D (20:13)
That's right. And what it feels like for this person is it starts to throw your hormones off because they're adapting again towards this direction that we're Talking about. So typically, what you see in men, this is pretty well documented now, is your testosterone goes down. By the way, women's testosterone goes down as well. And women need testosterone just as much as men do. It's just a different ratio in women. You'll see estrogen and progesterone get thrown off. Cortisol, which is a stress hormone, starts to become out of whack. So we'll say elevated, but really what it starts to look like is an inverted cortisol release where it's a little low in the morning, high at night. Why? Because cortisol is this kind of energy producing stress hormone. That's what it does. Right. If I were to give you a shot of cortisol right now, you'd feel this kind of wired type of energy. And cortisol also promotes muscle loss and fat storage. It's correlated or connected to visceral fat. So your hormones are off. My libido's down. I'm not getting enough nutrients because my calories are so low. Plus, I'm throwing all the stress on my body with all this exercise. I'm getting not great sleep. I've got low energy. I got signs of too much stress. My hair doesn't look good. My nails don't look good. I just feel worn down. And at this point, the person says, why am I doing this? I give up. I don't want to do this anymore. This doesn't make any sense. This sucks. Of course it sucks. It's because you're doing this in such a challenging way and it makes it impossible to maintain. It makes it impossible to maintain. So what's the fix? All right, what, how do we fix this? Well, first let's look at exercise. And rather than judge it by its calorie burn, so let's look at it as a way to signal the body to adapt. What adaptation are we looking for? What would be the most beneficial adaptation for somebody who wants to be able to lose body fat and keep it off? Well, something that's going to make my metabolism faster, to put it plainly. Again, I'm oversimplifying, but what signal could I send to my body that would speed up my metabolism? Well, the most effective signal is the one that tells you to build muscle, not the one that burns the most calories. Why build more muscle? What's that gonna do? Muscle is very metabolically active. It burns more calories at rest, it burns more calories at activity. It's insulin sensitive. It's got androgen receptors in there, so makes your Testosterone more effective. In fact, if you build muscle, we start to build muscle, we tend to see a balancing of hormones, and so you start to move your metabolism in a more favorable direction because you're strength training, you're lifting weights. By the way, you have to lift weights like somebody who's trying to build muscle, not like somebody who's just trying to burn a lot of calories. Because you could use weights in a way that make it like running. Okay, make it like cardiovascular training. So now you got to lift weights. But there's another side to this equation, which is, okay, I'm lifting weights to get stronger. So I'm doing straight sets, you know, 10 reps. I'm resting for two minutes, doing those 10. I'm trying to get stronger. But now I have to feed and fuel that adaptation. I have to do something with my food intake that actually allows me to add that metabolic tissue, which looks like I'm eating a little more, and I'm eating high protein, and I'm fueling and supporting this adaptation. Now, that's moving in a positive direction. And you're right, Adam. This takes some time, especially when you're coming from the other direction. Where I've been over training and under eating. Now we do what's called a slow reverse diet with strength training. And this can take for some people. Some people react really quickly. So you're looking at 60 days. Other people could take six months, some people a year. On average, I'll say between around three months is when we start to see really positive effects. And then we're in a position where, well, now if we cut calories, I can bring it down to 2000 calories instead of 1300 calories.