Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Can You Still Be Healthy If You’re Overweight?

Episode Date: May 22, 2018

Losing weight is hard. If you don’t agree with that now then spend some time in a gym and meet a few hundred people who do think that. Sometimes you diet and exercise and nothing happens. It gets frustrating at times, knowing that all the hard work you put into changing your body amounted to absolutely nothing. What if you don’t really need to lose weight to be healthy? More and more people are saying that being overweight isn’t necessarily what leads to ill health. It’s just lack of exercise, poor diet, high stress, and other unhealthy habits. This idea is part of a growing movement known as “health at every size,” that states that instead of focusing on weight, people should just focus on eating better, moving more, and practicing good habits, regardless of the outcome. Other people say that, no, your weight does matter, and one of the single best ways to improve your health, live longer, and feel better is to lose weight. Who’s right? Well, the short story is that being overweight or obese is, by definition, unhealthy. The good news, though, is that the amount of body fat it takes to negatively affect your health is probably higher than you might think, and you can keep many of the problems at bay by eating right and exercising. In this episode, you’re going to learn what a healthy weight really is, whether or not exercise and diet can offset the negative effects of being overweight, and when you absolutely should lose weight regardless of how good your other habits are. Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

This episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my one-on-one coaching service. So the long story short here is this is the personal coaching service

that I wish I had when I started in the gym many years ago. Every diet and training program that we create for clients is 100% custom. We provide daily workout logs and do weekly accountability calls. Our clients get priority email service and discounts on supplements and the list goes on and on. Furthermore, my team and I have also worked with hundreds of people

of all ages, circumstances, and needs and goals. So no matter how tricky you might think your situation is, I promise you we can figure out how to get you results. If I have piqued your interest and you want to learn more, then head on over to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash coaching and schedule your free consultation call now. I'll tell you there's usually a wait list and new slots fill up very quickly. So if you're interested at all, don't wait. Go schedule your call now. Alrighty, that is enough shameless plugging for now, at least let's get to the show.

Hey, Mike Matthews here from Muscle for Life and Legion Athletics. And in this video podcast, I'm going to answer a question that I've been getting a lot over the last year or so. And that is, can you be healthy when you are overweight? Can you actually be healthy at every size? Now let's start with defining the word healthy because that word can mean different things to different people. So when I say healthy, what I mean is that you have no disease states in your body that are impairing the function of your organs. So for example, if somebody has elevated HbA1c levels, which indicates their body does not do a good job processing glucose, but has not yet developed type 2 diabetes, by my definition, that person would still be healthy. You could say that they

are closer to unhealthy than somebody with normal HbA1c levels, but they are not yet unhealthy. Now, when we are talking body weight, the easiest way to determine what is a normal body weight versus what is overweight for most people is to use the BMI, the body mass index, which is a relationship between your height and your body weight. Now, if you are familiar with BMI, you know that it is not a great metric for those of us with more lean mass than the average person. For example, my body fat percentage is rather low, probably around 9%, but I have 40-ish pounds more muscle than the average person. And therefore, according to the BMI, I'm borderline overweight. But for most people who do not have more muscle than the average person, the BMI is a quick and easy way to accurately

determine whether they have a normal body weight or whether they are overweight or obese and so on. So generally speaking, a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered a normal body weight range. 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight. 30 to 34.9 is considered obese. And 35 plus is considered morbidly obese. And just to put those numbers in perspective, I am six foot two and I weigh 195 pounds and I'm around 9% body fat. And my BMI is 25, putting me in the beginning of the overweight range, which obviously isn't true. However, if I did not have a lot more muscle than the average person, if I was just your average six, two guy, 195 pounds, my body fat percentage would be a lot higher and I would be overweight. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread

the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. Okay, so now the question at hand, how does body weight relate to health? And we're going to use BMI as a proxy for body weight because there's a lot of research on the correlation between different BMI levels and general health. And first, let's just talk about the idea that you

