Oct. 2, 2025

Fat Loss for Men Over 40: The 5 Rules That Actually Work (Part 1) - 3

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Season 1 Nutrition Fat Loss






Join the 100-Day Fat Loss Challenge⁠www.thecalltorise.com⁠



Many men struggle with diets that are confusing, fat burners that do not deliver, and shortcuts that do not last.



In this episode of Driven For Health, Coach Brian explains the science of fat loss in a clear and practical way. The episode is designed for men over 40 who want to make lasting changes while balancing career and family life.



You will learn:

  • The five fundamentals of fat loss that remain constant

  • How building and maintaining muscle supports fat loss

  • Facts about carbohydrates, cardio, and body fat

  • How to establish habits that support long-term results

  • Common reasons diets fail and strategies to maintain progress


This episode provides guidance to apply these strategies in a way that fits real life and supports sustainable health improvements.



Share this episode with friends or colleagues who are committed to improving their fitness. Leave a review to help reach more men who will benefit from this message.


Follow @coachbrianparana on Instagram for success stories, practical tips, and guidance for men focused on improving health and fitness.




The Call To Rise is a 100-day fat loss program for men who want to improve body composition, increase energy, and strengthen confidence.



The program uses strength training, personalized nutrition, and structured accountability. Participants can expect to lose 20–30 pounds and build healthy habits while participating in a community of men focused on progress and leadership.

Learn more at ⁠www.thecalltorise.com⁠




Lose 3 pounds in 3 Days with the Rise72 Method

The Rise72 Method is a science-backed nutrition and fitness program that does not require starvation or unusual approaches to food or exercise.



This free 3 day protocol is designed for busy husbands, fathers, and men who want to restart their health and regain control of bodyweight.


The program provides a clear, step-by-step structure to regain momentum and achieve quick results.


Inside the Rise72 Method, you will receive:

  • Daily workouts for home or gym

  • A simple, high-protein nutrition plan

  • Mindset prompts to refocus

  • Family-focused leadership habits

  • A clear 72-hour plan to follow


The program is designed to help men lose two to three pounds in three days and build momentum for continued progress.

Start today at ⁠https://thecalltorise.com/rise72⁠

Want help applying this to your own health, weight, energy, or lab numbers?

Coach Brian Parana offers Health Hot Seat coaching segments for men who want a clear next step with nutrition, fitness, weight loss, blood pressure, cholesterol, A1C, or daily consistency.

Learn more about The Call To Rise, a 100-day coaching program for driven men over 40 who want to lose weight, improve their health, and rebuild confidence:

www.thecalltorise.com

To connect with Coach Brian:
brian@brianparana.com

Disclaimer: This podcast is for education and coaching support only. It is not medical advice. Always work with your physician before changing medication, treatment, or medical care.

