June 13, 2025 • 38 mins
In this high-impact episode of the Supra Human Show, Ben Oliver, Ryan Stevens, and Dr. Taylor Waters cut straight to the truth on common fitness and nutrition myths. They unpack when to prioritize compound or isolation exercises, why many people overestimate how little they eat, and how calorie tracking can make or break your results. If you're serious about performance, this is essential viewing.
The coaches also explore why women often see slower fat loss, how hormones affect metabolic output, and what overtraining actually looks like in the real world. You'll walk away with smarter strategies to build muscle, burn fat, and train with clarity.
Chapters
(00:00) Introduction
(01:33) Compound vs Isolation: Which Should Come First?
(04:03) Lower Body Isolation Before Compounds: When It Makes Sense
(11:08) Eating More to Lose Fat: Fitness Myth or Fact?
(13:02) Fatigue, Water Retention and Carb Cycling Explained
(14:22) Calorie Intake vs Food Volume: What Really Matters
(24:13) Hormonal Factors like Thyroid and Menopause
(25:40) Why Men Burn Fat Faster Than Women
(29:30) NEAT and Activity Differences Between Sexes
(32:58) Signs of Overtraining You Shouldn't Ignore
(35:20) Overtraining in Weightlifting: Real or Hype
To learn more about Supra Human programs: www.suprahuman.com
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Results may vary depending on your condition, starting weight, and commitment to the program.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Sausage, egg, bacon in the morning.
So it's not a massive plate, probably like a 700 calorie
meal. Lunch he'll just grab some bar
of something and a small sandwich.
It's another 600. Then dinner comes around, he'll
have like a slice of pizza from his kids plate, It's like
another 300. Then he'll blast through the 10
lagas and a couple of whiskeys. Now you're at 3750 Cal and yes,
you haven't eaten very much. People will say that oh, like
(00:20):
the reason why you're not getting leaner is because you're
getting 7 hours sleep instead ofeight.
I'm like that's. Should I do compound lifts
before isolation lifts or after?I mean people make the mistake.
You can have more food weight but less calories.
If you're doing proper programming, if you're training
three days a week, I don't thinkyou can overtrain.
I'm Ryan Stevens. Doctor Taylor Waters, I'm Ben
(00:42):
Oliver. Welcome to the Superhuman show,
Yeah? What's up guys?
Welcome to the Superhuman Show with your hosts Ben Oliver, Ryan
Stevens and the Doc Taylor Waters.
So we are back. We're back in the studio in in
Newport and today we have round table Q&A.
(01:04):
Newport, Wales as well. Newport, Wales.
Yeah, not Newport Beach, Newport, but weather's not as
good. Yeah.
We're dreams. We're dreams are made right.
No one's Smalling still. But yes, we've got round table
Q&A today. So Taylor, you've got the the
commonly asked questions, you'vegot the QS we wanted to go
through. So without further ado, you just
(01:25):
take them away. I got the QS Fingers crossed
you've got the A's. Right?
So first one we got here I should do no?
Should I do compound lifts before isolation lifts or after?
I mean. Don't go with the depends.
We don't. Go with the depends.
(01:45):
My my. Yeah.
So my general answer would be ifyou're a beginner, yes.
If you're more advanced, I wouldn't say no, but I would say
it's more acceptable to do them later on in the workout.
So if your beginner put compounds into this, yeah.
And I would just say just as a as a beginner, your goal is to
get stronger on main movements. You, you probably don't have
(02:10):
like you can't flex bone and it's like if you're trying to
use isolation movements, you might not even have enough
muscle to get a good mind muscleconnection.
So you're better off just like just moving tin and like 'cause
we, we would say like, are you, are you training the movement or
the muscle? And I would say when you're a
beginner, you're like, you don'teven know the difference.
And so it's like you're just, you're moving shit from A to B
(02:32):
and just trying to like, if you're using your shoulders a
little bit more than your chest on a bench press, at that point,
I'd be like, who gives a fuck? Like just get stronger.
You're you're basically just trading movement.
Like you're just looking to execute the movement efficiently
and effectively without getting injured.
Yeah. And, and I, I would really say
like when, when you get to a point that your strength is at a
level where the risk to reward ratio starts to kind of get a
(02:54):
bit skew. If then I would say, yeah, maybe
you put your compound lifts second or third in a workout
where you've got a bit of pre fatigue, still fairly strong.
But like you're not, you know, if you're, if you're benching 3
plus plates and squatting 4 plusplates, dead lifting 4 plus, you
know, 5 plus plates. If your goal is to build muscle,
(03:18):
I do think there is a point of diminishing returns like getting
your deadlift from £500 to £600.It's probably not going to have
a massive effect on your like the shape of your back.
Taking your deadlift from 200 to400 absolutely will.
Like when you're starting to like squat 4 plates, bench, tree
plates, it's like like you said,the risk to the risk to reward
(03:39):
ratio is just not worth it. It's like a little bit of pre
fatigue. Like a common one we will
prescribe is like leg extensionsand leg curls before like a back
squat or like leg press and likeexperienced athletes you.
Know, I was actually just thinking then it's very rare
that I prescribe isolation, upper body movements before
upper body compounds, but it's quite often I will prescribe
(03:59):
lower body isolation before lower body compounds.
And I just think it's the overall poundage you can move
with the lower body and the riskof injury is a little bit higher
with the lower body as well, yeah.
My biggest thing with like with even with with general
programming, my first thought ismanaging lower back fatigue.
Yeah. And so especially with our
(04:20):
client base, Yeah. And with with lower body
movements, with compound movements, your lower back is
always the limiting factor with free weights, like if you're
doing a deadlift, an RDL back squat, a front squat like it's
it's mid low back is always going to be the limiting factor
before you smash your legs. Unless you're a freak and you've
got a crazy strong lower back and really weak legs.
(04:42):
Then that's when you would use like your hack squat, your leg
press, stuff like that where your lower back isn't the
limiting factor. Whereas with upper body you
don't have the kind of like the lower back equivalent on your
upper body. And so you know, if say like
your pecs were like your lower back, then you would program
your work UPS around that. And so really I think just with
(05:02):
upper body, I just look at overall pressing volume and just
like shoulder integrity like it,it tends to be shoulders that
will go first. If you're just, if you're, if
you're benching too much or doing too much overall pressing
movements, then I would look at just shoulder health.
Things like pulling movements like you're limiting factors,
(05:23):
normally a grip but we just use straps.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the the time where I
would where I do isolate an upper body muscle again, there's
almost like there's there's certain circumstances.
Well, like you would and if someone is struggling to feel
their like pet contraction on a bench press, sometimes I'll
(05:44):
bike, right. Let's bring in a cable crossover
first. Let's pre fatigue the pack
because something like that triceps are the ones that are
giving out first. So they're like, I don't really
get much of A of a swell in my pack, am I right?
Let's pre fatigue the pack. So then the tricep is way more
fresh than the packs are. And then when they bench press
down, they're like, Oh yeah, nowI can feel my packs actually
giving way just to get just to help them with that mind muscle
connection. I, I get that.
(06:06):
I my personal experiences, I always strained my packs when
I've done that, when I, when I've got in pre fatigue.
So I, I would, I do a very similar thing, but I, I would
still try and use like a, a compound movement, but I would
use one where it mechanically just favours the person.
So like, if like like John for example, he's very tricep
(06:27):
dominant just from playing sports.
Everything is like close elbows in.
And so I would maybe do something like a wide grip Smith
machine incline where he can't tuck his elbows and so he has to
favour his, his chest. It's still a compound movement,
but it's, it's going to limit how much he can, you know, if
you're doing like a barbell bench press, you're going to put
(06:50):
yourself in the favourable position to just move the most
weight. But it, it may be like, OK,
we're going to start with an inclined dumbbell press or
something with, you know, 2 second pause at the bottom
position. And I want you to really kind of
stretch your chest or something.But it's still, I still class
those movements as like compounds because that like
isolation. I would be like PEC deck cable
(07:11):
fly, dumbbell fly, something like that.
But I would still class like an incline dumbbell press as like a
as like a compound lift because you're still using like
shoulders, triceps and stuff with it.
Yeah, I think another really good thing you can do as well if
you struggle with my muscle connection is, is like pausing
at the the like the start and the end.
So like short and length and range.
Like if you're doing a bench press, don't like bounce off
(07:31):
your chest, like you'll pause atthe bottom.
So you're removing momentum of the equation.
Yes. And that's another great way in
terms of because if someone likeJohn, if he comes down and he
doesn't stop at the bottom, he'll probably just like close
his elbows in. He's like, he can stop and be
like, right? Elbows flared and then pushed
that thing. Your, your body's always going
to try and put itself in a favourable position.
And you can, you can see it when, yeah, exactly.
(07:52):
If you're, if you're benching and then your chest starts
getting tired, you'll start to see your elbows start to go in,
your shoulders start to kind of shrug up and you try and get rid
of that position where your chest is weak.
Your body just trying to make itas easy as possible.
Which is which is like a really good like.
That's what the brain does. Yeah, like your, your, your,
your body is such a good, like it's got such great compensation
(08:13):
techniques. Like if you hurt your back, your
hips will shift, your knees willshift, everything will shift to
take the stress off that area. You end up looking like
Quasimodo, but like, that's yourbody's way of like, well, let's
just avoid that. Like your whole body will shift
around that. That's why, like with injury
management, it's so important toget back to like lifting like
(08:33):
you normally would. Otherwise you will.
