Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1847: Five Reasons Your Fat Loss Has Stalled

Episode Date: June 30, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin discuss 5 Reasons Your Fat Loss Has Stalled and What You Can Do About It Weight/fat loss plateaus are somewhat normal, but they DO NOT have to stick around forever! Often times there are a few things you have to do to get the fat/weight loss moving in the right direction again. (2:31) Understanding the mental gymnastics your clients go through. (6:35) 5 Reasons Your Fat Loss Has Stalled and What You Can Do About It. #1 - Calories are too high (track, build muscle, look at weekends). (10:56) #2 - Calories are too low. (19:16) #3 - Workout needs to change (change phases, add or reduce volume). (27:16) #4 - Need a break for recovery, weight loss, not fat loss (de-load, take a week to eat more). (32:13) #5 - Poor health (prioritize health, sleep routine, nutrient deficiencies, libido). (37:21) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit PRx Performance for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Special Launch: MAPS Cardio, plus two special e-books for $77! (Ends 7/3) **Promo code CARDIOSPECIAL at checkout** June Promotion: Shredded Summer Bundle or MAPS HIIT 50% off! **Promo code JUNE50 at checkout** What Makes Tracking Macronutrients Effective - Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump #1830: Five Steps To Determine Your Ideal Caloric Intake 3 Biggest Mistakes Women Make When Trying to Lose Weight – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump #1027: 3 Steps To Speed Up Your Metabolism Mind Pump #1630: Ten Ways To Break Through A Plateau Mind Pump #1345: 6 Ways To Optimize Sleep For Faster Muscle Gain And Fat Loss MP Holistic Health Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Dr. Stephen Cabral (@stephencabral)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump right in today's episode. We give you five of the most common reasons why your fat loss or weight loss has stalled. And then of course we tell you what you can do about it. Now this episode is brought to you by our sponsor,

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loss plateaus are somewhat normal, but they don't have to stick around forever. Oftentimes, there's a few things you need to do, simple things, that'll get the fat loss and weight loss to start moving in the right direction again. All right, so I wanna talk about that in today's episode because this is a very common question. I lost 10 pounds, now nothing else is happening or I was getting results for the first few months. Everything just stalled. It just stalled what the hell is going on here.

But I do want to, like I said earlier, I do want to be clear that progress when it comes to fat loss weight loss, fitness in general, is not this consistent linear line. It doesn't work that way. Maybe so much easier and awesome if it was. I wish it was that way. And then predictable and you don't have to consider these variables. Yeah, it's extra frustrating when you're putting a ton of work into it as well, and you're not seeing that kind of result. Super frustrating. But normal progress, and the reason why I want to say this, because a lot of people over react initially when they see some kind of a plateau, like, oh, I've been losing one pound

a week. Every week for the first 10 weeks now. Now they have to go extreme. Yeah, I lost no pounds. Oh my God. Like, expect it to kind of be this like step ladder where you progress and then pause for a second, progress and then pause for a second.

And the reason why I'm communicating that is because you want to make sure it's a real plateau and not the expected pauses that happen from continual, consistent, you know, attempts at fat loss and improving your fitness. Yeah, I would make the case that, I don't know, at least half the time that people think they're an plateau, they're actually not even an and improving your fitness. Yeah, I would make the case that, I don't know, at least half the time that people think

they're an applied to other, actually not even an inoplatzo. Yeah. Because I think we have this expectation, right? For things to come so fast, right? And I think this expectation is getting worse, right? More and more people are expecting so quick. And this is not a quick thing.

You know, losing body fat and building muscle is a slow process. And so when you start tweaking things, making better food choices, exercising, lifting weights, and the results aren't coming on fast enough, or you don't see the scale moving quick enough, or you think the mirror looks the same after a week or two, you all said make these crazy adjustments because you think you're on a plateau, but you're actually stuff is happening. And the crazy adjustments, the overcorrections, are can push you into a situation where now you're hitting a permanent plateau. It could be damaging. Right. Right. You know, it's funny. There was

this, God, I think we talked about this long time ago. There was this woman that followed around and studied babies, and she measured their head circumference and their height and their weight and very, very meticulous detailed record keeping. And because her theory was that babies and children do not grow at this kind of consistent pace, then they go through growth spurt where they're the same for a while and then boom, they go through this like, and his parents have been observing this forever, you talked to an parent, it's like, my kid, over and I, it's the trippiest thing.

