Podcast Transcription: The Only 7 Science-Based Weight Loss Strategies You Need To Know with Ted Ryce  

Ted Ryce: One of the biggest complaints I hear, if not the biggest, is this. “Ted, I have no idea who to believe. People say conflicting information about how to lose fat and I’m so confused. One expert will say one thing, then another will claim something different. I don’t know who to believe. Please help.”

So, today, what we’re going to go over are the only seven things you need to lose fat according to science. So, if you’re feeling confused, if you’re feeling like you’re overwhelmed by all the information out there, my goal today is to clarify this for you to make it simple, so that you know exactly what you need to do to lose fat.

What is up, my friends? Welcome back to the Legendary Life podcast. I’m your host, Ted Ryce, coach to entrepreneurs and executives.

Today, we have a science-based Monday episode, and I’m so excited to share this with you. And I want to tell you this: I’ve been in this business for 23 years now and if you’ve been listening to the show, you know that.

But I also want you to know I’ve gone down a lot of strange rabbit holes. If you don’t know my story, I was low-carb for a long time. I even got into an argument one day when I was in my 20s and I was ripped personal trainer, wasn’t that big, though, maybe 180 pounds.

And I was telling my client, “Listen, stay away from carrots. They have a high glycemic index that raises blood sugar, blood sugar raises, insulin is a fat-storing hormone. So, therefore, carbs make you fat.”

And actually, the dietician was walking by when I told my client that and she got into an argument with me, not really an argument, more like she chewed me out. And the dietician was overweight, she did not look like she was fit at all. And when she walked away after her tirade, my client looked at me and said, “You’re in such better shape than her. I would never listen to that woman.” And so she tried to not eat carrots.

But the truth is that woman, although she was inappropriate in the way she handled this situation, she was right and I was wrong. And even unfortunately, I didn’t learn that for decades later or at least one decade, decade and a half probably.

And I’ve been down a lot of roads, intermittent fasting, put butter in my coffee, when I started learning about Dave Asprey and bulletproof coffee – hopefully, I didn’t clog too many arteries with that.

I eliminated conventional house care products and toiletries from my house because I thought that the chemicals in those products were making it hard for me to lose fat. I spent a lot of money on organic food because I learned that the pesticides could cause disruption in hormones, which, there is some truth to that, by the way. But that could lead to an issue with fat loss.

What I’m trying to say folks is a bit that a lot of roads, probably roads that you’re down right now, and you’re not getting the results you want.

One of the things that I’ve been challenged with, and that I’ve challenged myself with in my coaching program is to make things super simple, because let me tell you, clients come into my coaching program with all types of beliefs.

And so, while not everyone who listens to that podcast, or even 1% of people will ever become a client, that’s totally cool. But I want you to get clear on what you need to do and that’s what today is about. So, let’s jump into it.

The number one thing, folks, the number one thing…Are you ready for this? What is it? What is the number one thing that you need to create, you need to do or you need to be aware of to lose fat? I know some of you are saying it, and some of you aren’t sure.

Like “Is it high-intensity interval training? Is it fasting?” No. Number one is calories in, calories out. In other words, total calories. It’s the number one thing? “No, but what about exercise?” No, you can sit on your butt and lay in bed and lose body fat.

In fact, I’ve done that before when I got Dengue fever in Thailand in 2019. I got Dengue fever. I was going through my coaching with Eric, the guy who helped coach me too, if you see this thumbnail on this podcast, he coached me to that level of leanness.

He helped me get there. I got Dengue fever and for a week, I could not get… I mean, I could get out of bed but I felt like 90 years old. It was worse than COVID. I had COVID, and I was unvaccinated when I had it. Oh gosh, I shouldn’t have said that. Stay focused folks. Stay focused.

The point is this, I lost weight. Not only did I lose muscle, but I lost fat, too. All I did was lay in bed, you know what I did, I could barely eat, and that is so rare for me. So, that’s my story. But I’ll tell you this is backed up by science, there has never been a person who’s been in a weight loss study in a metabolic ward, where… if you don’t know what that is, they lock people in a room, in a metabolic ward and they control how much food they eat.

Everyone loses fat, folks. And it comes from an imbalance in the calories they take in from food and drink and the calories they expend through not just their metabolism, but also their movement. That’s the number one thing.

