some nachos or something like that, I mean, I'd be like probably 12 pounds heavier. It's insane how much of a shift you can get, but it's also really nice to learn to see,

okay, I weigh this amount and food influences me this way, water influences me this way. I mean, the liquid is gonna be just the biggest thing on there, it's gonna be the liquid. I mean, I've been messing around with doing some dry fasting recently and got all the way down to 203. But I'm like normally like 215, 216 in that range.

You got down to 203? Yeah. Holy shit, when? Just maybe like a week and a half ago. Wow. Yeah, and so I'm not staying there, right? I'm not just like, because that's a dehydrated weight, right, and so I think you have,

what I've learned though is that I'll have these lows and I'll have these highs. I'll have a lowest weight and a highest weight. And then the overall, the whole bar continues to move down of the highest weight and the lowest weight. Over time, it all continues to move downward. And I've done things before where I'll work out or I'll go on a run or I'll hop in the sauna just to register a certain number,

just to be like, cool, I weighed 210 today. Or I weighed, I did that all the way from my heaviest weight just to have something to, it's just kind of fun. If I looked at the weight and I was trying to get under 300 when I was really heavy, I might do a little workout or do something and be like, yeah, I'm 299. Yeah. Who was it on the show who had to see 200 pounds on the scale

but never got there? Do you remember? Oh, I forget who that was. Yeah, they were super pumped about bulking maybe, right? Or gaining some weight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was like, the 200 is all he wanted to see and he ended up seeing like 199.4,

but never got up to 200, unfortunately. Yeah, sometimes it works the other way too for some of those people that wanna gain, but I think going back to the scale, I think that's huge. You mentioned your clothing. You might not notice like, you know, the way that your clothes fit is gonna be probably change number one that you'll see right away.

If you're really losing a lot of fat, you might have to get different clothes. And that's how you really know your head in a good direction. That's for people that are maybe losing more weight. For myself, the thing that I tell people is, if you want a real accomplishment, change the size of your underwear.

Oh my goodness. You have to lose a lot of weight to get into some different undies, especially when you got an ass like this. I got a lot of cake back there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Caked up. And that just means you were holding a lot in there because there's your hip bones and stuff

and then there's the fat around it. So yeah, the change in underwear, that's a big deal. That's a big deal. I change them every day. I think another good thing that people can start to use, maybe twice a year, and it'll be a good measure for you, is getting a DEXA scan. Because first off, radiation from a DEXA scan

isn't something anybody needs to worry about. Some people keep mentioning that. It's like, you get like, radiation that you get from outside, just going through the day is in the, it's called microceiver, and you get 10 just by walking around. In a DEXA scan, you'll get like one

to maybe three microceiver in a scan. Right. If you're super nervous about it, maybe only do it once a year or something. Just do it once a year. But it's good to have a gauge. But it's good to have that gauge, but the thing is, is you're not only getting your body fat level, you're getting at the amount

of lean body mass you have, you're getting your bone mass, you're getting your visceral fat. So the cool thing is you're getting all these measurements and ideally, if you get it twice a year or once a year, you want to see your lean body mass going up, you want to ideally see your bone mass going up and you're going to see that body fat coming down. And you're going to be able to really get a kind of like a detailed scan of that.

So you can see how your training is affecting all these different aspects of your body. So that's not something you do all the time, but it's like, I look at those things kind of like I look at lab work, right? So I have my DEXA scans from five years ago to see how my progress has been. And I can kind of see how my training has affected the way my body, everything, is going. That's a great way of looking at it. Lab work, I think, is awesome

because it's like a snapshot, right? It's a snapshot of where your blood is at that particular moment. The body fat count is the same thing. It's an indication of like where you're at for that particular moment. And it's really nothing to get like too sad, mad or overly pumped about really.

It's just some numbers. It's just a measure. Like, oh, I'm here at this point. I'd imagine like, you know, if you found that you gained a little bit of muscle mass and lost some body fat, then you should celebrate. Like that's awesome. that's really cool. But it's kind of hard to tell otherwise.

It's hard to know, like, because these gains are so slight. It's not like we're 16 and we just started lifting. It's not like we just got into bodybuilding or just got into power lifting, where you get those crazy gains where it's obvious. You don't even really need, who cares? You don't even need to measure anything. A year and a half ago,

you weighed like 40 pounds less or something. You see these drastic gains, especially from young men that are getting into lifting. They're able to pack on a lot of muscle in a short period of time. But it can be important to get your body fat tested. I did it maybe like a few years ago and I got a little bit diligent with it

where I was going a little bit more often. But for me, I'm like, I'm probably just gonna kind of stay around here anyway. So I don't really care that much about the exact, I'll just use the scale and use the mirror. But for me at my house, you know, I use the mirror quite a bit. And I also have a mirror that kind of reflects behind me. And I could see my butt, I could see my legs,

I could see my back fat, I call it the back fat mirror. I think it's important to kind of see any and all and see if we're just looking at the front and we're just like, oh man, my chest is getting bigger, my shoulders are getting a little wider. That's going to make you feel good, which is cool. It's great to feel good, but you want to be able to see the spots that are maybe some weaknesses for you too. Don't be blind to that. Let me ask you this, Mark. What do you feel about hunger during a fat loss phase? Do you think that that is a good sign, bad sign, something that you just need to be aware of, hunger?

My homie, John Cena, right here, who's on every podcast, we got the figure right there. I asked him years ago, when I first met him, he was doing a bodybuilding show and he was just completely diced. It was insane. Probably 5% body fat, probably 240 or 245 pounds. We need to realize how insane that is.