And she proved that, she actually showed that, that's how it works, that they go through these periods of like this. Now, I noticed this with fitness as well, like when I'm building strength or muscle, it tends to be like this kind of like everything's the same and then boom, I'll get get this like boost and then it kind of maintains again and I notice that with clients with fat loss where everything's

moving in the right direction, everything's moving in the right direction, they get a little bit like a salve, you know what's gonna happen, I'll be like just wait, we're gonna see what happens and then boom you see this kind of like stars align and all of a sudden yeah things really click into a new gear they've never had before. Yes it happens all the time. And what makes it even more cloudy with weight loss is what makes up your weight isn't just body fat. It's muscle and hydration and water and bloat and that kind of stuff.

That can definitely cloudy the waters because you could get leaner and gain weight on the scale if you're holding water. And, or you could build muscle and lose body fat and have the scale not move at all. And then you think, oh my gosh, nothing has happened. It doesn't move. Yeah, so you have to be very careful with that. I know I share this story on the podcast. If you listen to enough times, you'll probably know you to hear me talk about it. But it was such a profound moment for me when I was

tracking my water. And like I'd never have done that as a trainer until getting ready for shows competing. And it really highlighted that for me because I was so diligent about tracking everything I knew. I've already figured out before I had started the getting lean journey, like, okay, these are my maintenance calories. This is what about what I burn on a daily basis. Like, that had all been figured out. So, here I am deep into it, say, you know, five, six weeks into a cut.

And I'd have these situations where it felt like or I thought was a plateau or even worse, I got on the scale and I saw the weight go up. And I know I'm like, I'm in a deficit. I've been in a deficit. I'm training hard. I haven't cheated on the diet, like what the fuck, my scale went up, one or two pounds.

But I was also luckily, I was tracking so diligently that I could go over, I could look at the sodium intake, I could look at my carbohydrate intake, and I could look at the water intake. And when I started to piece together, it was, oh wow, like, you know, just a few more grams of carbohydrates with a few more glasses of water and my body, or even just a poor night's sleep

or coming off of being sick and cold. Like all these different things would have my body hold on to more water, which would not only manipulate the scale, but even like the way I looked, I would look softer, I would look a little bloated or something and I'd be like, what the fuck? And right away, this light bulb went off in my head

like, oh my God, like, here I am at this super high level. I'm tracking, I know exactly what's going on. And I'm having this challenge, this mental game I'm playing in my head. I imagine if you didn't have all those metrics. Imagine all my clients, that's what went through my head right away, like, oh my God, imagine the hundreds of people I've already trained in my previous decade of training

clients that came to me and we're frustrated because they felt they were doing such a good job and they're like, Adam, I'm getting fatter, I can tell, I see it, or my scale went up. And you as a trainer back then would go like, oh, they're probably cheating. They're not really doing what I'm telling them to do. And so you would discount what they said,

and I didn't have the words at that place in my career to communicate to them what potentially could be happy to them to keep their mind right. And so, man, after I went through that, it completely changed those conversations for me when I would talk to a client now, because I too understood like that feeling of, man, I'm putting the work in, I'm training consistently,

I'm not cheating on the diet. Why is the scale and the mirror not giving me what I think? Yes, or you have someone gain weight and get leaner and body fat percentage, or lose weight and get fat or embody fat percentage. I remember having to explain this to clients because it never made sense to them, it's a look.

You're, if you gain some muscle and keep the same pounds of body fat on your body, that same amount of body fat is now a smaller percentage of your body weight. Or if you lost muscle and your body fat pounds stayed the same, that now is a larger percentage of your body. So percentage is what really matters. Now, what's the point with all this? The point is, don't overreact and really make sure that it's a real plateau and that normal fluctuations in water

or a normal pause that may happen because obviously you don't consistently respond week over week or day after day. So make sure that because what we're about to go over are reasons why you're in a real plateau. So what you don't want to do and this is a big again, this is a big problem is people overreact, overcorrect, and then that can cause problems. So make sure it's a real plateau. Well, and before you go into it, this is where I think it, why it's so important, at least at one point in your training career

or your fitness journey, to have tracked diligently. Even if you just commit for a short period of your life and you say, hey, I've never really been really disciplined to enter my food in and just see what's happening. Not I'm not saying like, hold yourself to some extreme diet or get crazy about weighing and measuring. But just track. So you have a really good understanding of what you are consuming and what you're not consuming on a daily basis, so that you can make this a value. We're going to go with the five things you're going to go over right now.

If you're not doing that first, it makes these things really difficult to evaluate. Well, that speaks very, very well to the first point, which is this is the first place you would look. It's the most obvious, which is that your calories are too high. Now, a lot of people are like, well, duh, if my weight loss is stalled and my fat loss is stalled and it's a real plateau, then yeah, and my calories are too high. Now a lot of people are like, well duh, if my weight loss is stalled and my fat loss is stalled and it's a real plateau, then yeah, and my calories are quite, no, no, it's not, I know it sounds easy and simple.

