[00:00:00] Welcome to the UFTA podcast, hosted by Emily O'Connor and Jordan Rudolph. The UFTA podcast brings you a surprisingly fresh take on everyday topics in health, fitness, and everything in between. We want to open the door to explore new information and new solutions in a way that's easy for you to understand and apply to your own life.
Let's get into today's episode.
Welcome and Introduction
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Hello everyone, welcome back to the UFFDA! Podcast i'm Jordan Rudolph,
and i'm Emily Morris.
We're happy to be with you. We are uh, mid January? Past mid January now? Just
about, by day, yeah.
As you're listening to this, it's uh, it's almost three weeks in.
New Year's Resolutions and Exercise
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[00:01:00] Um, and we're three weeks into our New Year's resolutions if you made set and are, uh, prescribing to one, if you will.
Following through with one. Following
through with one. Which
I think is timely, you know, we referenced last year, last week, I was gonna say last year, last week, uh, about how many, this is about the time people start to fade towards those New Year's resolution goals, um, especially I think regardless, I don't think there's, is there stats on if it's just exercise ones?
I mean, I know we look up exercise, but.
I, I, I think it's exer, it's, I think it's exercise ones for sure of like the 80 percent thing. Right. Um, I wouldn't be surprised if it's all though.
Yeah, that's.
It might be all.
I don't know. It just came to my mind as I was, as I was talking here. So, but yeah, just kind of rocking and rolling into the, into the new year, into, Whatever lifestyle changes that we have going, obviously we know health and fitness is a popular one to set a resolution in, uh, for [00:02:00] sure.
So.
Is Exercise a Fat Loss Tool?
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And as we dive into today's episode, it's asking a question that you may have seen before, or maybe you have been marketed to before, is exercise a great fat loss tool, or is exercise a fat loss tool? Mm
hmm.
Banned.
Different Types of Exercise
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We dubbed it as exercise because there's a lot of different types of exercise that are out there that we can refer to in this.
And when we think about these different types of exercise, we can, we can run the list, right? We can talk about spin, we can talk about CrossFit, we can talk about strength training, we can talk about boot camps, we can talk about yoga, we can talk about Pilates, we can talk about writing, cycling, like running.
I mean, exercise, is a plethora of exercises out there and types of exercise that we can do. But we go back to the question of, is it a fat loss tool or a tool that we can use for fat loss? [00:03:00]
I think it gets muddy, right? Like, and this is where as always the surprisingly fresh take in kind of the health and fitness space in the social media health and fitness space.
We are constantly marketed to as, hey, this is a fat burning workout, fat loss workout, this will burn the most body fat workout, all of those types of things is extremely popular in the marketing of today's world, today's day and age, if you will. Um, however, like we said, the question, is it a tool It can be a tool, but maybe not the entire solution to what we're really diving after.
And that's the big, I think that's the big thing to take away from this, no matter how far in the weeds we go over the next 10 minutes in this episode, is it is a tool but not the solution. That's what people get caught up on. [00:04:00] They look for the one stop solution thing that Helps with weight loss or fat loss and there is no thing even these shots that are out there That is not the long term solution
Mm hmm
And I know some of you might be arguing against me on that but look at a little bit of the research look at what's happening a little bit there and Understand like is that sustainable long term for your body or maybe your body does what it's been doing over the last Thousands and thousands of years and it learns how to evolve and adapt The hard part is like, we don't know what happens long term on those.
Right. Well, and that's where it becomes part of the equation, right? Even when we're looking at something like that, that can be kind of that like, quote, magic pill, or something that can revolutionize, as, again, marketing has said, it still happens in conjunction with lifestyle changes. Right. It still happens with changes in eating habits and eating patterns.
So as we dive into fat loss, it [00:05:00] becomes that entirely well rounded approach that is necessary for that to be sustainable long term. We can't only Change one thing. We can't only change the exercise that we're doing, maybe adding, taking away, whatever that might be. We can't only change our nutrition. We can't only change our sleep.
We can't only change our stress. We have to address all of the factors associated with fat loss because we don't live in a vacuum. The body doesn't exist in just one space. Perhaps it's not as simple as Many people market it to be, because the complex doesn't sell to be. Pretty honest.