I mean, my shoulders like reallywonky just from years of
avoiding certain positions. And then it's like you get
massive over and under developments on on either side.
But yeah. I think in in summary, you're
looking if strength is the ultimate goal, I would always
bring compounds first, isolationsecond.
Yeah, if you know, from a musclebuilding standpoint, I'm mulling
(08:57):
in towards personal preference. From an injury prevention
standpoint, you might want to lean into some isolations first
just to get the joints nice and warm.
Like especially when you're strapped for time.
Like if you just need to get straight into the workout, like
you don't want to spend 20 minutes warming up and then 20
minutes doing your compounds andthen another 20 minutes on your
on like your ISO. Whereas like I can get straight
(09:17):
into my ISO's within 5 minutes. I can use them as my warm up and
then I go into the compounds. So again, it depends on the
circumstances you have, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, there, there are going to be certain circumstances.
Yeah, yeah. It's just it depends what the
ultimate goal. Of the I've definitely changed
my view on that though because Iused to be always do compounds
first, then sports. Size 101.
(09:38):
Yeah, then you then you get to your isolations.
You know, heaven forbid you do aisolation movement first.
It's like that. That's like the cardinal sin,
you know, in, in sports performance, but it 100% has its
place. And, and you know, with lower
body in particular doing things like not that lunges are an
isolation movement, but like legcurls, leg extensions, lunges.
(10:01):
You know, I'll even do some corework before my compound lifts,
which you would say, like, why would you want to fatigue your
core going into it? But from, from my view, it's
like it makes those compound lifts feel better.
Even if it shaves 2040 lbs off the lift.
I'm way more, I'm way less likely to get injured from it
because I can actually move correctly.
(10:23):
But yeah, so yeah, I, I think there's a, if you're a beginner,
I, I do think you should be working compounds, but then as
you get to more intermediate advanced, it goes to a much more
kind of it. It's a very situation dependent.
On the circumstances, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right next is a very short answer.
This one no it. Is no 5G daily?
(10:46):
Can eating more really make you leaner?
I've heard this a lot on social media.
Depends how big of a death. So, So what are we are we
saying? Are we saying more as in total
calories? Well, that's the thing you often
hear when people are trying to market.
It's very easy to sell. Eat more, get leaner and you'll
see people online say, oh, I started eating more and I got
(11:09):
leaner. But I think it's, although it's
not completely incorrect becauseit depends on what you mean,
depends on how you define eatingmore.
But it's important to understandthe definition of eating more
before you can realistically. Answer.
Are they talking about like energy or actually like the
volume of food that you consume in type of?
Thing because a lot of times really far higher volume of
(11:31):
food, but fewer calories and you're like, I'm eating so much
food and I'm losing weight. It's like because you're eating
your fruits and veggies now versus cereal and stuff.
I think the only the other situation is like you said, if
you're, if you're in a massive deficit and you're like a zombie
and you're, you're kind of TDE or whatever, like your daily
expenditure has gone down just because you fidget less.
(11:54):
You know, you maybe you've got astep target and cardio, but the
rest of the day you are like a fucking statue.
Yeah. Then you know, it may be your
coach gives you an extra hundred150 calories.
That's enough for you to be like, Oh my God, I feel so much
better now. You're fidgeting, you're moving
more and you burn 200. You are in a bigger like you're
(12:15):
now in a greater deficit of 50 calories, but you were
technically eating more food. You just offset the calories by
by moving more because I there is there is a sweet spot there I
think. It's a great market in line that
it's just like what the it's like it's 19.
What do they say? It's like 99% correct, 100%
wrong. Yeah, You know, it's like it, it
really depends. Like when you find out like,
(12:35):
yeah, you can eat more and lose weight, but like if someone's in
like, say 1000 calorie deficit and then you just increase their
food a little bit, they're stillin the deficit.
They still lose weight. Yeah, yeah.
The other thing that I'll see isif someone is at the tail end of
a diet where you're probably like this, the lowest calories
are going to go. Fatigue is very high, output's
(12:56):
very high, cortisol levels are probably quite high, Probably
some water retention going on from leg fatigue.
Maybe they're doing 1520 thousand steps a day.
They're training legs. They're they're sore a lot of
the time. And then we say, put your feet
up for three days, you know, we're going to throw in some
extra carbs, you know, and, and relax scale weight goes down and
(13:17):
like, Oh my God, I stopped doingcardio.
I ate carbs and I lost weight and I got leaner.
And it's like you just dropped fatigue and you dropped 4 lbs of
water. That's why bodybuilders, they
take it easy the week of the show, they flush out all the
water weight. Yeah, yeah.
I think the most common 1 you see is people will start a
program. They didn't used to eat very
much in terms of food volume, they just ate really energy
(13:40):
dense foods and then they probably drunk as well, like
their liquid calorie intake was quite high which they never used
a factor in. Then they start a new program
and you always say like I'm eating more than ever and I'm
losing weight and it's like it'sbecause the volume of your food
has gone up but the total calorie intake has dropped down
significantly. So yes, you are eating more, but
you're not actually eating. It's it's, it's a food volume
(14:03):
thing, not a, not a. Calorie and even then, sorry, go
go ahead. I was.
Going to say people make the mistake of mistake in like
energy and actual food weight. Yeah, you know, they mistake
those two things, you know, so you can have more food weight
but less calories. Yeah.
You know, the other thing is if you know, if someone say comes
to us and let's say like they like it's a 200 LB male that
(14:27):
needs to lose 2030 lbs and he's been eating 1600 calories a day.
And let's just say we know that for a fact.
Like a lot of times people will say what they eat and it's
completely wrong because they don't have a track.
But let's just say it's 1600 calories.
He's not working out, he's not following a step target.
He's eating a low protein diet. We then start him off at 1800
(14:47):
calories with more protein. We've now given him a step
target. He's now going to the gym four
times a week. He's burning way more calories
than when he was eating 1600. So yeah, he's like, I'm eating
more and I'm getting leaner. But you're also doing more mate.
Like you're, you're also, you'vealso now added four hours of
resistance training to your week, probably an extra 4 to 6
hours of walking to your week. And you're now eating a higher
(15:09):
protein diet. So like you've added like four
or five things that are favourable for body composition
and you're eating more, but it'snot like it's again, like you
said, it's, you're absolutely right.
You are eating more and you're getting leaner, but you're
ignoring all the other things that we changed at the same
time, you're not getting leaner as a result of eating more.
(15:29):
It's just you are eating more and getting leaner and.
Also as well, you know, like I know obviously we said in this
example, we know for a fact he'seating 1600.
Often when people come in the types of foods that they choose
is there's a large degree of like inaccuracy.
So like if someone, if someone swaps like, I don't know, a
cheeseburger of like a grilled chicken, even if they're still
off with their tracking, the calories are going to be
insignificant in comparison, youknow, so.
(15:52):
Because that, that's the other thing people will say, maybe
when we start them off on their,their target, it's 1800
calories, but it's because we know they're tracking sucks and
they, we know that 1800 is probably closer to 2223 hundred.
Then as they progress, they actually get accurate with their
targets. And now maybe we set their
(16:13):
targets at 2300 and they're like, Oh, I'm eating 500
calories more a day. It's like you're eating the same
mate. Like you just, you just weren't
tracking the 500. So there, there is like some
nuance to it. But like if someone is is, you
know everything else aside all other variables exactly the
same. Like can I eat more and then
drop body fat? No like or like if you're in a
(16:34):
deficit. More and lose more body yeah,
you're not gonna create a biggerdeath Yes, by eating more yes.
That to that term in general is very misleading.
Yeah. But there are there are ways
that that can appear like it's happening just like flip it on
its head. How often do you hear, you see
someone who's like 260 lbs and they're like, I just don't eat
very much. Yeah, it's exact same thing.
It's like you're it's not, it's your interpretation of how much
(16:57):
you eat and how much you move isjust skewed.
So it doesn't appear that you'reeating very much, but the fact
that you're accumulating all this fat tissue.
You can't. You can't create it from
nothing. Yeah.
So you're definitely doing something and it's again, it's
normally I've like seen this in one of my guys recently where
their food intake, I genuinely don't eat that much.
But then it's like, but I drink shit loads.
(17:17):
Yeah, right. So you do consume a lot of
calories is it's just you don't eat very much food couple.
Couple Ritz crackers and then 10beers.
Or like his food is very high infat as well.
So we have like sausage, egg, bacon in the morning.
So it's not a massive plate, butit's, you know, it's probably
like a 700 calorie meal and thenlike lunch, he'll just grab
like, you know, some bar of something and a small sandwich,
(17:39):
but it's like it's another 600. Then dinner comes around, he'll
have like a slice of pizza from his kids plate.
It's like another 300. So like it's still a decent
amount of calories for the food that's on offer.
Then he'll blast through the 10 lagers and a couple of whiskeys
and now you're like, oh, now you're at 3750 calves and yes,
you haven't eaten very much. So again, it's it's, it's just
(18:00):
misleading. But again, there are certain
circumstances where it makes somewhat sense.
