← The Dr. Josh Axe Show
The Dr. Josh Axe Show
Burn Fat, Build Muscle, Live a LOT Longer
00:45:28
I’m breaking down the four pillars of recomposition to help you shrink your body fat, build lean muscle, and reclaim the energy you had in your 20s.
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So if you want to live a long time lift weights, you would think, well, if I'm prioritizing cardio, I'm going to lose more body fat and more weight. That's not the case. You'll lose more body fat by lifting, lifting weights first and then doing cardio after. And those people that have low muscle mass have a 200 to 300% higher death rate. What's more important, hitting your protein target throughout the day or getting the benefits of doing some sort of fasting? There are great studies on grip strength being more important than your blood pressure for longevity. Muscle is a longevity organization, All right, so you've probably been told you have to pick one of these, either lose fat or build muscle, and that you can't do both. And what I'm going to walk you through today is how to do something called body recomposition. This is where you can burn fat and build muscle at the same time, all while boosting longevity. And not only is it possible, it may be the single most important thing you can do to slow your biological aging and feel like you did in your 20s and 30s. Welcome to the Dr. Josh Yak Show. So here's what I'm going to cover today. I'm going to bust those age old myths about how to burn fat and build muscle. And then I'm going to dive into the four pillars of body recomposition. I'm also going to walk you through the cellular reason why muscle is now classified as an endocrine organ and why it's also a stronger predictor of mortality than your blood pressure. I'm also going to walk you through the top 10 supplements and the top peptides for fat loss and muscle gain. And I'm also going to walk you through what to eat with a three day meal plan for men and a three day meal plan for women so you know exactly how the foods to eat, the supplements to take, the exercises to do to get the best results possible. Now, for 30 years, the fitness world has preached the same rule. Bulk up to gain muscle and cut to lose fat. And we see this today, right? We see a lot of men in the gym using even things like anabolic steroids and going to the gym every day and eating all these calories to bulk up. And then we see a lot of both men and women using things like ozempic and glp1s to try and lose weight. And on the cardio machines. And most people tend to try and do one or the other. Either I'm bulking up or I'm burning fat, but while I'm losing muscle at the same time. But the reality is this, you can do both simultaneously, where you can build healthy muscle, you can burn fat, and you can get younger. Now, a recent meta analysis study published in the Obesity Reviews Journal covered data from over 100 studies. And here's what they found. Adults who combined resistance training with a moderate calorie deficit and adequate protein were able to both lose fat and gain lean muscle at the same time, especially for beginners and people that were returning to training. So here's something I want you to stop doing and this is going to surprise a lot of you. Stop weighing yourself and watch these three numbers instead. Number one, where's your fat mass? Is your body fat going down? That's what you want to pay attention to. Listen, it's not about body weight going down, it's about body fat going down. And by the way, now it's so easy to get a body fat analysis scale at your home. It's a much better way to track yourself and then track muscle up. So fat down, muscle up, that's what you want to be looking at. And here's another metric, your strength, such as grip strength, your strength going up is connected to longevity. And if you can do these three things simultaneously, lose fat, gain muscle, get stronger. And when you move those three metrics in the right direction, it's going to boost your metabolism. It's going to help greatly reduce your risk of everything from diabetes to cancer to heart disease, to almost every health problem you can imagine. And it's going to increase your health span so you can be in your 80s and 90s and still having amazing health. Now, I want you to think about your body like renovating a building while people are still working inside. Okay? So old school fitness said, no, you got to empty the building and gut it and almost knock the whole thing down. Okay? But recomposition says you need to renovate one floor at a time. And work and renovation can actually happen in the same building at the same time in if you are strategic about it. So the question is, well, how do we do that? Well, there are four main pillars to do that. Number one is training. What type of exercise you doing? We're going to dive into that. Number two, your protein intake. This is crucial for doing both. Number three, supplements. What are the ideal herbs and vitamins and minerals and fatty acids and even peptides that are going to help move the needle for you in burning fat and gaining muscle? And number four is one, what are those other things that are foundational that you have to have in order to burn fat, gain muscle, all while promoting longevity? So let's dive into pillar number one, training. Now, muscle grows in response to one specific stimulus, mechanical tension. And when muscle is placed under a load and forced to work against resistance, it triggers a process called muscle protein synthesis. And that's the signal that tells your body to build and to grow. Here's an important thing to know about cardio. Cardio does not send that signal to nearly the same degree as resistance training. So no amount of running or cycling can replace it. Resistance training is not optional. If you want to build muscle, you have to do resistance training. So here's what you want to do training wise. You want to lift weights three to four days per week, okay? And when you lift weights, you