Podcast Transcription: Ditch the Fads: Your Proven Game Plan for Sustainable Fat Loss with Ted Ryce

Ted Ryce: Are you a little confused and frustrated about all the fat loss information, all the conflicting advice, all the people who look like they're in shape but they're saying something completely different? Well, if that's you, then you're not alone. In fact, one of the big reasons my clients join my coaching program is because of that: I just need one person to listen to, one path to follow, and I love the results you get with your clients, Ted, and what they say they feel like they found a sustainable approach for them. I want that.  

And in that vein, I wanted to help you today to get really clear on what you need to do to lose fat and keep it off for the long term. 

So, if that's something you're interested in, welcome to the fat loss 101 episode here. And welcome back to the Legendary Life Podcast. I'm your host, Ted Rice, health expert and coach to executives, entrepreneurs, and other high-achieving professionals.  

We produce this show for two reasons. The first is I've been in this business 24 years and I fell for a lot of the same stuff that you've fallen for. I've spent thousands of dollars on supplements. I believed very charismatic and impressive-looking people. And I ended up not getting the results I was hoping to get. And I want to save you that journey by bringing you the best information on health, fat loss, and longevity on the internet.  

The second reason is because if you are a high-achieving professional and executive, entrepreneur or business owner, and you know the value of coaching and you want as much success with your health as you do with your business, you'll know who to hire.  

So, let's jump in today. And I want to tell you this, when I say I've been in the business 24 years, by the way, that's totally true. In fact, it's a little over 24 years now. Not that you didn't believe me, but it's not something I say. I've been in this business since 1999. And I think what I forget to mention is that a lot of that time, let's say half of that time, I was down some weird rabbit holes. When I first got into the business in 1999, I was a strict low carb. And I wouldn't even buy fruit.  

Now, of course, did I binge on carbs and dessert and buy a whole thing of Hungry Dogs and eat the entire pie in one sitting? Yeah. But for the most part, I was really on top of my low carb approach. I would not. Like I said, I wouldn't even buy fruit. Fruit was off-limits, fruit of all things, right?  

And then I got into this whole "the chemicals make you fat" and I felt I was so toxic. That's got to be the reason why I can't lose fat, all this environmental toxicity. Now I want to say this, I do believe there's something to the amount of chemicals that were exposed to in the environment. It's just not clear what the effects are yet. And it's not with fat and fat loss.  

We're really clear on that and what causes it. And I finally started in 1999. And now it's 2023. I'm really clear on this. In fact, my whole business is based on the fact that I can repeatably help clients achieve weight loss breakthroughs they've never been able to achieve with other programs, with other diets, and certainly on their own. So that's where I'm coming to you from. 

And that said, let's jump into it. And well, let me say one more thing, because I know what that sounds like. I'm here on this podcast telling you, "Hey, don't listen to all those other guys. I've got it figured out," which is probably what everybody else is saying. But I want to tell you why this is different.  

Number one is that I hit the wall with low-carb diets, as I've mentioned many times in the podcast, and I had to relearn the science. And I'm a person who values ethics. I value truth. And when it comes to science and truth, it's not about finding the truth, but the highest level of confidence that "Hey, this is the thing." 

And so that's what today is based on. The other part is this I'm not going to tell you about one weird trick or strict diets. I'm going to share principles with you. Not tactics, but principles. And I'm going to explain why they're important as well. 

So, with that said, let's jump in.  

Principle number one: eat fewer calories. This is it, folks. And let me tell you, when my clients finally break through and embody this knowledge, they get to levels of leanness they've never dreamed of. It's like, "Oh, it's not about eating the same foods or eating clean, it's about the portions of foods." Because that's what the whole calorie thing is really about. 

You can't get around the portion size. Especially if you want to get to 15% body fat or lower if you're a man, or 20% body fat if you're a woman, you've really got to dial this in. You've got to dial this in with precision. And that's why calories are so important. It's just simple math. To lose weight, you must consume fewer calories than you burn. This creates what's called a calorie deficit, and it leads to weight loss.  