  • They don't want to hear about more moderate strategy. They want to hear cut out these entire food groups. You can't eat dairy. You have to go keto. Try intermittent fasting. And as you know, while none of these strategies are necessarily incorrect, they're also not required. That's just a teaser for what's to come in this episode of Driven for Health.
  • >> My name is Dan and I joined the Cal to Rise program after struggling with my weight for over 15 years. For the longest time, I never thought I'd see the day I'd be under 200 lb again. But I did it. Even better, my body fat is finally in a healthy range, and I'm starting to see abs for the first time since high school.
  • But the real win, I feel confident enough to take my shirt off at the pool or the beach with my family instead of trying to hide. The call to rise gave me the structure and accountability I needed to finally get changing. Welcome to Driven for Health, the podcast for men over 40 who are ready to take control of their bodies, energy, and ultimately their lives.
  • I'm Coach Brian Piranha and for over third 23 years I've been helping men like you lose fat, build strength, and feel confident in a body they are excited to take their shirts off. That's right, guys. At the pool or the beach with the family. Let's skip the day diets that have names and trying to run a marathon every day to cut calories and and burn some fat.
  • Each podcast will tackle real life strategies for fitness, sciencebacked nutrition, powerful mindset, and creating sustainable lifestyles. That's where it matters, so that you finally live leaner, stronger, and be more alive. Let's get started. This episode is brought to you by the call to rise, the 100 day fat loss challenge for men over 40 who know it's time to step up when it comes to dropping belly fat and improve their health.
  • If you're a driven professional husband, a dad, and you've been coasting on excuses while you have low energy, lack confidence, and your body is nowhere near how it used to look, this could be your reset button. In fact, I know it is. In 100 days, you'll drop 20 plus pounds of fat, build strength, and finally understand nutrition to the point where you'll never have to worry about gaining weight back in the future.
  • Sure, it's about focusing on what you eat and how you exercise, but it's more about showing your family, your team, yourself what it looks like when you rise up to the healthiest version of yourself. Also, the brotherhood of like-minded men is waiting to push you. Don't keep putting it off. Go to the calltorise.
  • com and take the first step today. Well, welcome everybody to Driven for Health, episode three. I'm so happy to have you here today. The title of our conversation, the science of fat loss for men over 40. What works and what doesn't. We're going to be going into all sorts of different thoughts and not theories, but actual science around how to get your body in the best position.
  • Now, without further ado, let's start with a question. Have you ever felt like you've tried everything when it comes to losing weight, but nothing seems to stick? You've done the low carb thing. Maybe tried keto because a buddy at the office swore by it. Or maybe you went all out on cardio, spending hours on the treadmill, trying to run a marathon every day, or sweating buckets under your Pelaton bike.
  • That's ultimately kind of gross to be honest if you think about it. only when you step on the scale the next day and wonder why why am I killing myself if nothing matters and nothing's happening here that sounds familiar you're you're really you're not alone especially if you're a guy in your 40s and 50s here's the reality as we go get older fat loss feels harder hormones shift our metabolism doesn't run quite as hot as it used to and let's be real life gets in the way.
  • Quite honestly, I've got four kids. My wife, we love traveling. All these things show up. And in your life, your career is constantly calling on your demands. Your family always wants your attention, which is important because those are the closest people to you. You should be spending your time and energy for them.
  • And just the daily responsibilities. If you own anything, then you know what I'm talking about. You don't have to have three hours a day to train like you did in the 20s. We can do it a lot smarter. And so that's what the good news is. While fat loss feels harder, the science behind it actually is very simple.
  • The problem isn't that fat loss doesn't work. It's that most men are trying to follow plans that don't fit their lives. They're following advice that was built by a 22-year-old fit influencer. What do they call them now? Fit Fluencers. Or they have people who just meal prep chicken, broccoli, and and maybe rice six times a day.
  • You doing off the the 1980s, 1990s clean eating classic playbook of chicken, broccoli, and rice. Yeah, that's not any person I've ever worked with in my last 23 years doing this. So today I'm going to break it down in a way that cuts through a lot of the distractions, the noise, the marketing, the nonsense.
  • We're talking about the fundamentals, the real science of fat loss. I'll share strategies that actually work, the traps that most guys fall into, and you can avoid wasting your time on the wrong things, which can cost a lot of time. a lot of pain, struggle of doing things not necessarily the best consistently over time.
  • Nothing's worse than doing one strategy and it ultimately ends up leaving you flat 6 8 months later, two years later where you gained the weight back. You do not want to lose 100 pounds losing the same 20 pounds five times or 30 pounds three times. That's awful. Plus, you also put yourself at a bigger risk of losing muscle mass and slowing down your metabolism, which is going to happen as you get in your 40s and 50s.
  • Anyways, now I want you to know I'm just not pulling this out of thin air. What I'm sharing comes from my 23 years of coaching men just like you, combined with some of the best research I found on what works for the long term. I'll be pulling in some studies throughout the episode. Not to really bore you with science, but to prove that fundamentals are backed up and it's just not my opinion.
  • Before we dive in, let me share a quick story. Couple of months ago, I started working with a client. We'll call him Mike. Mike's in his late 40s. He's got a successful career in tech, married with kids, three kids. He's the classy classic busy professional. He came to me after his annual physical and his doctor said, "Hey, your cholesterol is where it shouldn't be and this is actually going to cost you and you're pre-diabetics.
  • We're looking at meds." Mike said, "No, no, no, no, no. I do not want to take pills. I do not want any of that stuff." And he's tried things in the past, the the keto, the fasting. I mean, if you literally look on the internet, those are the things that are hot to trot right now, you'll see them everywhere.
  • And for the love, please tell me that you're not doing any type of fast or anything like that because the detox or juice things or cleanses, things like that, they're not melting your belly fat in a week. Okay? But when we sat down with him, he said, "Brian, I'm just tired. I want to feel in control of my body again, but I don't know or trust what I'm doing.