want to do what are called compounding movements. You want to, you want to move these larger muscle groups because they're going to help your body actually create more ATP. It's going to build more muscle. And those specific groups tend to be your butt and your legs, specifically your quads and your hamstring. So but quads, hamstrings, your Legs and butt, the single most important muscles to move, followed by your back and your chest. And these are the muscles that matter the most when it comes to adding more muscle. And when you're lifting, you ideally want to do typically between 8 and 15 reps per set. That tends to be 8 to 12 reps, tends to be ideal for most muscle groups. Certain smaller muscle groups, like your calves, you can go a little bit higher, but you typically want to do about the 8 to 15 reps per set. And oftentimes you want to repeat those sets at least two to three times. And then you want to do something called progressive overload. This is where, hey, every couple weeks you're going up in weight and up in weight and challenging your body more and more and more, you're growing stronger. And then one other thing you want to do is you want to walk. You want to do between 8 to 12,000 steps per day. Now, I can remember looking back when I used to actually work in a gym much earlier on in my life when I was in college and I was actually a personal trainer through undergrad, and I worked out with a lot of people that were very healthy and fit. And I noticed that a lot of the people that were doing more bodybuilding, the people that had the most muscle mass, the least amount of fat, they didn't really do cardio. Maybe one day a week they would push themselves in cardio, but for the most part, they would typically get on a treadmill at an incline, and that's what they would do. Sometimes they would also do the StairMaster, but they weren't doing cardio every day. If they did cardio in an intervals, they did one day of intervals a week, and then that was it. And, and these individuals really had it dialed in on how to burn fat and build muscle. Now, you can do some cardio and you can do some walking, but here's what I would say. If you're going to do cardio, do it one day a week, okay? Do interval training. It could be about 20 minutes, ideally on something like a peloton or sprints or even swimming, something like that, where you're doing intervals a day a week, and then outside of that, walking around 10,000 steps a day, ideally up and down hills or at an incline, is really what you want to focus on. And, and one other common question I get is, should, if I am doing both weightlifting and cardio, which should I do first? And the answer is, absolutely, you want to lift weights first, you want to do resistance training first, followed by the walking or that one to two days, a week max of some sort of 20 minutes of interval training. That's really what you want to focus on, is weights first, cardio second. And by the way, there's a study on this, there is a 12 week controlled trial that demonstrated the effects of doing a full cardio workout and then doing results, resistance training after, and vice versa. For those who did cardio first and then lifted, their VO2 max went up substantially, but their strength gains were moderate. For those who did resistance training first, then cardio, they saw much better strength gains than their other group. But their VO2 max increase was only slightly less than the first group. So based on these studies, you're always better off lifting weights and then doing cardio afterwards. Now, not only that, and this is really important, the group that did the weight training first, they also lost more body fat than the group that did cardio first. And you would think, well, if I'm prioritizing cardio, I'm going to lose more body fat and more weight. That's not the case. You'll lose more body fat by lifting weights first and then doing cardio after. Here's another commonly asked question. Should women train differently than men? Here's the surprising answer. No. Women respond to the same training stimulus and no, you will not look like a male bodybuilder without testosterone or steroids. That's physiologically not happening. Women who lift get lean and strong and toned. Now I know some women sometimes get worried about and here's what I found, okay? Women tend to worry about how big their legs get and their arms get. And let me say this, typically the legs is a non issue if you're both doing the weightlifting and some of that interval cardio together. And for arms, that really isn't the area of the body. Maybe you should focus on as much. You really want to focus on the larger muscle groups, your butt and your legs and your back and your and your chest and shoulders. And I would say your shoulders and back and legs and butt are the areas you want to focus on then. Hey. So if you've ever thought something is wrong with me, but I just can't prove it, then this is for you. Now you might be eating clean, even what you feel like is perfect. Working out, taking all of the right supplements. But you're still exhausted, still foggy, gaining weight and you're not sleeping. And every time you ask for help, you hear the same thing, but your labs are normal. Here's what that actually means. Standard blood work only shows what's in your blood, not whether your cells can actually access it or not. You can give your body all the right inputs, but if your cells are in danger mode, chronically stressed or inflamed, they can't absorb or use those nutrients properly. If you're finally ready to heal, go to mybloodwork.com, you'll get an at home cellular blood work panel shipped straight to your home and reviewed on a private call with one of my senior health advisors at the Health Institute. And this will help you finally connect the dots between your symptoms at the cellular level, will also determine if you're a good candidate for one of our cellular healing protocols. So you can finally experience lasting healing once again. Go to