It's the interpretation of me. It's like what eating much
means. Like often in that example you
say well I only have like 2 meals a day.
Well, if you have a Domino's Pizza, a pack of nuts, unless
you take. Meals 4000 calories, yeah, it's
like, oh, you eat loads, yeah. You.
You don't eat much in terms of meal frequency, but in terms of
calorie intake. Women, women are notorious for
(18:22):
it where they'll they'll graze through the day on, you know,
it'll be like a sex sexist pig and you check it, but it's
really common where like they won't, their meals will be very,
very small in volume and it'll be like maybe like a protein bar
or a fruit, like a fruit and nutbar.
(18:43):
It'll be those little snacks like, you know, maybe it's kids
snacks or something, but they actually pack a bit of a punch
on like calories and they'll sayI haven't eaten all day.
And it's like, well, let's really look at it.
You went to Starbucks in the morning and you add your, your
Frappuccino, which is 400 kegs, you know, and, and, but it's,
you didn't even feel it touch the side.
(19:04):
Then you know, you had the, you know, you snacked off your kids
plate, which was like cheese andham or something.
Then you got like a, a fruit snack, which is actually 300
calories a bar. It's just literally dried nuts
and fruits smoothie. Yeah.
And, and like smoothie, yeah, toto cows and, and one of those
innocent brand smoothie when it's like there's 800 apples in
this in this smoothie and it's like we couldn't eat that.
(19:27):
And so like you. Might need, yeah.
It's like in in this, in this small carton, it's sixteen
oranges, 12 pairs. And it's like, Can you imagine
trying to eat that? Like you would shit yourself
like with it by the time you gotlike a third of the way through,
Just condense it. Yeah, just drink up.
But yeah, remove all the goodness and then just drink the
rest. But then you, you factor that in
across the day. You haven't had a single sit
(19:49):
down meal, but you've eaten 2000calories.
And then and you haven't trainedand you probably haven't eaten
enough protein. And so when you when you start,
the amount of times you you start getting a woman eating
enough protein and they're like,Oh my God, I'm so full
constantly. And you and you're like, your
calories are like 1200, but you're stuffed.
And so like, yeah, there's. There is a lot of nuance to it,
(20:11):
but like the the whole idea of like I'm not eating enough,
that's like, and we're talking calories, not volume.
Like I'm not eating enough calories.
That's why I'm not losing weight.
I really haven't seen like any examples where that's legit
true. If someone is selling you the
dream of eating more calories tolose more weight, they're lying.
(20:36):
Turn away as fast as you can because they're definitely.
Lying and like, again, if there's like an underlying
thyroid issue or something, again, that's like that's still
factored into the calorie intake.
Like what in there's a guy he's I won't name him.
He's a coach in he lives in Dubai and he's go on.
(20:56):
He would always call him out go on.
And but he but he would say likefinger in his chest.
So he would, he would say like, it's not calories in, calories
out because you're not considering hormones, digestion,
absorption rates and blah, blah.And it's like you are all of
that is factored in right in themiddle of that calories in
calories out equation. And so yes, all of that stuff
(21:19):
absolutely plays a role in that calories out, but it's still a
number at the end of it. And so you're still looking at
it and the, the equation still isn't making sense.
And, and so like there's no, there's no hormone that suddenly
changes the law of thermodynamics, period.
Like so when people say like it's not calories, it's
hormones, it's like fuck you they say, they say it's
(21:42):
nonsense. Considering hormones, it's like
no, no they have been considered, they're considered
in the calories out path. They just, I'm not talking about
them because that calories out encompasses the rest of the
stuff that you're now talking about.
You go in a deeper level. But I can talk about it just in
that one word and be like, yeah,now, now we've addressed all
that stuff, then we can move forward.
But it's like you're trying to break it down to make it sound
(22:04):
more complicated and more complex than it is, when it's
actually not. I, I, I, I will always use like
extreme examples just to kind oflike make it clear.
But you know, when people say like your, your, your court is
always really high. That's why you're not dropping
fat or like your, your fatigue'stoo high.
That's why you're not dropping fat like no one in, you know,
(22:24):
the Holocaust camps that were being starved had had optimal
hormone. Levels, I'm sure.
That their cortisol was probablyoff Guinness World Records.
They were sleep deprived, food deprived, malnourished and they
lost weight just fine like and then also.
If if you BCC was not a. Concern and if you if you want
to go even less extreme, you look at natural bodybuilders
(22:46):
that aren't using any PEDs at the end of a prep you are you're
not sleeping because you're getting up five times a night to
pee. You're extremely fatigued.
You know you probably are a bit malnourished at that point
because your food choices are solimited, yet you have no problem
getting to 5% body fat Like I say no problem it's hard, but
like your body will do it. So when people say like, the
(23:07):
reason you're not dropping 1 LB a week is because you're getting
7 hours sleep instead of eight, I'm like, that's fucking
nonsense. Like you, there is something off
in, in your plan, but I, I don'tlike it when people will say
that, oh, like the reason why you're not getting leaner is
because your, your digestion isn't on point and all this
stuff. And it's like you're talking
like a pound a week. Like we're not in the extremes
(23:27):
yet. Like if you're, if you're trying
to get staged lean, yeah, like digestion and stuff plays a role
and you know, because it's goingto, you're going to look
different, like you might hold some water and things like that.
If you're like 250 LB big John and you're like, the reason why
you're not losing 1 LB of fat a week is because you're you're
(23:47):
the digestive enzymes are off. I'm like shut the fuck up.
Like they're working just fine because you'd be managed to pack
on 200 and. 50 lbs and overtime they're resilient.
Fuck is those things. So, so I I don't like, I'm not
dismissing that that stuff isn'ta factor at some point, but it's
likely not the reason why you'renot losing weight to start with
it seems. To be a first world problem,
(24:09):
doesn't it? Yeah, like in Africa and stuff.
They're real countries. That's not an issue.
Yeah, yeah. And.
In first world countries, you can order a pizza to your door.
Yeah, yeah. Funny that.
Let's just think of it. I'll sort of summarize it.
Here is the if someone has a thyroid issue, so you're not
thinking about hormones because their thyroid output might be a
little bit low. OK.
So what is the outcome of that thyroid output being low calorie
(24:30):
output? Calories output goes down.
OK. Hence why it's calories in,
calories out. Yeah.
Yeah. So we've already been factored
into the output and the balance between the in and the out are
in check. We either reduce the input or we
figure out that hormone issue. So the output goes up a little
bit, but it's still a hormone problem.
Yeah. Because if we can't, we gotta
just bring the out the input down.
(24:50):
It's it's just, yeah. Like menopause.
Perfect example. Like it will absolutely decrease
calorie output, but it doesn't change the fact you just have to
eat less. Yeah, like, it sucks.
But like, the general consensus is I know you were working with
a client and you you showed likethe the peered reviewed kind of
studies. And it's like typical
recommendations for a woman thatwants to lose weight in
(25:11):
menopause is like 1200 calories a day.
I think, yes, start just starting with 1200, Yeah.
And then everyone's like, no, you should never consume 1200.
It's like there's literally a paper there that says 1200.
It's the start. Yeah, it's right.
Let's go question 3. It sort of ties in to the next
question. Why does it appear that my
(25:31):
husband loses weight much easierthan I do?
Because your husband is on steroids?
Because. Unfortunately, you have less
margin for. Error.
Yeah, it's it is more difficult.Yeah.
Like if you're AII sort of see it a lot where you've got, you
know, the the husband is 6/2. He's a bit of a lump, you know,
(25:54):
he's lifted weights for a while,but he his diet is pretty
reckless and he still seems to be pretty lean.
And then the female is like 5 foot 2, you know, has a has a
desk job that doesn't really exercise and hasn't since
school. And then he's like, oh, well,
when we eat together, like I eatthe same as him type.
(26:14):
Yeah. But his, again, his output is so
much higher for several different reasons that when you
sit down at a restaurant and youboth order a pizza, it's been
25% of his daily intake. It was 80% of your daily intake.
So it's almost like the by behaving in the same way that
(26:36):
he's behaving from an input standpoint.
Relatively, it's not the same. Yeah, relatively because of your
output differences, which again you, some of you aren't in
control over like they just, they are what they are.
It's then it's a lot more difficult for you to keep things
in check. So like what I often end up
saying, especially with some of the females that I work with, is
like you just haven't got the wiggle room that some of these
(26:57):
other people that you know have.So you just need to be a little
bit more diligent with your efforts in order to get the
same. Out and I also I've I've got
clients where the wife eats morethan the husband where like
where where she's super lean, you know, eat in I think high,
high 2000s at the moment. And the the husband has to go
sub 2000 to get anything moving on the scale and he's twice the
(27:19):
size like mass monster. And so like it, it does happen.
Generally that's not the norm because it's, you know, but
again, you can look at you and me like your maintenance
calories far higher than mine. And and so like, and but weight
wise we're completely different.So it's, it's very individual.
But generally speaking, women are going to have to consume
fewer calories and do more to like, because even if you think
(27:40):
of calories burned per step, a bloke is carrying £250 per step.
Yeah, a woman might be carrying 110 lbs.
And so it's like he's he might be burning twice as many
calories for the same amount of work.
Yeah. And you can say it's not fair.
