Well with Arielle Lorre - 407: Pilates vs. Strength Training & How to Move Through the Puffy Phase of Training with Dr. Shannon Ritchey

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

Dr. Shannon Ritchey is a trainer, founder of EVLO Fitness and host of the Dr. Shannon Show. She joins me for a myth-busting deep dive into women’s fitness, physiology, and how to get the results we are striving for. We unpack what most people get wrong about training men vs. women, the truth about cycle syncing, and why building a sustainable routine matters more than chasing soreness or “no pain, no gain.” Dr. Ritchey breaks down progressive load, recovery days, and the science of rest, plus how to avoid overtraining while still seeing results. We get into hot topics like Pilates vs. strength training, why women sometimes feel “bulky,” and the real metabolic benefits of muscle. She also shares practical strategies for reaching body composition goals with or without food tracking, healthy high-protein snacks, how to diet without missing out on fun, and the four key pillars for building muscle. If you’ve ever wondered how quickly you can see results—or why you might feel puffy or retain water—this episode is packed with answers.This episode is brought to you by Vivrelle, Boncharge, Osea, Our Place, Ro, Quince, and Nutrafol.Go to vivrelle.com and use code WELL for 30% off one month of membership and to skip the waitlist. Save 15% off my favorite red light face mask at boncharge.com and use code BLONDE.Go to oseamalibu.com and use code BLONDE for 10% off. Visit fromourplace.com/blonde and use code BLONDE for 10% off sitewideGo to ro.co/BLONDE to see if your insurance covers GLP-1s for free.Go to Quince.com/blonde for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!Visit Nutrafol.com and enter code BLONDE for $10 off your first month and free shipping. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.Produced by Dear Media.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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shaping how we feel, live, and look. Come for the substance, stay for the honesty, and leave with the tools to be well, inside and out. Hi everybody. Welcome to the show. I have such a great episode for you today. I have to say I was really blown away by my guest and I know that you guys are going to be as well. So I'm sure a lot of you already follow her. But today I'm speaking to Dr. Shannon Richie. So she is the founder of Evelow Fitness. She's a doctor of physical therapy. She is a trainer. She is the host of the Dr. Shannon show and she has such an amazing way of explaining and communicating physiology. She has such an incredible knowledge of it as well. And she really helps to clear up things like the difference

between training for men and training for women. Obviously, I've had a lot of male fitness professionals on my podcast, but not as many females. And we kind of dive into some myth busting in this episode. So we talk about how to get the results that we are striving for, what most people get wrong about training men versus women. We talk about the truth about cycle sinking, why building a sustainable routine matters more than chasing soreness or that no pain, no gain cliche. We talk about progressive load, recovery days, the science of rest, which is really interesting, how to avoid over-training. We get into hot topics like Pilates versus Strength Training and why you might be getting the results that you want through Pilates and not strength training. We talk why sometimes

women feel bulky and puffy. This is something that so many people ask me. And she, I think, is the first person really to break down why we get that puffy feeling and that look that so many of us experience and so many of us loathe. We talk about how quickly you can see results, the missing key to body recomposition, and so much more. I know you guys are going to love this. episode. So please enjoy Dr. Shannon Ritchie. Welcome. Thank you. I'm excited to talk to you because I feel like I've been having a lot of fitness professionals on my podcast lately, but they've all been male. And not to knock on them because I get a lot of value from all of those men. So I think to start, I would just love to hear from you. What is some universal fitness advice that you hear that you don't think necessarily applies to women?

that applies to men but doesn't apply to women. You know, there's so much content about cycle-sinking, which I think we can get into, or like women need to change how they exercise after a certain age. Like with the perimenopause community, a lot more awareness around that, and people starting to focus on that more and how you need to change how you're training.

But what we're seeing from the literature is that, yes, we do need more studies for women. But a lot of the things that apply to men, apply to women. It's just that it's all been packaged differently for women. And I think that's the issue and that's what's so confusing for women is like, oh, I'm a woman. So I need to go do lightweights or I can't lift heavy or on the other side of the spectrum. There's, I'm entering perimenopause. I need to start lifting heavy to build muscle.

And what we see is that there is a broad range of you can lift relatively light, not too light, otherwise it's not going to do much, or you can lift heavy or anywhere in between, and you can see muscle growth, no matter if you're a man or a woman or your age. So I think in general, the thing that's bothering me right now is that there's so much confusing advice. Like, you're a woman, so you need to train like this, or you're this age, so you need to train like this. Honestly, most people aren't even applying the basics of strength training or consistent with those basics. And if they were, they would get themselves, you know, 99% of the way. That's funny. I mean, you kind of like proved me wrong because I feel like I've fallen into that