mybloodwork.com to check it out. Now, here's another frequently asked question. Should I lift heavy weights or should I do high reps? The answer is both. You want to do both in different cycles. Train in the 5 to 8 rep range for strength weeks, in the 8 to 20 rep range for hypertrophy weeks. And, and, but generally you want variety, okay? And so some weeks you're doing more of the higher reps, some you're doing the lower reps, but generally speaking, that 8 to 12 reps is what most people have found via their own experience will get them their best results. And here's another question. What is the best workout split for most people? Well, for most people, I would say it's an upper and lower body split four days a week. So two days a week you're doing lower body, two days a week you're doing upper body and you're focusing on the larger muscle groups or doing a full body routine three days a week, still prioritizing your largest muscle groups. Now, I want to share with you one of the most incredible longevity principles when it comes to lifting weights and doing resistance training. By the way, when I say resistance training, that could be lifting weights, it could be doing machines, it could be doing bands, but you're having resistance, you're pressing against to build strength and build muscle. And what they found is, is that when you lift weights, it's probably the single greatest thing you could do on a regular basis for building out more mitochondria in your cells, every cell in your body. Now, most of the time, people think that when you have a cell, it has a single mitochondria in it. No, your cells, many of them, have thousands of mitochondria in each single cell. And these mitochondria are your body's power plants. They're Providing your body with cellular energy to build hormones and heal and regenerate and overall promote longevity. Now, there was research done to see how many mitochondria are on a muscle cross section of a sedentary individual versus somebody who was doing resistance training. And listen to this. They found around 2012 mitochondria per cross section for sedentary individuals, but closer to 45 for those who did resistance training. Think about that. That's three and a half times 350% more mitochondria if you are strength training on a regular basis. And remember this, mitochondria is key for everything from fighting cancer to promoting energy, to looking and feeling younger, to reversing disease. I mean, it's important for nearly everything. And resistance training might be the single greatest way to boost mitochondria of all types of health. By the way, there's also a lot of mitochondria in your heart and your brain. And so when you are doing this especially, and so when you are exercising, you're also building mitochondria not only in your muscle, but also in your heart and your brain. And that blood flow, it's also helping to build mitochondria throughout your body. And what resistance training does is it sends the signal to build and regenerate. But your body can't build anything without the raw materials. Which brings us to the second pillar, protein. If resistance training is the four man signaling where work needs to be done. Protein is the construction crew that actually shows up to build the best training plant in the world won't build a thing if the raw materials aren't showing up, right? If you're going to build a new house, if you're remodeling this house, which is what all of us want to do, right? We want to take this house, this temple of God, and we want to take, you know, those boards and materials that are rotten by, by water or termites or beaten up. We want to get rid of the old cells and we want to build new, healthy cells, right? Protein. Actually, did you know in Latin, in Greek, it means primary of primary importance? Protein is the most important thing you want to focus on when it comes to building mitochondrial health, building muscle, and burning fat. And most people want to have between 0.7 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. Okay? So think about this. If you weigh 140 pounds, you want to have at least 100 grams of protein a day, but maybe closer to 140, or if you weigh 180 pounds, it's going to be close to 125 grams to 180 grams. So you need more protein if you want to burn fat, build muscle and promote longevity. And your best sources of protein are going to be pasture raised eggs, grass fed beef, bison, lamb, wild caught fish like salmon, organic poultry like turkey and chicken, organic yogurt like Greek yogurt, raw cheese, and clean protein sources from both plants and animals. These are the forms of protein that you want to focus on. Now here's another common question I get is how many calories should I be eating to recomp my body? Most people eat too little, okay? They cut calories so hard that the body cannibalizes their muscles to survive. Okay? The sweet spot is a moderate deficit of around 300 calories below maintenance with also high protein. Okay? If you go too low calorie, it sends shockwaves through your hormonal system with cortisol going up then creating this cascade where your body starts to eat its own muscle. So there's a mathematical formula, it's really simple. By the way, you can all do it to figure out exactly what your calorie should be per day for maximizing building muscle and burning fat. And what you're going to do is you're going to take your body weight times 14 and then you're going to minus around 3 to 400 calories. And so if you're 140 pounds, that's going to be around 16 to 1700 calories per day with at least 100 grams, but closer to 140 grams of protein. And if you can be hitting that, it's going to greatly help you in burning fat and building muscle, all while promoting longevity. And so if you're watching this and you're even over 40 years old, okay, you want to aim closer to that 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight with your protein needs and hitting that protein goal. Let's say, for instance, you weigh 160 pounds, okay? And