  • And that right there, that level of frustration, of fatigue that I heard in his voice, that's why I'm doing this episode. Okay. So many guys come and they just are confused. Fat loss doesn't have to be confusing or even overwhelming. Once you understand the truth of how it actually works, you can stop wasting time, energy, money on this stuff, that doesn't matter.
  • So, if you're driving to work right now, hopefully out on a walk, you're in the gym listening to this, stick with me for the next 30 minutes or so, cuz I'm going to give you the blueprint that's going to make you successful. By the end of this episode, you'll know the five most important principles of fails.
  • Number two, why the foods you eat matter but not for the reasons you think. Number three, the difference between getting lean for say the beach or getting shredded for the stage. Most anyone that I ever work with just wants to have a flat stomach, comfortable with their shirt off. Number four, the psychology of why most diets fail in the first place and how to outsmart your own brain.
  • We want to trigger these psychological loops for the better and not just get stuck on the hamster diet wheel. That's not effective and not helpful. Where are we at? Number five, how to keep the weight off once you've lost it. I've said it before and I'll say it again. America doesn't have a weight loss problem.
  • when they have a weight maintenance problem, they can't keep it off. It always comes back old habits, behaviors, a multitude of different reasons. And lastly, the truth about supplements. What works? What's waste your money and time. So, let's get started with the basics, the fundamentals that every guy needs to know if he's serious about fat loss.
  • All right, kicking off with fat loss fundamentals. And the most single most important truth about fat loss. If you remember nothing else from today's episode, remember this. Grab pencil, paper, type it into your text. Fat loss always comes down to creating an energy deficit period. Spelled that out. I'll say it again.
  • Fat loss always comes down to creating an energy deficit period. I know it almost sounds too simple, right? You've been bombarded with the secrets, the hacks, all the marketing employees to get your dollar bills into other people's dollar the bank bank and they've been doing this for decades. No wonder the diet industry is a trillion dollar industry.
  • I don't have exact facts on that but we know that over the last what 40 50 years diet culture is everpresent and has taken a lot of money time and ultimately hurt people's feelings meaning that they don't get the results the outcome that they're looking for sustainably long term which is should be the goal of any type of fat loss approach you ever take.
  • What do we have? low carb, low fat, fasting, fat in quotations, fat burning foods, uh metabolism boosters. But underneath all of those strategies, the only true way that you actually lose fat is by taking in less energy than your body uses. And we'll certainly talk more on metabolism and and a variety of different things and mechanics around thermic effect of food and all sorts of things on this podcast, but that's the easiest takeaway.
  • Think of it like your your bank account. Everyone knows the economics and finances of the US dollar. And what people don't understand, so they understand the currency of the US, dollars and cents of the economy, but they don't understand the currency of food. Food is calories, protein, carbs, and fats. That's what makes up everything that you eat.
  • And once you start to realize and understand that, you become unlimited in your abilities and resources to be successful for long term because you just understand what's in the food with the right combinations. You could be eating on the fly and be successful. Back to the bank account. If you spend more than you earn, your account balance goes up, right? The calorie credit card.
  • If you eat more calories today, you charge that calorie credit card, then you have interest on that and it adds up in the form of belly fat. If you eat more energy than your body needs, your fat stores go up. And if you eat less, then the fat stores come down. It's that basic. The law of thermodynamics. It's really not a debate to debate.
  • It's been proven for decades now. It's not new. Back in 1958, a researcher named Max Wishnavski wrote a paper that calculated how much energy is stored in body fat. He found that one pound of fat equals about 3500 calories. And that's where this concept of 3500 calories comes from in a pound of fat.
  • If you cut out 500 calories every single day, you're going to theoretically lose a pound of body fat by the end of the week over 7 days. And that's simple math. And usually if you ever talk to anyone or read anything on the internet, that's what you're going to find is a 500 calorie deficit is appropriate for you to be long-term successful here.
  • Now, it's it's not perfect math, okay? The body is the body. Metabolism adapts. That's a fact. It can downregulate. It can upregulate. Think of it as say an oven that has a lower temperature or a hotter temperature. But this was the first time someone really put numbers to a process. And even today, the 3500 calorie rule is the foundation of fat loss math.
  • So the bottom line, without a calorie deficit, nothing happens. You could be eating the cleanest, most organic food. You could even be tracking your calories and weighing and measuring and working out seven, eight days a week, taking every supplement stack that you can that's on the shelf or maybe underground.
  • But if you're not in a calorie deficit, then it's not going to happen. Now, certainly say steroids and things like that will accelerate the game, but we're not playing by those rules. That's not something that I do, have done, or have had interest in doing. And the majority of the people I ever work with aren't interested in that either.
  • But this is important. Losing weight isn't just the full story. We actually want what we really do want is fat loss while holding on to as much muscle as possible. Because if you drop 20 lbs of body weight, but half is muscle, you'll certainly look smaller but weaker, probably feel worse. Ultimately, you're getting in quotations skinny fat.
  • The goal is to look and feel better, not just weigh less. So, how do we do that? Let's break it down into five principles here. Create an energy deficit. This is by far the starting point where you need to begin. Without it, nothing works. But here's the catch. A deficit doesn't mean starving yourself. Okay? We don't need to do that.
  • We can stay very full on high volumes of lower calorie foods if done strategically. And it's something that I teach all my guys in the call to rise. and I've been building my career off of for decades and having lots of success. You can just look at the website or just Google my name, you'll see there's there's a couple just a couple testimonials behind my name.
  • I transform people's lives. But going back to the energy deficit and too many people guys come, Ryan, I cut my calories below 1500 a day, but I still don't lose weight. And I'll ask how long did you stick with that? Usually it's a few days, maybe a week, because extreme deficits are unsustainable and you end up binging, quitting, feeling so wrecked that your body pushes back with cravings and fatigue.
  • It just it just doesn't work. instead. Not long term. You might get the 10 lbs off in in a week because you did something weird, but that's not it. You just isn't it. Instead, research shows that aiming for about 0.5 to one% of your body weight loss per week is the sweet spot. If you're 300 lb, we're looking at one and a half to three pounds.