trap. Okay, men train one way and women train another way. And you're like, no, no, maybe there is a little bit of nuance there, but really there are some fundamentals that we can all be doing. Totally. And listen, one of the reasons that I like the whole cycle sinking thing, like that's something that I think is very popular right now, especially for women of a certain age. The reason I like that trend is because, yes, women have to contend with a cycle that men do not have to contend with. And with that will come hormonal fluctuations throughout the month that affect how you feel. So the premise was we should train differently based on our cycle because we have these different hormonal fluctuations that men are not dealing with. But what we see from

the literature is that women really can perform very similarly throughout their cycle. They might feel different and you can auto-regulate and adjust your training routine based on how you're feeling, which I think is a great idea. But you don't necessarily have to like change it up so drastically each week. And I actually don't recommend that because if not, you're going to, you won't have continuity of training and it gets really hard to progress. If you're doing something one week and then something different the next week and then something different the next week, it's really difficult for you to add progressive overload, go up and wait, start to see progress. So I think that there's a way in which we can tailor training for women where it's like,

okay, let's not dismiss what you're going through in your cycle. Yes, you feel like crap right before you're about to start your period. Let's take care of you then. Maybe it just means you go a little lighter that day or you don't do as intense of a workout as you typically would just because you don't feel great. but it doesn't mean that we have to throw the baby out with a bathwater and not apply the principles of strength training regularly throughout your cycle. Yeah, and I love that you talk about gentle consistency. And I feel like that is the key in that resonated so much with me because

I have been very vocal about having to take like a year and a half off of exercise. And I've been getting back into it in the last couple months. And that is basically what I've been doing to build back a routine. And I know that that's like what so many people struggle with, right? It's like, how do I build a sustainable routine? And we have this tendency to like go zero to 100, myself included. And luckily I'm working with trainers and people who are like, nope, no, no, we're doing like two days a week in the beginning. And then we're adding another and then another. Isn't that interesting? It's like we are so all or nothing because like if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it all out. Otherwise I'm wasting my time. And our physiology just doesn't work like that.

I think it's really easy to say these affirmations, like take care of yourself, be gentle on your body, all those things sound great. But if you really look at the science, and there's a lot of science behind the term gentle consistency, what we see is that loading your body using strength training progressively over a long period of time has incredible benefits to your body, but it has to have, you have to have that long horizon. And if you are jumping into your stress, strength training and you're going really hard and you're doing a ton and you're not prioritizing recovery, that might work for a few weeks, maybe a few months, and then you'll get injured. Because your body can only do so much. Our bodies only have so much capacity and recovery is

just as important. So if we're hitting it so hard that we're not recovering, it defeats the whole purpose, right? Because the whole benefit of strength training is that long time horizon. So being gentle with yourself and adjusting on the days where I was just sick. So I took four days off exercise. I had no issue with that. I was like, yeah, I'm sick. I got to take care of myself. Working out right now will do me no good. Or if you're on your cycle and you need to pull back a little bit or if you're super busy and stressed and you're like, okay, I'm going to go to the gym and I'm going to do one or two sets, whereas usually I would do four or five sets and then I'm going to call it a day. I'm just going to do my 15 minute workout. That accumulated over and over and over for a year.

and longer will have such a bigger impact on your body composition than just going for an hour every single day for a few weeks and then getting injured. Yeah, I think that we've just been taught for so long that like no pain, no gain. If you're not dying and you're not sore, then it's not working. And like we have all of these things that we've internalized, whether we're even conscious of it or not, where we feel like, okay, I have to like be at 100 all of the time. Otherwise, it's not going to be effective. Totally. Well, I can speak to the soreness thing. So, Sornness is one of those things that's very misunderstood. We think, yeah, if I wasn't sore, I didn't do enough.

And what we see from the literature is that soreness is a very poor indicator of the quality of your workout. We tend to get sore when we do a new movement. So if you do a new form of exercise or a new lift or something that your body is not familiar with, we tend to accumulate more soreness for whatever reason. And then the second reason we tend to accumulate soreness is if there's a heavy eccentric component, so the lowering phase. So think like a bicep curl.

Lifting your arm up is the concentric, lowering it is the eccentric. So if you have a lot of heavy eccentrics in your routine where you're like going down, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, those tend to cause more soreness and fatigue post-workout. Interestingly, they don't tend to cause more muscle growth, which is another myth. So people are like, oh, because I'm sore, I did a bunch of eccentrics. That means I'm building more muscle or my workout is more effective. It's not necessarily true. So light to no muscle soreness is actually ideal.

because you want to be fresh when you're going into your next workout. If you have a bunch of soreness from your, let's say you're working legs on Tuesday and then you want to go work them again on Thursday, if your legs are still really sore, you'll have a, you won't have as high quality of a workout. You won't be able to push yourself as hard in the gym. And therefore you won't see as strong of a stimulus and you ultimately won't see as good of results. So I love the idea of don't worry about soreness.