And you, I will say you're absolutely, you're you're
(28:00):
absolutely right. It's not fair.
And have you seen the size of mynose?
Yeah. So it's, it's, it's like you can
look at it all the time and be like, oh, well, how come this
person is doing half as much cardio as me and eating twice as
much and getting leaner? Especially like, because I've
got it where I've had clients ask me about other clients and
(28:22):
they'll say, like, how is he getting leaner on?
And you've got me on this, this amount of carbs and he's eating
double and he's getting leaner. And I'm like, because that's the
way his body is responding. And I was like, we can do that.
And you will gain weight every single week.
Like it's like, I hate to break it to you, it's just not that
like. What I always say with that is
like, OK, now what it's like now, you know, the reason why
this client is like, now what? We're going to use that as
(28:44):
permission not to do anything orwe're going to do what we need
to do to keep moving forward. And sometimes, like, when it's
really common, when like a husband and wife go out to like
a restaurant, it's like the husband can get away with having
like a dessert, you know, and he's probably still in the
deficit. Whereas like you, you're in a
200 calorie deficit, you sniff that dessert and you're going to
be at maintenance. Yeah.
You know, so it's just the way it is.
It the biggest difference I see from experience is the is is the
(29:07):
neat. It's like in, in general when
someone again, like like right your your, your sort of main
maintenance calories are really high, then you do move a shit
load. Like you do, you fidget, you
move around a lot. Like you're you're very.
This is probably the most SAT still.
You're going to be all day. Yeah, because you'll kick me up.
Like you've got 3 kids, you do aboatload of steps, you've got a
(29:31):
dog that you walk and you do it every single day.
Like you don't miss a beat on it.
So you're always is moving. So it's like for you, your
numbers are quite high, whereas like and then other people like
they might move a bit sometimes,but generally they're quite
sedentary. And it's like when you think
about most of our physical activity will be tied to the
occupation that we have. Unless you really are diligent
(29:53):
with getting in your exercise, most of the physical activity we
will we will accumulate over time will be tied to the job.
And then you look at the jobs differences between males and
females. Males jobs more often than not
are more physically active than female jobs.
So it's OK. So now your size, most females
are smaller than most males. Most males have more active jobs
(30:15):
than most females. So just those two things alone,
which are probably 2 of the key drivers of our metabolic rate or
our out output are heavily favoured in terms of the male as
in being higher, I guess favoured, you can call it
whatever you want, but it's definitely higher towards the
male side because of the size and the general activity levels.
Do we accumulate? So that just is what it is then.
So now it's like you've got, youcould increase your exercise,
(30:38):
you can really invest heavily into, well, you can get a
different job if you want. You can't grow that much.
So it's like that. They're not.
There's not many things in your control outside of OK, I just
have to consume less than they do to get the same result than
they get. It's it's, it is, it is tough,
but it also it is what it is. Yeah, yeah.
And that again in that. Modern society where we eat out
(30:59):
more like that's restaurants don't cater to that like you
that's sexist, you know, sexist order off the kids menu because
you know, we went to what was itCheesecake Factory?
What was it the lowest? I mean, I think the Caesar salad
was like 1800 calories. And if you're, if you know, if
you're even if you're a guy, butlike you know, your, your daily
intake may be less than that andyou're fucked if you if you go
(31:23):
there. There was one slice of
cheesecake there, 1800 calories.Yeah.
Do you know what I mean? That's that's like more than
most women's calories for the. Day.
Yeah, I guess. Let's just think about that.
I was just as as you were talking then what are the key
drivers of our energy expenditure that we have control
over? Well, though, even if we don't
have control over size, so our, our size, our NEAT and our eat,
(31:45):
all of those on average will be higher towards a male.
We're generally bigger. Our exercise levels are
generally a bit higher than a female's or yet on average, I'm
not saying it is on average. If if you look at the data
that's out there and then our, our physical activity
accumulated by a work is higher as well.
All of those things are higher. So our, our energy output is
(32:08):
just that much higher. So it just makes it harder for
you to do so again, if we go to Cheesecake Factory, right?
Like you're almost like you walkthrough the door and they just
go like, oh, so so it's a surplus today.
Like, just just to clarify, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's tough. It's tough, right?
Final final question. How will I know when I am
(32:29):
overtraining? Maybe niggles?
Do you know what? Plateau in strength.
Yeah, I never used to think about I'm overtraining that much
because normally when I'm filledup, well, I find it very hard to
overtrain. It's more often than not when
I've been in quite a heavy deficit.
Do I feel those those symptoms of overtraining?
(32:53):
Another one I would say is that you're struggling to recover to
hit the same muscle group by thenext session that's.
Probably, yeah, I would say performance decline, motivation
to train decline and injuries orkind of overuse, like you said,
like, you know, like elbows are getting a bit kind of niggly
shoulders. But I, I would go more by
(33:16):
motivation where like no one's motivated the train every single
day. And, and I, I, I try and explain
this to clients where like the expectation should not be that
you're going to have 4 great workouts every week.
You're going to have probably 1 pretty good workout, two OK
workouts and one shit workout. Like that's that's on a that's a
good training week. That's the standard.
(33:39):
If you're having four shit workouts in a row, then I'm
going to probably go into the next week and say, if we keep
having shit workouts, we're probably going to pull back.
If we then have some good workouts, Maybe it was work
stress, maybe it was travel. Maybe you had a bit of a bug or
a cold and we're and we're back all good.
If you get in two weeks in a rowwhere you're like, I just don't
want to be in the gym. Like I feel weak, like I'm not
(33:59):
getting a pump. Then I'm going to say let's,
let's cut back on the training volume.
But the, the way that I would cut back would depend on what
training they're doing. If someone's doing like a, like
a strength training program where the reps are quite low and
the weight's very heavy, they'rejust like, they might be really
neurally just tired of just likestraining.
And so I would even go, we're going to like half the
(34:21):
intensity, but up the volume. So you're just going to get a
pump. They feel pretty good.
If you're doing like a high volume bodybuilding training
routine, I'm going to cut the volume and keep the intensity
high. And so like there's different
ways around it, but most, most people will never get to the
point that they're overtraining.Like I, I think unless you're
doing aerobic work as well as weight training, I think it's
(34:44):
pretty hard to over train with weights because even if you, you
go through this temporary performance decline, it's your
body just adjusting to the workload.
And like, I remember there's AUSweightlifter called John Bros
and he would say when he, he would call it dark times for his
lifters because he would have the Max out on squats everyday.
And he would say your, your performance, your performance
(35:05):
will drop for one to two months.And it's your body.
He, he would call it like you're, and there's no science
back in this. This is just his kind of theory.
But he's like, it's almost like your nervous system starts
shutting down to rewire to kind of ramp back up.
And during that time your performance is terrible.
And he's like, you can barely keep your eyes open.
You feel like shit all day, but you keep showing up.
(35:27):
And then eventually those, thosenumbers start going back up.
And he and he would say like, ifyou've got a job as like a like
a garbage man or a bin man, the first week of your job, your
fucking forearms hurt, your backhurts, your lower back's tired.
You can like you know, you're not sleeping, you're probably
taking ibuprofen. By the second month you're
fucking tossing bins and you feel.
Used to it for 2. Years, yeah.
(35:48):
And so like you could argue thatfirst month you're overtraining,
but you're not overtraining, you're under adapted.
And so most people, they hit that point that I think I'm
overdoing it. It's like you're just you're
just unfit. Yeah, just tired like, and you
just have to push through. But then if you're a very
experienced athlete then I thinkyou can overtrain.
But for beginners you're I. I really don't think you can
(36:10):
fuck me. I used to train 2 hours a day
every day when I was like 14. And it's like, could I have got
a way of doing less? Yes.
But also it's like you can't really hurt yourself at that
point. Look at me, I'm a bloated
walrus. I think the more, the more
common symptom of overtraining with weights is joint pain is
(36:31):
like the, the inflammation you get like guys in their shoulders
and stuff and like, Oh my, my shoulder's sore.
It's a, and you just need a a bit of a break.
It's more it's like the constantwork that shoulder's seeing.
It's just starting to get sore from all the rubbing round and
all the moving and all that strain.
That's more common what I see inpeople who who lift and it's
just just back off a little bit.Take some time off, adapt the
movement patterns you're doing so you don't applying so much
(36:53):
stress to that to that joint, and they normally recovers
pretty quick. I think like with our clients,
like when we start to see these symptoms that we've spoken
about, we just take a deload week for a week or two, yeah,
and then they're good to go. Yeah, yeah.
And I think if you're doing proper programming, if you're
training three days a week, I don't think you can overtrain.
Yeah, like I really don't. Yeah.
Oh no, it's bad if you do just three lifting sessions a week.
Yeah, overtraining is not a. Concern.
(37:14):
I think overtraining is absolutely possible with
endurance athletes. Yeah, it's very, very common.
They're constantly just ramping up because it's then then it's
it's purely a volume game. Yeah.
Whereas like lifting is though, volume is a part, has a part to
play. It's not like the main driver.
So the more volume I do, the better it.
All your muscles will almost give out before you can get to
(37:34):
the point where like you know you can't do 100 sets of chest
because you get to set 20 and you're like nothing's working
anymore. Whereas with running like you
can overdo mileage and really screw.