That's just disgusting. That's insane, that's insane. He just like, yeah, he was ridiculous. He was, you know, his nickname when he was wrestling was the prototype for a reason. He just, he looked different than everybody else. But yeah, he just got, you know, completely peeled. And when he was getting ready for a reason. He just, he looked different than everybody else. But yeah, he just got, you know, completely peeled. And when he was getting ready for the show,

I remember he was like drinking like a whey protein shake, like two or three times a day, and then having like chicken breast. I don't even know if he ate anything else. He was just like crazy, you know, I don't think he's a cardio guy. So I don't think he did any cardio. I think he just had no calories and protein basically.

E-protein, no car- yeah, that makes sense. That can work. Because he just got rid of all the energy. He's not taking in any fat. He's taking in hardly any carbs. We're not saying this is what you guys got to do, but hey. He's just drinking tons of coffee. He would go to 7-Eleven and he would take

like a pot of coffee and then he would take like one of the big giant big gulps and he would just fill it up with ice and then he would just turn the coffee pot upside down. Why does it remind me of Kenny? That's something that Kenny would do. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Kenny like found this hack

that he's super pumped about. Yeah, it'd be the same thing He's a lot. He's a lot like that in a lot of ways But anyway, I asked him I was like I was like dude I was like you got to be hungry to like get in the shape that you're in cuz it's just nuts and he just started Dying laughing and he's like, yeah, bro. He's like you got he you got to be really hungry he's like but you know, it's only for a couple weeks and he's like and you gotta be really hungry. He's like, but it's only for a couple weeks. And he's like, and then, you know,

but what's pretty interesting about bodybuilding is a lot of these guys are getting pretty hungry for several weeks, six weeks, eight weeks. And I know you talked about the prep of natural bodybuilders and how their prep might last 30 weeks or 40 weeks. Like nearly a whole year, at least half a year. But they're not in a huge caloric deficit in the beginning.

It's a slow, right? It's a slow drop just to make sure that you're again, that you're losing fat and not muscle. Right. Yeah. You know, a cool thing about bodybuilding too is like this isn't something that, if you're starting with higher body fat,

let's say you're starting at 30%, you're trying to slowly get yourself down to 15, 14, this might not apply to you, but in bodybuilding, at a certain point, there's things, we have digs, where it's like, okay, you're dieting, you're dieting, you're dieting, let's say you're at 10% or 9%, okay, let's go on a dig for two weeks. We're going to bring your calories down,

you're going to feel hungry, but that dig is going to allow you to dig into your body fat stores. You're still going to be working out. You're still going to be doing cardio. It's going to feel like a drag. But those digs are when you're going to be able to lose that extra percent. And then you go back to a slight deficit

where it's like the progress is a little bit more consistent. But digs become more common, where now those digs, you're going gonna feel hungry. You have diet strategies, so you don't. So you're drinking potentially a lot of diet soda. You're eating voluminous food, like rice cakes and vegetables to fill up your stomach because you're not really getting a lot of like

great nutrient-dense food in right now. But, you know, in those phases, hunger is something that you become accustomed to and you learn to become okay with. But now on the side of not being a bodybuilder, I do think that if you're someone who is just trying to lose some body fat, I do think that it's going to be a strength for you to become okay, feeling a little bit hungry sometimes. This doesn't mean you need to feel hungry all the time.

But the reason why I think it's good to feel a little bit hungry sometimes, and maybe even, you know, this, we're not going to talk about fasting a bunch on this episode, because the listeners who've been listening to this podcast know that we like fasting, but implementing some of that is good because it helps you learn how to respond responsibly to hunger, right? Especially if you get very hungry, because the thing is, when you get very hungry, it's not good to binge and eat a lot of food. And if when you get hungry, your response is, I'm going to eat a lot of food, I'm going to binge,

and that's your continuous response, it's going to be very hard for you to stay lean and keep staying lean. Because hunger is a part of being alive when you are an in-shape individual. You're not always going to feel satiated and you're always going to not feel hungry. But the things that lean people do when they're hungry is that they don't reach for all of the food.

They eat responsibly and then go about the day or they can just wait and eat a little bit later. And if you don't have that skill right now, it's definitely a good idea to try to build that skill during your diet to just like a good idea to try to build that skill during your diet to just like, oh, I feel hungry. Okay, I'm going to eat, eat responsibly. Always eat responsibly. Do not binge.

Do not try to mitigate cheats. Because those, the habit of having binge sessions and cheat sessions of food makes it more difficult when you're actually very lean because you're always going to feel a little bit hungry from time to time All right, mark, you're getting leaner and leaner, but you always enjoy the food you're eating. So how you doing it? I got a secret man. It's called good life protein. Okay, tell me about that. I've been doing some good life protein You know, we've been talking on this show for a really long time of certified Piedmontese beef

Mm-hmm, and you can get that under the umbrella of Good Life Proteins, which also has chicken breast, chicken thighs, sausage, shrimp, scallops, all kinds of different fish, salmon, tilapia. The website has nearly any kind of meat that you can think of. Lamb is another one that comes to mind. And so I've been utilizing and kind of using some different strategy,

kind of depending on the way that I'm eating. So if I'm doing a keto diet, I'll eat more fat and that's where I might get the sausage and I might get their 80 20 grass fed, grass finished ground beef. I might get bacon. And there's other days where I kind of do a little bit

more bodybuilder style where the fat is, might be like 40 grams or something like that. And then I'll have some of the leaner cuts of the certified Piedmontese beef. This is one of the reasons why like neither of us find it hard to stay in shape because we're always enjoying the food we're eating and protein, you talk about protein leverage all the time,

it's satiating and helps you feel full. I look forward to every meal and I can surf and turf. You know? I could cook up some chicken thighs or something like that and have some shrimp with it or I could have some steak. I would say the steak, it keeps going back and forth for me on my favorites, so it's hard for me to lock one down, but I really love the bavette steaks.