No, simplicity sells.
Simplicity gets a lot of things done. Complexity usually creates confusion and chaos and crisis and keeps us in that kind of mode for a long time. Keeps us below the line of results, too. So as we, as we talk about these different types of [00:06:00] exercise that are out there, and is it a, are they tools for weight loss and fat loss?
Um, As people are listening to this, as you're sharing it with other people, as you're thinking about it, clearly you know people that started doing X and lost weight, and started doing Y and lost weight, and started doing Z and didn't lose any weight. Right? There's different pieces of it in there, and that's where, if we, if we follow up with what you just said, um, there's a lot of things that come into play, but if we make things very simple and look at more of the behaviors, the consistencies, the patterns, the habits, the lifestyles, um, We can get a lot more done from a sustainable, like, solution based nature than thinking it's, it's, it's just going to be, and again, don't make this more complex, as simple as or as easy as X, Y, or Z.
One thing. One thing.
The Role of Cardio in Fat Loss
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And I think the big thing we look at then is most people, when they go into this realm of weight loss, the first type of exercise they start doing is cardio, is aerobic based things. Whether it's on a treadmill, [00:07:00] elliptical, recumbent bike. something along those lines. They usually spend a lot of time and a lot of hours and they can lose weight on that.
There's two problems with this. Why it could actually be a little bit more detrimental for specific fat loss sustainability is number one, this person's probably spending minutes, not just minutes, but hours doing this. And they're depriving their body of obviously energy, which is why they're losing weight.
But a lot of that could be coming from muscle. Most of it most likely is also coming from muscle, which leaves this person in a less metabolic state over time. And as eventually we'll hit a, we'll hit a plateau. It'll stop. And then what does this person do? Oh, I was going for an hour and a half a day.
I'll go for three hours now and I'll do this every day. So this leads to the second problem is that they leave their body and their health with no other energy to do anything else. They end up having so much energy zapped from them because they're spending so much time on these [00:08:00] ellipticals, treadmills, cardio pieces of equipment that they don't get their daily movement in.
They're neat. They're non exercise activity thermogenesis. Their steps go down. They're lazier. They start saying yes or no to more things, as in, they start saying no to more activities because they're too tired. They start parking closer to the door of the grocery store of their work, of their destinations.
They lose a little bit of the stuff that actually is proven scientifically to help them lose more weight than the cardio stuff is themselves. So they're losing the wrong types of weight. And they're draining their energy so much that they're actually becoming lazier overall. Their body is matching their drained metabolism.
Well, similar like what you said when we take that approach with Adding the cardio only into, and that type of cardio specifically, we have nowhere to go except for to add more time.
It's the CrossFit [00:09:00] scenario of like, CrossFit stuff, when it got popular, they kept having to make things harder, more challenging, more difficult, harder, more challenging, more difficult.
Right, you just, you're looking for constantly things to add, add, add, add, add. And at a certain, that is, you will run out of hours in the day, right? You will start to sacrifice, like Jordan was saying, you'll start to sacrifice other activities. You start to sacrifice sleep. You start to sacrifice the time it takes to maybe prep food because you're so focused on getting those hours and hours and hours of cardio in.
From that standpoint, so much what I referenced before, it can lead to that mindset of the exercise is the thing promoting the fat loss in which It is not the case, exercise is a tool in the toolbox, but that's where we lean into nutrition and more of the lifestyle side from a fat loss side, right?
Exercise is the tool, but the recovery from exercise, the other, even if your workout's an hour, the other 23 [00:10:00] hours in the day, If we look at it, 1 verse 23, we know that those are more important. Everything outside is more important. When we're pulling all of our energy into even a 3 hour bout of exercise of movement on a treadmill, cardio, elliptical, whatever that might be, we're neglecting the rest of the 21 hours at that point that exist.
We just have nothing left to give.
Nothing left to give makes it very hard to do, uh, You know, anything going forward with that. The, and this is for all types of exercise when we're saying this, too. Like, more is not always better on that.
Strength Training and Fat Loss
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The, as we dive into this next piece, I just, like, part of this, though, is if you get some sort of strength training involved, or weight bearing activities, in theory, then resistance training or strength training, the value of that that's different than the others is that, again, strength training is not a great weight loss tool either.