  • If you're 200 lb, we're looking for 1 to two pounds. Okay, that's going to make you sustainable. If you're going over four, maybe in the first week or two, you could say the lowhanging fruit of getting the fat off, that could work, but that's not what we want. A 2007 review in obesity reviews showed that faster rates of loss of fat loss and and weight loss often led to more muscle loss and worse long-term maintenance.
  • We've seen this time and again. The faster you lose, the more likely it is to be muscle, and you won't look or feel anything like you want to when you get to your goal. You'll actually move the goalpost in a sense. You've heard that before, I'm sure, where we get to the end zone, but then we move the goal line again another 20 yards in a sense.
  • So, don't fall for the biggest loser mindset. Slow and Steady not only wins a race but keeps it off for the long haul. And again on Netflix they have The Biggest Loser. It's a three episode series on the show. You'll see that a lot of contestants lost extreme amounts of weight. I believe the one guy lost over 200 lbs in the show. That's insane.
  • But you can hear his story. He's eating 1,000 calories and moving all day only to weigh more than 300 lb when he is getting interviewed for the documentary. And number two, stimulate your muscles with resistance training. Yes, we need to pump you up in the gym. All right, this one's huge. If you want to look lean, athletic rather than skinny and soft, you have to train your muscles.
  • Okay? Ideally, at least 20 minutes works at a time, three ideally times in a week. Now, cardio burns calories right now. Okay? You'll run for 30 minutes, you'll burn, say, 200 calories, maybe more, 300 calories, and then it's done. But that doesn't tell your body to keep the muscle.
  • Cardio is more catabolic, whereas resistance training is long-term anabolic, where you break your muscle tissue down and you build it back up. And you burn less calories through weight training, but longer amounts of calories over time, lifting weights, doing body weight work, band work. It tells your body loud and clear that you want muscle mass to be preserved.
  • In fact, a 2010 study in the Journal of Gerontology found that older adults who combined a calorie deficit with resistance training preserved significantly more lean muscle compared to those who just dieted or did cardio alone. That means when the weight comes off, more of it is fat and not muscle. So, think of the 20 pound weight loss.
  • If you do it hard and fast and do weird non-eing protocols, maybe 30% of that is muscle loss. And in this example, so what would 30% be? 10 is two. So, six pounds of muscle could come off in those 20 pounds. It's no bueno. Whereas maybe it's 2% or 10% because you will lose muscle in fat loss. It just happens that way.
  • Now, here's a quick story. A client, I remember this guy, Rob, early 50s, jogging five times a week for shoot, who knows how long. This is what he did. He was frustrated because his belly fat wasn't budging. It just was there. it bounce around on his runs and he no matter how much he did or didn't run, it was still there and his arms and chest were shrinking.
  • Now, Rob didn't like that. It wasn't exciting for him and nor would it be for me. When we swapped out three of those jogs for some strength training, things changed. The body responded differently and it it's a we don't have to do weird exercises where we're bending over sideways and twisting and rotating and all this and that.
  • Just basic strength training. Lift something heavy and put it down. Lift it up and put it down. You three, four, five sets of 10 of an exercise and move on to different one. Again, we'll talk more about exercise programming, periodization, and different things in future episodes. But build muscle, keep muscle as you burn fat.
  • Now, within a few months, he dropped two belt sizes going from a 38 to 36. and were working on getting into a 34 was the goal. Posture improved. His wife noticed him looking in quotation solid again. Not solid like Fuji, but solid as in strong and muscular like he did maybe back in his 30s when they first met. Same calories, different signal to the body.
  • Ultimately, that's the power of resistance training that we're trying to manage here. Number three, set the right size of a deficit. Don't go too hard, too fast. Remember, your body isn't a math equation. You can't just burn 2,000 calories today and expect it to manage. The body will adapt. You slash the calories too much, too quickly, your metabolism slows and hunger hormones ramp up.
  • You just feel miserable, for lack of better terms. You're just hungry. You literally move less when you do this, too. Your body will internally and subconsciously slow down a lot and just cause you to not move and fidget and all that. That neat non exercise activity thermogenesis. Think of it like driving a car. You can floor it, get to 60 in 5 seconds, but your gas tank is going to empty faster because you're moving at such a fast accelerating pace.
  • And then you wear out the engine as well where you can accelerate smoothly, get there with less strain. Fat loss is the same. Set a moderate deficit. For most guys, it's 400 to 700 calories a day through a combination of nutrition and exercise is the best way to do it. That'll make steady progress and not just totally crash and burn and then give in to old behaviors because again, if you don't work on the behaviors, then it's not going to matter anyways.
  • The kicker here is if you lift weights and eat enough protein, that's always something that I'm on my guys about is eating uh 140 tound up to 200 depending on what your goals are and who you are and how big you are and how much muscle mass you have. But we'll talk about that in a bit.
  • Then you'll build muscle or recomposition and ultimately or at the very least keep the muscle mass on your body that you have. Then this is recomposition is when your body weight stays the same but you look different because we're burning fat. Number four, eat enough protein. If there's a magic bullet in nutrition, protein is going to be the magic bullet if we would call it that.
  • Why? because it preserves muscle. And a 2018 meta analysis of the British Journal of Sports Medicine showed that higher protein diets over.8 to even one gram per pound of body weight significantly improved muscle retention during a fat loss phase. Now, I'm not saying weight loss. I'm saying fat loss because that's what's most important.
  • Second, protein keeps you full longer. You'll hear this time and again. Think of a chicken breast of say 30 gram say 20 25 grams of protein of chicken breast versus say even just a a scoop of protein powder at 20 to 25 gram of protein to something else that would be I always think of say like a piece of bread.
  • So a a calorie equivalent of 150 calories. you're gonna the the chicken breast is going to keep you way fuller when you eat say 6 ounces of chicken which is a reasonable portion for you which is about a deck and a half of cards if you want to say put it in your brain on the particular size. This will fill you up way more eating it than say the equivalent of chips or bread or other things and you're going to get the protein needs met, not carbs and fats.
  • And if you're not eating enough protein, you are going to eat carbs and fats. It's proven. It's true. Just look around. If say you have a belly, that's unfortunately probably what you've been doing because it's been marketed to you. It's sold to you. It's cheap. It's convenient. It's everywhere. Go to the local gas station and you can buy 100,000 calories of cheap processed food.