Do not get lost here, if you are struggling to lose fat, or you’re putting on fat, you are not in a calorie deficit. “No Ted, but I tracked my calories and I’m only…” No, I’m telling you, I coach people on this, there is something missing. There is an imbalance in the calories that you’re eating, versus that you’re burning.

And while you can better quantify the calories that you’re eating, it’s impossible without a metabolic hood, to quantify the calories that you burn through exercise and movement. That is what makes it so tricky.

If you remember what I said a minute ago, I said there’s never been a person who didn’t lose body fat when they were in the metabolic ward in a fat loss study. It’s never happened. Why? Because everything is completely controlled. The issue is when we get out into our lives… now I’m not going to be talking about that today, that’s what I save for my Real Talk Fridays.

But the concept is this, calories in, calories out. I never used to believe this. If you’re a doubter, right now, you can prove this to yourself, by doing the Masters cleanse, do a Juice cleanse. People say that you’re detoxing, you’re not, you’re taking in about 1000 calories of liquid calories, mostly sugar from juice, you will lose weight.

And then when you go back to what you were doing before, you’ll put the weight back on. Why? Because you were eating lower calories, and then you went back to eating higher calories. It’s that simple. As a concept, we’re not going to talk about the realities of managing calories, because that’s tricky.

We’ll talk about that a little bit today. But understand this is the number one thing, that’s why I’m spending several minutes talking about it right now. Because if you don’t get this through your head, and if it doesn’t become a mantra to you, you’re going to say, “Oh, yeah, but Ted said this, but then I heard some doctor in…” Oh, he’s a doctor, doctors aren’t right all the time.

It’s not about what a doctor says or about what I say, it’s about what the research says. And every time they’ve tried to prove that it has something to do with carbohydrates, and insulin, none of that has ever panned out in the entirety of the body of literature.

So, there might be a study – and I’m not going to go into it today – but there might be some studies that say something different. But when we look at all the studies and the quality of those studies, there’s never been a situation where this calorie thing has been proven wrong.

Now, there’s nuances and a lot of complication in applying it in real life. But that’s not the same talk. That’s not the same conversation.

So, the second thing is daily protein intake. And this is really clear I don’t want you to get lost here because the number one is what? Tell me, say it out loud. Look to whoever you’re with in the car, and tell them what it is.

Number two, daily protein intake. This is secondary, but important. “Well, Ted, I don’t understand why is it important? If it’s just calories, why can I eat 1000 calories of ice cream or 1500 calories of ice cream or 2000 calories of ice cream and get the same results, if I was eating 1000 calories, 1500 or 2000 of chicken breast and shrimp?”

Great question. In fact, one of my clients who recently joined my coaching group – shout out to you, Jesse, if you’re listening, she had this question and I had to answer it in a group call. Because she’s like, “I’m already doing a low-calorie intake here, Ted. And so, what you’re asking me to do is just 100 calories different.” I said that’s true, Jessie. And that’s a great question because it is an excellent question. And that’s what I want to handle it here, too.

High protein intake does a couple things: It has a higher thermic effect of feeding. Have you ever heard that before? If you listen to the show you have. You know that the thermic effect of feeding is the cost of digestion.

Things aren’t free, folks, you know that. If you’re listening to this and you’re an entrepreneur, you know that, you’re a high-performer, you know that. If you forget the student debt, it doesn’t disappear, someone else has to make it up. And I’ve got some student debt still, then I’m paying off and making the payment. So, if you want to get rid of it, I’m all for it, but I’m just saying comes out of someone else’s pocket.

So, here’s the thing, digestion for a normal meal, costs about 10% of that meal. So, if you get 1000 calorie meal, which is quite large meal, by the way, but just makes the numbers easy—maybe it’s not a big meal in America, actually. “Would you like an eight-egg omelet with extra cheese, bacon, toast with butter and a huge glass of orange juice?” That’s probably 1000 calories. So, anyway – I’m just kidding about the egg omelet – but the thing is, so about 10% of a normal meal, your average meal will be burnt in the digestion process.

Now, these aren’t hard numbers. But just to not get lost into the details about 10%, let’s say. But if you’re eating a higher protein meal, 15% 20%, 25%, or even all the way up to 30%, with very high protein meals.