And then I also love the rib eyes as well. You can't go wrong with the rib eyes. So guys, if you guys want to get your hands on some really good meat, you can head to goodlifeproteins.com and use code POWER for 20% off any purchases made on the website, or you can use code POWERPROJECT to get an extra 5% off

if you subscribe and save to any meats that are a recurring purchase. This is the best meat in the world. It's amazing what fasting will do because it can sort of restore and reset the way that you feel with hunger. Cause you just recognize that you can go a little longer. If you're new to all this,

you know, think about what I said in the beginning about how you're gonna really be building your fitness over a period of time and you're gonna, I mean, even your breathing is gonna change a ton when you're gonna really be building your fitness over a period of time. And you're gonna, I mean, even your breathing is gonna change a ton when you're lifting. You can get through a lot of your warmups and you can get through some of the harder stuff, even just with nasal breathing. But the same thing is true with fasting.

Like when you first fast, it might feel torturous, might not feel very good. So just take it like little by little, like just do like a mini fast, eat some breakfast, eat a normal breakfast and then just maybe skip lunch that day and then eat when you get home and just see. Eat a normal dinner. Yeah, can you have a normal dinner

or are you gonna like way overshoot because that middle of the day meal only takes away X percentage of calories for the day and calories matter. We don't talk a ton about them on this show because we don't love to really like hyper focus there, but it can be super important for some people. But I like that term that you mentioned where you're kind of digging down your...

Because I'd imagine you can do that, you said two weeks, two weeks might be, might feel pretty long for some people, but I'd imagine the leaner you get, probably the quicker turnaround time you can have, where you can do that even just in like a day or two. You know, you'd be like, I'm going to do a two day, you know, kind of fast and just pull a little weight off and just, I don't know,

eat like 100 grams of protein and hardly any fats and carbs. The leaner you get, the shorter your digs are. Because you just literally, you have so little calories you're working with already that when you're at like seven or six percent, you're only going to do a dig for like four or five days, but that dig is going to feel crappy. It's going to allow you to lose that little maybe 0.3%, 0.4%, where you can see a few extra lines. And then you're back to your normal deficit, right?

But even implementing a little bit of digging into your current diet might not be a bad idea. And when I say digging, I mean, you could do this. If you are eating a certain amount of food, you can implement some fasting that Mark talked about where it's like, this is a day where maybe you eat breakfast, you skip the typical meal you have in the afternoon, you eat a normal meal in the evening,

and what inherently happened, if those meals are kind of the same that what you've been doing, you inherently ate less calories that day, you're inherently a little bit hungrier, and you're going to be learning to be okay with that. Just learn not to respond and learn, just kind of be like, oh, I'm a little bit hungrier and you're going to be learning to be okay with that. Just learn not to respond and learn just to kind of be like, I'm a little hungry, but that's okay.

That's a skill that in the long run is going to be very favorable. On a podcast we did recently, I mentioned kind of, it's kind of like you're building your internal ozempic. Because ozempic is a drug that stops you from feeling hungry, but now you have that control. Where, well actually, yeah, yeah, it stops you from feeling like you want to eat a lot of food. The way that a lot of people describe it is it gets rid of a lot of the hunger noise.

Exactly. The noise of the hunger, it's like it keeps haunting you, and you're like, I gotta react to this. So what all this is doing is it's letting you learn to control your response to the noise of hunger. Because I mean, I know everyone, especially people who are very overweight, their hunger noise is very different from the hunger noise

of people who are leaner. So I'm not saying like it's the same for everybody, but the thing is, is I know my ass has a lot of hunger noise and you have a lot of hunger noise. But one thing is kind I know my ass has a lot of hunger noise. We have a lot of hunger noise. But one thing is kind of we've learned how to respond better to that hunger noise over the years because we haven't just turned it off. And I'm not, again, this isn't a judgment to anyone who wants to use Ozempic or needs to use Ozempic because it's a very good thing, especially when you're very overweight. But also it's like when you, if you decide to stop using that drug

and you have to learn how to deal with the hunger noise again, that is a skill you want to have. Because that's a skill we're going to be able to keep for the rest of our lives. I'm fine with hunger noise now because I don't always have to respond to it. And when I respond, the response is always responsible. So I never get out of shape because of that.

Let's not forget that the hunger pulses they hit you every day and You're gonna have at least a couple of them whether you eat or not There's been like a good amount of research done on this where they show pulses of hunger Hit people at least three times a day. Mm-hmm. So you get hit by it no matter what you do and What's really interesting is you'll find that if you just go and do something that it'll sort of fade away. You'll be like, it's just not there anymore. To a different degree, the same thing happens with being horny.

Like you're like, whoa, like, I don't know, something just hits you. Yeah. And maybe, you know, maybe you do go and take care of it, but like, you don't always have to, right, and there's times where it's like, it just disappeared, you know, that moment disappeared, you don't have to like, think about it as much anymore.