Okay, it's, it's, it can help, but it's not great. And what [00:11:00] happens on strength training though is that we, we stress the body out. We make sure that the joints, the tendons, ligaments, and the muscles all get some sort of response that they have to recover to. And it promotes the type of recovery to help you build more resilient, leaner, stronger bodies.
That long term effect can help build more lean muscle and can help make sure that those joints are becoming more fortified and stronger on themselves to give you more of a metabolically active or positive metabolic response. Uh, change rather than just having that whole depletion and that whole, uh, zapping of energy from just spending hours and hours and hours doing cardio.
The other part of this then is it also stimulates protein synthesis in the body because the muscles are getting essentially torn down and worn and stressed when we do strength training so your body wants to build them back up. Regardless of which tool that you're using, protein is essential. It's more essential as you pick up strength training or any type of activity to make sure that you're [00:12:00] promoting muscle sustainability or muscle growth.
For anybody that's out there that we're, we're in 2025 as I say this. Stop, for the love of God, stop with the bulkiness of muscle stuff. You will not get bulky. Men and women, you will not get bulky and turn into some bodybuilder from doing strength training. Unless you're going to eat three or four times the calories that your body is, that you're currently eating, right?
Three or four times the calories, like 5, 000 calories a day. If you can eat 5, 000 calories a day for three weeks as your strength training, we'll talk. Or you're taking shots underneath the hood, as in you're getting steroid shots. Other than that, stop it. Literally stop it. You have to stop it. I don't know why we're still talking about this.
I don't even know why I'm talking about this, but I see this still and I have conversations of this still daily. And I'm, and at this point, I, I would wish I had more compassion and empathy, but my, I know my face gives me away. Like this, my nonverbal communication is like, again with this? Emily's laughing now because she can see me.[00:13:00]
So don't worry about that part. You need it. This is the, this is the recipe for longevity. All the top researchers, all the top experts are out there are promoting strength training. Exercise should come with this. But again, they're not the only solution for weight loss. They can help. Strength training makes it more sustainable.
The cardiovascular stuff, the running for most people usually helps with more of the cardio, but like the heart health. And, uh, energy, depending on how you do it. And just resiliency and stress, again, depending on how you do it. But this is where more is not better.
Mm hmm. Well, and the types of cardio matter a lot from that, too.
Right? Like, we've talked about cardio throughout this episode as a dedicated exercise session. It also might be cardio, if we go back, uh, a lot of episodes, into, like, a Zone 2 cardio. So of, hey, we're just looking for overall general health. And I think we have an episode as well, not to reference two in a row, on fat loss versus health, right?
We're [00:14:00] all humans where we need to take care of our health as we lose body fat. We can't sacrifice our health as a human just to lose body fat. Yeah,
there's a cost.
For sure, for sure. And as we add in the cardio, That cardio piece is a part of the equation that might take care of some of the health aspects, right?
The zone 2 cardio, making sure that we're metabolically active, making sure that our blood sugar stays stable. It can look at all of those different elements, or adding more high intensity interval training, specifically to target a little bit of metabolism and those types of things, but in very short bursts.
If you're doing high intensity interval training for 30 to 40 minutes, that's not high intensity interval training. Not to go on another rant like Jordan just did about, about the
bulkiness, but I feel very passionately as well about that. It's not high intensity interval training if it's 30 plus minutes.
At
some point my, I'm going to do this on my page because if I do this on Unity Fitness social media page, I don't want to. Like I don't want to put [00:15:00] us on there, but I'm okay with doing this for me. It's gonna be your hittest shit. Like, like, like your high intensity interval training is shitty. Like, it's shit, cause it's not real.
It's,
it's, it's moderate intensity, too hard, it's, it's
too long, too, yeah, not enough rest, all the things. All of
it. Anyway, I digress. Back to, back to our fat loss exercise. Cardio being a piece of that equation, where we can use it to promote the overall health, we can use it to enhance our metabolic health, But at the same time, recognizing that the nutrition plays a massive factor in that.
Recognizing that the strength training plays a massive role in the protein synthesis, in keeping muscle, in ensuring that we're actually losing, to reference the title of the episode, we're not just losing weight, but we're losing fat. We're losing body fat. We're not losing muscle. We're improving our body composition through all of this as well, which can help.