can be healthy at every size because that is a trendy thing these days, often used by very obese people to justify their obesity. Ironically, the health at every size acronym has its scientific roots in a special diet plan specifically for people who get really hyper-focused on their weight and who tend to yo-yo diet and who struggle to lose weight and keep it off. And so what scientists did is they helped these people understand that weight is just a number. And instead of focusing so much on that number, they should focus on eating good food and learning intuitive eating. And that helped people lose weight. And so again, my point here is that health at every size, scientifically speaking, is a weight loss intervention. It was designed to help overweight

people lose weight, not help them remain overweight and feel okay about it. Now, how true is the health at every size idea, at least as most people understand it? Can you really be healthy at any size? Can you be morbidly obese and healthy? No. You see, the reality is if you exercise regularly and you eat fairly well, you eat a fair amount of relatively unprocessed nutritious foods. You can be healthy by the definition that I gave earlier, meaning that you don't have any disease states. Your organs are working correctly. Your body can operate at normal capacity and also be overweight. You can have a BMI of let's, 25 to 29.9. You can be in that overweight range and still be, for all intents and purposes, healthy if you exercise regularly

and eat well. And you can probably remain healthy for the long haul if your BMI is in the 25 to 29.9 range and you also exercise regularly and and eat fairly well i think that's a reasonable statement to make based on the research that we have available on the correlation between bmi and disease states and also the research we have on how exercise in particular influences this for example we know that the fatter someone is, the more insulin resistant they are. So the more overweight they are, the less sensitive their bodies are to insulin's signals, which means that the body has to produce

even more and more insulin to shuttle the nutrients from the blood into primarily the muscle and fat cells. Now, of course, if somebody's muscle and fat cells become too insulin resistant, they have type 2 diabetes, which is a disease that absolutely ravages the body. And this is why preserving insulin sensitivity is a major factor in preserving all around health. Now, what are some good ways to do that? Well, not being overweight definitely helps, but exercise is a powerful

way to improve insulin sensitivity as well. And cardiovascular exercise in particular, which is why research shows that cardiovascular fitness is correlated with the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The more cardiovascularly fit you are, regardless of your body weight, the less likely you are to develop type 2 diabetes and resistance training too deserves a shout out because research shows that it also improves insulin sensitivity and of course it also adds muscle mass to your body and muscle mass alone has protective effects against type 2 diabetes so the more muscular you are the less likely you are to develop type 2 diabetes and the more cardiovascular muscular you are, the less likely you are to develop type 2 diabetes,

and the more cardiovascularly fit you are, the less likely you are to develop type 2 diabetes. Now, if we're talking all around health, we also have to talk about cardiovascular health because heart disease, of course, is the number one killer in the world. And the research is clear here that obesity is a major risk factor for all-cause mortality related to heart issues, meaning the more overweight someone is, the more likely they are to die of a cardiovascular disease. So in this way, being overweight is most certainly unhealthy. And the more overweight somebody is, the more unhealthy it is when we're looking at it from

a cardiovascular perspective. weight somebody is, the more unhealthy it is when we're looking at it from a cardiovascular perspective. And while exercising can bring that risk down, it is still not as low as it would be in somebody who is in a normal body weight range who is also exercising regularly. I think this is a good point to comment on the argument of whether it is better to be fit, fat, or lean, lazy. So is it better? Is it healthier to be overweight and exercising regularly or normal weight and not exercising at all? There's actually a good scientific paper on this that was conducted by scientists at the University of Texas and the University of Queensland, and it was published in 2015. And the long story short here is fit fat does seem to be better from a cardiovascular health perspective. Now you should keep in mind though that that is no longer true when you get into