For example, like a protein sparing modified fast or an Atkins diet, maybe not Atkins diet, maybe more like a Dukan diet. Okay, so with that, you’re not influencing the calories, the calories coming in all the same, but what’s different? The calories going out are different. And you didn’t have to lift weights or go for a walk or do high-intensity interval training or insanity was Shaun T, or p90x with whatever his name is Tony Horton, all you did was eat more protein. Are you with me so far?

The second thing it does is it helps you build muscle if you’re coming back from exercise, or on a suboptimal workout program, which a lot of people are. Or if you’re well trained, it’ll help you maintain your muscle while you’re cutting fat. And the last thing is that it also helps you with your appetite.

Which brings us to number three, satiating foods. Now again, you could do anything you want as long as you eat less calories that you burn, you’re going to lose fat. The issue is when you try to do that, and let’s say, you are eating croissants, ice creams – because we need more than one flavor – and Oreo cookies. The issue is that you eat those foods and you’re hungry after. And so, you have to apply a ton of willpower to overcome your hunger and eventually you’re going to lose out to the hunger.

And if you’ve ever tried fasting, or intermittent fasting, you realize when you’re feeling really good and motivated, you can do it. But when you’re not, it’s extremely hard.

So, again, this doesn’t violate our first rule about total calories, but it does help us eat the right amount of calories without over doing it instead of over eating calories. And you may ask, “Well satiating foods, so what is that?”

The best thing I can refer you to is look up – and I’ve shared this before – look up satiety index, Google it, click on images, choose the one you like and study it. And you’ll see on that, in fact, you can pause this right now and go do that and then come back and we can talk about it a little bit. I’m not even looking at it. I’ve looked at it so much. I’m going to recite this from my memory.

Number one food that is satiating, boiled potatoes. But if you look all the way down at the hyper palatable foods, you’ll see that if we if we cut potatoes into fries shaped pieces, and put them in oil, they’re less satiating, and if we take that same potato, and instead of boiling it, or making it into fries, let’s slice it into chips and fry those. They’re even less satiating.

And now you know why you have a couple of chips. And then you’re like, “Well, I need a couple more, and then a couple more.” And before you know it, the bag is gone. And it doesn’t seem to matter if you have a small bag or a medium bag or a large bag, you just can’t stop eating them.

You don’t have a food addiction, or at least that’s not indicative of food addiction. You’re having a normal response to a food that just doesn’t help you with hunger. Are you with me? So, simple as that, so simple. So, what do you do? You have to choose… and this is really where food quality comes in for me, at least for fat loss at the lower levels… I shouldn’t say lower levels but to be focused on fat loss.

So, if you’re focusing on for example, if you look on the satiety index, and you see that pea nuts in the fat section, they have a low satiety level. So, even though they’re a whole food, the satiety effects are really low.

And if you’ve ever had… now cashews aren’t on there, I’m not a huge fan of peanuts, I think they’re tasty, but I love cashews. Are you with me on that? Cashew is delicious. Or if you’re eating like walnuts because of the health benefits which nuts do have great health benefits, proven health benefits, but when you’re trying to lose fat, they can be an issue. Why? Because they’re healthy food, they’re healthy fat.

Yes, true. But you eat a small bag of cashews if you’re like me and it doesn’t matter if it’s a small bag – actually, this happened to me last night – or if it’s a medium bag or a large bag. If it’s a large bag, it might take me a day and a half, maybe two days tops.

But that large bag is going to disappear. And I’ve eaten a couple 1000 calories of nuts, but they’re healthy fats. Yes, but they also have calories, calories, if you overeat them. Going back to the number one thing here, if you overeat calories for how many you expend, you gain fat. That is the importance of satiating foods.

Let’s move on to number four, strength training. Please be clear here, cardio is not the way to lose fat. I love cardio, I’ve talked about cardio a lot. I’m a huge fan of cardio, cardio helps with so many things. But with fat loss, it really is a loser and not in the good way like will help you lose weight. It means it doesn’t work well. Strength training is the key, folks.

And look, I want to tell you, I want to be honest with you. I don’t love strength training. I’m actually enjoying it a bit more of these days. But I’ve gone through periods recently where I just don’t love it. Why? Because I got a lot of injuries. And I’ve got to warm up, I’ve got to do all this stuff, I’ve got to choose certain exercises.