No, it's, but here's where it gets, not that cut and dry all the time. No, and here's where it gets real challenging is that people will do like really well. And what I mean by well is they'll plan their meals, they'll, they know what they're eating Monday through Friday. This is very common. Monday through through Friday or even Monday through Saturday Everything is planned and they they're eating the same foods and then they get that day or two typically the weekend

Where in their words they go off a little you know like oh, you know, I went off a little Yeah, we went out to dinner once and I but it wasn't that big of a deal So they don't really consider it as something that can really impact their progress. But the truth is, if you're at a, let's say you're at a 500 calorie deficit Monday through Friday, meaning you're eating 500 less calories in your burning Monday through Friday, that puts you at a 2500 calorie deficit for the week. Now Saturday comes and Sunday comes and you eat a thousand calories over, which is easy to do. Thousand calories over is not hard to do when you're eating out or enjoying the occasional burger or pizza or whatever. It doesn't take a ton. It's not like you're stuffing yourself. You're just seeing a little more and you think to yourself not that big of a deal.

Well, guess what? Now you've ended up the whole week with a 500 calorie deficit. That means it's going to take you months before you see a pound of fat loss, right? Because you've almost erased, and many times you have erased, the calorie deficit that you had money through Friday. The weekend thing you just gave as an example happens so often, and people don't realize it because what sometimes happens is not a huge dramatic swing in the over consumption of calories, but yet a lack of movement. On top of it. This was a big aha moment for me also when the body bug first came on the scene, right? The little tracking device, which is like your Fitbits today.

And I had never done that before and and really paid attention diligently to my movement. And just like you're saying, Monday through Friday, I was dialed, absolutely dialed on my eating, dialed on my training, and working eight to 12 hours a day, training clients on the floor. And working out. Yeah, and I still worked on Saturdays,

but it was a half day of training clients on Saturdays. I also didn't start work until later in the morning. I normally rolled in around nine or 10 on Saturday mornings and I worked a half day of training clients on Saturdays. I also didn't start work until later in the morning. I normally rolled in around nine or 10 on Saturday mornings and I worked a half day on Saturdays and then Sunday was off. And what I found, and then I didn't really eat way crazy. Yes, I would have allowed, that would be maybe if I would have like a couple slices of pizza or a beer,

I would allow it on that, but I'm doing the math on that. That's not a crazy amount of calories that I'm over-consuming or what I thought I wasn't over consuming. It wasn't until I realized the swinging activity level was so dramatically different. Monday through Friday, when I was dialed on eating and training and moving around training clients, I'm burdened 40, 4500 to 5,000 calories a day.

Saturday, when I actually still train a half day, I'm burning like 2800. Then on a Sunday, when I don still train a half day, I'm burning like 2800. Then on a Sunday, when I don't do it hardly anything, 2300 to 2500. So I can't even eat what would I consider a healthy diet that looks the same as Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It's a surplus. Because it's a surplus by 1500 to 2000 calories. And so this is what blew my mind up. Add the two pieces of pizza in the beer.

And then I'll, you're at a huge circle. And this kept me at a plateau for years, scratching my head, not being able to go, I cannot figure out why my body is stalled. And I'm not able to get to that next level because I had never realized what a dramatic swing in both movement and then the overconsumption. This is where you said earlier tracking. This is the value of tracking for like a few weeks. Like, you know, if you could just be meticulous for a few weeks, track activity, which by the

way, the technology now so incredible, it's really easy to do this. Back when I was training, you had to like write things down and estimate, and I'd have to have a calorie king book and a lot of stuff. Now it's like super easy. Track and then see for yourself because there's nothing worse than the mystery of what the hell is going on. Well that's the thing.

It's like you said in the beginning, it's not as straightforward as you would hope it would be. And this is something I found a lot of my clients that had tendencies to eat out a lot or just order things at work or bring things in that they were thought that in their mind, they're making healthier choices, right? So if I'm making a healthier choice

and I'm not having something that looks like a burger, it looks like a pizza, it looks like an obvious thing, like that, but still is very calorie dense. And this happened a lot of times too, like when you're pushing you go out to eat and there's this big bowl of salad, now I'm just doing this big bowl of salad, but yet I have cheese, I have bacon, I have croutons,

I have like dressing, and the calorie amount in total is actually exceeds. A lot of times, like some of these other foods that you may deem, this is more of a junk food. Have you ever noticed that, do you know that like a jack-in-a-block salad is higher calorie than like their ultimate bacon cheeseburger meal? Bro, there you go.