And I use “weight loss” very intentionally here, because weight could be water, could be fat, could be muscle, could even be bone. And we'll talk a little bit more because this episode is on fat loss, not weight loss, but I want to just make this clear. It's the calories thing that controls your weight. 

The calories creating a calorie deficit leads to weight loss. Eating more calories than you burn leads to weight gain. Again, we're not talking about the percentage of fat, muscle, water, etc. Just the number on the scale.  

And eating the same amount of calories roughly as what you burn will cause your weight to stay the same. This has been tested over and over and over in metabolic ward studies, and it just hasn't been disproven.  

There are studies have shown, like I talked about in the low-carb episode, that low-carb diets outperformed low-fat diets with fat loss. But when you looked more deeply into the research and the way the study was conducted, you find that there are higher protein amounts or other factors that weren't accounted for.  So, it's really about this idea of calories.  

Principle number two: eat more protein. Protein is essential for a few different ways. Increased protein is crucial in supporting lean muscle mass. So, if you want, the calorie deficit is what creates weight loss. But if you want 100% of the weight that you lose to be fat and not muscle, because very often people will lose a bunch of weight, they'll clap, pat themselves on the back, but they've lost muscle. It's a big mistake. So, eating more protein helps you maintain or even build muscle, which keeps your metabolism higher. It also makes you look good when you lose the fat. And another thing is protein promotes fullness. You feel more full if you eat a higher protein diet. It's not about carbs and fat. Protein is that unsung hero of macronutrients. It just doesn't get enough respect because people are too busy arguing about carbs and calories.  

And there is one more thing that I think is worth mentioning. Protein has a higher TEF. TEF stands for thermic effective feeding. Like most things, digestion isn't free. It's not an energy-free process. You've got to chew your food. It costs calories, not many, by the way. You're not going to get lean chewing a lot. Alright.  

So don't, don't go off and, uh, you know, start chewing gum all day thinking that you're going to make a major dent in your weight by doing that. But when it comes to digestion, not only do you have to chew your food, but you swallow it down. It gets broken down by digestive enzymes.  

And in the case of protein, hydrochloric acid in your stomach. The point being, it costs energy to break down, and protein costs more energy to break down than carbs or fat. How much? It's significant. Your average meal will be about 10% of the meal will get burnt up in the digestive process. 

When you have a higher protein component in your meal, a higher percentage of protein calories coming from protein in your meal, it can be up to 15, 20, or even up to 30%. Now that's probably eating nothing but protein in that meal, but it makes a difference.  

Principle number three: eat foods that fill you up. By choosing foods that are higher in fiber, protein, and water, you increase your satiety. And this, I can't emphasize enough because you hear the calorie talk of "create a calorie deficit, calories in, calories out," but the way this shows up in your challenge every day is to eat foods that fill you up because hunger drives your behavior. 

Hunger drives your behavior. If you can control your hunger, you can control your weight. So eat foods that fill you up.  

What's an example? Well, what I want you to do, pause this right now and Google "satiety index." And after you Google satiety index, click on images, and that'll bring up a bunch of different images of the satiety index.  

Click on one of them, whatever is most visually appealing to you, and study it for a second. And you'll see, and this is one of the reasons that the low-carb community drives me nuts, is that boiled potatoes scored higher than every other food that was tested. 

In fact, there's something called the potato hack, which is you eat nothing but potatoes and you lose a bunch of weight. The reason is potatoes are filling. Now we're not saying French fries or potato chips, by the way.  

In fact, if you look at this satiety index, you'll see that the satiety level, the satiety units, go down drastically when you take that boiled potato and turn it into French fries, which is cutting it up into fried-shaped pieces and frying it in oil or slicing it into potato chip slices and then deep-frying that in oil. 

So, eat foods that fill you up. Forget about the carbs, forget about the fat. Eat foods that fill you up. Some foods that fill me up: zero percent fat Greek yogurt, watermelon, strawberries, sugar-free jello. These foods fill me up, allow me to stay in a calorie deficit. In fact, I'm getting to that point where I'm going to start annoying you with the veins on my abs comments. If you've been listening to the show since 2020, you know what I'm talking about. Getting lean again, folks. Making it happen, finally. 

