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This week on the podcast Mikki speaks to returning guest Brandon DaCruz about his high energy flux model of nutrition to help preserve metabolic rate, reduce overall diet stress and set someone up for the best possible response to their fat loss diet for body composition optimisation.
Brandon DaCruz at his website https://www.brandondacruzfit.com/, and on Instagram @brandondacruz_
Chasing Clarity https://podcasts.apple.com/dk/podcast/chasing-clarity-health-fitness-podcast/id1619611966
Brandon DaCruz is an online nutrition and physique coach and sports nutritionist. He’s also a National Level NPC physique competitor and an internationally published fitness model who’s written articles and filmed educational content for publications like Men’s Fitness Magazine and Bodybuilding.com.
Brandon has spent over 12 years working within the sports nutrition and fitness industries and has coached every type of client including Olympia Level professional men’s physique competitors, college athletes, MMA fighters, CrossFit competitors, and lifestyle clients.
He believes in blending what’s been proven in the research with his own anecdotal and first hand "in the trenches'' experience to improve body composition, optimise performance and enhance health in order to help his clients achieve their goals whether that be building muscle, losing body fat, increasing performance and/or optimising health and longevity. This is what he refers to as his health-centric coaching model as he believes that improving one's health is the cornerstone to optimising their physical goals.
Creators & Guests
What is Mikkipedia?
Mikkipedia is an exploration in all things health, well being, fitness, food and nutrition. I sit down with scientists, doctors, professors, practitioners and people who have a wealth of experience and have a conversation that takes a deep dive into their area of expertise. I love translating science into a language that people understand, so while some of the conversations will be pretty in-depth, you will come away with some practical tips that can be instigated into your everyday life. I hope you enjoy the show!
Transcript generated using AI transcription, errors may occur. contact Mikki for calrification
00:00
Hey everyone, it's Mikki here, you're listening to Mikkipedia and this week I welcome back my friend Brandon da Cruz. Those of you who are regular listeners of the show will know that Brandon has featured in episode 226 and episode 270 and today Brandon and I talk about his high energy flux model of nutrition to help preserve metabolic rate.
00:29
reduce overall diet stress and set someone up for the best possible physical response to their fat loss diet for body composition optimization. And of course we talk about a ton of factors that are related to the high energy flux model. And you guys already know that Brandon is such a wealth of information given his vast experience in helping people achieve their optimal performance and body composition and health.
00:58
So for those of you unfamiliar with Brandon, he is an online nutrition and physique coach and sports nutritionist. He's also a national level NPC physique competitor and an internationally published fitness model who's written articles and filmed educational content for publications like Men's Fitness Magazine and bodybuilding.com. Brandon has spent over 12 years working within the sports.
01:21
nutrition and fitness industries and has coached every type of client including Olympia level professional men's physique competitors, college athletes, MMA fighters, CrossFit competitors and lifestyle clients. He believes in blending what has been proven in the research with his own anecdotal and first hand in the trenches experience to improve body composition, optimize performance and enhance health in order to help his clients achieve their goals, whether that be building muscle, losing body fat.
01:48
increasing performance and or optimizing health and longevity. This is what he refers to as his health-centric coaching model, as he believes that improving one's health is a cornerstone to optimizing their physical goals. This is probably why Brandon and I are such great mates. I have put links to where you can find Brandon over in his podcast, on his website, on Instagram, and the two previous conversations that Brandon and I had in case you missed them.
02:15
And before we kick off into the conversation though, I would like to remind you that the best way to support this podcast is to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform because that increases the visibility of Micropedia in amongst literally thousands of other podcasts out there. So more people get the benefit of hearing from the guests on the show like Brandon. All right, team, enjoy the conversation.
02:42
It should be, Brandon. It is like just seeing what you do out there. It is amazing to me that you had a full-time career plus your coaching job. Even just two years ago, that is phenomenal to me. Yet equally unsurprising. If anyone could have pulled it off, it's you. The great thing is, and I know you know this before we just jump into our podcast, but that stuff will always be there because you are, in addition to building your business, you're continuing to enhance your reputation as just an expert in the space. If ever you needed to.
03:12
or not even needed to, but if you wanted to go back into that world, like I just do not doubt that it is just waiting for you. It's funny that you say that. I get requests probably every month I get reached out to by former colleagues, former employers from the supplement industry. And I'm very fortunate. I'm very thankful. I never turn away the opportunity to talk to them, but I am so passionate about coaching and helping others that I know that I can have a much better impact.
03:36
working with people on one-on-one and then also what I can do within podcasting. I was able to expand so much more, get on so many more podcasts, especially international, because I had the time to allocate towards it. Whereas previous to that, it was very time-constrained. If you ever got on a podcast with me, you can ask any of the people that had brought me on. I don't want to say difficult to work with, but I had a very rigid schedule because of that corporate atmosphere about being in an office facility where it wasn't looked at.
04:01
highly upon to be doing things that weren't related. I understand completely, but weren't related to the betterment of that business and really looking at the stats and the numbers. And it was very numerically oriented rather than people oriented. I'm much more into delivering value now than I ever was because I'm in the position where I get to make the decisions. Do I want to do this for passion or do I want to do this for profit? There's a lot of things that I do for passion and to be able to give information and put out useful solid.
04:28
educational content that's going to empower other people that I wish I had when I was getting into this. Mickey, I know you do the same thing, so I'm sure that you are doing this not only to be able to help other people, obviously, but there is some sort of wanting to do onto others as you would have wanted to have done onto you, especially when you got into this. There's this reciprocation where you're like, I wish when I was 20 years old and I was going to university for this, that I was able to have the resources that are available now and I want to be a positive contribution to those.
04:55
Absolutely. And I don't even think that's an altruistic feeling either, because you get so much from it. That feeling of satisfaction that you're able to put out into the social media space or just allow people to learn more and understand more. I cannot even tell you, Brandon, what I learned in university. University taught me how to learn, actually. That's what university did. There were obviously things that I... I'm sure that there were things I... I'm sure I learned other things.
05:25
Essentially, I learned how to learn, critique, research, and then be able to use those skills outside when working with clients because I can't remember. Honestly, I don't know what useful stuff else I learned in university other than that. And I did a nutrition degree. I got more from my physical education degree, I think. That was, you know, I got way more from that, I think. Interesting. Yeah, I think education, especially higher education is so useful.
05:50
It's useful, dependent on the person. So if you are that person that's going to go a layer deeper, you're going to really dig in. And also, I always try to get across to those that come to me for educational services, whether that be mentorship or just private consultations. Education and knowledge is useless without mileage, without that application. It was all about the practical application. I always tell you, we've went back and forth many times and you're like, how do you remember these studies? And to be honest with you, the reason I can remember these things is because I've applied them in practice. The reason certain things stick with me is because I've looked at them over and over again, because I had...
06:19
a passion about something. For instance, I'm very good with certain metabolic health topics or metabolism, things like that. That was because I suffered from down-regulated state from being a competitor. These were things I was trying to rectify in my own physiology. There's other issues in terms of cravings that I got very nuanced in because I was dealing with my own cravings within myself and that derailing my dieting phases. Other things that I've went through, body fat overshooting, that was something that I was encountering with not only myself after my first contest prep and my first...
06:48
harsh diet, but also so many of the early competitors and clients that I worked with. I was wondering, why are they regaining weight so quickly? I need to get under this. Finally, I found in 2014, a review by The Lou. It just blew my mind. I was like, all right, I can learn more about these things. I could start applying them in practice. I was very analytical since day one, so I'm tracking things. I have client case studies and files upon files. Now, 11 years into coaching, I have such a database in terms of my brain, but also in terms of the things that I've collected in terms of assessments.
07:18
and data collection and analysis and really being able to bridge that gap between research, information, and then also practical application. That's what really, it goes a layer deeper for me when I speak about certain topics because I've applied this and I've seen it work with people and then it just kind of reignites my passion for digging in even deeper into that topic. Yeah, no, and it's really evident in your social media content, Brandon, and of course, in conversations that we have. And of course, today we're talking about your
07:46
high energy flux lifestyle approach. And I love it. And I feel like this must be related even to what you've just mentioned in terms of your own journey as a competitor, plus what you see in clients with that sort of navigating that diet space, but then sort of coming out of it. And I wonder, is the high flux energy approach related to those challenges that your clients have? Or did you start using it for another reason?
08:15
No, you're spot on. So to be honest with you, my high energy flux approach to the goal of fat loss, but not only fat loss, it's really about fat loss maintenance, really comes from me trying to find a solution to the weight regain issue that many experience after a dieting phase, where we see that between, if we look statistically, between 80 to 95% of individuals who go on a diet will regain all the weight they lost shortly after and are unable to maintain a linear healthier body composition.
08:41
So as I was alluding to previously, I'm just that type of individual and I'm type of coach who's very, I'm extremely solution oriented. So the fact that over the years, I've had so, so many individuals who have come to me unable to lose fat and keep it off. And they're coming to me for coaching really has motivated me to try to find out everything I could about not only losing fat, but also what I could do as a fitness and a nutrition professional to help these individuals to maintain a significant degree of fat loss. Because let's be real, we all want to return on our investment.
09:10
So, if you're going to spend the time, the energy, the effort, dieting to lose body fat and improve your body composition and enhance your metabolic health, you want to be able to reap the benefits of that hard work long term, not just in the moment, and then regain everything and lose all those benefits that you've worked for. And although I think weight regain is a very complicated issue, we could look at it from a biopsychosocial model, but really when it comes down to it, I'm going to stay in my lane. And so, you know, psychology is not my lane, so I'll stay within the coaching industry.