Bro, the cheesecake factory. Go to the cheesecake factory. Go to the cheesecake factory. Their salads are like, like, 2000 calories. Yeah, yeah. More than, or how much. People still think salad though, like, I gotta eat healthier than salad. Or, or, I mean, this is what happened to me.

I would order the salad with the meat and then I'd have some chips, you know, because I give you the tortilla chips before. And I really didn't really count that. And then you end up counting and like, I could have got a burrito for everything that I ate. You know, Doug and I were in Utah about a month ago, and we went to a Mexican restaurant that broke, it took us to and they served, instead of chips, they served like fried tortillas. And then you break it with your finger

and then you use it like a chip. And Doug said something that I thought was really interesting. I'm like, oh man, you're fucking right, right? So we're sitting there and they sit in a stack like this. And so you get this corn tortilla that's fried and then you break it and then you eat like a chip. And what he said was this boy really highlights how many full tortillas you actually eat because when you're eating something, when you're just seeing they're snacking on chips

because I must say, four tortillas. Oh no, I like 12. I mean, it was way more than that and that didn't feel like a lot of chips. But when you got it served that way, you just, you're not used to seeing it and then you would break it, then you'd use it as a dip and I thought, oh wow, that really did highlight

how much that you're having. Which is another reason why I think people come in so high is just they underestimate what it is they're consuming. And sometimes it's not all their fault either, right? So this is one of the bad parts about all the menus that have the calories on it now. So you go somewhere, I'll pick on Chipotle but this applies to anywhere.

You go somewhere and it says that the chicken burrito ball is 480 calories. Well, first of all, I've talked about before the FDA allows Chipotle to be off by 20%. And by the way, if a restaurant considers himself a health restaurant like Chipotle does, they are going to always lean on the light side of calories. They're not going to overestimate their calories. It's not a selling point the light side of calories. They're not gonna overestimate their calories It's not a selling point. You're like we have higher calories No, they're gonna they're it's a selling point that it's low calorie and tastes amazing So they're always gonna hang on the low side now it all FDA

Only requires that they're within 20% of what the recipe calls for what we know is that it's some 17-year-old kid who's scooping in the line, and some kids got a heavy hand, some kids don't, so the inconsistency of what exactly, they don't have to account for that air. So you're already off by at least probably 20%, and then depending on how heavy handed the preserver is, you could be off another 20 to 30%. There is no restaurant is sitting there

forming the food and plating it with calories in mind. No, nowhere. And there are none of them are using measuring cups to do it either. This one of the lit good and actually more is better because then their customers more sets. Yeah, so the bottom line is, you don't want to be in this state of mystery

where you feel like it's not working, what's happening? Track, figure it out, then you'll know where you need to go, and oftentimes that's why it's the first one, is that your calories are just too high and you don't even realize it. You feel like they might not be, but when you do the math, you see that it's too high.

All right, the second one is gonna sound kind of crazy because it's the opposite of what I just said, which is that your calories are too low. Now you might be thinking, how the heck can too low a calories be making the plateau make me keep shaving away at it? When you are in a calorie deficit, that's really big for too long.

Yes, you'll lose weight, but your body really, your body's always trying to match the calories that you're bringing in by modifying and manipulating or adapting its metabolism. So if your calories are too low for too long, you'll plateau because your body will learn by modifying and manipulating or adapting its metabolism. So if your calories are too low for too long, you'll plateau because your body will learn to burn less calories.

How does it do this? It pairs muscle down. And I've seen this with clients many times where their calories are solo, energy drops, your body actually makes you move less. They've done studies on this where the calories are solo, they'll track a person's movement and find, oh, you're naturally just moving less, not realizing it.

And you lose muscle. I've had clients do this and I bump their calories. They didn't initially get them to lose more weight, but then we start to build little muscle, speeds up the metabolism, and then we start to see in a way. And interesting dynamic, I definitely have noticed that as well too with exerting effort,

even in the workouts. You know, when there's a little bit of a surplus versus like staying in a deficit for so long. It's like I have to keep drumming up that momentum and energy and really try to help to press them on that. But it's just so much different when you're fed. Like you just have that natural energy to do. So I found this to be most common in my really heavy set clients that have done extreme dieting and yo-yo dieted for five, 10 plus years, and then I got them.

They had tried to do this on their, they had tried every diet in the book. They come to me and they're like, I've done the vegan thing, I've done the zone thing, I've done the paleo thing, they've done every diet known, and they've tried to do it themselves, and they're really overweight.

