Oops! I said Episode 6 in the beginning, but this is episode SEVEN of the podcast! Lets Have some fun while learning in this episode..

I want to address the question of whether running is good for weight loss. We’ll go into the top 5 reasons why it's not actually a good weight loss method. But before I do that I want to be clear that if you love running or love endurance sports that’s fine I’m not going to judge. But what I’ve found with many of my clients is that they don’t really actually love running, they just think it’s the best way for them to lose weight. Maybe they grew up watching the rocky movies or still want to listen to their high school coach making them run laps, either way they don’t realize that you don’t HAVE TO run to lose weight and in fact I try and dissuade people from running, and here are my top 5 reasons for why I do so.

1) Running isn’t going to give you that strong, healthy physique that many are looking for. In order to achieve that, it goes way beyond the calories in calories out theory. Now while that does matter for weight loss, we also need to look deeper into our hormones. In order to look our best, we need to manipulate muscle building aka our anabolic hormones and our lipolytic, aka our fat burning hormones. Running does not do our muscle building or lipolytic hormones any favors when compared to weight lifting and in addition to that running does not increase our resting metabolic rate nearly as well as lifting does. Remember, the more muscle we have the more fat we burn at rest.

2) Running isn’t the best idea for weight loss is that it simply creates too much stress and raises cortisol levels. Now increased stress and cortisol levels aren’t a bad thing in the short term, but in the long term really robs us of our health. Too much cortisol will ruin our digestive and endocrine systems and lead to more muscle loss and fat gain. And increased cortisol has been especially correlated with increased fat storage around the abdomen.

3) Running isn’t the best idea for weight loss is that it creates a lot of inflammation and oxidative damage in your joints. It has been shown to lead to osteoarthritis and bone loss. Injuries are a big deal because it’s a lot harder to lose weight when you can’t exercise and you cant exercise if you are injured. Yes you can get injured doing any type of activity but you’re all but guaranteed to get hurt doing traditional cardiovascular exercise like running.

4) I don’t really recommend running is that that not only is all that stress bad for your joints and your hormones and your mind its also bad for your immune system. The body can’t heal and recover if it's constantly under stress.

5) Why I don’t recommend running for people trying to lose weight and look their best is that it's really boring and really time consuming and inefficient. I know some people love it and I respect that that’s fine whatever your jam is that’s fine with me but personally I rather watch paint dry then run on the treadmill for half an hour. And objectively speaking, it's too time consuming. You can get a much better workout and burn more fat and build more muscle in a 10-15 minute hiit workout.

Alright everyone once again if you love running, that’s fine, do it! But if you’re really looking to just lose some weight and optimize your physique and protect your long term health, I don’t really recommend it. At the end of the day though, it's still better than laying on your couch and watching Netflix.

Top Five Fat Loss Strategies

Walking

One of the simplest and most effective weight loss strategies we have is as easy as walking. That’s right, walking. Now, it's not going to completely rip the fat off in a week but done over the long term and done consistently, it really adds up. What I recommend is gradually working your way up to about 30 minutes in the morning, and 45-60 minutes later on in the day. This can be done outside or on a treadmill.

The benefit of walking outside, especially in the morning, is to get that sunlight exposure to start the day. Getting sunlight exposure in the morning is so important to help regulate melatonin which will ultimately allow us to get better quality sleep. The increased melatonin regulation will also help to decrease stress. How do these two things relate to fat loss? Well, you can’t lose fat consistently if you’re not sleeping properly and stressed out all the time.

Fasting

Another super simple, albeit not quite as easy way to lose weight is to practice fasting. Now, I covered intermittent fasting in detail in episode 4 so if you have any questions about whether you should try it or not listen to that episode or send me a direct message. That being said, fasting is definitely something I utilize when I’m trying to burn fat myself and it works great. Not only do I use an intermittent fasting schedule during the week but occasionally I will even do an extended fast of 24-36 hours to really boost my metabolism and overall reduce calories if nothing else.

Lifting

This is a big one. Strength training and weight lifting are not just for athletes and not just for those who are actively looking to bulk up or put on loads of muscle mass. Strength training and weight lifting are by far and away from the single most effective exercise, you can partake in to lose weight and build muscle. Even if you think you don’t care about building muscle and just want to lose weight, keep in mind that the more muscle mass you have, the higher your metabolic rate will be at rest and therefore the more calories you will burn. That should make you want to lift!

Tracking Calories

You’ve heard me say it before and I’ll say it again when it comes to burning fat and losing weight, there is simply no getting around the fact that over the long term, you must be in a caloric deficit. And how can you know if you’re in a caloric deficit if you’re not tracking? The answer is you can’t. Now, there can be exceptions if you’re a high-level athlete who is on a workout and dietary regimen year-round, but other than that it’s impossible.

H.I.I.T.

The last fat loss strategy I want to discuss is H.I.I.T. which stands for High-Intensity Interval Training. It’s been increasing in popularity every year for the past decade or so because it really has a compelling case as the most effective form of cardiovascular exercise. H.I.I.T consists of doing an all-out, hard-as-you-can effort for about 10-15 seconds, followed by a short rest period of about 45 seconds, followed by another all-out interval, and repeat that say 7-10 times.

Top 5 dietary myths

1. Fat makes you fat

“But, I thought if you eat fat, you get fat?" Not true. Despite what you may hear from your doctor, you should not avoid fat in your diet. This is a dangerous myth. Fat is essential for many functions in our body. It provides energy, protects our organs, and is necessary for hormone production.