If you just push your lifts close to failure, which we can talk about, whether or not you're sore the next day, I don't really put much stock into it. Yeah, I have not been getting that sore as I've been building my routine. However, I did a Pilates class on Sunday. It was the hardest thing in the world. But I could feel that like my form was not good. I was in like a crunch position, like a pike position, you know, holding myself up with my abs for like 15 minutes straight. And then it was all neck and all back. And I knew that it was not right. And it was like the entire class. And I've been so sore ever since. And I'm like, this is not good. And then it throws off every other workout for the week. And then it's kind of like, oh, why did I do that? I know. I text my trainer before this. And I was

like, I don't know if I can do it today. And then I'm like, no, do it. And I'll just like lightly kind of work through because I know that I can. It's just like the discomfort. It might. It might. not be as high quality of a workout versus if you came in really fresh. But yeah, I think that's another thing that the Pilates craze, which we can talk about. People are like, oh, you must have never taken a Pilates. Like, I, listen, I have my opinions about Pilates, but people are like, you must have never taken a Pilates class because it's hard and you will get really, really sore. A workout being hard and getting sore from a workout are not you holding a plank for 15 minutes. What is that doing, really? I mean, it's, and a lot of the, and a lot of

those are really common. It's just like, let me just torture you by like putting you in this position for a really long time and making you hold this position for a really, really long time. It gives the illusion that it's effective because you're shaking, your muscles are burning. You're like, oh my gosh, I feel like I'm going to fall. I feel like I'm going to die. I get it. It's really hard. But that stimulus doesn't necessarily create muscle growth. What we see is that muscle growth is created when you take lifts close to failure in 30 reps or less. So when you're holding a position for minutes and minutes and minutes on end, although that feels hard, it's not a potent enough stimulus to drive the adaptation, which is ultimately muscle

growth. So I personally think that there needs to be a reframe in the fitness industry that hard isn't necessarily better always. We want better to be better, right? We want the correct stimulus through our bodies and that will ultimately be what creates change. So why is it that you do get, or some people, myself included in the past, get really lean and toned from doing something like Pilates. That's a really good question. I think that it's multifactorial. When we think about toning, what does that really mean? I think that if we take it back to the beginning, what does that mean? Getting more toned is body recomposition, which means losing fat and gaining muscle or losing fat and being able to see the existing muscle underneath. So fat loss is typically a component

of getting more toned or looking more toned. And fat loss primarily comes from diet, not exercise. We see from study after study that exercise only creates a little bit of fat loss in the beginning. And then after that, it tends to plateau. So maybe like a few pounds after a few months of exercising if you're not changing and adapting your diet. So exercise is not a big indicator of fat loss in the long term. Now, building muscle, what are the effects of muscle building on metabolism? It's a complex interplay, but that's going to be like more of a long time horizon where you're building muscle and your metabolism's improving might have some effects on creating a leaner body or being able to maintain leanness, things like that. But tone to set it comes

primarily from a combination of diet and then building muscle. So if that person is changing their diet and they're losing fat or maybe they're sedentary and they're going from no movement or not a lot of movement to Pilates where they are adding more movement, they might lose a couple of pounds at first and then that will quickly plateau. Can their Pilates method be building muscle? Maybe. Some Pilates methods can if they're applying the principles of strength training. And then there's also some people that just have, I don't want to blame genetics. I hate when people just do that. No, no, but it's such a huge factor. It is a huge factor. And there's some people that are like, genetically, they don't have to apply the science in order to see results. Because when we're looking

at the data, there's outliers with everything where it's like, what is that person? That person did like 60 reps and they're building all this muscle. It's like, but that's not the majority of the population. So long-winded answer to say that, yes, it can happen. People can build muscle using Pilates. It's probably not burning a lot of fat. They're probably not losing a lot of fat from that. It's probably primarily their diet and or a combination of genetics. Yeah.

I feel like for myself, that's probably what it is. Everybody in my family is thin and lean. Like they have lean muscle, even though they don't all work out consistently. You can see their muscle because they're lean. And I look back on photos from last summer and I'm like, I looked ripped and everybody at that time was like, what's your workout? And I'm like, I have not worked out and God knows how long at that point, maybe nine months. And also when I do Pilates, my appetite isn't as big as like right now I'm ravenous because

I'm doing strength training. And that's an interesting conversation as well, right? It's like, okay, are you going, because there's the whole like someone went from, you'll see this on TikTok all the time. I went from like hit high intensity workouts and weightlifting to Pilates. and walking and I am way more toned now than I was then. Everyone loves that pipeline. Everyone loves that pipeline. Okay, let's break it down. Yeah. So a few things at play here. Number one, if you're feeling better and you're seeing the results that you want, go for it. I'm not trying to like yuck anybody's

yum. Like do whatever you need to. I love that saying. I've always wanted to say it. Finally, I get to say it on a mic. Yes. So we approve. Yeah. Everyone in here like so. So do what do you? But there's a few things at play. So when you, you're doing a lot of high intensity exercise and or lifting weights, you could be overdoing it. Right. There's a lot of these popular boot camp classes in which you're really, you're going hard. And if somebody's doing that like six times a week, their body is probably not going to feel good. They might have some different hunger hormones happening at play. They might not be recovering. They might not be sleeping super well, which can make you hungrier and increase your appetite.