Yourself over. They're like 100 miles.
OK, well the next step is 110 miles.
Yeah, yeah. And then the next step is 120.
It just, it can just go up and up and up and up.
But yeah, generally speaking, I would say it's not something to
(37:56):
be concerned about. But the three things that I
would look at is performance decline, injury niggles going up
and motivation to train decline him.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love it.
Good questions. Well, thank you, as always for
tuning in. Be sure to like and subscribe on
iTunes, YouTube, Spotify, and we'll see you next time.
(38:23):
If you love this show, please like, share and leave us a five
star review so that we can help more people.
I'm John Matson, Superhuman CEO,reminding you to always go get
what's yours.
Sausage, egg, bacon in the morning.
So it's not a massive plate, probably like a 700 calorie
meal. Lunch he'll just grab some bar
of something and a small sandwich.
It's another 600. Then dinner comes around, he'll
have like a slice of pizza from his kids plate, It's like
another 300. Then he'll blast through the 10
lagas and a couple of whiskeys. Now you're at 3750 Cal and yes,
you haven't eaten very much. People will say that oh, like
(00:20):
the reason why you're not getting leaner is because you're
getting 7 hours sleep instead ofeight.
I'm like that's. Should I do compound lifts
before isolation lifts or after?I mean people make the mistake.
You can have more food weight but less calories.
If you're doing proper programming, if you're training
three days a week, I don't thinkyou can overtrain.
I'm Ryan Stevens. Doctor Taylor Waters, I'm Ben
(00:42):
Oliver. Welcome to the Superhuman show,
Yeah? What's up guys?
Welcome to the Superhuman Show with your hosts Ben Oliver, Ryan
Stevens and the Doc Taylor Waters.
So we are back. We're back in the studio in in
Newport and today we have round table Q&A.
(01:04):
Newport, Wales as well. Newport, Wales.
Yeah, not Newport Beach, Newport, but weather's not as
good. Yeah.
We're dreams. We're dreams are made right.
No one's Smalling still. But yes, we've got round table
Q&A today. So Taylor, you've got the the
commonly asked questions, you'vegot the QS we wanted to go
through. So without further ado, you just
(01:25):
take them away. I got the QS Fingers crossed
you've got the A's. Right?
So first one we got here I should do no?
Should I do compound lifts before isolation lifts or after?
I mean. Don't go with the depends.
We don't. Go with the depends.
(01:45):
My my. Yeah.
So my general answer would be ifyou're a beginner, yes.
If you're more advanced, I wouldn't say no, but I would say
it's more acceptable to do them later on in the workout.
So if your beginner put compounds into this, yeah.
And I would just say just as a as a beginner, your goal is to
get stronger on main movements. You, you probably don't have
(02:10):
like you can't flex bone and it's like if you're trying to
use isolation movements, you might not even have enough
muscle to get a good mind muscleconnection.
So you're better off just like just moving tin and like 'cause
we, we would say like, are you, are you training the movement or
the muscle? And I would say when you're a
beginner, you're like, you don'teven know the difference.
And so it's like you're just, you're moving shit from A to B
(02:32):
and just trying to like, if you're using your shoulders a
little bit more than your chest on a bench press, at that point,
I'd be like, who gives a fuck? Like just get stronger.
You're you're basically just trading movement.
Like you're just looking to execute the movement efficiently
and effectively without getting injured.
Yeah. And, and I, I would really say
like when, when you get to a point that your strength is at a
level where the risk to reward ratio starts to kind of get a
(02:54):
bit skew. If then I would say, yeah, maybe
you put your compound lifts second or third in a workout
where you've got a bit of pre fatigue, still fairly strong.
But like you're not, you know, if you're, if you're benching 3
plus plates and squatting 4 plusplates, dead lifting 4 plus, you
know, 5 plus plates. If your goal is to build muscle,
(03:18):
I do think there is a point of diminishing returns like getting
your deadlift from £500 to £600.It's probably not going to have
a massive effect on your like the shape of your back.
Taking your deadlift from 200 to400 absolutely will.
Like when you're starting to like squat 4 plates, bench, tree
plates, it's like like you said,the risk to the risk to reward
(03:39):
ratio is just not worth it. It's like a little bit of pre
fatigue. Like a common one we will
prescribe is like leg extensionsand leg curls before like a back
squat or like leg press and likeexperienced athletes you.
Know, I was actually just thinking then it's very rare
that I prescribe isolation, upper body movements before
upper body compounds, but it's quite often I will prescribe
(03:59):
lower body isolation before lower body compounds.
And I just think it's the overall poundage you can move
with the lower body and the riskof injury is a little bit higher
with the lower body as well, yeah.
My biggest thing with like with even with with general
programming, my first thought ismanaging lower back fatigue.
Yeah. And so especially with our
(04:20):
client base, Yeah. And with with lower body
movements, with compound movements, your lower back is
always the limiting factor with free weights, like if you're
doing a deadlift, an RDL back squat, a front squat like it's
it's mid low back is always going to be the limiting factor
before you smash your legs. Unless you're a freak and you've
got a crazy strong lower back and really weak legs.
(04:42):
Then that's when you would use like your hack squat, your leg
press, stuff like that where your lower back isn't the
limiting factor. Whereas with upper body you
don't have the kind of like the lower back equivalent on your
upper body. And so you know, if say like
your pecs were like your lower back, then you would program
your work UPS around that. And so really I think just with
(05:02):
upper body, I just look at overall pressing volume and just
like shoulder integrity like it,it tends to be shoulders that
will go first. If you're just, if you're, if
you're benching too much or doing too much overall pressing
movements, then I would look at just shoulder health.
Things like pulling movements like you're limiting factors,
(05:23):
normally a grip but we just use straps.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the the time where I
would where I do isolate an upper body muscle again, there's
almost like there's there's certain circumstances.
Well, like you would and if someone is struggling to feel
their like pet contraction on a bench press, sometimes I'll
(05:44):
bike, right. Let's bring in a cable crossover
first. Let's pre fatigue the pack
because something like that triceps are the ones that are
giving out first. So they're like, I don't really
get much of A of a swell in my pack, am I right?
Let's pre fatigue the pack. So then the tricep is way more
fresh than the packs are. And then when they bench press
down, they're like, Oh yeah, nowI can feel my packs actually
giving way just to get just to help them with that mind muscle
connection. I, I get that.
(06:06):
I my personal experiences, I always strained my packs when
I've done that, when I, when I've got in pre fatigue.
So I, I would, I do a very similar thing, but I, I would
still try and use like a, a compound movement, but I would
use one where it mechanically just favours the person.
So like, if like like John for example, he's very tricep
(06:27):
dominant just from playing sports.
Everything is like close elbows in.
And so I would maybe do something like a wide grip Smith
machine incline where he can't tuck his elbows and so he has to
favour his, his chest. It's still a compound movement,
but it's, it's going to limit how much he can, you know, if
you're doing like a barbell bench press, you're going to put
(06:50):
yourself in the favourable position to just move the most
weight. But it, it may be like, OK,
we're going to start with an inclined dumbbell press or
something with, you know, 2 second pause at the bottom
position. And I want you to really kind of
stretch your chest or something.But it's still, I still class
those movements as like compounds because that like
isolation. I would be like PEC deck cable
(07:11):
fly, dumbbell fly, something like that.
But I would still class like an incline dumbbell press as like a
as like a compound lift because you're still using like
shoulders, triceps and stuff with it.
Yeah, I think another really good thing you can do as well if
you struggle with my muscle connection is, is like pausing
at the the like the start and the end.
So like short and length and range.
Like if you're doing a bench press, don't like bounce off
(07:31):
your chest, like you'll pause atthe bottom.
So you're removing momentum of the equation.
Yes. And that's another great way in
terms of because if someone likeJohn, if he comes down and he
doesn't stop at the bottom, he'll probably just like close
his elbows in. He's like, he can stop and be
like, right? Elbows flared and then pushed
that thing. Your, your body's always going
to try and put itself in a favourable position.
And you can, you can see it when, yeah, exactly.
(07:52):
If you're, if you're benching and then your chest starts
getting tired, you'll start to see your elbows start to go in,
your shoulders start to kind of shrug up and you try and get rid
of that position where your chest is weak.
Your body just trying to make itas easy as possible.
Which is which is like a really good like.
That's what the brain does. Yeah, like your, your, your,
your body is such a good, like it's got such great compensation
(08:13):
techniques. Like if you hurt your back, your
hips will shift, your knees willshift, everything will shift to
take the stress off that area. You end up looking like
Quasimodo, but like, that's yourbody's way of like, well, let's
just avoid that. Like your whole body will shift
around that. That's why, like with injury
management, it's so important toget back to like lifting like
(08:33):
you normally would. Otherwise you will.
I mean, my shoulders like reallywonky just from years of
avoiding certain positions. And then it's like you get
massive over and under developments on on either side.
But yeah. I think in in summary, you're
looking if strength is the ultimate goal, I would always
bring compounds first, isolationsecond.
Yeah, if you know, from a musclebuilding standpoint, I'm mulling
(08:57):
in towards personal preference. From an injury prevention
standpoint, you might want to lean into some isolations first
just to get the joints nice and warm.
Like especially when you're strapped for time.