I do think it's important, you know, you were mentioning Ozempic, and I think for anyone losing weight, I think we have to kind of always remember that it's very hard to find a diet where you're not gonna lose some muscle mass. Some of what's happening is you are not consuming the same amount of energy any longer.

And at some point, the amount of energy you use to consume has to be quite a bit less. There are a lot of ways to like elicit a better calorie burn via getting the sun. And there's a lot of things you can do to optimize your mitochondria and optimize the energy system of the body, but it still doesn't completely circumvent

and get rid of the fact that calories matter to some extent, to some degree. And I think Ozempic and other products like it are showing us that the calorie count is something that matters. And if we want to combat the effects, the negative impact, and that's what you're talking about with a dig, like why would we do a dig?

Well, we would do a dig to get the benefit of like, bam, we're losing a bunch of fat, but we're trying our best not to lose any muscle. But in the case of dieting for long periods of time, in the case of like, you're not just in a 250 calorie deficit, you're now starting to get in a range where your output's pretty good, your input of food is like not amazing,

and maybe you're starting to get in that 750,000, like I don't know what Ozempic does, Your output's pretty good. Your input of food is like not amazing. And maybe you're starting to get in that 750,000. Like I don't know what Ozempic does. I don't know what some of those products do. But I'm just imagining on a weekly basis, it's probably cutting your calories down quite a bit. Oh, easily like 600 to 1000 calories for some people because of the rate of which they lose weight.

1000 to 600 calories a day? Yeah, isn't that much of a deficit. Right. Because people are losing weight so fast. Right. And you can tell they're losing muscle too. So it's gotta be, people don't feel as hungry. So they don't eat nearly as much.

Right. And so with that in mind, we're not suggesting that you try to ever really lose weight that fast. We don't think that's a good idea. that you try to ever really lose weight that fast. We don't think that's a good idea. It just makes the, you end up in that situation and then what? So now what you're gonna do?

Like, okay, that was a cool trick, cool party trick, but now really all you're gonna do from here is probably, you're probably gonna gain some fat if you go into even maintenance calories because you now have less muscle mass. So to some degree, you kind of have slowed down your metabolism a little bit. You slowed down your metabolic rate a little bit.

But what I want people to think about is like, you really have to drive this idea home. When you are, you're learning how to burn body fat, you're learning how to lose body fat, kind of forever you're trying to get rid of this, you're trying to get rid of this particular physique for a long time. You have to eat protein and you have to break down protein

and you have to do it repeatedly, you have to do it over and over again. You don't have to be on this like strict, like super crazy hypertrophy protocol, but you do need to wake the muscles up. You do need to do some activities that are gonna, whether it's rock climbing or you're going in the gym and training or you like cycling or whatever the thing is

that you like to do, a physical activity that has some sort of resistance is gonna be really critical and also consuming, we always just say a gram per pound of body weight, doesn't have to be that high, but it could be in the neighborhood of that and that should really help a lot. Easy. And you know, for Ozempic or not, just try it.

Just make sure, do not sacrifice your protein intake. That is going to be one of the things, especially if you're eating enough protein, like Mark mentioned, you're getting an activity and you're dropping weight, making sure you're eating enough protein, like Mark mentioned, you're getting an activity and you're dropping weight, making sure you're getting enough protein is also one of those things that's going to assure that you hold onto as much muscle as possible. Because what tends to happen,

especially for those who are on OZEMP, because they don't feel hungry, so they don't eat satiating food, meaning they eat less protein, so they lose muscle as they're losing fat, right? I guarantee that if those types of people at least made sure that they're eating enough protein while they were doing all their exercise,

they'd be holding onto more muscle. And that's the same thing if you're not using that drug. Eat enough protein along with the calories you're eating. And you can, like, this is where eating extra protein comes in line because this is what a lot of bodybuilders do. They'll take it where it's like not just a gram of protein per pound, it's like 1.2, 1.3, because it's super satiating. And then what ends up happening is like they'll end up eating less energy calories while they're

still in a deficit. So they don't feel as hungry because they're eating so much protein, but that protein and their activity they have is assuring that they hold onto muscle as they're getting leaner. So again, don't, don't neglect the amount of protein you're eating. And if you're someone who's never paid attention to that amount of protein, because I know so many people who's like, I'm eating enough protein and then they actually pay attention to the amount of protein they're eating. They're 180 pounds and they're only eating like 115 grams of protein per day.

You got a lot more food to eat and that's a blessing, but you want to make sure you're eating enough of it. We had John Heck on the podcast recently. He's a big fan of carb cycling and he's got some unique ideas around diet and stuff like that. And one of the things he said for himself was that he feels like it's a pretty good indicator that he's losing muscle mass or that he's gaining muscle mass if he gets stronger on particular exercises or if he gets weaker.

Now we know that that's not like real scientific or whatever, but that's a cool indicator. At the very least, it's an indicator that you are, that you have the nutrients that you need to have the energy output for the particular exercises that you're doing nutrients that you need to have the energy output for the particular exercises that you're doing for that day. But I do think it's a good indication. If you go in the gym and just have a bad workout

or something, that's one thing. But if you go in the gym and it's like three, four workouts in a row are pretty crappy and your strength seems to be compromised quite a bit, I think there's maybe a time to maybe reconsider what you're doing or rethink your interpretation of how your lifting is going to be. Like maybe your lifting is just gonna suffer

for a little bit, but that's okay because things go up and down. Relationships go up and down. Your job goes up and down. Everything is a cyclical thing, everything kind of has like a wave to it. And you might just need to ride the wave for a little bit. Like you might've just started a diet

and if you started a carnivore diet or a keto diet, you might've dumped some water weight and you might be losing some strength. Your deficit might be a little high, there could be some errors that you could be making. Who really knows? But the main thing is if you're trying to lose body fat is to stick with that.