So they might be eating more just by nature of the things that they're doing. It's also very easy to go to an exercise class, track it on your fitness tracker and be like, oh, I burn so many calories. I get to now go eat more. And so it's very easy to be in a calorie surplus and eat more when you feel like you've done a ton of exercise. So consciously or subconsciously, that could be happening. And that could be a part of why someone is maybe retaining more body fat if they're doing,

a routine like that. I'm not saying that always happens, but that could be a reason why, okay, all of a sudden I switch to Pilates and walking. I'm less hungry. I don't feel like I need to come home and eat a burger after I do my workout. Like I'm just a little bit more balanced. I'm recovering better. I'm not in this fight or flight all the time. I'm sleeping better. And so it could just be lifestyle factors that are kind of unconsciously happening with diet. So there's that. And then there is potentially loss of muscle. So if, if someone is truly following a strength training routine in which they are building muscle and they're switching to, I don't want to just throw Pilates under the bus, but any really high rep

training in which you aren't applying the principles. Bar, there's yoga skull. There's a lot of things that fall under that umbrella. Some of those can build muscle, right, if they're applying the things that are important for building muscle. But if they're not, and they're just like kind of the really, really high rep training, they're probably losing muscle. So they're losing fat potentially subconsciously through diet changes and then maybe also

losing muscle. And so they feel overall smaller. Because if you're losing both fat and muscle, you're getting overall smaller, which isn't really what most of us want. Yeah, exactly. You got it. That's exactly what can happen. And that's one of the issues with GLP ones is that people tend to under eat and not exercise and not lift weights. And so they lose muscle and they lose fat. And then you get yourself into a metabolic issue later. So that's not something that we strive for. Now, again, I always have to give so many disclaimers because people get so upset with me. It's like, don't even worry about it. I mean, you can't please everybody.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's many variables and everything is circumstantial and for some people. Yeah. Yes. If what I said makes sense to you, then great. But like, yeah. I always say take what you like and leave the rest.

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promo code blonde. Neutraful.com, code blonde. Okay, so you've been talking a lot or referencing how to actually build muscle. Yes. How do we do this? that. I created, I get questions about this all the time. And so I created a framework just to like help people remember it. And I think there's so much confusing advice. How do I train if I'm a

woman versus I'm a man? If I'm this age, if I'm this age, if I'm whatever, how do I integrate Pilates? If you just do these four things, you will see muscle growth. And then if you want body recomposition or that toned look, then you have to combine diet in there as well. But these four things are what's important for building muscle. So it's red. It's called the rep. framework are EPS. So each letter stands for a different component of this. So R is repetitions, getting close to failure in 30 reps or less. So the science shows that you can lift heavy for like six reps all the way up to 30 reps. As long as your last rep is slow and hard, which means taking it close to failure, that is the stimulus required for muscle growth. So if you like to

lift a little bit lighter and do all the way up to 25 reps, great. If you want to lift a little bit heavier and do six reps. Great. As long as your last rep is really, really slow, you have to eke out that last rep. Like you're like, I am trying as hard as I can to lift this weight. And I don't think I can do very many more. So you need to get close to failure in 30 reps or less. 30 reps or higher is not shown to be very effective for muscle growth. So that's kind of where a lot of these high rep training methods come in and why they aren't usually as effective for muscle growth, just because you're not lifting heavy enough. You don't have enough load to the muscle. So that's our repetitions.

E is exercise selection. So choosing exercises that are simple and target one muscle group at a time. So we see on Instagram the combination moves where you're like you're doing a lunge and a row at the same time. Or you're doing these side lunges with these rows. And it's like this works your back and your legs and your core and all these things. The issue with that is that if we go back to the reps or the repetitions is that you're not actually getting close to failure in any. of those muscle groups. So it's hard. You'll be out of breath. You might burn a little bit, but your shoulders might be getting a lot more work than your legs. So you might as well separate

those two lifts out, focus on the legs in one lift, focus on the shoulders in another lift, take both of those close to failure. And you're a lot better off than just trying to combine everything into one exercise. So that's exercise selection. P is protein. Everybody knows this by now, but eating enough protein is crucial because if you're applying the training stimulus but you don't have the building blocks via food, you won't see the same results. So 0.75 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day.

And then the S is structure. So this is very important, often overlooked. We want to work our bodies enough, but not too much. Work each muscle group, two-ish times per week on non-consecutive days with 48 hours in between. So if you're going to work legs on Tuesday, work legs again on Thursday or Friday. So put some time in between.