Like if you just need to get straight into the workout, like
you don't want to spend 20 minutes warming up and then 20
minutes doing your compounds andthen another 20 minutes on your
on like your ISO. Whereas like I can get straight
(09:17):
into my ISO's within 5 minutes. I can use them as my warm up and
then I go into the compounds. So again, it depends on the
circumstances you have, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, there, there are going to be certain circumstances.
Yeah, yeah. It's just it depends what the
ultimate goal. Of the I've definitely changed
my view on that though because Iused to be always do compounds
first, then sports. Size 101.
(09:38):
Yeah, then you then you get to your isolations.
You know, heaven forbid you do aisolation movement first.
It's like that. That's like the cardinal sin,
you know, in, in sports performance, but it 100% has its
place. And, and you know, with lower
body in particular doing things like not that lunges are an
isolation movement, but like legcurls, leg extensions, lunges.
(10:01):
You know, I'll even do some corework before my compound lifts,
which you would say, like, why would you want to fatigue your
core going into it? But from, from my view, it's
like it makes those compound lifts feel better.
Even if it shaves 2040 lbs off the lift.
I'm way more, I'm way less likely to get injured from it
because I can actually move correctly.
(10:23):
But yeah, so yeah, I, I think there's a, if you're a beginner,
I, I do think you should be working compounds, but then as
you get to more intermediate advanced, it goes to a much more
kind of it. It's a very situation dependent.
On the circumstances, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right next is a very short answer.
This one no it. Is no 5G daily?
(10:46):
Can eating more really make you leaner?
I've heard this a lot on social media.
Depends how big of a death. So, So what are we are we
saying? Are we saying more as in total
calories? Well, that's the thing you often
hear when people are trying to market.
It's very easy to sell. Eat more, get leaner and you'll
see people online say, oh, I started eating more and I got
(11:09):
leaner. But I think it's, although it's
not completely incorrect becauseit depends on what you mean,
depends on how you define eatingmore.
But it's important to understandthe definition of eating more
before you can realistically. Answer.
Are they talking about like energy or actually like the
volume of food that you consume in type of?
Thing because a lot of times really far higher volume of
(11:31):
food, but fewer calories and you're like, I'm eating so much
food and I'm losing weight. It's like because you're eating
your fruits and veggies now versus cereal and stuff.
I think the only the other situation is like you said, if
you're, if you're in a massive deficit and you're like a zombie
and you're, you're kind of TDE or whatever, like your daily
expenditure has gone down just because you fidget less.
(11:54):
You know, you maybe you've got astep target and cardio, but the
rest of the day you are like a fucking statue.
Yeah. Then you know, it may be your
coach gives you an extra hundred150 calories.
That's enough for you to be like, Oh my God, I feel so much
better now. You're fidgeting, you're moving
more and you burn 200. You are in a bigger like you're
(12:15):
now in a greater deficit of 50 calories, but you were
technically eating more food. You just offset the calories by
by moving more because I there is there is a sweet spot there I
think. It's a great market in line that
it's just like what the it's like it's 19.
What do they say? It's like 99% correct, 100%
wrong. Yeah, You know, it's like it, it
really depends. Like when you find out like,
(12:35):
yeah, you can eat more and lose weight, but like if someone's in
like, say 1000 calorie deficit and then you just increase their
food a little bit, they're stillin the deficit.
They still lose weight. Yeah, yeah.
The other thing that I'll see isif someone is at the tail end of
a diet where you're probably like this, the lowest calories
are going to go. Fatigue is very high, output's
(12:56):
very high, cortisol levels are probably quite high, Probably
some water retention going on from leg fatigue.
Maybe they're doing 1520 thousand steps a day.
They're training legs. They're they're sore a lot of
the time. And then we say, put your feet
up for three days, you know, we're going to throw in some
extra carbs, you know, and, and relax scale weight goes down and
(13:17):
like, Oh my God, I stopped doingcardio.
I ate carbs and I lost weight and I got leaner.
And it's like you just dropped fatigue and you dropped 4 lbs of
water. That's why bodybuilders, they
take it easy the week of the show, they flush out all the
water weight. Yeah, yeah.
I think the most common 1 you see is people will start a
program. They didn't used to eat very
much in terms of food volume, they just ate really energy
(13:40):
dense foods and then they probably drunk as well, like
their liquid calorie intake was quite high which they never used
a factor in. Then they start a new program
and you always say like I'm eating more than ever and I'm
losing weight and it's like it'sbecause the volume of your food
has gone up but the total calorie intake has dropped down
significantly. So yes, you are eating more, but
you're not actually eating. It's it's, it's a food volume
(14:03):
thing, not a, not a. Calorie and even then, sorry, go
go ahead. I was.
Going to say people make the mistake of mistake in like
energy and actual food weight. Yeah, you know, they mistake
those two things, you know, so you can have more food weight
but less calories. Yeah.
You know, the other thing is if you know, if someone say comes
to us and let's say like they like it's a 200 LB male that
(14:27):
needs to lose 2030 lbs and he's been eating 1600 calories a day.
And let's just say we know that for a fact.
Like a lot of times people will say what they eat and it's
completely wrong because they don't have a track.
But let's just say it's 1600 calories.
He's not working out, he's not following a step target.
He's eating a low protein diet. We then start him off at 1800
(14:47):
calories with more protein. We've now given him a step
target. He's now going to the gym four
times a week. He's burning way more calories
than when he was eating 1600. So yeah, he's like, I'm eating
more and I'm getting leaner. But you're also doing more mate.
Like you're, you're also, you'vealso now added four hours of
resistance training to your week, probably an extra 4 to 6
hours of walking to your week. And you're now eating a higher
(15:09):
protein diet. So like you've added like four
or five things that are favourable for body composition
and you're eating more, but it'snot like it's again, like you
said, it's, you're absolutely right.
You are eating more and you're getting leaner, but you're
ignoring all the other things that we changed at the same
time, you're not getting leaner as a result of eating more.
(15:29):
It's just you are eating more and getting leaner and.
Also as well, you know, like I know obviously we said in this
example, we know for a fact he'seating 1600.
Often when people come in the types of foods that they choose
is there's a large degree of like inaccuracy.
So like if someone, if someone swaps like, I don't know, a
cheeseburger of like a grilled chicken, even if they're still
off with their tracking, the calories are going to be
insignificant in comparison, youknow, so.
(15:52):
Because that, that's the other thing people will say, maybe
when we start them off on their,their target, it's 1800
calories, but it's because we know they're tracking sucks and
they, we know that 1800 is probably closer to 2223 hundred.
Then as they progress, they actually get accurate with their
targets. And now maybe we set their
(16:13):
targets at 2300 and they're like, Oh, I'm eating 500
calories more a day. It's like you're eating the same
mate. Like you just, you just weren't
tracking the 500. So there, there is like some
nuance to it. But like if someone is is, you
know everything else aside all other variables exactly the
same. Like can I eat more and then
drop body fat? No like or like if you're in a
(16:34):
deficit. More and lose more body yeah,
you're not gonna create a biggerdeath Yes, by eating more yes.
That to that term in general is very misleading.
Yeah. But there are there are ways
that that can appear like it's happening just like flip it on
its head. How often do you hear, you see
someone who's like 260 lbs and they're like, I just don't eat
very much. Yeah, it's exact same thing.
It's like you're it's not, it's your interpretation of how much
(16:57):
you eat and how much you move isjust skewed.
So it doesn't appear that you'reeating very much, but the fact
that you're accumulating all this fat tissue.
You can't. You can't create it from
nothing. Yeah.
So you're definitely doing something and it's again, it's
normally I've like seen this in one of my guys recently where
their food intake, I genuinely don't eat that much.
But then it's like, but I drink shit loads.
(17:17):
Yeah, right. So you do consume a lot of
calories is it's just you don't eat very much food couple.
Couple Ritz crackers and then 10beers.
Or like his food is very high infat as well.
So we have like sausage, egg, bacon in the morning.
So it's not a massive plate, butit's, you know, it's probably
like a 700 calorie meal and thenlike lunch, he'll just grab
like, you know, some bar of something and a small sandwich,
(17:39):
but it's like it's another 600. Then dinner comes around, he'll
have like a slice of pizza from his kids plate.
It's like another 300. So like it's still a decent
amount of calories for the food that's on offer.
Then he'll blast through the 10 lagers and a couple of whiskeys
and now you're like, oh, now you're at 3750 calves and yes,
you haven't eaten very much. So again, it's it's, it's just
(18:00):
misleading. But again, there are certain
circumstances where it makes somewhat sense.
It's the interpretation of me. It's like what eating much
means. Like often in that example you
say well I only have like 2 meals a day.
Well, if you have a Domino's Pizza, a pack of nuts, unless
you take. Meals 4000 calories, yeah, it's
like, oh, you eat loads, yeah. You.
You don't eat much in terms of meal frequency, but in terms of
calorie intake. Women, women are notorious for
(18:22):
it where they'll they'll graze through the day on, you know,
it'll be like a sex sexist pig and you check it, but it's
really common where like they won't, their meals will be very,
very small in volume and it'll be like maybe like a protein bar
or a fruit, like a fruit and nutbar.