  • That takes you away from your goals. This is the physiology of what protein do. the highest thermic effect of food out of the protein, carbs, and fats. Your burn your body burns calories just digesting it. That's what thermic effect means. I often tell my guys a simple rule of thumb is to eat roughly your height in centimeters in grams of protein per day.
  • So, if you're 180 cm tall, it's about 180 grams of protein. Uh, this isn't perfect math, but it's easy to remember and keeps you in the right ballpark. Now, we can also look at just thinking about what your lean body mass is. And most men are going to have lean body mass from 150 to 180 pounds of muscle, bones, organs, things like that.
  • That allows you also to fall into that same general range. So at the end of no matter what, you don't have to know how many centimeters you are or what your actual lean body mass is, it's going to fall between that say 150ish, 175ish range that most guys are going to have a lot of success there. Now that coaching hack, we just guys, we don't need to eat 12 16 ounces of protein at dinner.
  • that isn't as effective to protein synthesis and allowing your body to have a steady stream of amino acids spread out throughout the day. Think of it like a watering a plant, okay? We don't just dump three gallons all at once and let it be dry for the rest of the day or even the week. You want to always keep watering the plant enough to keep it well hydrated and alive.
  • Number five, so use cardio appropriately. This one tips PE keeps guys lean and fit because cardio is a tool. It's not the key thing that you should be doing on repeat. Yeah, it burns calories and it's obviously good for your heart, but if it's the only thing that you're relying on, then especially for fat loss, you might end up hitting the wall.
  • Your body adapts over all those many miles that you put in. Also, your knees, your joints, your back, your hips, they might not like it. And most guys I know don't stretch enough, put enough time in mobilizing the body to keep it loose, flexible, pliable, and just think of this too. If you were to walk an hour or run an hour, which one's going to keep you hungrier? Well, obviously the running and then therefore you might just eat more calories than you burned in your run.
  • Now, some perspectives on running a mile burns roughly 100 calories or at the very least we're thinking about most people moving at a quick rate is going to burn about 10 to 15 calories per minute. Okay, that's as so the faster you go, the faster you burn it, but the harder intensity, then it could completely leave you dying.
  • Now, 100 calories is roughly a slice of a regular piece of bread. Uh, it's pretty easy to eat that in a couple bites or even grab a cookie in the office break room and you got yourself 150 calories. So, I'm so glad you spent 8, 10, 12 minutes in the running, but you just negated it by the cookie.
  • The cookie monster showed up and you wanted to eat it. Cookie Monster. If I were to have a Nchilles heel, cookies, brownies, those are going to be the two that really challenge my discipline or willpower or any of those things that you want to call if there's my kids will make awesome Doha style cookies with all the fixings to make them, the butter, the sugar, the Crisco, all the things.
  • So, it's legit. I have to stay away from them with a 10ft pole. Now, of course, cardio has its place and most guys, let's do at least 30 minutes low inensity cardio most days. Fast walking, cycling, rowing, maybe one, two, three hit sessions. Get your heart rate up to anywhere from say 140 to 160. And then lift heavy should come.
  • And obviously the nutrition piece of this. Now there's another study from even the 1980s often called Hixon study that showed too much endurance training can actually interfere with muscle growth. That's why you don't see marathoners marathon runners with a lot of muscle mass. Right? Think of like just pause right now and think marathon runner verse sprinter.
  • A big big big difference in the way they look, the way they feel, how much strength that they have. Big difference. I myself I would prefer sure I'd love to have a sprinter type muscle body in a sense. If I were to say rate myself, I'm looking at say a 400 800 runner. It's got some some muscle on them.
  • lean, toned, uh not overly muscled. I just I'm about 6' 190 and that's as average as it gets. 185ish, 190. That's my what I call my 5 lb weight range and it's something that we want to go over as well is that's where you should end up and land is a 5B weight range. Now, wrapping up fundamentals here. So, recapping, number one, you need a calorie deficit.
  • Number two, resistance training protects your muscle. Number three, deficit should be moderate, not extreme. Number four, you need enough protein to fuel recovery and be satiated full feeling. Number five, cardio is a supporting role, not say the star of the show. It's a supporting cast member that you do want in the play, so to speak.
  • When you get these dialed in right, fat loss is predictable. It's reliable. It happens all the time and it's not always easy. But again, it's predictable and that's say the the beauty of it. You don't have to rely on fads or gimmicks. You can just follow a system. Give it some time and watch your body change.
  • That's why I always have my guys in the program take pictures of themselves every quarter, every say 25 days to assess the body, the changes, the things that it is happening going for you. Number section three, chapter three, however you want to say it, the food debate. Now, we've covered a lot of core fundamentals so far and the next question is how should I eat to lose fat? This is where things get messy because if you spend five minutes on social media, you get a thousand different opinions.
  • Keto warriors telling you how carbs are evil. Plant-based gurus saying meat's killing you. You know, fork over knives in a sense. The intermittent fasting guys that swear that after eating after 6:00 p.m. is going to make you fat. You better only eat between 12:00 and noon or excuse me, noon and 6. That's the only time you're allowed to eat to lose fat.
  • No wonder men are confused. The truth here though is when it comes to fat, there's no single perfect diet that matters most is ultimately finding the approach that you can actually stick with. I often ask this of my guys when they're starting out. Just to clarify, timing of food, portions, meal design, when they should eat, how much they should eat.
  • Say, "Hey, in the next four, five, six weeks, we lose 10 pounds. Does it matter what you ate or when you ate?" No. No. Because you lost 10 pounds. You were in a calorie deficit. And that's the undertone of what we're going for. And say you're winning. Now certainly all the things that we've talked about so far are strategery in a sense to burning more fat and allowing you to be successful.
  • That's why I'm here and guide people and get people success to look and feel their best. So you have to again we'll repeat this. What matters most is finding an approach you can actually stick with. Now food quality does matter. We can't just say I I fym if it's your macros and eating Pop-Tarts every day all the time.