09:39
issues I've seen over the past decade plus that I've been in the trenches coaching clients is that many coaches, as well as many other clients alike, focus almost entirely on the process of weight loss and on getting a quick, impressive transformation that they really don't think past the active weight loss phase itself, nor do they plan for it. This results in their clients following the typical eat less, exercise more approach, which does work. I want to be very clear about that, but it doesn't work forever. If you don't have a plan for after the diet to reverse, you're going to have to go to
10:09
the diet-induced metabolic adaptations that you've sustained during the fat loss phase or that your clients have sustained during that fat loss phase, you're setting them up for long-term failure. And this is why many will claim that 95% of diets fail. But in reality, it's not that diets don't work. It's that your approach and the approach that you've been taking time and time again is not the right one for you. And it's not a method that can work long-term because it's a quick fix, not a long-term lifestyle-based solution. So this is why I've literally spent years in the trenches working with clients and also
10:39
thousands of hours researching and reading every piece of quality evidence-based information I could find on the topics of fat loss physiology, body weight regulation, fat loss maintenance, anything you could think of within this realm so that I can learn more about these topics and thus I can serve more individuals within my coaching practice. And so throughout the process of coaching well over a thousand clients at this point in developing principle-based strategies like the high energy flux lifestyle that we're going to discuss today, I found that I'm able to have
11:07
a better solution that works at least within my coaching practice to the common weight regain situation I kept encountering in my early coaching career. And so many of the individuals who come to me for coaching want to be able to maintain a lean muscular physique where they're able to look better, feel better, and function better. But they want to be able to maintain this type of physique while eating a more sustainable calorie intake, which isn't what they've been able to do up until this point because they have relied on the typical eat less model that they've always turned to because that is what the fitness industry approach.
11:36
promotes and believe me, that does work, but it's only gonna work for so long. And I found that the most effective recipe for being able to eat more, is to build more muscle and move more. So the lever that I use to be able to get clients eating more is to use a high energy flux approach as a method of increasing their baseline calorie intake while staying lean and working on building extra lean mass, which burns calories both at rest and then during activity. And it's gonna burn four more calories than the excess fat mass that most of them are carrying or regaining after a dieting phase. And so we really have to
12:06
take into consideration that, yes, diets work and restricting your calories will work, but that's not going to work long-term because most people are not going to be able to sustain that long-term. If we really look at the context of the situation, we look at our modern food environment and the pull that we have to eat delicious, hyper-platable, calorie-packed food, it's less likely for those of you living a sedentary lifestyle to be able to match your low energy expenditure levels when you're not moving a lot with a low calorie intake long-term.
12:36
white-knuckle their way to staying lean while on poverty macros, I've continued to refine and develop this high energy flux lifestyle that we're going to discuss today to help them get lean and stay lean in a much more sustainable and realistic manner, which they can actually, you know, abide to and make a part of their lifestyle rather than just a phase within their life where they're doing a diet for 12 weeks and then they fall off tracks each, you know, time and time again, and they repeat the cycle year on and year out. Yeah, no, I love that. And I just want to highlight a few of the things that you mentioned, Brandon.
13:04
Firstly, you talk about the biopsychosocial model, or the other way around. I can't remember how you wrote it. And how you said it. It's biopsychosocial model. Yeah, there you go. There you go. Because I think that when people are dieting, it feels really productive. Like they're actively doing something to reach a goal. And then suddenly they reach this goal, and then they're floundering a little bit. They're not quite sure where to go next. So this is where, as you mentioned, and as I believe, it's the diet after the diet, which is of course part of what we're talking about.
13:32
It's just so important for people. And the other thing I wanted to mention, I'd actually like to see what you think of this, is that, because I've delved a lot into the weight loss literature as well, in different aspects probably to you, and I don't doubt nearly as deep as you do because you're a brainiac, but in terms of the obesity literature, it is so underwhelming, the diet related.
13:56
studies. You get people on a population basis and they're classified as with obesity and they are on a diet for 12 months and they lose like three kilos and then they gain it back. It is just so woefully underwhelming. Then you've got the people who do tend to lose, who the studies are set up so they do lose more weight, but it's almost like they do it in a way that is never going to be sustainable from what you and I understand it. They do that classic...
14:24
low calorie, they're not looking at protein, they're doing a ton of exercise. Yes, they lose the weight, but it's almost set up to fail from the get-go. So, this is what a lot of people use as their armor to say diets don't work. Look at the literature. And I'm like, these diets are set up to fail, actually. That's why the diets don't work. Yeah. I think about that very specifically in the context of metabolic adaptation. So, if we look at much of the literature, the most profound
14:51
diet-induced metabolic adaptation that we see, especially at the level of the resting metabolic rate, are extreme dieting studies. We look at the Minnesota semi-sarvation study where they lost 25% of their body weight as lean individuals to begin with. They lost a precipitous, a very large percentage of fat-free mass. They were losing metabolically active tissue. Then if we look at a lot of the metabolic ward studies that are by Rosenbaum or Leibold, these are long-term case studies which were done in a metabolic ward first and foremost in Columbia.
15:21
They are done for extended periods of time where they first induce 10% of weight loss, then they stabilize them for 68 weeks and then another 10% of weight loss. So, they're losing 20% of their total body weight. In most of these cases, a lot of these individuals are 100kg plus, so they're losing 20 plus kilograms, so 44 to 50 plus pounds. It is extreme amounts of weight loss that the average person is not losing in the general population. So, we see these profound effects on metabolic rate, and then people think that there's metabolic damage or there's all these
15:50
do not, you know, they think they're metabolically resistant or that they're having permanent suppression to their metabolic rate. When then, if we look on the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Katya Morin's, who has been a guest of yours. She has immensely great research on the fact that she refers to metabolic adaptation as an illusion, but essentially what she's trying to get to. And I know that that was a very controversial, you know, title that she used on one of her studies. However, really what she's trying to get across to those that aren't in the know or that aren't that in depth in this research is that...
16:19
Metabolic adaptation is a transient state of being an active weight loss and in a calorie deficit. So even when we speak about the biggest weight loss, biggest loser weight loss study, a lot of those, if you look at Kevin Hall's re-announcement of this, this was because they were still in active dieting phases. They had started to regain weight, but they were still in an energy deficit. So we're seeing profound effects where they're having this down regulation total daily energy expenditure. People are saying, oh, their metabolism is permanently suppressed or permanently damaged. No, they're still...
16:45
actively in a state of an energy deficit, which is confounding what we're seeing. We're seeing downregulations in their total daily energy expenditure at the level of resting metabolic rate, exercise activity thermogenesis, and non-exercise activity thermogenesis. A lot of times, people are utilizing information and research that isn't ecologically valid for their sample population. I always try to look at research. Believe me, I go through the entire
17:09
research base. However, I'm always trying to look for things that I can translate, translational research, which is why I really like people like Dr. Bill Campbell or Dr. Eric Helms and guys like that. Because if you look at a lot of, let's give an example. If you ever look at Bill Campbell's research, you could look through his whole research gate. You will very rarely, I can't think of one study in the last five years where they've actually found a trace of metabolic adaptation in terms of down regulation resting metabolic rate. The only study that he's had, and I don't think it's been actually...
17:34
publicly published yet was he did a rapid fat loss study of two weeks where they went into a 40% deficit. And then they had them come back into about a 25% deficit. So, it was almost like an undulating where they took them down lower first and then they let them go back. Essentially, they were able to eat up to ad libitum for two weeks after. But a lot of them stayed at between the 15% to 25% deficit after that 40% deficit. So, it was just that differentiation that they had been so low in calories that even just increasing calories a little bit, they were still on a deficit.
18:04
were to equate that for the loss in fat pre-mass, which was minuscule. It was really just due to lean body mass being lost from glycogen and water. When they re-equibalated that or recalibrated that, they saw that there was no degree of metabolic suppression, essentially. A lot of times, we're looking at research studies and taking the most extreme example and then extrapolating that out to everything else and saying, well, dieting doesn't work because in this sample population, they didn't lose a substantial amount of weight. But here's the thing.
18:33
We have weight loss studies like Weigel, 1988. They lost 25.3% of their body weight. And that's better than any one of the semiglutide trials we have today. So if we look at like the Weigel study, there's a 24 week study where they lost more body weight, 25% of their body weight plus in a shorter time period than the number one study that we have in semiglutide, which lost 14, I believe it was 14.9% of body weight in 68 weeks. They were losing at 0.2% of body weight per week. So like a lot of people, they cherry pick data and they don't really look at it and compare it.
19:01
in terms of comparing like to like, or they're always comparing apples to oranges. And we really have to be cautious when utilizing data and realizing that we need to look at things that are very context specific and very applicable to the sample population that we work with. Yeah, no, that's awesome. And I love that you mentioned Bill Campbell actually, because when I'm thinking about your high energy flux model, and I'll get what I would love for you to do is actually define what that looks like for you, Brandon. So our listeners are really clear on that.
19:31
intermittent energy restriction studies, where he puts people through a deficit and then puts them back up to maintenance and just to see what impact this has on overall fat loss and whether or not it's superior. So can we chat a little bit about, well first of course define what you do with your clients and what you mean. How does that differ as well from the likes of what Bill advocates and actually how I like to work with my clients?
19:59
Okay. So I'm going to define energy flux first. Then I'll tell you like the goals of using a high energy flux approach because it's multimodal. So we're talking about both movement and then coupling that with energy intake. Whereas Bill Campbell utilizes intermittent dieting strategies, which are just at the level of dieting. So we're just looking at an undulation of calories. So it's more of calorie cycling than what I'm doing, but there's a titration of calories within my own model. So first and foremost, just for everyone out there knows what energy flux is. And this is also referred to as G flux. So this is...
20:26
A lot of people in the States will have heard the term G-flux every time I get on a podcast and I talk about this. They're like, do you mean G-flux? Yes, it's the same term, but technically in the literature, it's energy flux. Energy flux refers to our state of energy turnover, aka our calorie turnover in the body. Our state of energy flux or calorie turnover is influenced by the amount of energy we consume and how much we expend through all forms of physical activity, including our intentional exercise like our resistance training sessions or our cardio sessions, and then also our non-exercise activities.