you want to hit that one gram of protein per body weight. All right? What you want to do is you don't want to try and get this all in one meal. Because this is what I see a lot of times people doing is sometimes they'll say, okay, well I'm going to eat, you know, I'm gonna have maybe 10 grams for breakfast and 30 for lunch and 30 for dinner. And then it's like, well, you're not going to come close to hitting it. The science shows that you can typically absorb around 30 grams of protein per meal, sometimes a little Higher. Once you go to 25, it starts to go down a little bit and a little bit more after that. But still, by the way, even if you don't fully can't fully absorb and utilize it all, it's still going to support your metabolism. Protein can be better than doing excess carbohydrates. But for most people, what you want to do is take 30 grams of protein and have that four times a day. And so here's what I personally do is I typically do about 40 grams of protein four times a day. For myself. I wake up for breakfast and I have 40 grams of protein. I then work out and then I have a shake right afterwards with protein. So in the morning I might have eggs or maybe it's another a protein shake. And then, and that's around let's say 6:37am and then I work out and then let's say around 10am I might have a protein shake and then I have lunch around 12:30 and then I have dinner around 5:30 and. But I have about 40 grams of protein four times a day. That's what you want to be doing to optimize your protein absorption and to maximize your metabolism. Now here's another question I get. Does collagen protein count? Here's my answer. It counts partially, not completely. I would say you can count collagen as about maybe half of a protein serving. Okay. But you cannot count it as well. So let's say you have 20 grams of collagen. You might count that as towards 10 grams of protein, but you can't count it fully towards your protein because part of what we're talking about with building muscle are muscle building proteins like leucine and valine and a lot of those branched chain amino acids that are important. All right, here's another frequently asked question I get. How long does this all take? Okay, in order to burn fat and build muscle and actually see my body changing, Beginners and people returning from a long break will see really significant changes in about eight to 12 weeks. I mean, for myself, I've noticed it's about three months. Three months. I will see some really big changes. For someone who's already lean and trained recompense a little bit slower, but you can expect to see still significant changes and about six months to sometimes 12 months for visible body composition shifts. You know, another common question is how fast can you lose fat without losing muscle? You want to aim for about.05 to 1% of body weight per week. Faster than that and you're going to be Burning muscle, not just fat. Now, here's something many of you maybe have dealt with as well is maybe you are working out, but you're not losing fat like you want to. Okay? There are three usual culprits for this, maybe even a fourth. Okay? Number one, you are under eating protein. This is a major factor of why you are not losing the body fat you want. The second is you are overdoing cardio. I see this all the time. People just think, oh, more is better. I'm going to lift weights, or I'm going to maybe lift weights two days a week. I'm going to go and do five days of cardio. That's not allowing you to put on enough muscle. And then your own muscle will burn the fat for you. That's what happens. Isn't that amazing? The more muscle you put on, the muscle burns the fat. So that's why you want to prioritize resistance training over cardio. And here's another big one. Under sleeping or high cortisol can be a hormone issue. Under sleeping, though, is the single biggest thing disrupting cortisol. And remember this, when cortisol goes up, your sex hormones go down. Okay? Your body's always choosing stress hormones or sex hormones. Which do I produce? If you're not getting enough sleep, cortisol stays up more and melatonin goes down. Melatonin is also really important for recovery, regeneration, healing. But if cortisol goes up now, your testosterone's lower, your progesterone, those hormones you need for building muscle and burning fat, those go down, okay? And so those are the biggest reasons is not enough protein overdoing cardio under sleeping and your hormones working against you. Now, here is one of the most common questions I can say for certain. When I worked as a personal trainer back in undergrad when I was 18 and 19 and 20 years old, the most common question I got from clients at that time was, how do I specifically lose and target belly fat? Just right here. I want to lose the fat just, you know, right in my midsection of my hips. How do I do that? Spot reduction is a myth. You can't crunch your way to a flat stomach, okay? Belly fat, especially visceral fat, responds most to lowering insulin. And this is where, if you cut sugar and refined carbs, you reduce your cortisol. This is huge. This is why getting good sleep, taking walks and reducing work stress makes a big difference. And then building lean muscle mass, okay? So actually, the best way to get rid of belly fat, lower cortisol, decrease sugar and lift your larger muscle groups. In fact, you'll lose more belly fat by lifting with your legs, like doing squats or leg press, than you will crunches. Now, sometimes I still get questions about cardio because I did say you do want to do cardio one day a week. Interval training for 20 minutes. Okay? One day a week. And sometimes people ask, should I do that fasted? I would not do it fasted. You can do it on protein alone, but do not do it fasted. You need protein to maximize your results and to build muscle. Now, I want to talk about putting together the perfect meal plan for getting to that nearly one gram of protein per pound of body weight. Okay? And for most people, you want four meals