And a big key is dialing in the foods that fill me up, and the same is going to be true for you as it is with my clients.  

Principle number four: lift weights two to four times a week. Again, if we come back to this idea, weight loss is just a matter of calories in and calories out. But fat loss is a bit different. We talked about how protein is important for it, and now what's even more important than the protein? Although the protein is important. 

But lifting weights, weightlifting is not just for bodybuilders and athletes. It's for everybody. So, do you have a body? Yes, hope so. I've been watching a lot of sci-fi, so my thoughts kind of went off on a strange tangent. I was thinking about the movie Spectral on Netflix, where these people get their nervous system hooked up to this machine, but they don't actually have bodies. Anyway, if you do have a body, then weightlifting is for you. Because what happens is you maintain your muscle mass. And although protein is really important, lifting weights is the number one thing that will stimulate your muscles so that you maintain it or even build muscle, might be the standard we have in my program, our clients. 

It doesn't always happen. I have some people who end up losing a little bit of muscle. But in general, my clients build muscle and lose fat. So, we get them DEXA scans, and we see that their muscle mass increases as their pounds of fat goes down. So lifting weights is key.  

Again, if you can't do four times a week or even three times a week, two times a week, and I'm not going to get into the conversation about how little is needed here. I've got an episode coming up that's going to be on the concept of micro workouts. So these mini workouts that I've used with many of my clients, they can range from 10 minutes to five minutes to even one-minute micro workouts. I've used them so effectively with my busiest of clients.  

But just note that you've got to challenge your muscles two to four times a week. If not, you end up losing muscle in the process and losing muscle can set you up for gaining the weight back after you lose it. It increases your chances of gaining the weight back, going backwards, something called the fat overshoot.  

Hopefully, I'll have one of these scientists who are looking into this phenomenon on the show to talk about this. But you just know that if you are on a weight loss diet or journey, please don't be on a weight loss diet. Please just follow a calorie deficit, right? Diets are okay as a framework, but just understand it's the calories making the magic happen on the scale.  

But lifting weights is crucial. So, lift weights, please don't make this mistake. And even if you're not, just make sure you do it. It's okay if you don't do a lot, but just make sure you do it and try to ramp it up over time. Principle number five: Walk seven to 10,000 steps per day. While lifting weights focuses on building muscle and boosting your metabolism, walking ensures that you burn the calories without stressing your body too much.  

So you don't need to do cardio. Walking seven to 10,000 steps per day, you're going to burn more calories, and also there's a hidden benefit here. People who are sedentary actually have higher appetites. Most people think that, "Oh, well, I'm very sedentary. I don't really do that much activity at all, and so I must not eat that much and my appetite must be normal.". It's not. 

We know that people who are more active actually eat less food. They're not as hungry; they have more appetite regulation. Now scientists don't exactly know why this is the case. Is it that activity helps us manage our stress? Is there something else going on?  

We don't know, but we do know that there are numerous studies showing this phenomenon where people who are sedentary, in other words, getting 5,000 steps and under, have a bigger appetite than people who are more active.  

Principle number six: Sleep seven hours nightly. Adequate sleep is not just about rest; it's about giving your body the opportunity to recover.  

And one of the things that studies have found is that poor sleep does a few things. Number one, it can cause people who sleep eight hours versus five hours. We've seen a few studies that have showed the groups. Both groups are on a fat loss diet, a calorie-restricted diet, right?  

Both groups lose the same amount of weight, but a higher percentage of muscle gets lost in the five-hour group versus the eight-hour group. Now, I say seven hours because, for me, I can't even sleep eight hours. It's rare. I'd have to be super exhausted or jet-lagged or sick to sleep eight hours. And it's even tough for me to sleep seven hours sometimes.  

But just know this, if you're struggling with your appetite, lower sleep not only causes the issue with muscle loss that we just covered, but it also increases your appetite. And what does it increase your appetite for? Do you just want another chicken salad with dressing on the side? No, you don't want the chicken salad or the superfood salad or the kale shake. You want, remembering kale shakes were popular a few years back, you want the fries, the burger, the pizza, the dessert, the ice cream, the cookies, the chips. 

