Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin has the greatest guitar riff of all time.
Buh-bah-buh-bah-bu-b-b-bu-b-b-bu,b-b-bu-b-b-bu……
It is so remarkably simple yet manages to kick you in the teeth while also stealing your girlfriend.
It’s the lead track on Zep’s second album which is arguably (though incorrectly) their best. This is no easy feat as most musical acts struggle with their follow-up efforts.
There is a somewhat famous saying that goes something like “You have a lifetime to make your first album. And if it’s a hit, you have 8 months to make your second.”
And most artists just can’t capture that same hunger and magic that makes their first album so great.
This is why I rarely, if ever, write sequels to these blog posts. When it comes to such topics as why Zone 2 is overhyped (it is!) and why Kelly Clarkson is the best music to listen to while training (she is!) I’m a one-and-done guy.
But last week’s blog on how losing 22lbs has helped me with my running performance and what losing in weight in general means for your health, performance and aesthetics had my mailbag overflowing with questions.
So here is my follow-up. My sophomore album if you will. Hopefully I do better than Fleetwood Mac releasing “Tusk” after killing it with “Rumours”.
The many questions can really be condensed into one general query. “How, Dan, as a relatively lean person, did you lose 22lbs?” And, the less directly asked but equally important follow up “How can I do this as well?”
It would be impossible for me to give you exact answers here as everyone is in a different starting point, has different needs and experiences and is on a different journey. Which I recognize is a very unsatisfactory answer.
However, there are some universal truths when it comes to weight loss and, in particular, weight loss while maintaining muscle and performance that can be really helpful if that is your goal.
The first, and I’d argue most important, is that you need to get your daily calories correct. You want to aim for a reasonable and slight deficit of about 250 calories below maintenance.
This is going to seem minor to those of you who are used to eating 1000 cals below daily needs in those two weeks prior to your high school reunion when you crash diet in the hopes of fitting back into your prom dress.
But the 250 does two things. First, it’s sustainable. You can be just below maintenance for a very long time without the negative effects that tend to affect more drastic cuts.
Secondly, it will preserve muscle mass. These two things really work hand-in-hand. You are going to want weight loss to be slow so you can maintain muscle mass and performance. Otherwise you are going to be 1) bummed when your gym performance absolutely tanks and 2) bummed when you hit your target weight and have no muscle to show for it and you look flatter than that pancake on top of your McGriddle.
Unless you are in a weight category sport, your weight doesn’t really matter. Most people need to get a bit lighter to get the physiques they want. But the physique you want is the goal, not a scale number. And the physique you want includes muscle. Heavier with muscle is going to look better than lighter without.
After the calories are dialed in you are going to want to make sure that a certain percentage of those calories are protein. That is going to be 40% of those calories or, looked at another way, is approximately 1 gram of protein per 1lb of body weight.
Protein also ensures that you will maintain muscle and strength while in a deficit and can really help with cravings which are also sure to hit during a deficit.
Less important is your distribution of carbs and fats but if you want to manage that I would say 40% carbs, 20% fats. Why? Carbs help with performance and, you guessed it, retaining muscle mass. And fats - while important for satiety and hormonal health - are also very calorically dense and easy to overdo.
When it comes to training, you are going to want to prioritize strength training. Why? You guessed it, it will help preserve muscle mass which I think I’ve argued for roughly 17 times already in this blog post.
Strength train three times per week. And while you want to put a solid effort in, don’t expect PRs. You are in a deficit and your body is more interested in surviving than it is in maxing out your hip thrusts. Your heaviest lifts should be reserved for when you are back at maintenance or in a surplus.
Also, do not let your volume get out of hand. You may feel very motivated by the efficacy or your nutrition plan and decide “it’s working, let me dial it up and it will work more!” But that will actually lead to you plateauing and feeling flat. It’s ironic, I know. But more doesn’t equal more in this case.
Increase in training volume should almost always be accompanied by an increase in calories. Not a deficit.
Speaking of that, do not, I repeat do not use cardio as a method to burn extra calories. In fact, you should almost never look at exercise or training as a method of burning cals. Training is where you build things (muscle, performance, confidence, tolerance for a Bad Bunny playlist) not burn things. And the extra cardio is just going to add more stress and, just like the extra strength training volume, will just lead to you stalling out. Nutrition should do the work of managing calories, not training.
I know you don’t believe me. But that doesn’t make it untrue.
Last thing (but this doesn’t make it any less important) is that you are going to want to get ample sleep. Shorting sleep will lead to fat storage as that is how your body reacts to stress and lack of sleep is very stressful on your system.
Unlike training, this is a case where more is better but, realistically, 7.5 hours is what most research has concluded is necessary for an adult. If you had a particularly hard training session, an extra 30 to 60 minutes wouldn’t hurt.
You may be saying to yourself “Dan, this is some real basic shit” and you would be correct. These are probably the things you already know or could have figured out with about 12 seconds of research.
But regardless of what the Biohacking subreddit might tell you, your results really rely on mastering these basics with consistency.
None of this is complicated. But almost no one does it consistently enough for it to work.
The final ingredient? Patience. If you attack your weight loss this way you will get the best result and you will have achieved it in the most sustainable and healthy way. But it will take longer than a crash diet or red light therapy or sunlight on your butthole or whatever the longevity gurus are promoting these days.
So think one to two pounds per week, consistently until you reach your goals.
It may not be dramatic. You may end up with a pale butthole. But you are going to ultimately have your health and the body you actually wanted all along.