20:55
like our activities of daily living, which we do across the day. So the best way to think about the concept of energy flux is to think about it as how many calories we're putting into our bodies and how many calories we're churning and burning through on a daily basis. So when I'm thinking or I'm speaking about my high energy flux approach, my goal when I use a high energy flux approach with a client is to get this individual into a position where I'm able to build up their food intake to the highest amount possible.
21:21
while still maintaining their body composition so that they can eat more, yet still maintain a lean healthy body composition. So after years of trying every dietary training and movement approach possible, I've come to see that taking a high energy flux approach is the best approach I've used in practice to help clients with this goal of getting lean and staying lean. And this is why I favor transitioning clients into a high flux model, especially if they come to me in a low flux state, as there's only so long that you can restrict calories and eat next to nothing to stay lean before you crack.
21:50
and either just give up entirely or you go in the exact opposite direction of what you were intending for, which is where we see this common situation where you veer off the diet, you go off track, you go off the rails essentially, and you end up eating everything in sight and then you feel defeated for falling off the bandwagon. So these type of binge restrict cycles where you swing from over restricting to overeating is also why regaining a ton of fat after the diet is so common. So this is also why so many individuals have experienced body fat overshooting.
22:16
which is where you gain back as much or more fat than you lost during the diet itself, shortly after finishing the dieting phase. And so I found that most people can lose fat, but they struggle or they're not able to maintain a lean physique because the methods that they took to get lean, like under-fueling and over-restricting, aren't approaches they can maintain or even want to continue doing to maintain the results. So this is why I don't promote or preach about a particular diet. I promote a lifestyle and this high energy flux.
22:44
is a part of that lifestyle that I promote within my clients and within my own lifestyle. So with the high energy flux approach, I'm able to get clients to eat and handle significantly more food over time while maintaining their body composition as I'm providing their body with more fuel so it's able to do more and expend more energy in the process. So with this approach, it's really all about eating more, moving more, and getting more out of your body in terms of its metabolic capacity. Another goal of mine is to turn the principle of high energy flux into a lifestyle for clients,
23:13
why my approach is multifactorial rather than one dimensional. So I'm not just an incredible nutritionist or an exercise professional and a trainer. I'm a physique and health coach as well. So I believe in taking a multimodal approach which centers around nutrition, training and movement as I want to fuel my clients training. I want to be able to fuel their activities of daily living. I want to make sure that we're enhancing their recovery capacity. I want to build up their positive habits and improve all aspects of their lives so that they can live in a state of abundance and have a mindset of more.
23:42
rather than being in this chronically downregulated, metabolically adapted state of eating less, or just focusing on one thing. So we have a lot of fitness professionals within our industry only focus on diet. They only focus on exercise. It's only this one lever that they have and it's one ring to rule them all. And they're always looking, it's like they have one hammer and everybody looks like a nail and I don't believe in that. And so I am trying to pull whatever levers I need to, first and foremost, and whatever lever I feel is most efficient for the client that's sitting in front of me.
24:10
but to be able to get them into this high energy flux state. And this could come through many forms, but I'm really trying to get them away from a low flux state and back into a high flux state, which a lot of them have never experienced, but there's so many benefits of doing so. Yeah, no, I love it. And we're gonna talk through the benefits as well. One of my questions is, and I've talked to you about this either on email or on messaging, whether or not you're familiar with Dr. J. Tita and his energy toggles. And he talked, or his metabolism toggles, because he talks a lot about sort of similar in that
24:40
You have phases of having lower calories with lower energy intake, but you have higher calories and higher energy intake as you move through these different levers of fat loss in order to keep your metabolism adaptive and responsive. I know that that's your goal as well, is that your metabolism is adaptive and responsive. I feel like there are definite similarities there. Brandon, with your high energy flux model, is it for...
25:09
individuals who are currently losing weight or is it for people in weight maintenance or is it both? So, this can be used for multiple purposes, but I will say that the most effective intervention or most effective goal that I utilize this for is for weight maintenance. So, after someone has finished a fat loss phase, I have a lot of people that come to me for coaching and they're in this low flux state, meaning they're struggling to maintain their body composition and body weight by restricting their calorie intake to a low amount of calories.
25:37
And as a result of this low calorie intake, their biofeedback is poor, especially like their training performance, their vigor for life and their energy levels. So they're downregulated from a daily calorie burn perspective, whether they realize it or not. And this is especially common in those who have a long history of dieting and struggling with trying to keep excess weight off. So most of the individuals who contact me for coaching have been utilizing the traditional eat less approach and spending long periods of time in a deficit, which have caused them to undergo diet induced metabolic adaptations that have significantly reduced
26:06
their meat levels and the total amount of calories they burn per day. So these individuals are in a state where they're eating less, they're moving less, and they're burning less calories, whether they realize it or not. Because what we have to realize is that a lot of the down regulations that we experience during dieting or after dieting are both subconscious and they can stack up insidiously. And so due to many relying so heavily on restricting calories for long periods of time to achieve their fat loss goals, their non-exercise activity levels have significantly dropped. So they've been in this prolonged state.
26:34
of putting in less energy in the form of food and getting less energy expenditure out as a result of eating less. We see in the vast majority of the research on weight loss that the total amount of calories your body burns per day declines throughout the course of losing body fat and body weight. This is due to diet-induced metabolic adaptations. What I try to do is the reason I use this for weight loss maintenance is because I'm trying to get people into a state where they're...
26:58
upregulated from a metabolism perspective, and we're getting them out of the state of this low-flux state where everything is shut down essentially, or everything's suppressed. And so I really try to shift them because a lot of people come to me and they're in what I refer to as a restriction and subtraction-based model of maintenance. Meaning if you were to try to stay lean using this approach, you're going to have to restrict calories long-term to do so, and you're going to keep your energy expenditure levels suppressed by living this lifestyle.
27:24
And you're also going to continue feeling poor. Like if you have poor biofeedback, continue to stay in this down regular state where you're eating less and really trying to keep yourself restricted is not going to improve that biofeedback. And so what I try to do is I try to get clients out of that low-flux state, especially when they come to me after a dieting phase, and I try to get them into the high-flux state. And I found that they're able to maintain their weight through eating more and being more physically active, which allows me to increase their calorie intake much higher than it was previously in the lower-flux state that they came to me at
27:54
The increase in activity is keeping them in energy balance. And it's also buffering the extra increased calories that I've put into their system. So they're able to stay lean while eating more. And being in high energy flux is what I like to refer to with clients as being an abundance and addition-based model of maintenance. Meaning we're putting more energy into fueling your body. And as a result, we upregulate your metabolic systems and internal physiology, and your body is able to burn more calories during activity. So really when it comes down to it, I'm utilizing this.
28:22
very preferentially for maintenance. And I have utilized it for weight loss, but it's going to have to be with someone that I've already put through a primer phase and that is in a good place because if someone comes to me already halfway through diet, for instance, and at this point, I generally will not take someone on when they're already, say they're 10 or 12 weeks into a diet and they want me to continue this out. A lot of times they've done things so poorly that it's already in a place where I need to get them out of that. I need to reverse the metabolic adaptations that they've already sustained.
28:47
And so, what I try to do is get someone into a really healthy responsive state. We've spoken about the primary phase that I utilize to improve metabolic health and also increase muscle mass, increase metabolic rate, and all these other factors that are going to put someone in a more advantageous position to cut from later. But what I try to do is get someone into a really good state where then I can get them out of the – I can reverse a lot of the bottlenecks that they've come to me with. So, if someone comes to me and they've just finished dieting phase, I'm going to try to get them into
29:15
maintenance. Back to maintenance, I'm going to try to get them into a higher flux state to reverse a lot of the metabolic adaptation they've sustained from dieting. So yes, I do use this with fat loss. I use this a lot of times with lean building phases where I'm trying to get someone to get their calorie budget as high as possible while also really fueling the process of building lean mass. But the most beneficial aspect or the most beneficial goal that I found this for, and this is really where...
29:38
The reason that I really came up with this was for the goal of weight loss maintenance. People have gotten lean, but they're unable to sustain it. And I continued seeing it over and over and over again. People body fat overshooting or regaining or feeling like they were a failure because each and every time that they dieted, they saw the same outcome. They lost weight and they were able to do so, but they lost 20 pounds and they gained back 25. And it was this self-defeating narrative that essentially caused them to think that there was something wrong with them, that their metabolism was damaged, that they were metabolically resistant or that they were just a failure and unable to succeed in this.
30:08
shifting that narrative and really being able to get people out of that restriction and scarcity-based mindset and away from these self-loathing beliefs and into a place of abundance where they know that they're fully capable of doing something and their body will respond if the body will only do or give you what you give it. So if you're not giving it the nutrients and the energy availability, then you're not giving it the energy availability.
30:27
and the care and the rest and recovery that it needs to really prosper, grow and really develop, it's never going to look the way you want to, it's never going to function, and it's never going to feel the way that you want to. So we really have to, it's this push and pull effect. There's time to push, you know, in terms of pushing would be going to the calorie deficit, but there's also time to pull back, eat more, and really go between these different states of energy flux. No, I love it. And so a couple of questions slash comments.
30:54
One is that people generally feel better when they eat more, so they have more energy. So in fact, even just eating more calories is going to start up regulating their metabolism a little bit. Things are going to start running better, I guess is another way to put it.
31:12
compared to what they may have been a few weeks ago. And that was, of course, one of your first sort of research-backed benefits of being in a high energy flux was that upregulation of total daily energy expenditure. Suddenly you've actually just got more energy to do things. But a question for you, Brandon, because I've seen this around a lot, and I'd like to hear...