What Jordan just referenced, the cost of the fat loss, can help offset some of that, but there is still a cost to [00:16:00] that. We are stressing the body.
Yeah, and, and that's where you're, you're leading right into the main point of this too, is we, we, obviously said number one, the thing you have to take away from this as you're, as the listener, is understanding that these things that we're referring to in the exercise category, whichever the category is, It's a tool we believe, and it's not just because we are personal trainers, professional coaches, the doctors that are researching this, the top gurus in the world that are studying this in terms of longevity are all screaming for, for strength training now.
And they're all saying it's part of how we're going to live a long, independent, confident life. If you want to keep doing the things that you want to do independently, and get out of pain, be more resilient, and be able to do those things. Strength training has to be a focus point. It has to be involved.
The older we get, the less you need for the, the, the intensity of weights, but the more frequency you need, the more times you need to be doing it, the volume, because your body is constantly, as we age at 40 years old, median age of the adult [00:17:00] human in U. S. now in the world, I think, but in the U. S. for sure is 78 years old.
So basically when we reach 40, we're already past our mid weight point for the average human, and Our body starts to lose percents of strength and muscle each year. It is critical for us to maintain that for a long, healthy life. So, have to maintain that. That's the number one thing we said. The other piece that you just touched on was the nutrition piece.
Nutrition's Impact on Fat Loss
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If your goal is actually fat loss, you need to focus on nutrition. Typically then this happens naturally when people start looking at like, I need to start doing this, I need to start doing that. There's the buckets again where we look at like what do you need to stop doing, what do you need to keep doing, what do you need to start doing.
A lot of times when we think about the fat loss side of things, it's just adding in more protein, adding in more vegetables, adding in more fiber, and then, and s s s consequently, uh, I think is the right word here, that person will probably start gaining weight. Drinking less [00:18:00] alcohol, eating less sugary foods, eating less foods with a thousand ingredients in it, eating more single ingredients foods, like that usually naturally happens.
And that's the process if you're really focused on weight loss as a tool, the nutrition component has to come into play. It doesn't mean that you necessarily need to eat less all the time, but that is part of the equation to an extent too.
Well, what you just said, the focus on addition rather than subtraction, right?
What we add, where we're not focused on the less things that we're eating. We're adding things to make up for that. Adding more fiber, adding more vegetables will keep us feeling fuller. We're not going to notice the less amount of sugary beverages, of calorie dense, nutrient deficient foods that we tended to consume when As a result of or prior to adding in all the vegetables, but then as a result of we then just consume less of those because we aren't just hungry.
[00:19:00] We're keeping ourselves full. The metabolism, the body is running smoother, running longer. All of the thing. The energy is better. All of those things happen as a result of the addition of Versus the subtraction a lot of times. But we focus too much on the subtraction. Bringing us into that scarcity less mindset.
And then we're worried about all the things that we don't have. And all the things we can't have. We're
closed off.
And immediately the only thing we want is those things that we tell ourselves we can't have. Instead of looking at the addition of that all.
Yeah.
So it all comes back into play from that.
And a simple example for you guys to understand that. Don't think about the purple elephant. The pink elephant. Do not think about the pink elephant. One more time, do not think about the pink elephant. Stop thinking about the pink elephant. Don't do it. All you can think about as I say that is the pink elephant.
But I told you not to. Your brain is wired when it hears not to do. Stop focusing on the subtraction and what you need to take away or what's being taken away. Start focusing on what you're adding and what you're [00:20:00] gaining. Just a quick reference that you should do daily in case you get caught in that trap.
Yep.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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So, in summation, is exercise a good fat loss or weight loss tool? It can be. It can be if used appropriately, but it's not the solution. It can be a good tool, but not the best tool.
I think that about wraps it up.
Boom.
Thank you guys so much for listening to this week's episode of the OOFDA podcast.
Share this with someone who you think will find it valuable. Leave us a rating, a review, subscribe, download all the things that help us to grow organically, and we'll catch you in the next episode. Thanks everybody.
Thanks
guys.
I don't know if you can see it, but I'm in the middle of the road, and I can't see anything.