I remember this when this all came together for me, because I remember thinking again, this client's gotta be lying to me, sitting across from me, and they're saying, out of this is what I eat. In the morning, I have a half a bagel with a little bit of cream cheese, and then for lunch, I have a chicken salad with vinaigrette,

and then for dinner, I have two boiled eggs, and, you know, and 20 almonds in your life. You like your lying? Yeah, and you're sitting across and they're over a hundred pounds overweight and you're like, get the fuck outta here. There's no way you're eating that, right? But they have, they've extreme dieted so many times

that their body has now adapted to such a low amount of calories that that is all they eat and it actually maintains the weight they're having. And the worst part about it is, if they go off a little bit there, have a couple glass of wine or that one night and go, yo, then they add so much weight

because they have slowed the metabolism. I personally don't like to put people on more than a 500 to a thousand calorie deficit. Now I'm gonna do this as a caveat. The thousand calorie deficit that I can put people on, I only do that when their metabolism is really high. If your metabolism's low, I'm gonna go more towards a 500 or even less.

So if you're putting yourself at a deficit that's greater than that, you can get away with it for a short period of time, but if you maintain that, you're gonna find your body start to pair muscle down and adapt. And if you're a female and you can't lose body fat on 1,400 calories or you're a female and you can't lose body fat on

1400 calories or you're a man and you can't lose Cal you can't lose body fat on like 1800 calories. You probably should focus on boosting metabolism. And I know what the dieticians say, oh 1200 calories, a thousand calories I don't like to go below that. I think that's too low. I don't know anybody that can maintain weight loss

with 1200 calories, man or woman. So especially even women. So I go like I anybody that can maintain weight loss with 1200 calories, man or woman. So especially even women. So I go like I said, 1400 or so for women that's about as low as I like to go. And for a guy, I typically don't like to go below 1800. Well, didn't this happen to you guys, or I mean, this happened to me. At one point, I had so much success with,

in people who wanted to lose weight, increasing their calories and building muscle and speed and metabolism up, that even if they weren't in a really detrimental place, I still went that route, right? So like, so let's say, like we, 2800 calories, this is a healthy amount of calories. So let's say I get a guy who sits across from me

and he's, you know, 280 pounds and he wants, and he wants to lose 100 pounds with me and he's eating 2800 calories. That's not bad. I mean, he's not starving, right? At That's not bad. He's not starving at all. And I could technically restrict him 500 calories and show him some weight loss, but I wouldn't. I would actually still increase calories on someone like that

and actually focus on building muscle first. Because I know that 2,800 calories is not like scary low, but for a 280 pound man, that's not very many calories. No, and at the end of that journey, you may end up 19 or calories. That's right. I know we have a long way to go. He's not 280 saying, hey Adam, I'm only lose 10 pounds.

He's like 280 and he said, I just need to get down 10 pounds. Then okay, we could go from 28 down to 2300 for a little while and maybe get down there and then reverse out afterwards. But someone who is at 2800 calories and wants to lose 80 to 100 pounds with me, I'm actually still going to start that person in a colorect surplus to speed their metabolism up, because I know that we have a long journey ahead of us.

Yeah, and that's of course combined with good strength training, right? Because you want to give them more of that fat burning machinery. But I've seen this many times where a client comes to me, they plateau, really hard. And they're really good about tracking, and they show me, and I go, well, you're eating 1,000 calories a day. Like, we have nowhere to go. Your calories are too low. And they're like, what do you mean too low?

I thought low calories made you lose weight. Like, yeah, I did, but your body's adapted to the point now where you've got nowhere to go. Of course, you're going to plateau. What do you get to work out even more than you are now, which is already a lot. And eat even less thing you're eating now, which is already gonna do, work out even more than you are now, which is already a lot, and eat even less thing you're eating now, which is already a little,

we need to get that metabolism to boost, so we have some room. So, I know the first one was cowards, if you high, which is more common than this one, but this one is not uncommon. You still see this one. Very common. You still see this one.

It's a spectrum, right? Like, to me, it's just as common, but maybe it's not as extreme. You give an extreme analogy of somebody only eating a thousand calories. I think what's really common is the example I gave. 280 pound man. Like, I mean, okay, how many calories,

what do you weigh? Two, 10 right now? Okay, you weigh two, 10. How many calories are you eating? Yeah, probably over three. Yeah, well, you're dieting right now. You're dieting at three. You were just maintaining it 4,000, something. So put that into perspective. You're 200 something pounds, able're dieting right now. You're dieting at three. You were just maintaining it 4,000 something.