31:31
your opinion on it is, you increase their calories, do you specify where those calories come from? Because of course, at the end of a dieting phase, people are more insulin sensitive. So they may be more likely to store calories than they would otherwise. And so there is that potential to store fatty acids much more into the fat tissue if they're not utilizing them. So do you specify, we're going to increase your calories X amount?
31:57
mainly through carbohydrate or do you not put any specifics around it? Oh, no, I'm very specific. I'm not a macro coach. So, I'm not someone that's just throwing macros at people and sending them on their way. I don't think that, at least with the population that I work with, these are very goal-oriented individuals. They're high achievers and high performers. And they come to me for expertise. They want specific recommendations, suggestions. They want a plan of action. And also, a lot of things, I think a lot of times people will
32:24
you're away from meal plans. First of all, I'm an accredited nutritionist, so I am legally able to write meal plans first and foremost. But the second thing is that a lot of people, I work with a lot of high-level executives. They want to offload their cognitive process of the thoughts. They don't want to be working on playing macro Tetris. And a lot of times, they've come to me, they failed utilizing those approaches. So, I'm very specific in terms of food amounts, food types, food quality, even how to purchase their groceries, things of that sort. I'm nuanced in my approach.
32:52
And so, yes, when it comes to increasing the titration of calories, first and foremost, I need to look at where that person is coming to me at. So, if this is a new client and I'm taking them through, say, a primer phase and getting them into a higher energy flux state to offset some of the metabolic downregulations that they've experienced in previous dieting phases, I'm first going to look at what is their baseline diet look at.
33:11
look like currently? Are they protein deficient? If someone is low in protein content and that is their biggest bottleneck from a macronutrient perspective, we're going to focus on getting nutrient-dense protein sources first and foremost. If they are under-fueled in fats, especially from an essential fatty acid perspective, I'm probably going to backfill that with fish oil and I'm going to make sure that they have their omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. If they are, the most common thing that I see is that a lot of people are under-carbing themselves.
33:35
They're either scared of carbs. They have eliminated carbs because they've seen a quick and transient loss in water weight, which the scale weight goes down very quickly as you eliminate carbohydrates because of the fact that for every gram of glycogen that is stored, say, in muscle, you also pull three to four grams of water. On the inverse, if you cut out carbohydrates, you're also losing that water, that dissipation of water. A lot of people will lose quicker scale weight utilizing a lower carb approach as compared to a calorie-equated lower fat approach.
34:03
What I like to do is throughout this process of increasing energy flux, I'll often work on substantially increasing my clients' carbon takes, which I do specifically to fuel their training sessions and increase their training performances, which will not only increase their energy expenditure levels, but it also increases their ability to build muscle mass, which will increase their resting metabolic rate so that they're burning more calories throughout the day due to being in this high energy flux state. But they're also going to be able to burn more calories even at rest because we built more lean mass. And so I'm having them churn and burn through calories.
34:33
and every day, all day. And so, yes, I'm very specific in the way that I utilize things. I'm also oftentimes monitoring blood glucose levels with my clients. I'm looking at insulin sensitivity markers such as HbA1c, fasting insulin, HOMA-IR. And so, I'm looking at, is this person an insulin sensitive individual? Yes, they are. All right. So, I can utilize a higher carb approach. And it's really going to be person specific, but I am very specific with the recommendations and the adjustments that I make. This is a titration system. The reason that...
35:00
I've been speaking about high energy flux for quite some time for years. I've done presentations on it. I've written about the high energy of flux approach in Alan Aragon's research review, and that had never been spoken about in his research review, despite the fact that that is going on 16 years of being in existence. Here's the thing, there's been many people that have contacted me, I mean, dozens of coaches and clients and just individuals like fitness enthusiasts that have reached out to me and said that it didn't work for them or that they had a client and they
35:27
because they're not doing it right and they're not specific. They're just throwing things at the system. Unfortunately, with a lot of coaching in today's era, Miki, when we first got into coaching, there were very little coaches. When I first started coaching, there were three coaches in the Northeast. This was 2013 and no one was doing this unless they were accredited or they were an experienced personal trainer that had built up. I built up a reputation in my area for training people in person. Then when I made the transition online, I was able to have trust because people knew me in person for being good at training them.
35:56
one-on-one. However, at that point, there wasn't any social media, so you weren't being able to just get yourself out there because of social media or because of having a website or having essentially an online presence. You really had to either know what you were doing or be a very reputable trainer to be able to have an online coaching business essentially because you built that in person. Now, we have people that have never really coached anyone, but they claim to be a coach.
36:21
And so, I often find it ironic because they're utilizing principles that they have never really time tested with themselves and then also with clientele. And they're also, a lot of times the issue is that a lot of people, they speak about being evidence-based, but they don't look at the scientific method. If we look at most things in science, we're looking at isolated variables. We're titrating one variable at a time and then looking at the outcomes and then looking at correlations and associations between two different variables. Now, that is what I'm doing within this high energy flux model.
36:49
I'm looking at, let me first, the first component is increasing energy intake, watching that person's response in terms of body weight, in terms of biofeedback, in terms of energy regulation, in terms of training performance, seeing their performance metrics, both objective and subjective markers on how they fluctuate over time. And then I'm increasing movement on the back end of that. This isn't like this willy-nilly thing that we just throw all this thing. I often say this, a lot of coaches are throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks and they never know what has caused or what has caused.
37:18
what is called a positive or negative effect. So they're changing all within the same week, someone's nutrition, their macros, their supplementation, their training program, their cardio program, their steps. It's like, well, what did what? If someone has a bad effect, they get sick or they're feeling overly fatigued, what caused what? Was it the cardio? Was it the training, new programming? Was it the supplementation that you threw at them? A lot of times people are doing things haphazardly because it looks sexy, but we really have to do things.
37:47
in a more educated fashion. And that's really where my experience within this has really caused me to be even more hesitant about speaking about certain ways that I utilize this because it's so context dependent. I know, I look, I agree. And I just really love how you called out the fact that meal plans are actually okay. Because I tell you what, like it has taken me, like I've been a nutritionist for over 20 years. And I've just in the last
38:14
four or five years started working with macros, actually. I worked much more on the meal plan perspective. And I know that might sound crazy to people, but it just didn't, because people think, and the people that I work with think about food. They don't think about macros. We don't eat macros. We eat food. No, yeah. You know, the full food matrix. And a lot of people, they've taken nutrition out of the nutrition industry. They have taken, you know, it's become about numbers. It's essentially a numbers oriented thing. But here's the thing, people don't think about numbers when they're eating. Yes, now we have kind of, you know,
38:44
made it into numerical modeling. That's all well and good from an accounting perspective, but people aren't trying to be accountants when they're eating food. They're trying to live a lifestyle and combine food pairings and stuff. I'll tell you personally, Mickey, when I first got into this, no one was doing macros. I understood macros, but when I would ask clients, nine out of 10 individuals did not know what a macro was. Yes, I would educate them, but it always started with a meal plan first. Honestly, I'm thankful that I started within that area of the industry because I actually know how to make meal plans. I know how to help someone
39:13
grocery store, there's so many macro coaches out there that they only know – it's almost like they're painting by numbers. They're just throwing numbers out there. They throw three numbers at someone and send them on their way. But when that person has trouble in terms of decision fatigue or trying to play macro Tetris or really optimizing their gut health or their insulin sensitivity or their nutrient partition, there's so many different aspects, it really needs to come back to what are you eating? Let's look at the food components. Let's break this down into a food quality perspective and see if you're getting –
39:38
highly satiating foods that align with your gut microbiome and that are things that are going to be easily digested for you as a unique individual. A lot of times when it's only about macros, we're missing the force for the trees. Yeah, no, I agree. I think that people do amazing work out there, but I feel that the reason why I'm commenting on that is because so often there's backlash to people like me who do do meal plan. I do both, but I definitely do meal plans first. People can learn from a template or a structure.
40:07
If you do take the decision making out of it for them, then as you say, they're able to focus on other really important things in their lives. They're actually investing in our services so they don't have to think about, how do I put together 30 grams of protein with 50 grams of carbohydrate and six grams of fat? That's just, that's hard work for some people. Brandon, how does the high energy flux model differ from reverse dieting? Because I think that people will have that question.
40:37
So, it's a little bit different of a titration method in terms of how I'm looking at things. A lot of times with reverse dieting, what we end up doing, we see that people will utilize a reverse diet after a fat loss phase. And what they'll do is they'll pull back on energy expenditure. So, they'll pull back on cardio. Generally, you'll see some of the templated approaches, 50% of your cardio in the first week, and then they're increasing calories and they're getting them right back up to maintenance. Mine is more of a titration method. I'm taking someone from a low energy flux state where they have low calorie output and low calorie intake.
41:05
I'm increasing both of those entities, but I'm increasing calorie intake first, so getting them into a better state of energy availability. Then, I'm coupling that with an increase in movement. That could be through non-exercise activity. That could be through cardio if it needs to be. Oftentimes, I really like the movement aspect of just getting laps around the gym instead of sitting down in between sets. Let's make sure you park in the back of a parking lot. Let's take your
41:36
your pets and things of that sort. So, I'm just trying to get people more active. And oftentimes, I'm encouraging my clients to do things that they generally would offload to something else. So, for instance, stop ordering your groceries to get delivered and just go to the grocery store and get them for yourself. Hand wash your dishes. We see that in some of the modernization studies. We see that Americans have lost around 111 to I believe it's like 131 calories just from modernization, which means essentially dishwashers.
42:03
recyclables and things like that, like these automated appliances that we utilize now that we didn't utilize 30 to 50 years ago when obesity wasn't nearly as big of an issue as it is today. And so there's just these little ways to pick up on calorie expenditure that are just really non-exercise activities that you incorporate into your day. And we really see that two people, the same body composition, meaning the same anthropometrics. We have essentially two Mickeys. We could have Mickey one and Mickey two, and you guys are doing the same. You have the same body weight, same body composition level, same height, same weight, same age.