So if you're struggling to control your appetite, dial in your sleep. It makes fat loss so much easier, especially when you're under stress. I want to say one more thing. If you look at the thumbnail to this podcast, I'm quite lean in that photo, and that's from 2019.  

And during that time that I got really lean, I was only sleeping five to six hours a night. And I was in Bangkok, and my business was beginning to take off in a new way. I was really excited, and I was training Muay Thai and just having a great time in Bangkok. It was such a, I looked back at that time, and it was just, oh man, it was so, so wild and the point being that low sleep won't crush your fat loss results.  

But if you're under stress and not feeling great, like if you're not like me and having the time of your life, then you want to address your sleep. It just will make the whole process so much easier. So if you find that you have trouble controlling yourself with your appetite, focus on your sleep. It makes the process easier.  

Principle number seven: Track your progress. What gets measured gets managed. Getting the right data. 

This is how we get such great results in my coaching program. It's not magic. We get data, we track the data, we see exactly what our clients are doing. When they're doing everything, they get results 100% of the time. And when they're not doing things right and we see that they're skipping workouts, not tracking, getting fewer steps, it's so obvious to see what the issue is. And what do we track? Well, we track several things. We have our clients weigh in weekly, sometimes daily for some clients, but weekly. We have our clients take photos bi-weekly.  

And we encourage our clients to do a body fat test, either a DEXA scan or in-body, monthly. We also have our clients, most of our clients end up tracking their calories. Although I have some clients who don't, they're not quite ready for it yet. They track their steps, they track their workouts. And if they have some type of device tracking their sleep, we can even see that too.  

You don't have to track all that, but track something and track something beyond just weight.  

And then principle number eight is adjust the plan according to your results. Sometimes we'll give a client the plan; they'll follow it.  

We don't really need to change it that much. Although I would say every plan gets adjusted. We end up adjusting workouts. I can even think of a case right now, Dan, who's lost 50 pounds with me, is on his second year of coaching with me now.  

He went from 33% body fat to 16% body fat. He's so lean; he's never even, he doesn't even know what to do. He's like, "I've never been in this shape. I've never looked like this, even when I was in my best shape in my twenties." And one of the things that we started him with initially is he didn't want to spend a lot of time in the gym.  

So when Dan first started, we only did four workouts of about 20 minutes each, but that's evolved since then. And now he's doing about 30 to 40 minutes of time in the gym per workout, depending on the time that he has.  

So your plan will need to be adjusted, especially if you hit a plateau. So make sure you understand this. If it stops working, go over the data that you do have, make sure that you have everything dialed in. And then the simple answer if you do run into a weight loss plateau is this: drop your calories by 200. If you're tracking calories, take that using Chronometer, we use MyFitnessPal and my coaching program, drop your calories by 200. And again, you're going to have to be even more dialed in with the hunger-controlling principles that I shared today.  

So eat filling foods, sleep seven hours nightly, getting that seven to 10,000 steps per day so that you're not having that increase in hunger because you're sedentary, but subtract 200 calories.  

You can also increase your steps or increase your workouts. It's just that's not my first choice. You can also try a combination of both, dropping calories and increasing workouts or steps. But the issue is just make sure you can sustain whatever you do. Because if you don't feel like you can sustain it, that's when you give it up. So, make sure you keep that in mind and just know that it's okay if something stops working, it just means you need to adjust something.  

Either you need to recommit to what you were doing before that worked so well, or let's say that you've been really on the ball, you may have to adjust things.  

There are a few things that happen. For example, if you lose, if you do lose a bunch of weight, you can run into some slowing of your metabolism. Because let's say Dan, we haven't had to do this, but he weighed 242 or 243 pounds when he first started. He's like 187, something like that right now. And we haven't had to adjust his workout, but imagine that he's lost 50 pounds. 

 So you burn less energy if you're smaller; bigger bodies take more energy, just like it takes more gas to run an SUV versus a Sedan. So keep that in mind. It's normal to need to adjust your plan. We have to do it often. 