So put that into perspective. You're 200 something pounds, able to eat 4,000. Now, of course, you have a bunch of muscle you've built on your body, but the point is that somebody with that big of a frame that has got 280 pounds on them, 2,800 calories is very, very low for that person. So, I mean, I think it's actually just as common as the eating too much is that somebody who has done this

Up and down for so long and their body is slowly slowly slow this metabolism down There's a lot of people right now. This is resonating where they are like oh my god I'm only I'm having two and this is extreme But I'm having two shakes a day and a salad for dinner and I lost the first 10 pounds But I got 20 more pounds to go like what the hell is going on? Well, here's another thing that we'll probably resonate with a lot of people that I've said to clients too, many times, you may be this person

where you feel like, man, I eat pretty damn good, but damn, anytime I just have one bad day of eating, all right, it just feels like it sticks to me. And so what you have to understand is when you have a metabolism, it's only burning, so I'm gonna keep using the 280 pound guy at 2,800 calories, you know, that guy, obviously, the big dude like that could probably easily crush, you know,

four to six slices of pizza like no problem. That is such a major percentage of his total calorie intake because he's only at 2,200. You on the other hand, could actually aside from your gut issues, could eat that many slices of pizza and wake up with apps still. Right, right. And so you get somebody who's in that situation, they feel so discouraged because I'm sure

they all have that friend too, like fucks out. We both ate the same thing. He woke up looking better the next day. I woke up feeling like it all stuck to my gut. Well, that's because of where your metabolism is currently at right now and where your metabolism is currently at, it allows way more. So it actually gets easier as you put in more time to build more muscle.

You actually can get away with more of these off days or having cheat meals, as they would say, and not do so much damage. Totally. All right, so this next one, this next one is actually one of my favorite ways, depending on the person, but oftentimes, one of my favorite ways

to get someone's fat loss to break out of a plateau, and that was to change their workout. Okay, now here's the problem. A lot of trainers, when they do this, and they say, oh, fat loss stalled when you change your workout, what they do is they ramp up the intensity of the volume to the roof,

because they think calorie burn. Wrong. Cut out all the rest periods, turn everything into a circuit. Yeah, no, no, wrong. The most valuable aspect of a workout or training is not the calorie burn, but rather the adaptations. So my adaptations, meaning how is this going to get the body to change, to improve, and then of course, what does that mean, right? So when I would look at someone's workout, I would say, all right, how can I change this workout to get their

body to start adapting in a positive way again? So oftentimes what this meant was changing out of this phase into a new phase. We're going to go into a heavier weight phase with lower reps or I'm going to change the exercise a little bit. Let's see if we can get you to improve in strength in some of these other exercises. Or I'll reduce your volume. Sometimes that's what I would need to do because I would see the strength improve from reducing the volume.

Now, why is this so impactful? Because the adaptations I'm looking for are the ones that contribute to a faster metabolism. So when you do this, don't think of it as, I gotta burn more calories, but rather, how can I change my workout so that my body starts progressing performance-wise again? Because as your performance improves,

fat loss becomes more. I think that's the most common thought, is that we have to add intensity and we have to now ramp in some kind of cardiovascular training, which if you're an individual that has only been powerlifting or has only lived in that kind of strength phase forever, this would totally make sense. However, I just don't think that's as common. And why we point to the fact that if you want to strategize and

and make this a little bit more effective in terms of like fat loss, but also really focusing on the muscle preserving aspects of training and what would promote that the most? To be able to kind of shift your training in that direction, but also then you know manipulate your calories nutritionally You're you're gonna be able to get more of that desired physique that you're going to. As we're going through these, I'm trying to like decide what I think is the most common. And, you know, just when I think, oh yeah, that's the most common. I go, oh, I don't know, that's actually really common too.

And we get to this one right now with the changing your workout routine. You know, this is extremely common too. Not only for like people that are kind of just early in their journey, maybe their first year, but even people that have been doing it for a really long time, that what happens to us, and I was guilty of this, I think we've all admitted this on the show before. We were all guilty of this is you think you get a little bit of knowledge, you learn about exercise, you hear what we're saying, you got a strength training program,

you understand nutrition and training and diet, you get an idea, right? You see great results. You've got this routine that you've put together or you're bot or you're following from somebody and you've seen great results. That's the routine now. Yes.

And you marry that. The formula. This happened to me at least five times in my lifting career where I I changed something up And then all of a sudden I saw a change in my body and then I fell in love with that and then did it for a whole year You did for too long Yeah, and then I stuck with it because it showed me such great results because of the and it took me like five times going through that Going like oh, it's not the routine as much as. I'm doing a different routine than what I was before,

the novelty of that training routine. So, and I feel like I see that a lot in like comments on our YouTube channel and on Instagram with our listeners, like because we talk about programming so much that they go, you know, you inspired me to change it up. I've been doing this for a year or two years. And it's like, this is another reason, or another reason why we get these hard plateaus.