42:33
However, your different activities in daily living, especially your occupational activities, can cause a 2,000-calorie difference between your non-exercise activity thermogenesis levels. Meaning, the calories you burn through meat could differ by 2,000 calories. We have some research studies that look at an office worker and how much they burn throughout the course of the day in terms of their non-exercise activity. In this specific instance, this specific study by Levine and colleagues, they found that the office worker only burned 400 calories throughout the course of their workday, whereas
43:03
there was also a US postal worker. They burned 2,400 calories, despite the fact that both of these individuals had the same body weight and anthropometrics. So there's a massive discrepancy in the amount of calories you can burn per day. And this could really fluctuate and really influence how much you can eat and maintain your body weight and body composition. Yeah, completely. And I think people completely underestimate that. The thing is, Brandon, like I, so what I know of myself is I have a real lazy gene. So I'm just lazy by nature. I always have been.
43:32
So when I, but I exercise every day and I'm actually very active during my day because I've been, I've conditioned myself to fight against my lazy genes. So, you know, do you have clients like that? 100%. And this is where we really have to incorporate some different types of modalities and activities and even reminders. So for instance, I was in an office structure for close to nine years. And so when I wasn't on the road, actually traveling to different accounts to visit, you know,
43:59
my national counselor throughout the country, I was stuck in an office with no windows and I was stuck in an executive office. What I did was I don't smoke, I don't eat a lot of hyperplatable food, so I didn't have snack breaks, but I would have walking and movement breaks. I would take what are called exercise snacks, which are little interruptions throughout your day that are to do some type of exercise. For instance, every hour on the hour, I would have an alarm that would go off five minutes of the hour. I would go.
44:26
for either a walk or a stroll around the office for five to 10 minutes. So, I would essentially do what a lot of my coworkers were doing when they would take a smoke break or they would go to the vending machine and get a snack. I was taking an exercise or a movement snack essentially. I was taking the long way around. Instead of going to the nearest bathroom that was in the executive office, I would go into the warehouse. We had a 60,000 square foot warehouse where we used to manufacture supplements. I would take a big lap around there. I'd get a drink of water. Also, I would always make sure that I was staying extra hydrated, so I got up to go to the bathroom more often.
44:54
These are different strategies that I utilize within my clientele where I say, listen, every single hour, once you can get up and go for movement. After every single meal, I love this habit stacking technique of utilizing post meal walks where you utilize a 10 to 15 minute walk as soon as you finish a meal because every one of us eats. So, you might as well couple utilize that James Clear habit stacking technique where you stack one new habit on top of an existing habit. So, most people are going to eat at least three to four times a day. So just couple that.
45:20
a 10-15 minute walk right after it's going to help with digestion. It's actually been compared in research to a pro-kinetic medication for decreasing bloating and gas. It's just as clinically effective. It's been shown to decrease post-prandial blood glucose and insulin levels, especially the area under the curve. Even we have research studies that show that a 15-minute walk after each of your meals can decrease blood glucose values, the area under the curve of blood glucose values, by over 50% in both...
45:47
non-diabetics and type 2 diabetics. So even those with severe degrees of insulin resistance. We also see that there is the diabetes prevention control trial, which showed that it's close to twice as effective as metformin, which is the number one type 2 diabetes medication in the states. And so
46:05
Just this movement after meals, there's so many metabolic benefits, but also it can help increase energy expenditure and also allow you to turn and burn through more food so that you can eat more. So that, yeah, you're going to have a high-carb meal, but you're not sitting there and just letting that get disposed into adipose tissue. Rather, you're going to increase your glute four translocation, increase your insulin sensitivity and get that glucose moving and allowing skeletal muscle tissue to be that active site of glucose disposal.
46:30
80 plus percent of glucose disposal should happen at the level of the skeletal muscle, but most people are insulin resistant at this point. So they're not actually experiencing those benefits. Yeah. No, I love it. And is it detrimental for me to like do press ups and squats during the day if I'm going to the gym and doing strength workout? Am I like not optimizing my strength work because I'm doing these little snack activities with press ups and squats or does it not matter? I do not think that there's going to be an interference effect. I think if anything, it's going to actually help with
46:58
increasing recovery capacity because you're going to be increasing blood flow in those regions. So, I don't think as long as you're not doing extremely exhaustive work, so I've had certain individuals, they're confined to a small space in an office. So, I have them do air squats. I'll have them do calf raises. We even look at Mark Hamilton has this great study on the soleus pushup. Have you heard of that? Yes. Yeah, I did. It increases energy expenditure quite precipitously. It's very impressive. And also, it has very profound blood glucose regulating effects in terms of increasing insulin sensitivity. This is just like a...
47:27
you can think of the soleus as a small muscle, it's essentially a calf raise under your desk. There are so many things that we could be utilizing. I used to use that one of my offices. I used to have one of those little bikes, but they were just like a wheel cycle. I used to just go, that was the only thing I could do. Then, I'm going to be honest with you, I work off of a walking treadmill desk. Most of my day, I have a lot of my clients utilize that as well. It could be at a very low in terms of miles per hour. It could be a very low speed where we're going to see a very vast increase in your energy expenditure or your calories burned.
47:57
through that. For instance, I believe Levine has a study where it was like for sitting down for an hour, the average person burned 77 calories, but just going up to one mile per hour. Just walking at literally the starting speed of a treadmill, it burned 197 calories. Then when you got up to two miles per hour, it was something around 260 calories per hour. You can almost fudge-ruple the amount of energy expenditure that you're getting just from going from seated during your workday.
48:23
to interspersing stay an hour on and hour off. So an hour at a walking treadmill desk, an hour sitting down, vice versa. Taking four hours out of your workday and utilizing them at a slow speed on your treadmill desk rather than staying inclined and just seated the entire day. I love that. I love that so much. And those walking pads are definitely getting more popular. I've tried to get my husband to let me buy one for home.
48:47
I've already got an electrical and he's like, no, you don't need a walking pad. They're so convenient. Tell him because I know he's going to listen to edit this. They go right under your couch. I have a walking pad that I literally just can throw right under my couch in my apartment. It's super convenient. I have a treadmill in my house, but I also have a walking pad as well. They're super convenient. I have so many clients that have gotten them. They're also the biggest thing. When I first got a treadmill desk, it was quite expensive. We're talking $800 plus US and this was years ago.
49:14
I was very into, and I always have been into, James Levine's research. And he was actually the one that trademarked the treadmill desk. So he was the first person to patent this, and he's the person that actually coined the terminology NEAT. So back in the 90s, he was the individual that did overfeeding studies and that really saw that NEAT is one of the number one components that actually accounts for whether you will deposit excess calories as body fat or not based on do you upregulate your NEAT levels in the face of extra calories. And so back in the day, there used to be...
49:41
extremely expensive, but I have clients getting them for between $100 to $200. So it's something that is a very low-barriered entry, but can have very vast effects on your, not only your body composition, your body fat levels, your ability to maintain weight loss, but also your energy expenditure levels so that you can live more of a life of abundance where you're eating more, you're moving more, and you're really getting vast benefits from it. I agree. And I know that we're talking about the high energy flux and for people who are at the end of their weight loss phase. And I'll go back because I really do want to sort of
50:10
cover off some of the benefits of them, which we've talked a lot about them already. But I will say that I completely agree, Brandon, with regards to the walking pad. It's such a low barrier of entry for people who are really inexperienced or novice to exercise. For whatever reason, and they may be carrying quite a lot of excess body fat, and so they'll be feeling some anxiety around joining a gym, or they won't move comfortably, and they don't want other people to see them like this. It's just such a good starting point, I think, for some people.
50:39
Yeah, yeah. Hey, so we know that your high energy flux upregulates metabolism. We've talked about that. And you've already mentioned about how it really helps with that weight loss maintenance. And in fact, it's a key predictor of weight loss maintenance. And I often say that to clients as well, that exercise is a key predictor, but that's different from what you're talking about, which is increased calories and maintenance slash increased exercise.
51:06
Yes. So when it comes to, if we actually just even independently look at physical activity, I think a lot of people don't realize the vast benefit that physical activity can have on weight loss maintenance. So when it comes to maintaining weight loss, engaging in high levels of physical activity on a daily basis is one of the number one characteristics of those who have lost a significant amount of body weight and body fat and kept it off for a year or more successfully. And so regardless of what stats we look at, most of the weight loss maintenance literature finds that between
51:35
5% to 20% of dieters maintain weight loss long-term, meaning for a year or longer. And so, the reason I place such a heavy emphasis on getting clients to engage in more physical activity through this high energy flux approach, especially when fat loss maintenance is their goal is because having higher levels of physical activity is one of the most linked habits for successfully losing fat and keeping it off. And so, in my opinion, if you actually look at the literature on this, I really do think that there's more compelling evidence.
52:02
for physical activity and exercise to have a more profound impact on actual weight loss maintenance than it even does for inducing weight loss, which is most effectively achieved through manipulating our diet to create an energy deficit. Even in the groups like the National Weight Controlled Registry, which is the most successful weight loss maintainers, we have long-term data on. If we look at this group, this is a database of over 10,000 individuals who have lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off.
52:29
And we see that their levels of physical activity have a massive impact on the degree of weight loss maintenance and why these individuals have been so successful. So just a little background for your audience on the National Weight Control Registry, the average member in this registry has lost 66 pounds and kept it off for 5.5 years. And when we look at this group as a whole, 94% of them have increased, have utilized physical activity and with the most frequently reported form of physical activity that they utilize on a daily basis being walking.