But thankfully, I’ve found some things that are really helping some of my injuries, some nutritional strategies, some supplements and some training techniques that have helped me a lot. The point is strength training, it doesn’t matter how you feel about it, or whether you like cardio or not, or what you prefer, this isn’t about your feelings, this is about reality. And the reality is, according to the best studies, we have, strength training is king or queen for fat loss. Why? Why is that? Great question. Well, cardio doesn’t build muscle, strength training does, that’s one.

In fact, my clients sometimes freak out because I sometimes get clients like I have clients who are on 15-minute workouts, three to four days in their office, and they’re getting great results. But then I have the people who are like, “Hey, listen, I’ll do whatever you tell me, you write the program, I’ll do it.” And so I put them on an optimized program to build muscle. And believe me, I’ve got some great tricks, and they build muscle fast.

But I want to ask you something, if you lose 10 pounds of fat in two months, but gain six pounds of muscle, what is the net change on the scale? Basic math folks, hopefully you’re able to do it. I know it might have been a long day, or perhaps it’s been a, you know, a tough morning, depending on when you listen. But the difference, the net change – hopefully I’m using that word right – but it is four pounds.

And actually, I’m using this as an example from one of my clients, I had him have a DEXA scan, as I do, I try to get all my clients to get DEXA scan. Sometimes we can’t do it because of availability, especially with COVID craziness, but a lot of people have access to them. And what we saw was there was a four-pound change in two months with my client. That sucks for fat loss.

At least if you’re paying what he’s paying to work with me, I ain’t cheap. And that sucks. However, I don’t run a weight loss program, I run a fat loss program, which is good news because when we looked at the fat loss, he lost 10 pounds of fat in two months. He gained six pounds of muscle in two months. Well, how do we know that? Because that’s what the DEXA scan tests.

Cardio, my friends, doesn’t do that. In fact, research on cardio shows that if you’re in a calorie deficit, the number one thing that we need to lose fat and you’re doing cardio, 25% of the weight you lose is going to be muscle. So, instead of, let’s say that my client lost 10 pounds – and this totally hypothetical and I’m making this up because I don’t have any of my clients do this. But let’s say he lost 10 pounds and 25% of it was muscle he would only lose 7.5 pounds of fat, and 2.5 pounds of muscle.

That does not happen in my program. Actually, there’s some nuance there, but in general, that doesn’t happen with long term clients who are very obese and who I’ve helped lose a lot of weight, like 60 pounds, there have been some interesting ups and downs. But in general, that does not happen if you’re doing strength training. And if you’re on an optimized program, which a lot of people aren’t, it is really easy to test, just have your DEXA scan, have a DEXA scan every month, or if you’re trying to lose fat, and you’re working out hard in the gym, have a DEXA scan every month, you can do this on your own, don’t need to work with me to do it. And you can measure just how successful your program actually is for losing fat.

But strength training is king. Get that through your head, make it into a mantra, it’s a rule, it’s not a necessity, you can lay on your bed like I did when I had Dengue fever in Thailand in 2019 and lose fat and muscle. That kind of sucked. It was tough coming back. But strength training is how we do it in a smart, sustainable way, because you don’t even have to spend a lot of time with strength training.

Number five, daily movement, this is not as important as strength training. But it can be a game changer in addition to strength training, in addition to the calorie deficit that you create with nutrition, in addition to the strength training that you’re doing, if we add, hey, listen, get 10,000 steps or 7000 steps or 12,000 steps, it can be a game changer. Because people think that they need to do something extremely hard in the gym. That is not true. And it can even backfire.

So, I’m going to look at my steps for you right now let’s see what my monthly average is, 10,000 steps. 10,152 is my monthly average. Weekly has been a little bit lower. I’ve not been walking that much. But my monthly average, if I maintain it at what it is now will be 10,000 and I’m getting lean here. I’m in Medellin right now, you probably heard that, if you haven’t listened to the show for a while. I’m back there. I’m getting back to that leanness that it was when I was here two years ago. And daily movement is part of the key, my friends.

Stress management: Why would you say that? What the hell does managing stress have to do with fat loss? Is it that cortisol makes us fat, Ted? No. Cortisol does not make you fat. What makes you fat? Say it, come on. Come on, what’s number one? Too many calories. That’s right. Because people in wars that are happening right now in countries that are not as fortunate as the US, they’re stressed as fuck and they’re not getting fat because of it, all right.