But we do want to work muscle groups around two-ish times per week, especially the big ones like glutes, quads, chest, things like that. And then having recovery days is within that structure. So I like to think about the structure of my week is like here are my lifting days. And here's when I'm going to work each muscle group throughout the week. And then here is my two recovery days where I'm not going to lift. I'm just going to do some light activity like walking, hiking, whatever it may be. And then adding in my cardio.

So 150 minutes of light to moderate intensity cardio, for me, that's just brisk walking. Like I have a hilly neighborhood. So my husband and I just walk every day. And that's that. So that's really easy to integrate almost as like a lifestyle piece. So if you apply all of those four things into your routine regularly, 99% of people will see amazing results. I know where a lot of women get hung up is they start doing some of this and then they feel

like they are bulking or they feel puffy. I fall into the puffy camp. Yes. I am. Tell me more. Puffier than I've ever been in my life. Oh, because I think you look amazing. That's so funny.

I mean, I'm not letting it stop me. But I noticed when I started doing weights, I just felt like I blew up. Interesting. Okay. So I know you've talked about this. Yes. And I want to hear your point of view because every man that I've asked about this has said it doesn't happen. And I'm like, no, no, no. It happens. And I feel like women experience it more than men. We must. Well, I think that women are more sensitive to it too. We're more aware of it. We have that like deep seated fear of like looking big and masculine that was, you know, implanted in our brains from society and all that. But I do think I've heard from a women that are like, I know you're saying I can't get bulky, but I feel that way. So let's like not dismiss what women are saying they feel their feeling is occurring. Let's talk about why it might be occurring. So when we think about there's two things that might be happening, cell swelling and also which might might be what's happening with you. Yeah, because it doesn't feel like a muscular thing. It's like my tissue. It's like very puffy. You might you might feel like inflamed or

swollen. And then there's gaining, and I don't think this is your case, but this happens, gaining muscle while you're either also gaining fat or not losing fat. So you're maintaining your fat mass, but you're also gaining muscle. So it's not that toned aesthetic that a lot of people are after, but that comes with diet, right? So that's, if that is what's happening, then you want to change diet while you are also building muscle at the same time. But the inflammation piece is interesting. When we start lifting, you've been lifting for how many? Been a few months now. Maybe, what are we May? February, March, April, May, like probably three months. Three months. Okay. When you start lifting, you typically see an increase in cell swelling.

And this happens because water, you just retain more water in the cells. So it won't be that it'll almost look like your muscles are like pumped. So for lack a better word, I'd be like Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know, like after you do a workout and you're like, whoa, my arms like look like jacked right now. That's that water retention, that that kind of like pump. And that can happen. And that's intercell swelling. And that can happen when you're new to strain training. Now there's extracellular or subcutaneous swelling, which is like swelling that's more under the skin that's more like that puffy feeling. And that happens probably for other reasons. Maybe you, maybe it's a recovery issue for you that could be like a medication combined with other things. Who knows? But typically

resistance training does not create that unless you're doing so much that's creating inflammation in your body. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I also just tend to get that way when I'm here in L.A. anyway. And I was in Florida like maybe a month ago. And it was great because all of that went away. And I also like didn't work out for five days. And I saw all of my muscle development. Yes. So I was like, oh.

No, no, no. It was just like, you were losing the water retention, puffy puffiness. Yes. But I think it's very validating probably for people to hear like, oh, no, it can be a thing. The cell swelling, whether it's intracellular, extra cellular. Because I feel like you hear it so often from women. it's such a big complaint. And whenever I do an episode around fitness or with a trainer or anything, and I have people send in questions, that's like the number one question. That and why do I get bulky

when I left. And I know that you've talked about this before as well. Like true bulkiness, like it's really hard, right, to get bulky. Yeah. So it's probably these other variables that are happening in our bodies that are making us feel like we're bulking. Yes. And I want to say just one more thing about the swelling, that typically tends to go down with consistency. That's what I'm hoping. Yeah. It typically tends to go down. Yeah.

Like I've been lifting for years. It's not something that I notice I'm in myself anymore. But some people, it's like worse than others. And some people it lasts a little longer than others. So that typically tends to get better with consistency. So keep going. As far as like, okay, I'm actually gaining a lot of lean mass. Like I am actually putting on pounds and pounds and pounds of muscle in a short

period of time. That typically does not happen. It takes, I would say, months to years to build significant poundage of muscle. I built eight pounds of muscle in one year. And if you look at my body, but I also lost fat at the same time. So I was body recompositioning. So if you look at my body at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year, I look more quote unquote toned by the end of the year, even though I had eight more

pounds of muscle. But that took the entire year to build that. So I think if you are feeling bulky right away, it could be a little bit of swelling on top of potentially you haven't lost the fat that you are looking to lose. Also, like, again, some women just really do build muscle fast. Like I hesitate to say that because I think everybody's going to be like, oh, that's me. That's me. It's a very, very small percentage. Like if you're listening, it's probably not you.