  • That's not it. You can have some Pop-Tarts occasionally. Just know that one Pop-Tart's about 200 calories. Those calories add up. That is a real deal. In fact, I actually had two Pop-Tarts at my daughter and my my Maxim Line's father walk morning at school and they had PT-arts. Luckily, I was running after. I use that energy and carbs to go run my body and that's a wellplaced time to have something like that.
  • But if I were just eat that as a normal breakfast and not do anything, that's an awful first choice of the day. Now, we're looking for the diet. You've heard this and I'm going to beat this into the ground and and drill it in your head. said, "We need nutritious, nutrient-dense foods, lean proteins, some fruits, lots and lots of vegetables, some whole grains, and some healthy fats, right? Generalizing that, but we'll go into deeper in macros and calories into other episodes and stuff, but I know that's the thing that you always hear and it's going to come
  • back." And this is what works. But most people get confused and trip up with what vehicle they should do and what engine they should use. So what I mean by that is imagine your body's a car and the engine is the thing that actually moves you forward and that's the calorie balance. What drives fat loss? The vehicle, the type of diet you follow could vary.
  • keto, paleo intermittent fasting, uh we've got Mediterranean, South Beach, the list can go on and on here. Now, all these things are just different vehicles to do it. I prefer a flexible dieting approach. As soon as I heard that, cuz I I had a gym back in 2010, 200 to about 2015, two different CrossFit gyms, and paleo was all the age, and you had to do paleo.
  • And before that, in CrossFit world, you're doing zone and counting blocks. And in paleo, you're avoiding foods that cause you to not eat certain foods like gluten, dairy, like lactose and soy. Those things were irritants to the body, human body. And if you avoid those, then you could say eat cleaner in a sense.
  • Well, if you don't have a gluten intolerance, I don't think it's relevant for you to take gluten completely out of your diet. But I do say that gluten is wheat based is wheat. Wheat- based foods are generally high calories, high carbs, low fiber, and low filling, which means you shouldn't be eating so many high calorie carb foods.
  • All right? So, some of these methods, these vehicles are faster and some are more comfortable and some break down more often, but as long as you're in a calorie deficit, the engine is running and you're moving toward fat loss. We just want to make sure that it's the right vehicle for you and your busy life.
  • Something huge that I do with the call to rise is make sure that we're teaching sound sciencebacked nutrition implemented into the easiest way possible for guys so that they just know the right types of food to eat at the right times in the right amounts. That's so critical. Now, a famous study published in the New England New England Journal of Medicine 2009 compared four different diets, lowfat, highfat, low carb, high carb over 2 years.
  • Okay, two years of this. What was it that they found? The common denominator, as long as calories and protein were matched and equated, weight loss was about the same. Now that may or may not stick with in terms of say body fat but weight loss was the same. Having a higher protein, moderate carb, lower fat diet generally think of a bodybuilder leaves you with a lean body, low body fat.
  • So let's repeat again. The diet itself didn't matter nearly as much as sticking to a calorie deficit. This is why your friend can lose 20 pounds on keto while another guy does the same on a high carb vegan diet. It's not some magical diet. It's just calorie balance. Now again, I've been doing this for 23 years since uh my canal park YMCA days in good old downtown Akran Ohio.
  • But helping people. I've had vegans, vegetarians, pescatarians, omnivores, carnivores, and they all boiled down to the simple fact of calories. Okay? Some had higher carbs, some had higher protein. But bring this down here to the normal everyday life. Here's another story. We'll call this gentleman Jeff.
  • 52, busy executive at a marketing company, and he came to me swearing that cars were his problems. said, "Brian, if I even look at bread, I gained five pounds." And yeah, this is something I hear so much. Instead of fighting him on it, I asked, "Hey, Jeff, let's do this your way for a little bit." Cuz he was so say resistant to I mean, honestly, I should have not taken him on because he wouldn't just align with me and and work with me.
  • That's part of coaching is we find the common ground and move toward your goals in the healthiest best way for you. So we reduce the carbs that you're eating, but let's track everything to the protein, calories, fats. Within a few weeks, Jeff dropped 8 pounds. Not because carbs were magical, making him fat. They they don't magically make you fat.
  • But because the first time in years he was in consistent calorie deficit over time, I gave him numbers. He's a very analytical person. I turned that calorie currency into something in food currency into something he can navigate and manage. And he's good with numbers. So it clicked. Carbs aren't the villain. Overeating larger portions are.
  • Now, the key point, the best diet, again, is the one that fits your lifestyle. If you love carbs, and you can lose weight while eating carbs. It's true. If fasting helps you control portion sizes because you cut out an extra meal, well, technically that works to control your calories. I always encourage everyone to eat, say, three meals a day.
  • Whether you call it a snack or meal, three times works really well. protein, vegetables, maybe some fruit, a little bit of search carb, paying attention to fat. That's a basic outline for you. Now, we do not want to fall into the one size fits all. So, the takeaway from this chunk here is focus on building your meals around these three phases.
  • Protein at every meal. Protein preserves muscle. It keeps you full. It supports recovery. It helps balance out blood sugar levels because it it's uh when carbs go out into the blood, it blunts that carb response. And it's magical in a sense that way. It's just science though, not magic. Whole foods.
  • Number two, whole foods are your foundation. It's you can eat processed foods, but whole foods just make it easier to stay full on fewer calories. Think of orange verse orange juice have the same amount of calories equated as about 100 110 calories. That's going to be about a cup of orange juice or one orange. Which one do you think is going to keep you full longer? Eat the fruit.
  • Don't drink it, please. Flexibility. You have to leave room for food you enjoy. You have to leave room for impromptu family ice creams. We do that a lot in my family. My kids, my wife is a what I would call an ice cream connoisseur, a or an ice cream snob in a sense. She her first job was at Strickland's and down by the blimp dock and Derby Downs serving fresh vanilla custard.
  • And from that moment on, cuz I used to go there and she'd make me a peanut butter malt shake and it was amazing. This is back when we were shoot 17 years old or so cuz I've been around her that long. So, she would enjoy ice cream and ever since we go to all sorts of different places. So, we have to be flexible.
  • Having a burger, a beer, ice cream, it's it's definitely don't think of it as punishment. It's just let's make it fit. Let's make it work. That's always seemed to be the best strategy. Fat loss is about being consistent, not being perfect. And even one more study, a study in obesity reviews 2014 looked at long-term diet adherence and the conclusion, the most successful diet is the one the person can stick to, not the one that looks best on paper.