Seriously, it is ridiculous what we say sometimes. And I don’t blame you for it if you believe this, I said the same thing. And really what I’m taking issue here is not if you believe this, or even believe it right now. I’m taking issue with the experts, the so-called experts who say stuff like this.

What cortisol does, by the way is, we have research that shows that it preferentially stores fat around your abdomen, as opposed to other places. But you can only build a fat abdomen if you have what? The raw materials to do it. Because the Kids who are starving in South Asia right now, which if you didn’t know, South Asia has the largest percentage of malnourished children in the world.

It’s not Africa, although Africa is more marketed, in South Asia, they’re not getting fat because they’re in starvation mode, or because they’re really stressed because they don’t know where their next meal is going to come from. That stuff that marketers make up and then we take and we buy it and believe it because it seems kind of right.

So, what does stress really do? They are really simple. It makes you eat more. Not for everybody, people respond to stress differently here. But I’ll tell you something, if you have a problem with your weight with excess body fat specifically, not with underweight, because there are underweight people, and we don’t talk about them in society because it’s all about the fat, the fat loss, gaining the fat, the fat shaming and all the fat, fat, fat.

And hey, that’s where I help people, that’s how I make a living, and that’s okay. But there are people who don’t eat enough and that is caused by stress too. But that’s not what we’re talking about.

If you’ve got excess fat on your body, there’s a really good chance that stress is part of your problem. If you’ve ever eaten food and you feel like you need to eat more, even though you feel full.

Another way to call stress eating is, emotional eating. If you’ve ever had enough meals, but something stressful happened to you, or a problem, a fight with your partner, something at work, a hard day at work, and you go out to dinner, and you’re hanging out with the boys downing some wine, and a 16-ounce ribeye wagyu steak encrusted in gold leaf, because why not, it’s been a hard day at work, hard day running a business. Stress drives appetite.

And it’s a huge part of what I do with my clients, honestly, huge. In fact, what I say is I help my clients with strategies and stress, because you’ve got to know the right strategies. If you’re on the carnivore diet, you’re eating 3000 calories of ribeyes cooked in butter and bacon wrap cheese, livers. And you’re not losing fat, and your life is pretty relaxed, you’re still not going to lose fat. And it’s not a stress management issue, you’ve got to have the right strategies.

But what I do in my coaching is I give my clients the best strategies. It’s the easiest fat loss program, I’m not saying it’s easy, but what I get people to do is the easiest strategies ever for fat loss. Guess what? Some people do them and they’re like, “Oh, my gosh, you’re a miracle worker, you’re a guru, you’re a magician, you’re a wizard, you’re a miracle worker.” And that’s always nice to hear.

But then there’s the other side where it’s like, “Ted, I can’t do this.” It’s like, “well, what can’t you do?” “Well, I’m trying to eat these calories, and then I just can’t do it, my hunger levels are through the roof.” Okay. And when we dive further into it, it’s not really hunger, because if you’re 50 pounds overweight, your body does not need energy.

And I’m not saying you should struggle with hunger here, what I am saying is recognize the reality that you are nowhere near starving to death, and you have excess fat that is endangering your health. But yet, for some reason, you need to eat more.

And these are the people where it’s like, okay, stress is playing a role here. I’ve had a client who was so busy with work, his business had grown so fast, he was making a ton of money, millions and millions and millions of dollars, tens of millions, and he was not able to lose fat. And if we’re not able to lose fat, what is going on? Go back to number one again, he was eating more calories than he burned.

Now this particular client, he lost 30 pounds with me, he did well. But we couldn’t get them beyond that, because the stress of what he was under. And this is positive stress by the way, this isn’t like, “Oh my gosh, his life is falling apart!”

No, this guy had so many meetings, had to travel around the country so much and the sleep, the time zone changes, the meetings, rushing to one thing to another, taking care of people in his life and putting himself second again, he lost 30 pounds, that has nothing to lift your nose up to that’s great progress, but we couldn’t get him beyond it because of stress. Again, the stress of running a multimillion-dollar company, but it’s stress, nonetheless.