2. Cholesterol is dangerous

Much like fat, cholesterol has gotten a very bad rap. Cholesterol, just like fat, is absolutely essential for us. Cholesterol helps protect our bodies from inflammation and is also crucial in hormone production.

Another myth about cholesterol is that the amount of cholesterol you eat has very little impact on the amount of cholesterol circulating in your blood.

3. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day

I’ll give you one guess who started saying that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” – cereal companies! That line was invented in the 19th century by John Harvey Kellogg. You may recognize the name, “Kellogg” and begin to connect the dots. That's right, it’s the same Kellogg of the Kellogg cereal company. Make sense why they would want everyone to think breakfast is the most important meal of the day now, doesn’t it?

4. Milk builds stronger bones

Again, who perpetuated this myth but the milk industry and dairy farmers. Actually, it does quite the opposite. A 2009 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition discovered the rates of bone fractures were highest in the countries that consumed the most dairy.

5. Products that are labeled “organic” or “natural” are healthier

A product is not organic unless it is labeled as “100% USDA Organic.” Something labeled as “organic” can only be 50% organic. And, just because something is 100% organic, does not mean it's healthy.

Top 5 Dietary Truths

Caloric intake matters

Avoiding common inflammatory foods is important - The biggest inflammatory foods to avoid are wheat, dairy, and soy.

The goal is to get to 80% compliance - People need to realize that they don’t need to be “on a diet” at all times. You can have fun and eat purely for fun sometimes. Weddings, parties, trips, cookouts, you name it it's ok to not be neurotic.

Tracking helps improve outcomes - what gets measured gets improved.

Eating in line with our evolutionary biology is the goal

Doc May Diet - Episode #004 - Top 5 problems with Intermittent Fasting and the case for doing it

Create too much stress - Not meant for everyone as it can create too much stress in certain people. I especially would not recommend fasting for high-stress individuals. High-stress individuals do not seem to respond well to fasting. High stress-high functioning individuals sure, but for those who seem to get run down, a lot and stress impact their immune system, probably not a good idea. They tend to actually hold on to body fat and burn muscle versus the intended effect of fasting which is to burn fat and preserve muscle.

People think they can eat whatever they want during the window - This is simply not true. Food quantity and food quality still matter. Inflammation still matters.

May feel like crap at first. When you first begin your fasting protocol, you may experience hunger pangs, headaches, irritability, anxiety, poor concentration, fatigue, trouble sleeping. All these will go away eventually but are very intense at first. And this is a potential issue because if you start your fasting during a particularly busy or important week you don’t want to crash in the middle of a big meeting or during a time when you need to be at your best so make sure you plan accordingly and prepare for this.

Fasting is not safe for everyone. Special populations should actually avoid it. These include people who are trying to become pregnant or who are pregnant or breastfeeding, people with immunodeficiencies, people with current or past eating disorders, people with a history of brain injury, and people on certain medications such as birth control, blood thinners, and anti-depressants.

The 12pm-8pm eating window isn’t all it's cracked up to be. The most common skipping breakfast method may not be as effective as once thought. Often times intermittent fasting is pitched as “well, it's not that different from how you’re eating now, all you need to do is just skip breakfast.” One thing that isn’t taken into account with this method is that the vast majority of your “fasting” hours are spent asleep. Sounds great, I know, but you’re not really burning as many calories when you’re sleeping.

5 reasons to try it

Great weight loss method. Fasting has been proven to improve insulin sensitivity. The more sensitive we are to insulin, the more efficient we will be able to digest and assimilate carbohydrates.

Great for the brain - fasting will help increase focus, and also protect against neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

Reduces inflammation

Good for heart health - blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, all those markers all improve. And with heart disease being the number one cause of death, I think we should try and normalize fasting as much as possible.

Anti-aging and anti-cancer - Speaking of causes of death, fasting has ALSO been shown to have anti-aging and anti-cancer properties. One study showed, albeit in animals, that animals who fasted had an 83% longer life span than those who didn’t.

Lack of protein

Lack of Vitamin B12

Requires a lot of planning and decision making

Vegetarian replacement food isn’t healthy

Not enough Omega-3

Supplement with protein powder, even though vegetarian protein powder will be less bioavailable than whey or casein

Supplement with a lot of B12

Plan ahead

Learn how to cook and find good replacements other than cheese. Cheese is not a healthy food

Supplement with a high-quality Omega-3 supplement

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Podcast 2 - Top 5 problems with Keto

Intro what Keto is

Food quality - not just about macros

Food quantity - not a license to eat as much as you want

No wiggle room - you fall out of ketosis and it takes a few days to get back into ketosis

May cause keto flu - May experience headache, dizziness, fatigue, constipation at the beginning of it as the body adapts. This is due to dehydration and electrolyte imbalances that may occur.

People think its a diet they can be on forever - it's not, keto is like a tool, you pick it up, you use it, then you put it back down

The case for keto

You’ll increase thermogenesis, which will allow you to burn more calories at rest

Your brain will run on ketones which is actually is preferred fuel compared to carbohydrates so you’ll have increased energy and focus

By cutting out processed carbs and sugar you’’ reduce inflammation

You’ll be breaking down stored body fat instead of stored sugar for energy needs

You create metabolic flexibility

Please stay tuned for more episodes and follow my Youtube and Instagram #DocMayDiet

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