52:59
one hour per day. So, then we also see that research finds that members of this group hit an average over 12,000 steps per day, and that's what the most successful members of this group hit. So, 12,000 plus steps per day. However, when we look at the confounders and some of the individuals that have been successful and been in this registry, and then have started to go into recidivism, meaning that they're regaining weight, one study found that
53:23
the decreases in physical activity were associated with higher amounts of weight regain within this group. So these were the most successful individuals to lose weight and keep it off. But even within this subsect of individuals, it's those that decrease their physical activity the most that regain the most amount of weight, even though they have successful habits in terms of their dietary behaviors and in terms of their lifestyle. And also the fact that if we look at weight loss maintenance in and of itself, there's also a psychological component where a lot of times they have to discard their former identity.
53:50
to take on a new identity of someone that is a successful weight loss maintainer, that does engage in healthy habits in terms of healthy habits around their nutrition, their activity, their lifestyle, their sleep, their stress management. And so physical activity is quite a potent lever that we can pull to increase energy expenditure, allow people to eat more calories while maintaining their fat loss, and is going to lead to better rates of weight loss maintenance and lower rates of weight regaining.
54:20
Yeah, I completely agree. And in fact, you know, one of the other key benefits you mentioned was that improved appetite regulation and hunger management. And this is what I found as well. And I get a lot of pushback when people, when I talk about this on social media, because they're like, exercise makes me hungry. But what I understand is that, in fact, there's a real uncoupling of that appetite when exercise is really low. And so can you just chat to us a little bit about how the
54:48
how it works with your clients in terms of the combination of the calories that they're eating and this increased exercise because I don't believe that you're talking about hours and hours of activity a day. No, I'm not. I'm talking about a lot of non-exercise activity. However, I'm glad you brought this up because being in a high flux state goes beyond just the benefits of increasing our calorie expenditure through physical activity. And so, this is going beyond just your body composition because
55:15
When we look at having higher levels of activity, it influences our appetite regulation and our ability to properly match your calorie intake to your energy expenditure levels. So you not only get the benefit of feeling fuller from being able to eat more food, you know, more total food throughout the day because you're burning more calories when you're in high energy flux, but you're also able to be in better touch with your hunger and satiety signals so you're less likely to overeat. So if we look at research, we see that it finds that there's a relationship between physical activity levels.
55:44
appetite regulation and total calorie intake. And this operates in what's referred to as a J-shaped curve. Meaning, when you engage in low levels of physical activity, it causes you to experience dysregulations in your appetite regulation and your hunger management abilities. Where hunger stays high and satiety remains low, so you overeat and your calorie intake is much higher than your calorie expenditure levels on a daily basis. So this leads to weight gain over time, because despite the fact that you're not moving a lot and not burning a lot of calories,
56:12
You're still not receiving appropriate signals, especially appropriate satiety signals after you eat, so you remain hungry. This leads the vast majority of sedentary individuals to consume more calories than they burn, which is what causes weight gain over time. This is why the average person in Western societies around the world gains between 0.5 to 1 kilogram each year across adulthood. Now, it's not until you get into moderate or high levels of physical activity that you
56:38
that your appetite becomes regulated and you're better able to match your calorie intake to your actual calorie expenditure. So higher levels of physical activity increase your sensitivity to satiety signals so that you feel more full after meals. So being physically active not only impacts body fat and body weight regulation from a calories out perspective, but it also has a large impact on our appetite regulation and satiety, which impacts the calories inside of the energy balance equation. And honestly, it's so funny that you get, you know, pushback on this, because I do as well, but we literally have 70 years of data
57:07
worth of research on this that reinforces the fact that calorie intake works along a spectrum of physical activity levels and it appears to be J-shaped. So, essentially what that means is that say that you have a low energy expenditure level. So, if we're here on video, your energy intake is sky high. And then, as you get into a more regulated zone, it goes lower. And then, when you get into very high activity levels, it goes higher. But here's the thing, you're an energy balance. And so, if we look at probably the best landmark study on this,
57:34
a study by Mayer. Are you familiar with the Bengali mill worker study? No. Okay. So back in the day, this is in the 1950s, Mayer and colleagues looked at the relationship between physical activity, calorie intake, and body weight in Bengali mill workers. And to examine this relationship, they looked at the industrial workers whose jobs range from either sedentary, so like office positions, clerks, things of that sort, to the highly active, like the manual laborers. And so they found that those in the low and very low activity level groups
58:01
such as the supervisors and office workers, had the highest body weights and weighed an average of 30 pounds more than the workers in the factory that were moderately and highly active. And the office workers not only did the least amount of activity, so they had the lowest amounts of calorie expenditure from a physical activity perspective, but they also suffered from dysregulated appetite signaling, which resulted in them having as high of a calorie intake as the individuals that were working on the floor, and they were in the high and very high activity levels. And so then when we go to the next group of individuals...
58:31
those in the moderate, high, and very high activity levels all maintain the same body weight as one another. So, they were all in energy balance independently, but also across each group. So, they all weighed about the same. They're about 30 pounds lighter than the office workers that were very low, essentially sedentary positions. However, their calorie intake scaled linearly, meaning moderate was here and then high was here and they kept going up. But the thing was...
58:56
we looked at it, yes, the very high energy expenditure levels, very high activity levels, they ate significantly more than those in the moderate group. However, they were still in energy balance because they were burning so many calories. They were still matching their calorie intake to their calorie expenditure. This is due to the fact that those who move more are able to eat more and they're still able to maintain energy balance. That's why they were able to maintain their body weight and the same body weight as other individuals and they were able to stay at eight.
59:23
very healthy body weight despite eating more calories. And despite doing more activity and eating more, those in the very high energy group or a very high activity group showed improved appetite regulation. And this is because higher levels of activity result in better regulation of hunger and satiety as being active provides you with a better satiety response post meal. So this calls you to feel fuller quicker after a meal, which lowers the likelihood of overeating. So this makes staying in a state of energy balance much easier, especially from a dietary adherence perspective.
59:53
That is a study that reinforces that. But I think a concept that would really be good to go into for your audience would be there's something across the physical activity spectrum, which is referred to as the non-regulated versus the regulated zone of physical activity and appetite control. And really what this refers to is when you have very low levels of physical activity, you're in a non-regulated zone of appetite where your low levels of activity do not allow you to experience appropriate levels of satiety. So, you continue to overeat past your energy intake needs.
01:00:21
which results in you gaining body fat and body weight. However, when you have moderate to high levels of physical activity, the increased activity improves satiety signaling. So you're more able to match your energy intake to your expenditure. So essentially like the best way to look at this is if you're in a low-flux state, your appetite is high because it's dysregulated. Sure, your calorie intake is going to be more than actually your calorie expenditure. And this is gonna cause you to be in a surplus and you're gonna be gaining weight. Whereas when you're in high-flux, your calorie intake is higher
01:00:50
because you're more active, but you're offsetting this increase in calorie intake. So the best way to think about the relationship between energy flux and appetite regulation is physical activity and your energy expenditure and those aspects of energy flux act as a regulatory system. So when you engage in more movement and maintain higher levels of physical activity, you have better appetite or better regulation of your appetite and better maintenance of both your body fat levels and your body weight. Yet, when you go on the sedentary spectrum, which is what many people are suffering from and gaining weight, where you end up...
01:01:18
doing with the fact that the results of you engaging in less movement is you have lower levels of satiety and you suffer from a dysregulation in your appetite, which makes staying lean more difficult. So really when it comes down to it, our ability to regulate our appetite and control our intake starts to improve once we get to a level of higher movement that is more in line with what we evolved to do on a daily basis. Because if you really think about it, evolutionarily, we were meant to move. We weren't meant to be seated in these chairs stuck at a desk all day looking at a computer screen.
01:01:46
And so, we really have to get back in line. And I'm not saying like let's go to this paleo movement or anything. What I'm saying is we're meant to move and you're meant to be in the state where you're actually having appropriate satiety signal. You're having appropriate responses to meals and you're able to actually eat a sufficient amount of food.
01:02:02
and sustain a healthy body composition rather than what many people experience either. They're in this over restricted state where they're constantly feeling like they have to. They can't eat anything. They can't ever have a burger on the weekends because it's going to stick to them because they have such low energy expenditure levels. They have such a suppressed metabolic rate, thyroid levels. All these things are down regulated in the system because they've had to stay on such low calories and in this dieted state for so long. Whereas, if you're able to increase your energy flux and start eating more and moving more and really get into a place where you're...
01:02:31
in a metabolically upregulated position where you're more metabolically resilient, where you're able to have better appetite regulation, you're going to be less likely to overeat, you're also going to have better ability to maintain your weight loss and also better insulin sensitivity and nutrient partitioning and all these downstream benefits, you're going to be in a better position to succeed long-term because you're not always going to be in this unfortunate circumstance where you're in this mindset of subtraction and scarcity and restriction.
01:03:01
a mindset and a lifestyle of abundance in addition. Yeah, no, I love it, Brandon. And I wondered with your clients, is there a transition period where they may initially feel hungrier with the level of given exercise and then it calms down or do you find with your clients that in fact they move easily into an appropriate amount of, to have an inappropriate appetite response when you talk to them or is it individual actually?
01:03:29
So it always is based on the individual, but I will say that I first focus on nutrition. I'm always a food first approach. So I often, when someone comes to me, if they already have dysregulated appetite signaling because they've been in such a low food environment to begin with, I'm first focusing on dialing in their nutrition and increasing their calories to get more out of their system in terms of increasing their metabolic rate and their total daily energy expenditure just through the increase in calories. So I'm looking at increasing their basal metabolic rate, increasing...
01:03:56
the thermic effect of food, which happens on day one of increasing their calories, increasing their need, which is going to be their subconscious activity for me just getting more energy into the system, increasing energy activity thermogenesis from actually having them more all fueled. So first, I focus on the food first. Then I look at their, I monitor their biofeedback. And I'll usually another thing that I'll do is when I'm dialing in their food and I'm increasing their food off the bat, what I like to do is I like to take a look at their current intake and then shift macronutrient composition and food quality, especially from a calorie density.