  • And that's what people are doing. just telling you what looks best on paper. So, the challenge is if you're listening right now, congrats. Thanks. I hope you're learning a lot and you can leave a positive review here. But instead, think of this. What's the best diet for you? Actually, you know, let's think of what's the best diet for me, the one that you can actually see yourself following in 6 months from now.
  • So we want to future praise yourself. In six months, can I maintain the strategy around food? If yes, then great. And yeah, you could do a twoe sprint in a sense just to say build some momentum, but you have to fall into a long-term success. All right, part four here, chapter four, the beach lean to stage lean.
  • Now, the biggest thing is talking about body fat and the difference between keeping it uh to a getting it off your body, but then how far. So, we've covered a lot of fundamentals about food side of things. Let's talk about how lean should I get? And the answer uh guys, unfortunately it depends on what your goals are and your willingness to endure uh a bit of discomfort.
  • Staying in a calorie deficit for a longer time naturally puts you in more discomfort and that's a problem. So what's the difference between getting beach lean verse getting stage shredded? Well, the scoop is beach lean is where you see sick pack abs and you look good in shorts, t-shirt, you look fit, healthy, you check yourself out in the mirror like, "Hey, this looks great.
  • " You're more confident than ever. Maybe your wife just wraps her arms around you a little bit tighter. That's always a good thing, right? But you can still be inconsistent and maintain this look and perfect adherence isn't the strategy. Now say stage lane what you see on say bodybuilders and stuff just to give a comparison here on what it is.
  • I'll say the majority of people love the beach look that I ever work with. Uh this is I have worked with bodybuilders in the past, physique competitors and that's just not my main focus because I have four kids and having that type of lifestyle doesn't necessarily coincide with that. It create a lot of friction in my everyday life which is something I can't have.
  • And I have to eat leftovers always. We have right now I have this big pot of chicken noodle soup that I'm probably going to have to eat the majority of it over the next few days because no one else is eating it. Let's go back to stage lean stage shredded, right? Like eight pack abs and stuff.
  • This is just a complete other level entirety. All right. You just It's the fat loss that you just see at these competitions that every meal is planned, every training session is just so intentional. They do not skip. Every calorie is tracked, weighed, measured, and there's no wiggle room. They're stepping on scales regularly.
  • Now, certainly most competitors in the space will start beach lean, but then they push themselves farther and farther month after month to reach a stage ready goal. Now, I just want to point out that getting stage shredded isn't healthy or it's not necessary. Okay? If you have just a little bit of belly fat, that's okay.
  • Pinch an inch is not that big a deal. It's more than poking at it hard belly that you is so large you can't see your toes or other things for that matter. It's just not sustainable. And also, there can take a mental and physical toll on your body. But what's interesting is the principles are exactly the same as Beachlean. You're just taking the fundamentals of everything we talked about and going farther, longer, and more precise with it.
  • Think of this like dialing turning a dial to seven to 10 to maybe even the spinal tap 11. All right? If you've seen that movie, you know you go that extra little bit and then they stroke the guitar and voom and then you know the things blow up and and glass shatters and all that stuff. I love that that movie.
  • The principles, the calorie deficit, the protein intake, the resistance training, strategic cardio, they don't change. They just are more dialed in, more intense for a longer time. If you do have stubborn belly fat, why is it that some areas won't budge more than others? Well, we can talk about these things.
  • Everyone hates stubborn fat. You know what I mean? In these areas that just won't come off, the belly, the love handles, those are not it. Not fun to have or for the love. Please, let's not have main boobs either. That's not flattering. You don't look good in a shirt. We need to clear those up. Now, a simple but critical point here is you can't spot reduce fat.
  • Okay? Your body will pull fat from the easiest places first. Think of your extremities. It usually goes from your extremities inward to your belly button. That's most of the time. I had a gentleman just the other day in the program saying, "Man, my thighs always seem to be bigger and that's a problem and I want to get rid of that.
  • " Well, we do maybe need to do a bit more focus on some leg exercises, but you just have to lose if you're 220 and we get down to 190, you're going to lose a lot of that back. Key areas are low lower abs, love handles, the thighs for women are often the last place to go. You've seen that and heard that. So, what what's the trick? You can make them look better without removing more fat, but the simple way to do that is to build more muscle in those areas.
  • If your shoulders and your arms look more developed, the same amount of fat spreads over that muscle tissue and you look leaner overall. An example I like this one is the abs. If you actually have been training your abs for years, strength training, you actually have core strength, muscle mass there, then when you you could lose and get down to say 15% body fat and still maintain a a say a look of abs.
  • That's really good. But if you never train, you might have to lose your abs and you might have to lose another 10 pounds of fat to show the same amount of ab resistance. Now, I I used to teach ab classes for years and it's something I've done for two decades as core training. That's I have abs. So, I just need to make sure that I don't get fat because then my abs cover up and that's a problem.
  • Now, actual research backs this up. Study published from the journal of applied physiology by Shonfeld by Shonfeld 2016 found that resistance training improves muscle definition and helps the body composition look leaner even when fat loss is gradual. What we're saying is more muscle equals a better look with the fat distribution across the body.
  • Now think about the mental game of getting lean. What we want is what sticks out the most is once you start targeting that last little bit of stubborn belly fat. Usually things can get uncomfortable for people mentally, physically, even emotionally. People describe it as uh just having a lot less energy, feeling depleted, not wanting to move so much because their body is pulling fat from the stubborn areas.
  • It's a last line of defense in a sense for your body going into starvation mode in a sense or a famine. You've pushed yourself so hard for so many months, weeks, months and pushing your energy reserves. And now this isn't necessarily bad, but this is the a different experience than just losing the first couple.