Like most women take a lot longer to build muscle than just like a few weeks. Like if we look at the data, it takes like 20. 12 weeks at least to build meaningful amount of, like visible amounts of muscle, even for men. So it's going to take a really long time for most. What I keep hearing from you is that diet is a really important factor. And I think that people tend to overlook that. And I had a trainer on recently, maybe it was even last week, who said like, people tend to look at their fitness routine as a diet.

So they think that they don't have to address the other part. Oh, I love that. And I know that you've been open about the fact that you've, you know, tracked macros. in the past. And I had my own experience with it. And for me at that time, it led to very disordered behavior. I think now if I were to do it, it probably wouldn't. And I know that, you know, you've recommended even just looking at your protein intake, right? And starting there. So talk about that a little bit. And what's a way that we can do it where we're kind of like diet agnostic? And it doesn't cross that line. Totally. For some people, tracking is a very useful

tool. For me, I love it because it takes the guesswork out of it and I could just like write it down and then I know where I'm at and then I'm like, okay, good. It's out of my brain. For some people, they obsess over like hitting every single number and oh, I'm not perfectly in my deficit. So I'm not going to see results and it makes them really under eat. And yeah, it creates this negative spiral around food. It feels like they can't have any freedom when they go out to eat or when they socialize with friends. So I think for women who want to lose body fat and gain muscle at the same time, yeah, starting with the protein and starting fist-sized portions of protein at each meal is a good

place to start. Starting there and seeing how you're doing. Now, if you do, let's say you're like, I want to lose 10 pounds. you're kind of in that tweaking area where you might need to track because there might need to be a little more precision with your diet at that point. So it's kind of a tricky like answer because it's like how do I help somebody who doesn't want to track but is in that fine tuning place. I feel like even sometimes just logging your food though for a day or a couple days can be very like illuminating. Even just a couple days and just be like, okay, I'm not going to do this forever.

I'm just going to do it for a couple like of my normal days and see where I'm. I'm landing. I think that's a really good. And also like working with a registered dietitian, RDs are amazing. Like they are, they're really going to help if you're one of those people that you're like, I have these goals that I really, really care about. And yet I really, really don't want to track. I have a whole podcast about what to do if you don't want to track, but you have body comp goals. Yeah. I mean, for me, like, I actually recently logged some of my food because I was like, why do I have this puffiness? What's going on? And I was like, oh, I am way over eating certain things like just kind of subconsciously where like we have a thing of pistachios by the door like a giant

thing every time I walk in or out of the house I grab a handful of pistachios like those things that are kind of mindless and like I've always been petite and you know it's not really an issue for me but if my goal is what we're talking about recomposition or cutting fat or whatever like that is something that I have to be cognizant of you know like oh maybe the cup of pistachians that I'm eating a day or more you know or like the two chicken thoughts. or three chicken thighs versus like that fist. Well, you know, and these things that do add up, you know, unfortunately. And oils and, you know, eating off your kids plate.

Yeah, it does add up because if we, from all the RDs that I've talked to, there's a really small window of calories in which you want to be in a deficit. Like you don't want to be in too big of a deficit. So if you are trying to body recomp, it's like you're either at your maintenance calories or you're slightly below like 200 to 400 calories. 200 to 400 calorie deficit is not that much. You know, that's like a scoop of peanut butter. Yeah.

And so it's like that can, if you are looking to body recomp, yeah, tracking just for a couple days and seeing where you're at and tracking like the little things too. Again, I don't want to like encourage people to be obsessive about it, but tracking the little things just to see like, oh, I have these habits that I didn't, I wasn't even conscious aware of. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's what's so great.

I mean, to your point, like a spoonful of peanut butter, how many of us are like, putting, you know, almond butter, dipping apples and almond, I do that all day. And it's like, well, okay, if I have a certain goal, like maybe that's a place where I can cut back or. Totally. Or just be more like conscious. Like I'm really into conscious eating. Yeah. And not, it's not a restrictive thing. It's not like I can't have that because I eat everything. Like I eat dessert. I, when I'm not pregnant, I drink like cocktails all the weekends, things like that. Like I eat everything. I'm not into restricting. I don't think that works. But I think being more conscious and consciously saying, I'm putting this in my mouth, is so impactful.

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And I know that, like, protein tends to be tricky because not everybody wants to eat, like, jerky or whatever high protein. Or don't do dairy. So we can't have, like, a Greek yogurt, that kind of thing. Okay. So I have some hacks. I think, first of all, I do chomps and, like, beef sticks, like, for snacks. And then I also do, like, Greek yogurt with protein, adding protein powder. There's tons of, like, yogurt alternatives.