Usually it's a result of people falling off track. That's really what happens. So make sure if you've fallen off track, get back on track. Look at your data to confirm what you were doing previously that works so well versus what you're doing now. And then before you change anything, because it might just be a matter of getting back on track with what was working initially. 

All right, that's a lot of information. Let's recap what we covered today. Principle number one is eat fewer calories, the calories in calories out. That's what determines weight loss.  

Principle number two, eat more protein because we don't just want to lose weight. We want to prioritize fat loss, we want to maintain our muscle and eating more protein. And specifically protein. I don't mean rib eye steaks because half the calories in a ribeye steak are from fat, but specifically more grams of protein.  

Principle number three, eat foods that fill you up. Google the satiety index or Google foods for cutting is another one you could Google to give you some ideas.  

Principle number four, lift weights two to four times per week. Again, we're trying to prioritize fat loss here. I run a fat loss program, not a weight loss program. And there is a distinct difference. And one of them is lifting weights to make sure you maintain your muscle to help maintain that metabolic rate during your fat loss journey.  

Principle number five, walk seven to 10,000 steps per day. If you're 5K and under, you're sedentary, you're going to have a higher appetite and when you bump it up to seven to 10, you're going to be less hungry and you're going to be burning more calories, not a ton more calories by the way, but you're going to be burning more and it's going to give you more wiggle room with your diet.  

Principle number six, sleep seven hours nightly. I think eight to nine is what some people say is just too much, but give yourself seven. Again, especially if you're struggling with stress and stress eating, having cravings, having a big appetite, even though you know you're not exercising that much, dial in your sleep and some of that will go away. It will just disappear overnight or over several nights, over several nights of seven hours of sleep.  

Principle number seven, track your progress. I can't emphasize how important it is. The reason why people screw this up is because they don't have enough data. They don't see what's actually, they think they're doing the right things. But again, it's kind of like, No, I'm not spending that much money. But for some reason, I don't have that much money in my bank account. Right?  

No, you're spending the money, you're just not aware of it. You're not aware that all those little 2050 $100 things that you buy end up adding up. And the same thing is true with your calories, you have a budget. So make sure you track things to make sure you're on track of the data on top of the data through tracking.  

Principle number eight, adjust the plan according to your results. It is okay to hit a plateau, don't freak out. Just know that either you need to review what you were doing initially, which was giving you such great results or you might need to change some things because your body has changed. So keep that in mind.  

And the last one I want to say is be patient. You must be tenacious, but also patient. This is going to be depending on how much weight you have to lose. It's going to be 12 months, could even be 24, 36 months. You did not get overweight or obese in a matter of 12 weeks. So don't expect it to go all go away fast and to be fixed in that amount of time. This is going to take years. Okay, it's going to take years. Now, whether you do that with a coach or not, it's up to you, but this is going to take years.  

So stay the path. Keep this in mind. This is getting in shape is like getting a degree. It's not just doing a few quick things. right? It's like building a business. Nobody believes in get rich quick schemes, but people believe in quick fat loss schemes.  

You don't just need to make a couple of tweaks. It's like growing a business takes years to get a business off the ground, get things going.  

And that's if you're really good at it. If you struggle like me, I've been in doing this business for seven years. I'm a freaking fantastic world-class coach. But you wouldn't want to take business advice for me. Actually, I could give some people business advice now but you certainly wouldn't want to take it from me five years ago. 

All right so just understand it takes a while, the road loss the road to successful fat loss it will have its hurdles you need to be persistent so never give up that's the number one rule okay that's the principle number nine bonus principle never give up. 

And that is it for today. I hope you enjoyed this conversation about fat loss 101 and what you really need to do. And hopefully I've broken it down in a way that is more simple than where you've heard it before, even on the show.  

And what I'd love to do now as we wrap up is if you know someone who's struggling with this and they're struggling with the misinformation, send this to them. 

The highest compliment you can pay me is by sharing this show, especially with someone who needs to hear it because they're struggling in their journey or they're just getting started and they're not sure who to believe or what to do. This can help them get on the right track. So, if you have a high achiever in mind who you know would appreciate hearing this, make sure you send it to them.  

That's it for me. Hope you have an amazing week and I'll speak to you next time.