(18:43):
It'll be those little snacks like, you know, maybe it's kids
snacks or something, but they actually pack a bit of a punch
on like calories and they'll sayI haven't eaten all day.
And it's like, well, let's really look at it.
You went to Starbucks in the morning and you add your, your
Frappuccino, which is 400 kegs, you know, and, and, but it's,
you didn't even feel it touch the side.
(19:04):
Then you know, you had the, you know, you snacked off your kids
plate, which was like cheese andham or something.
Then you got like a, a fruit snack, which is actually 300
calories a bar. It's just literally dried nuts
and fruits smoothie. Yeah.
And, and like smoothie, yeah, toto cows and, and one of those
innocent brand smoothie when it's like there's 800 apples in
this in this smoothie and it's like we couldn't eat that.
(19:27):
And so like you. Might need, yeah.
It's like in in this, in this small carton, it's sixteen
oranges, 12 pairs. And it's like, Can you imagine
trying to eat that? Like you would shit yourself
like with it by the time you gotlike a third of the way through,
Just condense it. Yeah, just drink up.
But yeah, remove all the goodness and then just drink the
rest. But then you, you factor that in
across the day. You haven't had a single sit
(19:49):
down meal, but you've eaten 2000calories.
And then and you haven't trainedand you probably haven't eaten
enough protein. And so when you when you start,
the amount of times you you start getting a woman eating
enough protein and they're like,Oh my God, I'm so full
constantly. And you and you're like, your
calories are like 1200, but you're stuffed.
And so like, yeah, there's. There is a lot of nuance to it,
(20:11):
but like the the whole idea of like I'm not eating enough,
that's like, and we're talking calories, not volume.
Like I'm not eating enough calories.
That's why I'm not losing weight.
I really haven't seen like any examples where that's legit
true. If someone is selling you the
dream of eating more calories tolose more weight, they're lying.
(20:36):
Turn away as fast as you can because they're definitely.
Lying and like, again, if there's like an underlying
thyroid issue or something, again, that's like that's still
factored into the calorie intake.
Like what in there's a guy he's I won't name him.
He's a coach in he lives in Dubai and he's go on.
(20:56):
He would always call him out go on.
And but he but he would say likefinger in his chest.
So he would, he would say like, it's not calories in, calories
out because you're not considering hormones, digestion,
absorption rates and blah, blah.And it's like you are all of
that is factored in right in themiddle of that calories in
calories out equation. And so yes, all of that stuff
(21:19):
absolutely plays a role in that calories out, but it's still a
number at the end of it. And so you're still looking at
it and the, the equation still isn't making sense.
And, and so like there's no, there's no hormone that suddenly
changes the law of thermodynamics, period.
Like so when people say like it's not calories, it's
hormones, it's like fuck you they say, they say it's
(21:42):
nonsense. Considering hormones, it's like
no, no they have been considered, they're considered
in the calories out path. They just, I'm not talking about
them because that calories out encompasses the rest of the
stuff that you're now talking about.
You go in a deeper level. But I can talk about it just in
that one word and be like, yeah,now, now we've addressed all
that stuff, then we can move forward.
But it's like you're trying to break it down to make it sound
(22:04):
more complicated and more complex than it is, when it's
actually not. I, I, I, I will always use like
extreme examples just to kind oflike make it clear.
But you know, when people say like your, your, your court is
always really high. That's why you're not dropping
fat or like your, your fatigue'stoo high.
That's why you're not dropping fat like no one in, you know,
(22:24):
the Holocaust camps that were being starved had had optimal
hormone. Levels, I'm sure.
That their cortisol was probablyoff Guinness World Records.
They were sleep deprived, food deprived, malnourished and they
lost weight just fine like and then also.
If if you BCC was not a. Concern and if you if you want
to go even less extreme, you look at natural bodybuilders
(22:46):
that aren't using any PEDs at the end of a prep you are you're
not sleeping because you're getting up five times a night to
pee. You're extremely fatigued.
You know you probably are a bit malnourished at that point
because your food choices are solimited, yet you have no problem
getting to 5% body fat Like I say no problem it's hard, but
like your body will do it. So when people say like, the
(23:07):
reason you're not dropping 1 LB a week is because you're getting
7 hours sleep instead of eight, I'm like, that's fucking
nonsense. Like you, there is something off
in, in your plan, but I, I don'tlike it when people will say
that, oh, like the reason why you're not getting leaner is
because your, your digestion isn't on point and all this
stuff. And it's like you're talking
like a pound a week. Like we're not in the extremes
(23:27):
yet. Like if you're, if you're trying
to get staged lean, yeah, like digestion and stuff plays a role
and you know, because it's goingto, you're going to look
different, like you might hold some water and things like that.
If you're like 250 LB big John and you're like, the reason why
you're not losing 1 LB of fat a week is because you're you're
(23:47):
the digestive enzymes are off. I'm like shut the fuck up.
Like they're working just fine because you'd be managed to pack
on 200 and. 50 lbs and overtime they're resilient.
Fuck is those things. So, so I I don't like, I'm not
dismissing that that stuff isn'ta factor at some point, but it's
likely not the reason why you'renot losing weight to start with
it seems. To be a first world problem,
(24:09):
doesn't it? Yeah, like in Africa and stuff.
They're real countries. That's not an issue.
Yeah, yeah. And.
In first world countries, you can order a pizza to your door.
Yeah, yeah. Funny that.
Let's just think of it. I'll sort of summarize it.
Here is the if someone has a thyroid issue, so you're not
thinking about hormones because their thyroid output might be a
little bit low. OK.
So what is the outcome of that thyroid output being low calorie
(24:30):
output? Calories output goes down.
OK. Hence why it's calories in,
calories out. Yeah.
Yeah. So we've already been factored
into the output and the balance between the in and the out are
in check. We either reduce the input or we
figure out that hormone issue. So the output goes up a little
bit, but it's still a hormone problem.
Yeah. Because if we can't, we gotta
just bring the out the input down.
(24:50):
It's it's just, yeah. Like menopause.
Perfect example. Like it will absolutely decrease
calorie output, but it doesn't change the fact you just have to
eat less. Yeah, like, it sucks.
But like, the general consensus is I know you were working with
a client and you you showed likethe the peered reviewed kind of
studies. And it's like typical
recommendations for a woman thatwants to lose weight in
(25:11):
menopause is like 1200 calories a day.
I think, yes, start just starting with 1200, Yeah.
And then everyone's like, no, you should never consume 1200.
It's like there's literally a paper there that says 1200.
It's the start. Yeah, it's right.
Let's go question 3. It sort of ties in to the next
question. Why does it appear that my
(25:31):
husband loses weight much easierthan I do?
Because your husband is on steroids?
Because. Unfortunately, you have less
margin for. Error.
Yeah, it's it is more difficult.Yeah.
Like if you're AII sort of see it a lot where you've got, you
know, the the husband is 6/2. He's a bit of a lump, you know,
(25:54):
he's lifted weights for a while,but he his diet is pretty
reckless and he still seems to be pretty lean.
And then the female is like 5 foot 2, you know, has a has a
desk job that doesn't really exercise and hasn't since
school. And then he's like, oh, well,
when we eat together, like I eatthe same as him type.
(26:14):
Yeah. But his, again, his output is so
much higher for several different reasons that when you
sit down at a restaurant and youboth order a pizza, it's been
25% of his daily intake. It was 80% of your daily intake.
So it's almost like the by behaving in the same way that
(26:36):
he's behaving from an input standpoint.
Relatively, it's not the same. Yeah, relatively because of your
output differences, which again you, some of you aren't in
control over like they just, they are what they are.
It's then it's a lot more difficult for you to keep things
in check. So like what I often end up
saying, especially with some of the females that I work with, is
like you just haven't got the wiggle room that some of these
(26:57):
other people that you know have.So you just need to be a little
bit more diligent with your efforts in order to get the
same. Out and I also I've I've got
clients where the wife eats morethan the husband where like
where where she's super lean, you know, eat in I think high,
high 2000s at the moment. And the the husband has to go
sub 2000 to get anything moving on the scale and he's twice the
(27:19):
size like mass monster. And so like it, it does happen.
Generally that's not the norm because it's, you know, but
again, you can look at you and me like your maintenance
calories far higher than mine. And and so like, and but weight
wise we're completely different.So it's, it's very individual.
But generally speaking, women are going to have to consume
fewer calories and do more to like, because even if you think
(27:40):
of calories burned per step, a bloke is carrying £250 per step.
Yeah, a woman might be carrying 110 lbs.
And so it's like he's he might be burning twice as many
calories for the same amount of work.
Yeah. And you can say it's not fair.
And you, I will say you're absolutely, you're you're
(28:00):
absolutely right. It's not fair.
And have you seen the size of mynose?
Yeah. So it's, it's, it's like you can
look at it all the time and be like, oh, well, how come this
person is doing half as much cardio as me and eating twice as
much and getting leaner? Especially like, because I've
got it where I've had clients ask me about other clients and
(28:22):
they'll say, like, how is he getting leaner on?
And you've got me on this, this amount of carbs and he's eating
double and he's getting leaner. And I'm like, because that's the
way his body is responding. And I was like, we can do that.
And you will gain weight every single week.