And then you can add in protein powder. So that's, like, you can easily get, like, 30 grams of protein in a snack. Like, if you just add some protein powder or protein powder in a smoothie, even in water. Like, if you, yeah, sometimes I have, like, those protein waters and, like, protein drinks, like that are not smoothies that are liquid. It's like a lemonade. Yeah, like clean, simple eats, right? They have one. Yeah, I haven't tried it. Yeah, me either. I mean, yeah, like shake that in your water. It's almost like an electrolyte. And that's fine. That works. One of my biggest hacks is to, I'm a dessert person. So I like to have something sweet after I eat

dinner. And so I try to sneak in my protein there. So I'll do a yogurt bowl with like protein powder. fruit, honey, like make it sweet, like make it taste good, but like sneaking in the protein. Another thing, I have a pregnant cereal is my pregnancy craving right now. And I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. And now I'm going to like do this for the rest of my life. Milk, protein powder in the milk, strawberry protein powder in the milk with strawberry Cheerios. That sounds so.

It is good. So good. And it's still liquidy. It doesn't get like chunky with the protein powder? I don't do a full scoop. I do like half a scoop. but you're getting the protein from the milk and then you're getting protein powder. And the beautiful thing about that is like, I feel like I could eat cereal like five bowls of cereal.

Like it's not satiating for me. No. But adding the protein powder, I'm like one bowl of cereal I feel so much more full and satiated because you're getting the addition of the protein. So that's a hack. That's a great hack. Is that good? I had cereal for dinner the other night because I just was like I could not.

And I said to my boyfriend like, why is cereal at night the best thing ever? It's the best. It tastes a hundred times better than it tastes in the morning. I don't know. I don't want it in the morning. I want it either. It's same. So there's your dessert.

It's like there's your high protein dessert. Love that hack. Yeah, I know. So good. But like adding protein powder to things, I'm, I know people have opinions about protein powders. I'm big on convenience. I have a one year old, I'm pregnant.

I'm like, I don't have time to like eat chicken breasts for my snacks and like prepare any type of snacks. It's got to be packaged and convenient. It's just the stage of life I'm in right now. I think that's okay. Well, I think a lot of people can relate to that. I mean, not everybody has time to be prepping all of this food and to have it on hand and not everybody wants to be eating like, you know, chicken for a snack or anything like that. We have to have a little bit of fun too. And there's good protein powders these days. So which do you like? I like just ingredients.

There's strawberries and cream protein powder. Yum. With the strawberry cereal, I mean. I feel like you could like freeze that, like do milk and then freeze them. it's like strawberry. Remember those strawberry popsicles? Like, do you know what I'm talking about? The crumble? Don't mind me while. Yeah. Directly go home and do that. Or get like a creamy ninja, you know, one of those things. Yes. Oh yeah. I feel like you can get really creative. Ninja, you could do. You can do protein powder. I do protein powder in my lattes. It's like chocolate protein powder with milk and coffee in the morning. There's 20 more grams of protein. Yeah. Yeah. You can sneak it in.

Easy ways to sneak it in. Okay. You mentioned this earlier, but I just want to circle back on it. And it's over training. we've been talking about this since the beginning, right? Like we tend to want to go zero to 100. We feel like there's no pain, no gain. Like we have to be consistent. I know for a lot of people, when they do get into a routine, then they feel guilty for taking rest days. Like you feel like you're going to lose your momentum. What is the sweet spot when it comes to a routine?

You mentioned your own, right? So you have those two rest days worked in. But like what is that ideal? Well, first of all, I think it's important to understand the physiology of this because, again, And you can say like rest, rest is important, but until you really understand, oh, no, at a cellular level, I have to rest. Otherwise, I'm not going to see results. So muscle requires about 48, if you're taking lifts close to failure in 30 reps or less,

muscle requires about 48 hours of recovery. And in that recovery time, that is when you are building the muscle and seeing the adaptation from the work that you did. So if you are then going right into your next workout routine before you're giving your body enough time to recover and working those muscles again, you're interrupting the whole inflammation process, the whole protein synthesis process and potentially delaying your results, potentially causing too much fatigue that's harder to recover from, and it becomes this spiral of ultimately burning yourself out and not seeing the results that you're after. So I think

understanding that rest is key and I love to take at least two days off lifting every week. I do my two rest days consecutively on Saturday and Sunday, but you don't have to. Just do whatever works in your schedule. Some people take one rest day and that works for them. They feel like they can recover for me. And I think for a lot of modern women who just have stressful lifestyles, taking two recovery days is probably best because you've got your workout stress, but then you've also got, you know, relationship, work, kids, family, travel, whatever other stressors in your life that your body is contending with and trying to balance. So I do recommend taking care. So I do recommend taking two days off, lifting for most people.

I find that when I take those two days off, by the time I get back to my workout on Monday, my body feels completely fresh. And my workout feels so effective, is so effective. Because I'm able to give a really high quality effort into every single lift and provide a really potent stimulus for my body to change. So I think that understanding the science behind it and understanding like, oh, this isn't just like fluffy, like take care of yourself. Like, no, this is actually required to see change sustainably.