And a lot of times it's a blend of some of these things, right? So not only are you stuck in the same routine you've been in for a year, you're also extremely low on calories or you're stuck on the same routine. And then you're eating a little bit over on you. And it's just, it's compounding. It's only making it more difficult to break through that.

I'll tell you why this was my favorite one to change, because it was the easiest. So when I would get a client, diet is always a tough one, right? Because it's with them every day, or with lifestyle. Yeah, it's lifestyle. I can't follow more around and do that stuff.

So when I would get a client and they'd be like, oh my God, I've been plateaued at the same weight or whatever, and we would address nutrition, but this one I could do right away, right? Because they hired me to train them and change their workout. And without changing their diet, we would see another fat, but this one I could do right away, right, because they hired me to train them, I'd change their workout. And without changing their diet, we would see another fat, you know, five pounds of fat loss, just from changing the routine up.

So this is important. If your routine has been the same this entire time and you've hit a plateau, one thing you can do is change the workout routine to something that is going to show you more strength gains, going to show you some muscle. That's positive, right? That boosts your metabolism. That'll make the fat loss easier, not only to happen, but easier to maintain as well. All right, here's another one.

And then again, this is also quite common. I know we're saying that about all of these, that's why we picked them. And that is that you might need a break for recovery. You might be pushing so hard that your body's holding on, so hard to every pound a body fat. Now, why is this happen? Your fat on your body is an insurance policy.

Think of it this way, right? We all have bank accounts. So you have a bank account, you store money in the bank account, you start reading the news, you know, like what's happening right now. Affiliations going up, gas prices going up. Oh my god, economies in a crash. A lot of people are like having conversations

with their spouses, honey. We gotta cut this expense. We're not gonna go on this vacation. We're gonna sit because everything's getting real scary out there. And you know, I heard some talk at work about maybe some layoffs. So we need to stop and just save our money as much.

This is what your body will do if the stress is too high because fat is an insurance policy. Remember, our bodies adapted where food was very scarce and one of the number one causes of death was starvation or malnutrition. So if you lacked a lot of sleep or scary stuff happened all the time or whatever, your body's like stored as body fat because at the very least we'll have this energy on us

that we could sap into. And your hormones will organize themselves this way. You'll see stress hormones go up. You'll see calorie burning hormones, like growth hormone and testosterone go down. And your body will organize itself in a way to protect body fat as much as possible. In fact, what it can do and what it often does in this case

is when you see weight loss with too much stress, muscle loss, what you're seeing is muscle loss because your body's okay with getting rid of muscle, because that just costs a lot of energy. But we got to hold onto this body fat, there's all the stress going on. So sometimes, and I remember the first time this happened to me, I had a person that I was helping, they were doing so much workout, so much training, so cutting cows, whatever. And I literally had her switch, I think it was two or three of her workouts

from these high-intense, kind of a robot class workouts to Yin yoga, which you burn no calories. Like Yin yoga is, you hold a pose for like three minutes and you're breathing. You're burning no calories. And she was so afraid that stopping that calorie burning workouts and moving to Yin yoga was going to cause her gain all sway. Well, that first nothing happened. She just started feeling better.

And then I remember the day she came to me and she goes, I'm losing weight. What the hell is going on? I thought I was burning less calories. I think your body needed a break. Your body just needed the reassurance that it didn't need to hold on to this body fat. I find this most common in fitness people or people that love to train and work out, because they just assume that the more work and effort they put into it, the more results they're gonna get.

And so, you know, Yeah, if you're working out once a week, this isn't a plan. Yeah, that's right. So of all the things we've gone over, I would say, I mean, I still think this is really common, right? So they're all very common, but this, I find more common with my trainers,

my fitness fanatics, the people that love to work out borderline, maybe even addicted to it, they don't realize they're addicted to it. The training aspect of it, right? And they're so into that and they've told themselves that, okay, or really type A personalities right, your go-getters, like, you know, they just want to, they want to work through the plateau. And so they just ramp up and Tensey, they ramp up.