01:04:26
and then also volume metrics perspective. So I'm able to regulate their appetite and see how they respond first and foremost. I'm putting in a lower energy density foods, higher volume foods. I'm really monitoring and manipulating things to get them into a simpler diet, but also a more satiating diet. So off the bat, I'm helping with appetite regulation. Then I'm starting to increase energy expenditure through movement and really trying to couple both of those things so that they're in a better state to begin with. But if someone comes to me and they have a, they've been chronically dieting.
01:04:55
they already have poor biofeedback, I need to work on that first before I start increasing energy expenditure. Because if they're still in this down regulated state and we have not gotten any of their systems back online, they're probably going to be in a state of low energy availability. If I just increase, if I was just to go off the bat, and that's one mistake I see many people doing, they think energy flux, they think, oh, you just got to do more cardio, more movement, and they're not increasing food first. And if you ever hear me on a podcast, I've done dozens of podcasts on this, I will always say, you eat more, you move more. And there's a reason why I couple these in a very specific, I could have said move more, eat more.
01:05:23
But the reason I say eat more, move more, is the first fundamental component of energy flux is we focus on nutrition first, we increase energy intake, then we couple that with the increase in energy expenditure. And that's where a lot of people are going wrong, because if you are in a down-regulated state and then you just put more movement on it, you're putting yourself into actually a lower state of energy availability, and you could potentially go into a state of relative energy deficiency. And this is also why this is very context specific. This is a very complex problem.
01:05:47
is yes, it's an athlete model, but if someone is a high level athlete, this might not be suited for them. But for my general lifestyle client, which is struggling with being able to lose fat and keep it off, this is a perfect model and something that I've used successfully hundreds and hundreds of times. Totally. Is the weight that someone ends their fat loss phase at, is that the weight that they should expect to stay? Or would you expect the scales to increase with the changes that you make? And how do you coach your clients around that? Absolutely not. And so,
01:06:16
First and foremost, we have to realize that the lightest scale weight that you hit during a fat loss phase is not your true weight. So first and foremost, we have to think about the fact that that is going to be a weight that is confounded by multiple factors. First of all, you're generally glycogen depleted, so you have lost not only the carbohydrates that are in your muscle and your liver, but you've also lost the water that's associated with that. So for instance, say that the average person can store between 400 to 500 grams of fat
01:06:41
of muscle glycogen and 80 to 100 grams of liver glycogen. Say you're completely depleted, you've lost 600 grams of glycogen between the two of those. That's 600 grams. That's over a pound of scale weight plus three to four grams of water. Let's go with four grams of water for that.
01:06:53
That's going to be 600 times 4, that's 2,400 plus that 600 grams. That's 3 kilograms that we've lost right there. So, 6.6 pounds that we have that you have lost just due to the fact that you've got a low carbohydrate diet. So, first of all, we have to account for the fact that if we restore your glycogen and I do this many times in whether it be a refeed or I'm doing a carb load before a contest or before a photo shoot. For instance, I have a photo shoot on Thursday. Yesterday, to restore my glycogen, I was zero-carb out on Saturday and Sunday. Yesterday, Monday. So, it's Tuesday today.
01:07:23
I hit 1,100 grams of carbohydrates. Today is 1,000 grams of carbohydrates. I'm carbohydrate loading. And so I am getting super glycogen compensated because if you really look at the research, even at Atkinson, the highest amounts of glycogen restoration we've seen in the literature is 15 grams per kilogram. Right now I'm shooting for about 10 grams per kilogram, which is really, you look at Louise Burke's work, it's like between eight to 12 kilograms. This is only for a two day period. I'm trying to get burst and full Mickey. But I'm just saying my body weight just from yesterday's carb load, I'm at four and a half pounds.
01:07:50
From my lowest body weight during this fat loss phase, I'm already up four and a half pounds. That is not fat. I'm shredded right now, to be honest with you. You're looking buff as well, by the way. I appreciate it. That's just a restoration of muscle glycogen. You don't own that weight. Even if we look at the literature in weight loss maintenance, we see between one to three percent of body weight is considered weight loss maintenance. For instance, say that you end a fat loss phase at 150 pounds. We have to give a few pounds leeway. This is what I like to tell my clients, a few pounds leeway for the restoration of glycogen. Generally, I'm going to tell them,
01:08:20
three to five pounds for just glycogen getting restored, then we also have to think about gut residue. If you were on a low residue diet, you didn't have a lot of food volume and you were eating a lower amount of calorie intake, let's give another pound for that. That's about six pounds. Say that you ended your phase at 156 pounds, then you have to look at one to three percent on either end of that. Just to do the math easy, say you were 144 pounds, I brought you back up with six pounds of that leeway that I give you, and now your 150 pounds is your normal weight. One to three
01:08:49
going between 154.5 pounds and down to 145.5 pounds would be your buffer zone for you still being in maintenance. So when I really try to get across the clients, your depleted weight, that skinny weight that you see on your scale where you're super thrilled, but you're flat as a board, meaning you've got no pop in your muscles, you have no pump in the gym, that is not your true weight. Your weight should be...
01:09:10
Over the last four weeks, what was your average weight across those last four weeks of your fat loss phase? Not when you were really pushing hard, doing your most amount of cardio, depleted, like you hit the sauna the night before. You have to look at your averages over time. So it's not about the lightest scale weight you ever saw. It's about your average. I really like to do it over the last four weeks and then back calculate that and then put one to 3% on that and that is their maintenance range. But I will always educate clients on the fact that if I am going to replenish your glycogen, which many times I'm going to do.
01:09:36
through the inclusion of carbohydrates. And I have a lot of women that come to me that are on very low carbohydrate diets. And I tell them right off the bat, listen, you're gonna gain weight even though I have you in energy balance. But I wanna get this across to you. I'm bringing you back up to maintenance. Meaning, if you're at maintenance, you cannot gain fat. So let's say this again, we're going back to maintenance. When you're not gaining fat, you're gonna gain glycogen in anything, if anything. I've done this with clients which...
01:10:01
more high-level clients. I've actually had them do DEXs before and after. I restore their carbohydrate levels and increase glycogen storage. And it all comes on as lean body mass. So if anything, you guys should be happy with me that, yes, your body weight increased, but it's all lean body mass. Your body fat has stayed the same. And technically, you've actually body re-comp because if you have more lean mass in comparison to fat mass, you actually lost body fat. Because if you increase body mass and it's exclusively lean body mass, you've actually lost body fat from a body re-comp perspective.
01:10:30
And so really what it comes down to it, let's, I don't want to say throw away the scale. The scale has vast benefits from just a tracking perspective and just an accountability tool. It's one of the number one metrics for self-monitoring, but it shouldn't be living or dying by the scale weight. It should be about a look. And a lot of times, to be honest with you, a lot of men and women that I work with, they look better after we increase their food for the next couple of weeks getting out of a dieting phase. And then I get them into this high energy flux state. They look better for weeks after.
01:10:57
Then they even did in this, when it came to me in the diet, a lot of times you look like a smaller kind of scrawny version of yourself at the end of the diet. I do as well when I'm flat and depleted. I was on zero carbs for many days before I did this, you know, super compensation that I'm doing right now in terms of the carb load before my photo shoot. It's not a great look and you don't want to be the lightest body weight you want to be. You want to be the best version of yourself and irregardless of body weight. That's awesome, Brandon. So before we finish up, two questions. The first one is...
01:11:23
Is there anything else that anyone needs to know about the high energy flux that we did not cover? Yeah. When it really comes down to it, this is a lifestyle. This is not just a one-dimensional approach. I would really encourage you guys, if you would like to know more, I'm going to be doing a series on my podcast. I have to do one because I had done one a few series years ago, but you guys can always look at my name, Brandon D'Cruz, High Energy Flux. I've done at least a dozen podcasts on this.
01:11:49
But if not, you guys can look up my podcast, which is the Chasing Clarity Health and Fitness podcast and I'll be putting out a series on this really diving in deep because there's been a lot of questions that I've gotten regarding it because I did a lot of presentations on this topic in 2020, 2021, and 2022. So I'm kind of giving my updated thoughts to this, but I do want to just get across the fact that this is...
01:12:09
not a one-dimensional approach. It needs to be context-specific and it needs to be specified to the individual. There are times that I'm utilizing different macronutrient manipulation. Sometimes I'm increasing energy expenditure through doing protein overfeeding. There are so many different things that I've utilized. It's developed for the clientele in themselves. The other thing is, this isn't just about exercise. It really is about incorporating movement into your life. What can you do to be more active throughout the day? Can you stand instead of sitting? Can you take the stairs instead of the escalator or the elevator?
01:12:39
Can you make sure to park further back in the parking lot? Or can you go on walks throughout the day? Instead of going and grabbing your coffee at Starbucks that's five minutes down the road, why don't you just walk out your door, throw on a pair of headphones, listen to a podcast, anything to get up and move, try to find ways to reduce sedentary time and increase active time? Because really when we look at it, the body is being given two different signals from
01:13:00
physical activity and sedentary behavior. So a lot of people think, hey, I work out every day. I go to the gym four to five times a week. Well, let's think about that in the context of a week. That's five hours a week. If you go to the gym one hour a day, and there's 168 hours in the week, there's 163 other hours throughout the week that you're not doing anything. And so really when it comes down to it, if you could find ways to engage in physical activity and make it part of your lifestyle, make it something that you love. Like I personally love to get coffee with friends and then go for walks. I love to go hiking. I love to do things in the outdoors.