That is the main goal. That's the North Star for you at the moment. And because it's the North Star for you at the moment, do your best to reevaluate what you're doing, but not necessarily just change it. Don't go and change it right away. Give it some time, and maybe by time, I'm thinking maybe two or three weeks,

because that strength might just come right back around. Absolutely, you'll adapt. A lot of like, you mentioned this weight strength to weight ratio earlier. As you lose more weight, one thing you'll notice is like, some of those things get easier, but some of your lifts might get a little bit harder because you're working in a new body a little bit. Your joints have different leverages because there's not as much padding between some of

them. So you might notice a little bit of suffering when you really lose a substantial amount of body fat and a substantial amount of weight. You'll notice a bit of a difference, but when you learn how to be strong in that body, you're gonna see strength come back. Like you mentioned, it's cyclical, so don't expect everything to just be linear, you know?

But give yourself time to adapt. An interesting way of doing some of this is, I've always found what Michael Hearn does to be really interesting, aside from the trend. Mike likes to do lower repetitions when he's dieting. And it actually makes some sense in a bunch of different ways. You don't have the same energy requirements.

If you're doing sets of 12, you're doing like four sets of 12, it's like, well, that's a lot of repetitions. That's a lot of work. But if you do like two or three sets of singles or doubles or triples, that definitely changes the amount of energy you're expending.

Obviously you're lifting more weight. So there could be a little give and take on some of that, but it's just interesting. And I think that your workouts, your workouts and nutrition, I think it's important that they go together in some way. And that might take a long time to learn, might take a long time to figure out.

Maybe when you're lighter, maybe pull-ups and stuff like that are a little easier. Maybe some air squats are easier. Maybe some lunges are easier. That doesn't mean when you're heavier that you don't still do those exercises because when you're heavier, maybe you're going to have,

maybe you're doing less repetitions, but maybe the adaptation that's gonna occur is maybe better. So maybe like sometime in a bulk, maybe you still keep some of those movements in there when you're eight, 12, or 20 pounds heavier than you were previously. And if you could still do those movements, almost like you put the dip belt on.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I'm curious about this, man. Do you ever see yourself, because everyone has different stages for their diets and their body fat loss, their muscle gain. Do you ever see yourself doing a bulk again in the future? Do you think you're ever gonna, because you've done your share of bulks for sure,

but do you see yourself ever wanting to do that again? I think I would just do it in a way different way. I don't know if I would, yeah, I don't know if I would intentionally, I guess if I felt like I really needed to re-comp, like let's say I get down to 200 or 205 and I'm kind of like, man, I just look like shit. Like I don't like this look, then maybe I'd have to.

Maybe I'd have to kind of reevaluate and just work on doing something to feel better. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't think I'm ever going to like bulk again. And it's so interesting because I look at Mike O'Hern and Mike has gone, he goes through stages where he's like bulk to bulk, where he like gets to 270. Right, 270, 275, and then he goes back down to 230, 240.

And I do not like being that heavy. I cannot do it, you know? I definitely won't put on that kind of weight. I was kind of talking about like maybe putting on like 10 pounds or something like that, you know? But I think that's one thing that's pretty impressive about that dude. Like all these years, he's still letting himself get up

to that weight and come back down and it's uncomfortable. He's doing whatever it takes, you know? Yeah, he is. I had a conversation with David Herrera recently and he said, you know, things just are not complicated when you go all the way the fuck in. True, that's true, that's true. Yeah.

I mean, we can sit here and get super technical about all the different things you do for jujitsu, how you do all these, and I could get lost in like, oh wait, he said he stretches, oh wait, he said he did rope flow, oh wait. And it's like, no, just show up to jujitsu as much as you can possibly handle. And plan on trying to do it for like a long time.

A long time. Maybe like 10 to 12 years. And then once you get through doing it for maybe six years, you'll be so locked in that you'll probably never want to stop. Absolutely. But you have to like, there's a hump, you know, and with all this stuff, whether it's lifting

or no matter what it is, there's kind of that battle of like getting past that initial thing that sucks. Just same thing with running. Yeah. There's a video I sent over to Ryan, and this guy's super lean, but I also kind of, I really like what he had in this post.

And what is this, what is this segment we have called? Oh, the segment we have now? Yeah, what is this segment we have called? Oh, the segment we have now? Yeah, what is this? This is how to know that you're losing fat, losing body fat. Oh no, no, no, not this episode, our strength segment, power profiles. Oh yeah, power profile.

I think that's it, yeah. Okay, so I came across this dude's page recently. Oh, did you have it or no? Is it this video right here on the screen? I can't see it on the screen. Yeah, the screen's not on. Oh, the screen's been off the whole time. I guess we should have said something,

but I didn't know. It was just like black. So I didn't know if you didn't have internet or something. How about now? I will never go to a doctor ever again about my general health. All they wanna do is put you on pills. Really well said there by Dana White.