I'm guilty of this, you know, I for sure, I mean, we started this podcast off talking about that when I was younger, I was training seven days a week plus basketball, plus Snow White and plus Wakeboarding and like my body was not moving and changing, simply just cutting back dramatically. And like cutting my workouts in half, like half the amount of training volume I was doing. Also in my body, I put on like 10 pounds of muscle that summer. So I do think that if you are a very active person

or you're a fitness enthusiast, this is where you normally have to kind of go look, is like, you know what, maybe you are hammering the body so hard that it's just trying to recover, you're not allowing it to adapt. Yeah, and I've seen this a lot, the majority of my clients that had really good success

and they've been able to get to a place where they're like, oh wow, yeah, I had a great amount of weight that I lost and I feel good, but I'm really trying to kind of press further and it's just the go to button for them had been like doing the workouts, but then also doing the cardio and doing all the excess stuff, you know, adjacent to the actual workout plans. And then they just more, more, more. It's a point where the body just, yeah, like it was in that state of stress. It's just like holding on.

And they just can't figure out why the needle just completely stopped. So it is at that point now where like rest is your body is just like we need this rest to be able to now You don't provide you with with that transition that change in your physique. Yeah, this is when you're fighting your body It's like you it's like when you're in this position. Oh, I plateaued push harder. Oh, no, it's not working push harder If you fight your body your body will win you're not gonna be I promise you you won't win at some point It's not only in a plateau, but you're gonna start to get sick. You're not gonna be, I promise you you won't win. At some point, it's not only in a plateau, but you're gonna start to get sick, you're gonna start to get injured,

and you're gonna run to some big problems. So if you feel like you're fighting your body to get results, then pause for a second, because it should feel like you're working together. If it feels like it's working together, then you're on the right track. Well, that leaves the last point, right? That really well, because I think that, after I've kind of checked off all the other boxes, okay, all the things that

we just talked about, if we stood in there and let's say they're fine on all those, everything's aligned is like, damn, what's going on? Why is this person still in a plateau? Many times they're internally still fighting their body. They've got some sort of like a new salcon probably speak to this the best because, you know because with the gut issues that you've had, you could be all dialed and dialed, you could be training super consistent, balanced on all those things like that, but because internally, your body is trying to survive

and adapt, it's not allowing yourself to build muscle and burn body fat because it's prioritizing your, I mean, you said it earlier, the body is just wants to survive. And it's going to allocate resources in that direction. And if you're being attacked inside more than anywhere else, all that other shit, it's like, I'll worry about stress. Just more stress.

Yeah, it's more stress. I'll worry about that. I'm going to prioritize this. And so if you are checking all these boxes and you're still in a hard plateau, this is where now I would recommend doing like a blood work and get a panel done and see what else is potentially going on. Good luck building muscle or burning body fat when you have poor health. It ain't going to happen if your gut health is poor or you have a nutrient deficiency or

your hormones are totally out of whack or you have crappy sleep. A lot of people on, everything's fine, but their sleep is so bad that their health is bad. You ain't going to lose body fat and you ain't going to build muscle if your sleep is so bad that their health is bad. You ain't gonna lose body fat and you ain't gonna build muscle if you're sleep is off or really bad. Studies are shown very clear on that. So if you have poor health and I think besides people who fold themselves, I think you know, like, I've had people tell me this, like,

hey, Sal, I wanna lose weight, but I've got really bad gut issues. Which one should I focus on first? I will. You gotta be healthy first, right? Or hey, I have insomnia, but I wanna, you know, I, which one should I focus on first? I will. You got to be healthy first, right? Or, hey, I haven't saw me, but I want to, you know, I want to get stronger and do all this stuff. I'm so excited, though.

Yeah, but I want to get shredded, what should I do? Like, you got to solve that first. So if your health is good, your body will adapt in very favorable ways. What do I mean by favorable the ways that you want it to? If your health is poor, it's in protection mode and good luck with progressing in any meaningful direction. I mean, look, it's like, have you ever tried to work out when you feel sick? Like, how much weaker are you? And how much is your performance progress? Are you really making it?

Yeah, you're not making it all. So, if your health isn't great, all the other stuff we just said really doesn't matter. So, you got to make sure that's good. Yeah, if you've checked all the boxes and you may fall in this category and you're lost and you don't know where to go, this is part of the motivation behind the forum that we created, the MP holistic health. That's absolutely free. It's on the Facebook, on Facebook. So if you're listening to this and you're going like, I'm stuck in this plateau, I feel like those first four, I'm checking all those boxes, but I don't know where to start looking if I have something internally going on with me

or if I do potentially have poor health, get inside that form, it's absolutely free. Dr. Cabral is in there with his team and he's their phenomenal. Yeah, and then if you want, you can work with them and they do very comprehensive testing so they can start to kind of narrow it down because that can be very frustrating,

not knowing the root cause of some of your poor health. Look, if you like our information, head over to MindPumpFree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at MindPump.

Justin, Adam is on Instagram at MindPump.com and you can find me on Twitter at MindPump.com. Thank you for listening to MindPump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballac, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically

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