the very overweight ranges. When BMI goes to 30 and beyond that becomes less and less true. There is a point where the lean lazy person has a lower risk of heart disease than the very, very overweight person who's also exercising regularly. And the reason for that is from a health perspective, while you can get away with some fatness, you can be overweight, you can be in that 25 to 29.9 BMI range and exercise regularly and eat well and sleep well and don't drink a bunch of alcohol, don't smoke and be healthy and stay healthy, there is a point where being fat simply just becomes unhealthy regardless of whatever else you're doing in your life. And we can find very clear evidence of that in research on the correlation between BMI and mortality. All-cause mortality or chances of dying from anything and

everything, the vast majority of those things being diseases, of course. For example, there was a very good and very extensive review on this published just recently, published last year in 2017, and it was conducted by scientists at the University of Bristol and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. And in that paper, the lead author said that an extra three to four units on the BMI scale is associated with a 5% increase in all-cause mortality. Now, what this means then is if your BMI goes from 20, normal, to about 23 or 24, starting to be overweight, your chances of dying over a set period of time increased by about 5%. And if you were to go from 20 to let's say 30, now you're getting into the obese range,

your chances of dying over a set period of time increased by about 15 to 20%. Now, of course, these scientists were looking at people on a population level and they were looking at BMI, not body composition, which is very important, of course, especially to those of us who are into resistance training, because again, my BMI is 25, but not because I have a lot of body fat, which is ultimately what we're talking about. Having a lot of body fat is unhealthy. It gets to a point where it's unhealthy, whereas having a lot of muscle is actually very healthy. Now, of course, you can take that to a point where it's unhealthy, whereas having a lot of muscle is actually very healthy. Now, of course, you can take that to the point of unhealthy, but that requires steroids. You're

never going to get too muscular naturally to a point where it impairs your health. It's just not going to happen. And so my point here is that it's very clear that for the average person, maintaining a normal body weight is generally healthier than being overweight and is most definitely healthier than being obese and beyond. And that's true regardless of how much they might exercise or how well they eat or how many other healthy habits they've developed. There is that wiggle room. You can be slightly overweight and you can offset the negative health effects with regular exercise, eating well, good sleep hygiene, and so forth. But even those people would be better off if they were doing all those things in a normal body weight range. Now, for those of us who are into

resistance training, who are into building muscle, or who have a lot more muscle than the average person, we can look at it more in terms of body composition. We can look at it in terms of body fat percentage. For us, it is best to have a normal body fat percentage and do everything else that we do as opposed to having a much too high body fat percentage and going to the gym and eating well and so forth. And to put numbers on that, unfortunately, there isn't a lot of research that I can cite here, but based on my understanding of things, I think it's reasonable to say that for guys, if you are in the body fat percentage range of about 10 to 15%, you maybe could stretch that as high as 20%. If you're also exercising a lot, then you are okay. But I would prefer to see guys in the 10 to 15% range as opposed to pushing 20%. And for girls, 20 to 25% would be the ideal range.

Of course, you can be a bit lower if you want to be leaner, but if we're just talking health, 20, 25%. And some people might say that you could stretch that as high as 30%. Again, I would rather see a woman in the 20 to 25% range than the 25 to 30% range. And once you get beyond 30%, now you're getting into the overweight range. And for guys, of course, as you get beyond 20%, you're looking at overweight. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're

listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email

at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in, so instead I'm going to just quickly tell you about something

of mine, specifically my one-on-one coaching service. So the long story short here is this is the personal coaching service that I wish I had when I started in the gym many years ago. Every diet and training program that we create for clients is 100% custom. We provide daily workout logs and do weekly accountability calls. Our clients get priority email service and discounts on supplements and the list goes on and on. Furthermore, my team and I have also worked with hundreds of people of all ages, circumstances, and needs and goals. So no matter how tricky you might think your situation is i promise you we can figure out how to get you results if i have piqued your interest and you want to learn more then head on over to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash coaching

and schedule your free consultation call now i'll tell you there's usually a waitlist and new slots fill up very quickly so if you're interested at all don't wait go schedule your call now