And when can people expect to see changes if they're doing this perfectly? Yes. Or even if they're not doing it perfectly. Like what is that point where you actually do start to build muscle and lose fat and they might see some recomp happening? Yes. So fat loss can happen relatively quickly if you are in a calorie deficit or even if you're a lot of people can recomp at maintenance calories.

And again, I'm not formally trained in nutrition, but I've talked to a lot of nutritionists. and dietitians about this. So fat loss can happen within like a couple weeks. It's not going to be drastic and you don't want it to be drastic. You know, maybe half a pound a pound a week is like kind of the most that you'll see. And if you're building muscle, you might not even see the scale change, by the way. But you can start to see that loss relatively quickly. Muscle gain takes a little longer.

The research shows typically eight to 12 weeks is when you'll see visible change in muscle definition or you'll see appreciable change in lean mass development. So around that three-month mark is usually when people are like, oh, wow. Like I really, if you're doing all the right things, you're really seeing big differences. You'll start to see differences before then. And then after a year, I like to give everybody a year. Like our whole thing is like try to build five pounds of muscle in one year and spread it out. Give yourself a long time horizon so that you don't feel rushed because we don't want you to overdo it like we've just talked about.

And it also gives you a lot of time to tinker and play because these are the basics that we're talking about. But you might find that you have to be in a little bit of a calorie surplus. And that's when you see your body recop the best. Or maybe you're in a slight deficit or maybe you're in a bigger deficit than some other people. So it takes some tinkering sometimes. You also need to learn like how to live close to failure. That's a learning process. How to do the exercises properly.

That's a learning process. So after a year, you can really start to see your body physically transform. And then you're also at that point, then getting the metabolic benefits that muscle provides. So three months to see sort of visual change and then a year to kind of see really goals. What are some of those benefits? The metabolic benefits. First of all, this is all a lifestyle, right? So it's like building muscle requires all the right ingredients, which includes recovery,

includes gentle consistency. And so in that process, you're just going to feel so much better because you're not burning yourself out. You're not overdoing it. But there's cellular benefits as well. So the cellular benefits are improvements in insulin sensitivity is kind of the first thing that I think about something. I'm sure you've had lots of guests talk about this.

So I won't go on and on. But insulin is a hormone that affects every single cell in our body. So if we are more insulin sensitive, every single process in your body improves. And muscle has a direct improvement in insulin sensitivity. Because when you have more muscle, you have a greater ability to store glucose. And so there's less glucose kind of in your bloodstream after you eat because the glucose has places to go via the muscle. And so when glucose disposal improves, when you get the glucose out of the bloodstream into the muscles, insulin goes down and your body and your cells become more insulin sensitive.

So this is a longer process. This isn't something that happens like after a couple weeks. It's building and developing lean muscle mass. But when you can improve your insulin sensitivity, your energy improves. Your ability to switch between burning fat and burning glucose or burning sugar improves. So your metabolic flexibility, your longevity, literally everything. Amazing. Well, you're such a wealth of knowledge.

I feel like we could talk about this forever. Tell everybody where they can find you because you have all of the information on your Instagram and you have your own program, which we didn't even talk about. That's okay. I guess so about passion about this stuff. I like don't even talk about EVLO, but I'm Dr. Shannon DPT on Instagram.

I share a lot of educational stuff on there. EVlo Fitness is our fitness platform. It takes everything that we've just talked about and puts it into fitness style classes. If you're not somebody that just likes to follow a circuit at the gym, but you like to do classes. You would love it. Every trainer is a doctor of physical therapy, so it's very science heavy while still not being boring. So that's evelfitness.com. And then, can we give a code to your listeners? Yeah, for sure. Okay. Yeah. Okay. What code do you

typically? We could do well. Okay. So well at checkout for six weeks free if you want to try out well. And yeah, I'm on TikTok. I'm posting a lot of prenatal stuff on TikTok. We love TikTok. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you like, the episode. And if you like the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes such a long way in supporting the show. Follow the show over on Instagram at well.pod. You can also follow my personal Instagram at Ariel Lorry. I'm always sharing great clips from the episodes. And we also have full episodes on YouTube as well if you want to

watch an entirety. Thanks for listening. Hi, y'all. I'm Kinsey. And I'm the host of Housecast podcast. I am a Gen Z, wannabe Martha Stewart, meets Dolly Parton, trying to live in a Nancy at Myers movie. We talk all about life relationships and navigating your 20s. I'd like to say I'm multifaceted. I'm either waking up at 4 a.m. in the sauna, tending to my garden or closing out the bars until 2 a.m.

You just never know what you're going to get. It's either me at home in my house in Texas that I spend way too much time in or in the studio with some pretty cool guest. You can follow us at The Houskas pod and listen or watch all new episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcast or on YouTube. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.