Couldn't agree with him more. A lot of us are trying to get jacked and tanned. A lot of us just wanna look good, feel good. And a lot of the symptoms that we might acquire as we get older, some of the things that we might have, high cholesterol or these various things. It's amazing to have somebody looking at your blood work as you're going through the process,

as you're trying to become a better athlete, somebody that knows what they're doing, they can look at your cholesterol, they can look at the various markers that you have, and they can kind of see where you're at, and they can help guide you through that. And there's a few aspects too where it's like, yes, I mean, no, no shade to doctors,

but a lot of times they do want to just stick you on medication. A lot of times there is supplementation that can help with this. Merrick Health, these patient care coordinators are going to also look at the way you're living your lifestyle because there's a lot of things you might be doing that if you just adjust that, boom, you could be at the right levels, including working with your testosterone. And there's so many people that I know

that are looking for, they're like, hey, should I do that? They're very curious. And they think that testosterone is going to all of a sudden kind of turn them into the Hulk, but that's not really what happens. It can be something that can be really great for your health because you can just basically live your life

a little stronger, just like you were maybe in your 20s and 30s. And this is the last thing to keep in mind, guys. When you get your blood work done at a hospital, they're just looking at these minimum levels. At Merrick Health, they try to bring you up to ideal levels for everything you're working with. Whereas, if you go into a hospital

and you have 300 nanograms per deciliter of test, you're good, bro, even though you're probably feeling like shit. At Merrick Health, they're going to try to figure out what type of things you can do in terms of your lifestyle, and if you're a candidate, potentially TRT. So these are things to pay attention to

to get you to your best self. And what I love about it is a little bit of the back and forth that you get with the patient care coordinator. They're dissecting your blood work. It's not like you just get this email back and it's just like, hey, try these five things. Somebody's actually on the phone with you going over every step and what you should do.

Sometimes it's supplementation, sometimes it's TRT, and sometimes it's simply just some lifestyle habit changes. All right, guys, if you want to get your blood work checked and also get professional help from people who are going to be able to get you towards your best levels, head to MerrickHealth.com and use code PowerProject for 10% off any panel of your choice. It's on now, there we go, yeah.

Oh, that's funny. Okay, anyway. Yeah, I was mentioning stuff and I was kind of looking over there and then the screen was black, so I didn't know what was going on. I was pulling up stuff the whole time. That's great. That's awesome. OK, so Mark, you'll see some of the stuff

this guy's doing in here, but I want to also read his caption. Our brain will only allow us access to what it knows we can recover from. This may be tissues, ranges of motion, rate of force development, eccentric control, et cetera. Our nervous system's primary objective is to survive. This is what sets the governor on our abilities and capacities for performance.

For example, not everyone can run out of track close to 28 miles per hour like Usain Bolt. Why? Because if the average untrained person were to achieve that speed, that's a great chance of falling, injury. That would be a threat to survival. Our brain colliding with the ground at high velocities

is not conducive to survival. However, if we train the nervous system to handle the task constraints of sprinting, in this example, we can continue to improve the capacity to express speed. The caption is much longer than that, but I think it's really cool because you see- Who is this guy?

His name is Rigas. He just came across my feed the other day. I'm like, oh man, I love his philosophies. I loved seeing some of the stuff he's doing. That's really well put. Yeah, and he's super lean, while also like, if you see in this video, you see the things that he's allowing his body to do.

Good range of motion, athleticism, strength, yeah. But also look at this, when he gets to this range of motion, he's not super passive there, right? So he's also kind of flexing against it, and you'll notice him get into these other ranges and do some of these same things, but he has full control, right? And it's one of those things where, you know,

people always talk smack about like passive or static stretching and passive range of motion, but this is a great example of someone who has full control of that whole range. That is not bad, like that's a great thing for everyone. Along with his amazing explanation on like, what you allow yourself to adapt to, which is what I fully believe.

So, this guy's great. I think we should bring him on sometime. But you see how lean he is? See how he goes with that? Great shape. Yeah, super lean. I think another way that you'll know that you're losing body fat is,

when you go to do certain exercises and they feel like they're actually really productive, like you kinda, you feel like you accomplished what you needed to accomplish. Like, and you were just doing like rope flow. Like rope flow or something like that, or just an easy cardio activity, you know, going on a treadmill at a slight incline.

Like these are all things that a normal person would do. And they would be like, yeah, I worked up a sweat, I burned some calories. But I think the longer that you do this stuff for and the more muscle mass that you acquire, the more where you're like, I just burned a shit ton of fat doing that, doing that movement. I did a 30 minute Peloton workout with a 15 pound weight vest this morning and I got done and I could kind of feel it. Almost like I could feel like when I was lifting years ago where I'd kind of feel like I got stronger from this particular workout.

Yeah, yeah, no, I know exactly what you mean. And it's like after a good session of jujitsu where it's like maybe I didn't have a lot of- I've seen you take some pictures before. I mean, you're in always an amazing shape, but you're totally shredded afterwards. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little bit of water loss

and whatever the energy output was for it and stuff too. Yeah, some people could think it's a bro science, but when you do certain things, you can feel this shit. You can feel the difference. Even Bill Maeda mentioned it's one of those things where it's like Bill, when he eats food, he can feel the energy ready to be used. And when you do this stuff for long enough, you become very in tune with your body signals

on adaptation, you know, it's pretty sick. Yeah, I've seen you and Bill be able to like flex stuff, you know, flex certain areas because of the way you guys train. And I think your bodybuilding background I think is really helpful, but you can flex certain areas if you're doing like a twisting type of motion or rotation type of motion, where when you're heavier and you can't see those things yet,

it's a lot harder to be like in tune with them. A lot harder to feel those very specifics. There are people that are heavier, that have a bigger waist, that could still feel some of those things, but there's something about, there's a reason why there's mirrors in the gym. Like there's, it's not really just to be like,

whoa, jacked. Although that is part of it, it's kind of fun to be in shape. But it's also to be able to kind of cue particular muscles in particular areas as you're doing something. Like we got this video pulled up of you messing around with doing this kettlebell movement where you're very honed in and focused.