  • You really have to focus on now. Now say that the first time someone pushes to the level it that that level of leanness it could be mentally traumatic if you never experience that because you have to go through this process that your body has never been this low. So if you want to go shredded look and not just hey I look like a the best non-dadbot in my social circle friends then good.
  • But each time you do it after that, it becomes say generally easier because of the perception of the process is a lot easier and you're able to to work through it. Just think of a marathon. My son ran a marathon on Saturday literally at the Ecramarathon. He ran a 332 at age 16. I don't know how he did it, but he got 88th out of 810 people. Second in his age group. Crazy.
  • Now, that was the say the once he got through that first one, then he can go and run another one and have it be say a little mentally more manageable because he already knows what's ahead. Now, some of the takeaways here is you got to decide what your goal and and the majority of people here are going to look for Beach Lane.
  • We got to stick to the fundamentals. We need to make sure that the rules apply and and calorie deficit, protein resistance training and smart training, all that stuff is super helpful. And we have aspects of the the mental and physical part here. So, ultra shredded isn't necessarily for everyone. It's but I say the majority of the people I ever work with are going to want to be lean and toned.
  • All right. Now, wrapping up here as this has already been a a good long time on this podcast episode. We just want to talk about some of the the ways to keep it off. We need the most successful habits and we'll dive into this a little bit deeper. Obviously, I like to talk and hopefully this has been really informative for you.
  • Some of the habits and behaviors that we'll dive into more on another show are the cognitive restraints of not being obsessed or hard. But we need structure around managing calories, limiting intake at certain times of day, managing when and when you don't eat carbs and fat and how to manage those. Being able to self-monitor.
  • Having regular check-ins is really key and critical. And whether it's with yourself, whether it's someone else, a professional like me, having with a partner, these things matter a lot. Having consistent exercise, 10k steps a day, two, three, four structured workout routines in the week. Having structured programs period helps.
  • Think of formal programs like the call to rise or even an older one that everyone's familiar with, Weight Watchers. That really helps long-term thinking. Thinking about what happens in 5, 10, 20 years from now. That is so important to have this long-term perspective to be successful because it will matter. That time will pass and you will show up at that point.
  • and you want to be successful then too and finding some moderation flexible approaches. Now some of the takeaways we want to have some restraint around your calories that you eat. Plan some meals. Limit late night eating. We want to have checking in on your progress whether it's you with someone else in multiple different ways from scale body composition tracking your clothing.
  • All things that I always have people do. Exercise regularly and the things that I just went over. Now, there's a couple pieces of this that I'm actually just going to turn into a part two to not have this go into a 90 plus minute conversation. You can look forward to that and being episode number four.
  • Let's wrap up with the fast five. This is the part of the conversation I really enjoy talking about different things. We went pretty hard with nutrition fitness today. Hey, I'm going to do some fun things to get to know me a little bit. Fast five questions, quick questions for quick answers. What's the favorite way to start the day? For me, I love getting up and getting into my hot tub.
  • I usually listen to something empowering, some music, something on YouTube, and I like Alex Herozi. I like Chris Williamson. I like listening to educational on self-development, all sorts of different things that help enrich not only who I am as a person, but also how I coach people and get them to be better.
  • Number two, if you weren't doing health fitness coaching, what would you be doing instead? Well, I there's been more than a few times where is do I keep doing fitness and nutrition and coaching and all or do I do something else? I think I would be end up being a salesman on some level. I'm not sure what I would sell. So hopefully something fun.
  • Maybe at this current stage in my game, my wife is leveling up in her work, her career with her own job. She sends people on bucket list trips. Example, we went to Africa with all four kids. We went to a safari for three days. Did a 4-day tour through Egypt, the pyramids, the temples, the hieroglyphics, all those things.
  • We spent 12ish days or so in Africa. That was amazing and magical. I would probably help her in her business. Number three, what one food you could never give up no matter what? I'm going with sushi. I love sushi. It's one of my favorites. I wish I could eat it more with four kids. It ends up being on the more expensive side and more special occasion.
  • Number four, what are a habit, a ritual that keeps you grounded and focused? Well, I think that my kids definitely keep me grounded and focused toward what is important. My wife does that as well, calling me. I love working. I love what I do. The impact I have on people is amazing.
  • But I also need to get pulled into other areas of life and say walking our dog Huga. He's a Newfoundland. He is 130 lbs. He's 6' tall on his rear legs. That is one thing that keeps me grounded. No screens on the walk. I can then just pay attention to my favorite people. Number five. What's your guilty pleasure when you're not trying to be perfect with your health? Well, I am going to have a beer. A craft beer.
  • Something dark. Stout porter. H. I just love the flavor, the taste. You have one and that is sufficient and enjoyable. Well, there's the fast five. And I just want to thank you for tuning in to our third episode of Driven for Health. And I appreciate you listening. And we're going to go into a part two of this in the fourth episode to round out some of the other key things that I wanted to highlight in this that would just send this into being way too long.
  • Now, as we close out, men, guys, if you're ready to take control of your health and start your transformation, visit the call torise.com. Learn more about the 100day fat loss challenge. You can have me, yours truly, guiding you through the process. Ultimately, it's never too late to rise up, take charge of your body, your energy, your life, and in 100 days, you're going to be in a radically different place.
  • Now, if 100 days isn't quite there or ready for it, I have a simple Kickstarter, lose three lbs in 3 days with my Rise 72 method. And that's found at the rise the calltorise.com72. Links will be in the description. It's a nutrition and fitness Kickstarter designed for all my listeners. No starving, no weird fat diets. We're just building off of science to help you get this moving.
  • It's simple, it's easy to implement, and it will fit in a busy day. So, check that out if you just want a little taste, a little tease, and get the process going. There's even text accountability that I offer through that as well. Appreciate you. I hope that you like this. Comment below on different topics and things you would like to hear in future episodes.
  • Stay driven, stay healthy, and I'll see you in the next episode.