You have other people who have been through really hard things in their lives – I don’t specialize in that, by the way – like an eating disorder, for example, I don’t work with those. And the stress is from something that they’ve gone through in their lives is causing them to eat.

So, my point in telling you this is twofold. Number one, stress drives appetite.

Number two, what we think of as stress is really, really bad. “I was abused as a child,” you know, like some crazy story like mine, but it’s not that, sometimes it’s that. Other times it’s like, I had another client, another entrepreneur client running a $20 million company, and it was growing, growing, growing.

And his particular company – I forget all the details – but he had to deal with a lot of bullshit and the bullshit was stressful. And so, at the end of the day he go and wind down with some wine and wind down with his buddies at the steak house, a few glasses, and a big steak.

Let’s move to number seven, then I’ll wrap things up here. Sleep - Seven to nine hours of sleep per night. Probably could get away with six, six and a half, but it’ll make it harder. Why? What is it that sleep does? Does sleep make us fat if we have two hours of sleep?

No, again, what’s number one? What is it? Come on, say it. Calories in, calories out. So, the fact that you slept three hours, or four hours, three is a bit rough. But some people really do for four and a half hours, something like that. You have to get the energy from somewhere.

You can’t build fat on your body without the raw materials. Fat doesn’t happen because of hormones, hormones even cost energy to create.

Hormones are expensive, energetically speaking. So, no, you don’t get fat just because you’re sleeping for four hours and somehow magically fat starts storing itself on your body. It doesn’t rain because God is angry. We’re out of the dark ages. And I’m just kind of teasing. I used to believe this stuff, so I just like to make jokes, it’s how I roll.

But what I am saying is: Number one, short sleep or sleep deprivation drives appetite. The same way marijuana drives appetite. If you’ve ever smoked weed, then you may not know what I’m talking about, but at least you’ve heard that you may not know what I’m talking about experientially, but you’ve at least heard that you get the munchies.

And the reason I make that analogy, by the way is because it has to do with endocannabinoids it seems, in addition to your hunger hormone ghrelin. So, there’s something about short sleep that causes hunger. And again, what are you hungry for? Huh, I don’t know. I only had four hours of sleep and I feel like eating a large super green salad today.

No, you want the pizza. You want the burger. You want the truffle fries, the billion-dollar burger in Dubai, at the Burj Khalifa. I have not been there, but I want to try it one day, when I make my way out to Dubai whenever that is in this crazy COVID situation. But the point is this, it drives your appetite, and through neuro chemical and hormonal changes. That’s the first part.

The second part is hey, you’re awake, and you have more opportunities to eat. So, it is pretty simple, right? If you think about it, if you’re asleep for seven to nine hours, that’s less opportunity to eat.

So, those are the big ones folks, those are the only seven things you need to lose fat according to science.

Number one, let’s recap here, we all have a good recap. Total calories is the number one thing, don’t make a mistake, you can test this, do the potato hack. Do the Masters cleanse, do a juice cleanse, track your calories with my fitness pal, you will see that you’ll lose weight quickly. And then track after you come off of it, just do it for three days and track after you come off of it, track your calories, the calories go up and your weight will come back.

Number two, daily protein intake. We’ve talked about why this is important, very important. It’s not as important as total calories, but it’s important. Three, satiating foods. Four, strength training. Five, daily movement. Six, stress management. Seven, seven to nine hours of sleep per night. Again, you could probably get away with six, six and a half, for those of you who sleep like I do.

These are the only seven things you need to lose fat according to science. I get results with my clients, with every single one of my clients, using only these, there’s no intermittent fasting, there’s no doing bloodwork to measure your hormone levels.

This works for everyone. These are the principles behind every diet, vegan diet, low carb diet, Atkins diet, Paleo Diet, if you eat less calories than you burn, you’ll lose fat. If you eat more than what you burn, you gain fat, it is as simple as that.

If you eat roughly the same amount that you need to maintain your weight, your weight won’t change at all. But these are the principles behind a successful fat loss program. If you assess how you’re implementing each one of these, you will get the result you want.

Hope this was helpful. Go out and crush it, crush that fat and you will see the difference when you apply this in your life and start to get rid of the diet dogma and just focus on these things. That will be a game changer. Hope you enjoy this. Have an amazing week. Speak to you Friday.