Like you can move that weight around a thousand miles an hour and have it like kind of not feel like anything. But in this instance, you're moving it slowly and you're honed in and focused on specific muscle groups. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm trying to keep the tension in my left glute. And when I feel that tension leaving, you know, I come back to it and it helps me balance better. It's one of those things that, you know, I see some people when they, when they, a lot, I'll say, I get it

from a lot of coaches where they actually think like, oh, working with white, lightweight is useless. Start working with heavy objects, move heavy objects fast, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I get that. Don't get me wrong. It's great. I love working with heavy weight, but you can make light weight heavy and there is a benefit in doing that. There's a benefit in stability.

There's benefit in not like you can stress yourself, but also your nervous system doesn't feel as stressed during that workout allowing you to maybe do other stuff too. So yeah, these are all skills that you build over time. Yeah, and there's some different things, if you're already fairly lean, it's gonna be kind of easier for you to be able to tell if you're losing body fat, because you're gonna have markers

where maybe from week to week, and in some cases, I've competed in bodybuilding, but I did so enhanced, so maybe it's different from my perspective than others. But I saw some changes like every day. Where I was like, this is a little different from yesterday. And some of those things could be shifts

in waterway and so on, but it was crazy. And I remember like texting Hanium, because he was like, wow, he's like, you're leaning out a little faster than I thought. And he thought that was pretty cool, but he was like, this is the way that it should be. Like you should be able to see a change every day, every other day, maybe a couple times a week.

I was like, whoa, this is interesting. That I'll say, my experience is different. Like whenever I, whenever I prepped it, it's like you'll see changes, but I wouldn't see, I wouldn't see changes every day. That is, that's very rewarding though. It's like see a change consistently. Another way, another sure fire way to know that you're losing some body fat is you're gonna start to get some compliments from people.

And I always feel like those compliments are really important. You know, I think that, so if someone gives you a compliment, just say thank you. Yeah. Try not to, like it's easy to make a joke of it. It's easy to. Trying to get like you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's easy to like try to deflect, just accept it. And be like, thank you so much. I appreciate it. I have been working for it. But that's, you're gonna notice from other people, you're gonna, and that's not, you're not doing everything always to just get like

admiration from other people, but it's part of the human condition. We want that. And when you get that from other people and they say, hey, you know, whatever you're doing is working. They know that you're going towards your goal. They're excited for you. And it's kind of a cool thing and it gives you momentum.

And if you're someone who sees someone or you know someone who's dropping weight, give them compliments. Give them compliments for sure. Don't hold that shit in. Tell your homie or tell the girl, hey, you're looking better, you're looking leaner. Dude, how much did you weigh here?

I think when I competed, you know, I think I weighed like 230 or 235, something like that. Jeez. The biggest difference, you know, from some of this, you know, when I was bodybuilding was, I did have specific cardio, which I think is different than the running that I'm doing. The running that I'm doing has a particular impact.

It's not all, like, when you go to the gym and you train on a treadmill or you train on a StairMaster, it's very specific and I could set the StairMaster or the treadmill at a very specific amount to get the exact results to be in like this fat burning mode. I don't need a heart rate monitor. I don't need anything. I just need to like, just be like,

all right, I'm working pretty hard. And like, this is like, this is kind of uncomfortable. And then you just stay there. But like when I'm out, just like like, all right, I'm working pretty hard and like, this is like, this is kind of uncomfortable. And then you just, you just stay there. But like when I'm out, just like running, it's kind of uncontrollable. And so that's a big difference. Some of the other differences are I'm not bodybuilding. I'm not like, I'm not training like a bodybuilder.

So I did more sets and reps and the biggest, probably the biggest difference, cause I think that I could look like that very quickly. I think the biggest difference is I was just on a lot of gear. Sticking myself with a lot of drugs. Yeah, yeah. Which you don't have to do guys if you want to lose body fat, so.

You know, it's interesting. You know, I've mentioned this before, but like think of the best bodybuilders in the world. Think of the best physique athletes in the world, whether they're bodybuilding or they just, you know, are some of the people that compete in some of the other men's physique and stuff like that. Those guys are on a lot of stuff,

but they still have to diet. Yes. So it's not like they get a pass, right? Oh, it is easier, right? It's easier to hold onto that muscle mass. It makes a lot of things easier. They're gonna be able to train heavier and so forth. Like there's a lot of advantages to it.

But I find that to be really interesting because you would think that with all this chemical enhancement that you wouldn't really need to do that. It's not like you can eat pizza and like get up on stage to be one of those top guys. There's nobody up there that's eating pizza. Yeah. Yeah. Well, other than maybe like Kevin LaVrone. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He was, he was eating a little differently, right? Yeah. But yeah, no, you guys, you're going to have to be able to be a little bit hungry.

You're going to have to diet. You're going to have to do it for a long time. And dieting is a skill. We talked about a lot of different things in this show. There could have been so many more. But one, I think, big thing to understand from this is that this is a skill. If you're new to this, it should take you longer.