01:13:28
I really like to get together with people in nature where I'm able to put my phone away, not have my laptop for a couple of hours, and just engage with people and really get into deep conversations around beautiful environments. I love going to the beach. There are so many things that we can do. Also, a lot of times people are thinking about it as exercise. I think that's a really long way to put it. There are so many times that I've done 5,000 or 6,000 steps just on a walk with my friend and I didn't even think about it, but I burned a ton of calories. I'll tell you, I generally can be able to. I'll tell you personally.
01:13:57
I hate throwing out macro budgets and things. But when I'm in a building phase, I'm eating over 4,000 calories per day. And so, I'm eating a ton of food and I live a life of abundance, but I've made it so that. I do most of my work on a walking treadmill desk. I start my day every single day with a morning walk. I make sure I get sunlight exposure. On my lunch break, right after I finish eating my meal, I go for a 10 to 15 minute walk. And I do that after each and every one of my meals, whether that be on my walking pad, on my treadmill desk.
01:14:23
or it'd be outside. I often like coupling outside exposure early in the day, so I get sunlight exposure with kind of balance out my circadian rhythm. But there are so many habit stacking techniques that you guys can utilize. You could do tours around your house. You could just go gardening. There's so many things. Another big thing I love to encourage people to do is go dancing. Like this is dancing, burning tons of calories. There's nothing
01:14:44
know, that's going to get your heart rate up and make you sweat more than a night out dancing or taking a couple clients that I have now taking a dancing class with their significant other. It's a bonding experience for them, but they're churning and burning through calories. And then after they're able to have a nice meal out because they just scorched through hundreds upon hundreds of calories. So let's stop thinking about it as exercise is a thing that you dread and start thinking about it. How do I make physical activity a part of my daily lifestyle and something that is really going to move me forward? Both, you know, no pun intended, both in terms of my body composition.
01:15:12
you know, improvement goals, but also in terms of my metabolic health, my lifestyle and my ability to connect with other people. I love it. And honestly, I would go dancing if there were clubs open at about five o'clock in the evening in the afternoon. So I could be home by nine for a cup of tea. That'd be amazing. I'm right there with you, McGowan bed by eight PM. So I'm right there with you. We need an early morning dancing club. Exactly. Hey, um, one last question very quickly. I'm what I, I'm so respectful of your time, but equally have obviously disrespected it because we are well over.
01:15:41
110, what did you say? 1100 grams of carbohydrate. What are you having? I'm currently carb loading and I realized after this weekend's depletion that I was pretty much in the hole in terms of how depleted I was. I was down about five pounds from my previous low weight and I was doing a fat loading. So I was trying to increase intramuscular triglyceride storage. And that only accounts for about one to 2% of skeletal muscle, but I'll take the one to 2%. So I was doing a, I completely went into trace carbohydrates. I was utilizing a higher protein and high fat approach.
01:16:10
But mostly mono and polyunsaturated fats. We're looking at a lot of unsaturated fats and fats are going to have anti-inflammatory effects. I did that over two days. I loaded intramuscular triglycerides first and now I'm loading glucose. I'm bursting full right now in terms of like I had the craziest pumps. Now, mind you, I've been dieting for 12 weeks. I've been on very low – my highest carb base had been like 300 grams of carbs. I did some calculations.
01:16:35
I went back and forth with a couple of my mentors. I always have coaches need coaches. I have people in my corner. And actually one of my top mentors, which you honestly should get on, his name is Dr. Scott Stevenson. Is a world of knowledge. And so him and I have, we do a weekly call. We do a Zoom call every single week, whether it's just to catch up with one another or we're gonna go over topics. And one of his hobby horses is peak week. He has worked with the highest level of the sport. He used to work with David Henry, which won the 202 Olympia. So this was before the 212 Mr. Olympia.
01:17:03
He was one of the first individuals to win the lighter weight class, Mr. Olympia. And that he used to peak him. And Scott has even, um, even publications in the scientific literature on peak week, one of the only like evidence-based recommendations for peak week. So we've done full lectures and talks and conversations on that. So this is utilizing part of his model in terms of
01:17:23
loading intramuscular triglycerides. What we're going for is a fill and spill. I'm trying to spill over tonight, and then tomorrow I will clean things up. I will induce natural diuresis, which will be driven mostly through natural diuretics, which will be B vitamins. It'll be caffeine intake. I'm going to really crank up my protein so I get that increase in urea, like nitrogen excretion. I'm going to be very low carbohydrate so that I can dissipate some of the water that I'm holding right now and dry out perfectly for Thursday morning shoots. I have a big shoot with a former...
01:17:52
First and foremost, a great friend of mine, Alpha Design Photos, so shout out to him. But he was someone that used to do a lot of the photography for Muscular Development and Flex Magazine, which were huge publications in the States when magazines were still in print, which they aren't anymore, but he's still a phenomenal photographer. So I'm looking forward to ending the summer with a great and productive shoot with him. And just walking the walk, this is a big component for me. I'm not just about, yes, I love evidence-based practice. I like talking the talk, but I am someone that I walk the walk. I have competitors. I've had competitors up to the level of the Olympia.
01:18:21
My physique will never be on that level, but I still need to be able to show them that I'm willing to get into trenches, diet hard, and really push my physique to my limits, my personal limits in terms of really exuding. I look at my physique, it's not just about how I look, but it's more of a physical manifestation of the work ethic that I have and how I apply myself. How I do anything is how I do everything, and I'm all in on anything that I'm truly passionate about. Yeah. Now, I 100% understand that. So is there like a...
01:18:47
a meal that you'll have after your photo shoot, Brandon, that you're really looking forward to or? Mickey, I don't mean to disappoint you, but I've eaten so many carbs the last day or two that I don't want any food. I'm good. I'm stuffed. You got to see these meals I'm doing. I'm doing usually like a high glycemic carbohydrate, so I'm doing white rice, and then I'm coupling that with some fructose, and then I'm having to utilize rice cakes on top of that honey, different glucose transporters. As gross as this sounds, I'm pouring dextrose on my white rice just to be able to get that amount of carbs down. Each of my meals was –
01:19:16
220 grams of carbohydrates. I'm utilizing highly branched cyclic dextrin, so these high molecular weight carbohydrates. I understand we all get very depleted during a diet. We all get very hungry. And believe me, I was starving before I started this, but I got about three meals in yesterday. I'm 660 grams of carbs in, and I was like, oh man, this is a lot of food. I'm feeling like a food baby right now. 100% understand. I don't have a specific meal. And I never, honestly, this has always been a personal process to me to really push myself. And I do it for the photos to be able to commemorate them.
01:19:45
I'm never food focused, to be honest with you. If I ever became that way and it became all about the food, which a lot of people, I did that early on in my competitive career. I've competed 15 times starting as far as 10 years ago. I used to be that person that was food focused. It was a poor relationship with this sport where I looked at it as this was a means to an end. I had to finish the contest because I had stocked up for weeks at my house and then I was going to have a binge fest. That was a very poor relationship with food. That is a lot of competitors do that. You can even speak to...
01:20:13
level athletes that are professionals like Eric Helms, he had made those mistakes. I made those mistakes. There's more education. I really tried to get people to realize this should be, bodybuilding should be a part of your life, not your entire life. And if it's ever putting you to that end of the spectrum, you need to go get help in that regard. So I've done that personally. I've looked into counseling for body image issues and many things that I dealt with during my competitive career. And I'm a better person, a better coach for it. But yeah, I don't really think about the food that I'm going to eat after. I really have this ideology or this mentality that I want to be where my feet are.
01:20:41
So I take everything, one meal, one walk, one training session, one day, one task, one podcast at a time. Oh, I love it, Brandon. And that answer is completely unsurprising to me. You are such a professional. You are a wealth of knowledge and information. What I think would be really helpful actually, not helpful, it would be interesting for people if you ever did like a photo montage of what you ate during those 1100.
01:21:07
grams of carbohydrate meals. Maybe you'll do that for your next photo shoot. People would find it illuminating, like for sure. Brandon, thank you. This has been amazing. Chasing Clarity is almost like a postgraduate nutrition class and I love it and I look forward to it every single day. Oh, every single week. It's so good. I'm so happy to hear that. And please just remind people where they can find you. Absolutely guys.
01:21:30
for educational content, feel free to reach out to me. I have been posting on social media for well over a decade, so you have a vault of things. I think I hit my 3,333rd post today. So feel free to look out for me on Instagram, which is at Bran If you guys have any inquiries about coaching consultations, educational opportunities, things of that sort, please reach out to me. I am very easy to reach.
01:21:52
on my email, which is beta Then you guys can also find me on the Chasing Clarity Health and Fitness podcast, which is available on Spotify, iTunes, and on YouTube. And Mickey, thank you so much for having me back on. You are one of my favorite individuals to speak to. You are a great example of what evidence-based practice should be. And I'm very glad that we can continue to push forward great information that we're not trying to sell anything.
01:22:13
as many of the conversations that we have where it's actually evidence-based and we're actually going into the vault of evidence looking at it without a biased perspective and really trying to disseminate it to empower other people. Awesome, Brandon couldn't have said a bit of myself. Thanks so much.
01:22:37
Alrighty, well I can truly say that every time I talk to Brandon, I learn something new and it just feels like there are so many things that we need to think about when it comes to fat loss. And he's basically thought of pretty much all of them. He would disagree. He's very humble. So hopefully you enjoyed that. And next week on the podcast, we have another expert on the show, Martin Gabala, to discuss vigorous, intermittent lifestyle snack-tivity.
01:23:04
and the importance of activity for health. He is an absolute rockstar in this space, so I'm really looking forward to bringing that conversation to you. Until then though, you can catch me over on Instagram, threads and Twitter, @mikkiwilliden, Facebook @mikkiwillidenNutrition, or head to my website, Mikkiwilliden.com, and book a one-on-one call with me. All right, team, you have the best week. See you later.