Like it's like, I hate to break it to you, it's just not that
like. What I always say with that is
like, OK, now what it's like now, you know, the reason why
this client is like, now what? We're going to use that as
(28:44):
permission not to do anything orwe're going to do what we need
to do to keep moving forward. And sometimes, like, when it's
really common, when like a husband and wife go out to like
a restaurant, it's like the husband can get away with having
like a dessert, you know, and he's probably still in the
deficit. Whereas like you, you're in a
200 calorie deficit, you sniff that dessert and you're going to
be at maintenance. Yeah.
You know, so it's just the way it is.
It the biggest difference I see from experience is the is is the
(29:07):
neat. It's like in, in general when
someone again, like like right your your, your sort of main
maintenance calories are really high, then you do move a shit
load. Like you do, you fidget, you
move around a lot. Like you're you're very.
This is probably the most SAT still.
You're going to be all day. Yeah, because you'll kick me up.
Like you've got 3 kids, you do aboatload of steps, you've got a
(29:31):
dog that you walk and you do it every single day.
Like you don't miss a beat on it.
So you're always is moving. So it's like for you, your
numbers are quite high, whereas like and then other people like
they might move a bit sometimes,but generally they're quite
sedentary. And it's like when you think
about most of our physical activity will be tied to the
occupation that we have. Unless you really are diligent
(29:53):
with getting in your exercise, most of the physical activity we
will we will accumulate over time will be tied to the job.
And then you look at the jobs differences between males and
females. Males jobs more often than not
are more physically active than female jobs.
So it's OK. So now your size, most females
are smaller than most males. Most males have more active jobs
(30:15):
than most females. So just those two things alone,
which are probably 2 of the key drivers of our metabolic rate or
our out output are heavily favoured in terms of the male as
in being higher, I guess favoured, you can call it
whatever you want, but it's definitely higher towards the
male side because of the size and the general activity levels.
Do we accumulate? So that just is what it is then.
So now it's like you've got, youcould increase your exercise,
(30:38):
you can really invest heavily into, well, you can get a
different job if you want. You can't grow that much.
So it's like that. They're not.
There's not many things in your control outside of OK, I just
have to consume less than they do to get the same result than
they get. It's it's, it is, it is tough,
but it also it is what it is. Yeah, yeah.
And that again in that. Modern society where we eat out
(30:59):
more like that's restaurants don't cater to that like you
that's sexist, you know, sexist order off the kids menu because
you know, we went to what was itCheesecake Factory?
What was it the lowest? I mean, I think the Caesar salad
was like 1800 calories. And if you're, if you know, if
you're even if you're a guy, butlike you know, your, your daily
intake may be less than that andyou're fucked if you if you go
(31:23):
there. There was one slice of
cheesecake there, 1800 calories.Yeah.
Do you know what I mean? That's that's like more than
most women's calories for the. Day.
Yeah, I guess. Let's just think about that.
I was just as as you were talking then what are the key
drivers of our energy expenditure that we have control
over? Well, though, even if we don't
have control over size, so our, our size, our NEAT and our eat,
(31:45):
all of those on average will be higher towards a male.
We're generally bigger. Our exercise levels are
generally a bit higher than a female's or yet on average, I'm
not saying it is on average. If if you look at the data
that's out there and then our, our physical activity
accumulated by a work is higher as well.
All of those things are higher. So our, our energy output is
(32:08):
just that much higher. So it just makes it harder for
you to do so again, if we go to Cheesecake Factory, right?
Like you're almost like you walkthrough the door and they just
go like, oh, so so it's a surplus today.
Like, just just to clarify, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's tough. It's tough, right?
Final final question. How will I know when I am
(32:29):
overtraining? Maybe niggles?
Do you know what? Plateau in strength.
Yeah, I never used to think about I'm overtraining that much
because normally when I'm filledup, well, I find it very hard to
overtrain. It's more often than not when
I've been in quite a heavy deficit.
Do I feel those those symptoms of overtraining?
(32:53):
Another one I would say is that you're struggling to recover to
hit the same muscle group by thenext session that's.
Probably, yeah, I would say performance decline, motivation
to train decline and injuries orkind of overuse, like you said,
like, you know, like elbows are getting a bit kind of niggly
shoulders. But I, I would go more by
(33:16):
motivation where like no one's motivated the train every single
day. And, and I, I, I try and explain
this to clients where like the expectation should not be that
you're going to have 4 great workouts every week.
You're going to have probably 1 pretty good workout, two OK
workouts and one shit workout. Like that's that's on a that's a
good training week. That's the standard.
(33:39):
If you're having four shit workouts in a row, then I'm
going to probably go into the next week and say, if we keep
having shit workouts, we're probably going to pull back.
If we then have some good workouts, Maybe it was work
stress, maybe it was travel. Maybe you had a bit of a bug or
a cold and we're and we're back all good.
If you get in two weeks in a rowwhere you're like, I just don't
want to be in the gym. Like I feel weak, like I'm not
(33:59):
getting a pump. Then I'm going to say let's,
let's cut back on the training volume.
But the, the way that I would cut back would depend on what
training they're doing. If someone's doing like a, like
a strength training program where the reps are quite low and
the weight's very heavy, they'rejust like, they might be really
neurally just tired of just likestraining.
And so I would even go, we're going to like half the
(34:21):
intensity, but up the volume. So you're just going to get a
pump. They feel pretty good.
If you're doing like a high volume bodybuilding training
routine, I'm going to cut the volume and keep the intensity
high. And so like there's different
ways around it, but most, most people will never get to the
point that they're overtraining.Like I, I think unless you're
doing aerobic work as well as weight training, I think it's
(34:44):
pretty hard to over train with weights because even if you, you
go through this temporary performance decline, it's your
body just adjusting to the workload.
And like, I remember there's AUSweightlifter called John Bros
and he would say when he, he would call it dark times for his
lifters because he would have the Max out on squats everyday.
And he would say your, your performance, your performance
(35:05):
will drop for one to two months.And it's your body.
He, he would call it like you're, and there's no science
back in this. This is just his kind of theory.
But he's like, it's almost like your nervous system starts
shutting down to rewire to kind of ramp back up.
And during that time your performance is terrible.
And he's like, you can barely keep your eyes open.
You feel like shit all day, but you keep showing up.
(35:27):
And then eventually those, thosenumbers start going back up.
And he and he would say like, ifyou've got a job as like a like
a garbage man or a bin man, the first week of your job, your
fucking forearms hurt, your backhurts, your lower back's tired.
You can like you know, you're not sleeping, you're probably
taking ibuprofen. By the second month you're
fucking tossing bins and you feel.
Used to it for 2. Years, yeah.
(35:48):
And so like you could argue thatfirst month you're overtraining,
but you're not overtraining, you're under adapted.
And so most people, they hit that point that I think I'm
overdoing it. It's like you're just you're
just unfit. Yeah, just tired like, and you
just have to push through. But then if you're a very
experienced athlete then I thinkyou can overtrain.
But for beginners you're I. I really don't think you can
(36:10):
fuck me. I used to train 2 hours a day
every day when I was like 14. And it's like, could I have got
a way of doing less? Yes.
But also it's like you can't really hurt yourself at that
point. Look at me, I'm a bloated
walrus. I think the more, the more
common symptom of overtraining with weights is joint pain is
(36:31):
like the, the inflammation you get like guys in their shoulders
and stuff and like, Oh my, my shoulder's sore.
It's a, and you just need a a bit of a break.
It's more it's like the constantwork that shoulder's seeing.
It's just starting to get sore from all the rubbing round and
all the moving and all that strain.
That's more common what I see inpeople who who lift and it's
just just back off a little bit.Take some time off, adapt the
movement patterns you're doing so you don't applying so much
(36:53):
stress to that to that joint, and they normally recovers
pretty quick. I think like with our clients,
like when we start to see these symptoms that we've spoken
about, we just take a deload week for a week or two, yeah,
and then they're good to go. Yeah, yeah.
And I think if you're doing proper programming, if you're
training three days a week, I don't think you can overtrain.
Yeah, like I really don't. Yeah.
Oh no, it's bad if you do just three lifting sessions a week.
Yeah, overtraining is not a. Concern.
(37:14):
I think overtraining is absolutely possible with
endurance athletes. Yeah, it's very, very common.
They're constantly just ramping up because it's then then it's
it's purely a volume game. Yeah.
Whereas like lifting is though, volume is a part, has a part to
play. It's not like the main driver.
So the more volume I do, the better it.
All your muscles will almost give out before you can get to
(37:34):
the point where like you know you can't do 100 sets of chest
because you get to set 20 and you're like nothing's working
anymore. Whereas with running like you
can overdo mileage and really screw.
Yourself over. They're like 100 miles.
OK, well the next step is 110 miles.
Yeah, yeah. And then the next step is 120.
It just, it can just go up and up and up and up.
But yeah, generally speaking, I would say it's not something to
(37:56):
be concerned about. But the three things that I
would look at is performance decline, injury niggles going up
and motivation to train decline him.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love it.
Good questions. Well, thank you, as always for
tuning in. Be sure to like and subscribe on
iTunes, YouTube, Spotify, and we'll see you next time.
(38:23):
If you love this show, please like, share and leave us a five
star review so that we can help more people.
I'm John Matson, Superhuman CEO,reminding you to always go get
what's yours.
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