I don't think you should aim for 16 or 20 weeks. I think you should aim of learning how to eat, learning how to exercise, learning how to get good at feeling hungry and not responding, learning how to sleep because the habits you have to have around your sleep are going to need to change if you want this to have long term progress. There's a lot of things you're going to need to learn how to do. So don't aim for it to be fast, but just aim to learn the skills and the habits that we've talked about in this show. Because if you can learn those skills and habits and give yourself, I'm not saying give yourself a year or two to lose body fat, but more so give yourself a year or two to learn all of these skills and master these skills,

then getting big or losing body fat is actually just going to be a breeze. It will actually be a breeze. I don't recall if we talked about it on the show or if we started chatting about it before we got on air, but did we talk about measurements? Yeah. Yeah, making sure you have, you know, measuring I think is a great way of doing it. And kind of on that topic of measuring, we didn't talk about this, but you might have to,

for some people, I think it's important for them to, if you're not making the progress that you're looking for, you might have to measure more and more stuff. So you might have to measure your food. You might have to keep track of how many workouts you're, like if you're newer to this, you're kind of just like flying around and you don't know, you're blind a little bit.

And Seam and I have been doing this for a long time, there's a lot of other people that have been doing it for a long time, so's a lot of other people that have been doing it for a long time. So they don't really need to read food labels. Like if I wanted to get leaner, I just might be like, all right, well, I'm only going to eat the leaner steaks from Piedmontese and maybe some chicken breast

and maybe some carbs that don't have a lot of fat in them. And I would be able to make that switch and make that change. But for some people, they might not like understand where all their calories are coming from. And so therefore it might be a good idea to track. Might be a good idea to get one of these apps. I believe Jeff Nippard has an app.

MacroFactor. I heard it's awesome. It is. I heard you can like, you know, it has like barcodes and stuff like that. And you can just get the calorie count of your food. And you can do a keto, a carnivore. They actually, you know what?

I just had my cousin, cause you know, she's trying to drop some weight. I just said, okay, I gave her some ideas on things to do. I said, download this app, because like it'll make those changes for you. Message me if you have any questions about anything, just download it. You know, it's not expensive,

but it's pretty much just kind of like having a macro adjusting coach in your pocket for some of these things. Has a lot of different variables you can keep in mind too, so great job, Jeff. I think things like that are cool, because it's not like the app is just like doing everything for you, you're inputting stuff, and you get to learn a lot,

and you start to kind of realize, there could be certain drinks, there could be certain things you get to learn a lot. And you start to kind of realize there could be certain drinks, there could be certain things you're having in a day where you're like, oh my God, I didn't know it was 450 calories. And we've seen it happen with a lot of guys and the women usually get pissed because like a guy will just cut out soda

and then all of a sudden he loses like 12 pounds and sometimes doesn't work out the same way for some females. But anyway, I think it's great to really, you're really trying to learn. You mentioned this as a skillset and this is how you learn it. You learn it by reading food labels,

maybe getting this app. You learn it by just being highly interactive and being really conscious of this, really conscious of where your foods are coming from and all these things. When you were helping a lot of people, I know specifically, I know you were helping a lot of people

with a lot of different things, but probably more specifically bodybuilding. When it came to that and you're like tweaking and refining those calories, how big of a difference did it make, you know, being slightly off versus being precisely, you know, like let's say you had to get someone to 1750 in calories and they were kind of at like 2100 or something like that. When you made that change, I would imagine the results start to happen pretty fast, right?

The thing is, is when I would give people calories, I would give them ranges, but I would give them on the upper end of that range, the upper end of the range is actually the low end of what I actually wanted them to hit. So let me give you an example. I see you pulled some, cause you're coaching them and you know that there's some room for error. Yeah. And so you already simplified it for them. Yeah, because mostly everyone, if I say I want you having 1850 calories,

this amount of protein, carbs, and fat, most people are going to be like, no, we'll have 2000. So instead of saying, instead of being like 1850, what I did is like, okay, we're going to, the top end I want you to have is 1750, and the lower end is going to be 1650. top end I want you to have is 1750, and the lower end is gonna be 1650. Because I knew that if I told them 1750, they're most likely gonna have 1850 to 1900.

And that would usually work. So I, that would be what I would want in my head, but I would give them the lower end of, their upper end in their mind would be, for me, the lower end of what I wanted them to have, because I knew that they'd still have a little bit extra, and they'd be able to hit that. Does that make sense?

That makes a ton of sense. It's like if your coach wants you to actually have 2,000 calories, but instead they give you 1,900, they say you can only have 1,900, knowing that you're going to eat 2,000 or 2,100 calories. So you still end up hitting the goal, because you're still making the mistakes

and that's factored in. I would do the same thing with lifting a lot of times. I would sometimes tell somebody to do a little bit more on the main lift because I knew that they weren't gonna do the accessory exercises. So I'm like, well, you're already squatting. I asked you to do four sets of six. It's like, what's the difference if I asked you to do six sets of six?

Really not that different, right? But if I asked you to do four sets of six of that, and then four sets of six of stiff-legged deadlift, and then some hamstring curls and glute ham raises and so on, I probably lost you. You're probably like, there are some people, and especially the females, they always follow everything to a T.

They're like, I did this, you know, exactly the way you said it. But for guys, they're like, I'm kind of just, I don't know. I just, I did a couple sets of the stiff leg and then my back was tight. And you're like, well, that's not the workout. Like, and you didn't come back the next day and do the rest of it or anything?

Like, no. Just keeping the accessories, man. And then you wonder why you don't have biceps. Like, what? Just keep your accessories. All right, there you go. There's our list of how you can know that you're burning some body fat.

Strength is never weakness, weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later, bye.