a day, okay? And one of them is maybe more of a snack, but let's call it three meals plus a protein shake or a snack. And you want to focus on getting 30 to 40 grams of protein per meal. Now, I want to show you for women out there, and then I'll get to the men exactly what this would look like. So you can see a meal plan right here of what you could eat for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner, for snacks, of the ideal for you. And by the way, this is so great for longevity as well. You're getting loads and loads of nutrients here. And by the way, you can take a screenshot of this. You could also go to a link in the show notes and download my entire guide to burn fat and build muscle here as well. And if you want to get the full guide again, so this right here is just the eating plan. But if you want the supplement guide and everything, go to the link in the show notes and you can get that there as well. And then for men, here's what this should look like. Okay? Here is your ideal breakfast, lunch and dinner, your snack and protein shakes, exactly what you want to take as well. And. And if you want the full plan of the eating plan and the supplement plan and everything of how to burn fat and build muscle and promote longevity all at the same time, go to the link in the show notes and you can get it all right there. And so here's exactly what I did for breakfast this morning. I did 40 grams of plant protein and another 20 grams of a protein from, from. From a bone broth. Okay. Base. And then I added in a handful of berries. I did a little bit of coconut milk. I added in a tablespoon of fiber like ground flax and chia. And, and that's. That's what I did for breakfast. Okay? And then After I work out, I'll do something similar. And then for lunch I'll do wild caught salmon, I might do sweet potato or quinoa. And I'll do a bunch of vegetables. And then for dinner I tend to do a little bit lower carb. I will do something like grass fed beef or chicken. I'll do a lot of steamed vegetables or sauteed vegetables. And then I might do some extra virgin olive oil, some avocado, and then maybe a little square of dark chocolate for dessert. And that's what I do on a regular basis. And if your diet is very similar, you're going to be in great shape. Now you can also do eggs for breakfast. And what I do here to get enough protein and not overdo the fat is I will tend to do something like five eggs with two egg yolks. And I'll saute that up in either coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil. And then for a snack, I might do cottage cheese or I might do some yogurt and sometimes even add more protein powder to that. And the other meals, you really want to focus on things like meat and vegetable, healthy carb for lunch, meat and vegetable and healthy fat for dinner. And if you can follow that type of eating plan, you are going to burn fat, you are going to build muscle, and you are going to promote longevity in such a powerful way. Hey guys, I'm here with my good friend, Dr. Dave Jockers. In fact, we've been friends for more than 20 years. He runs the podcast, the Dr. Dave Jockers Functional Nutrition Podcast. Dr. Dave, tell us a little bit about what your podcast is about.
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Yeah, absolutely. We dive deep on functional nutrition, really how to personalize your nutrition plan for better energy, mental clarity, better hormone balance. And we talk a lot about cellular health, mitochondrial function, cell membrane. We do a deep dive on every major nutrition topic and natural health topic. So everything you need right there at your fingertips. Dr. Jocker's Functional Nutrition podcast.
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I want to encourage you run out and listen to the Do Jocker show again. I'm a big fan of it. I think you will be as well. Now, I can remember when I was in my late teens and twenties and in college and really started focusing on wanting to recomp my own body. I wanted to build muscle. I wanted to be lean and healthy and fit. And I always thought that I need to have a protein shake right when I was done working out. So I remember even in my locker I would have it in there and ready and the second I was done working out because I heard There was a 30 minute window where I needed to get my protein after a workout. I want to mention that is a myth. There are now studies in science that show that we have a much bigger anabolic window than we thought. However, I will say if you're going to get four times a day protein in, then for the most part, oftentimes you want to have one right before, right after your workout anyways. And so it honestly doesn't matter that much if it's right before your workout or right after. But the big thing is just getting your protein spread out at least three times throughout the day and, and ideally four for most people. Now, I want to cover something. I know I have quite a few of you that, that are thinking about this and that's what do you do if you intermittent fast? Okay, what's more important, hitting your protein target throughout the day or getting the benefits of doing some sort of fasting? And I think it really depends upon the person. Listen, if you really feel like your biggest goal is to build muscle and be more anabolic, okay. And burn fat, generally change your recompense. If that's your biggest priority and important to you, then you really want to have these spread throughout the day. However, if you need your body to be in a more catabolic state, if you've got ultra high levels of inflammation, okay, if you have major damage to your body, if you're really focusing primarily on coming out of maybe a cancer treatment and you want to optimize your health, okay, then the biggest goal for your health isn't necessarily putting on muscle. For this period of time, your biggest goal is going to be to get your body in what we call a state of autophagy where it's cleansing and detoxifying at the highest level possible. Okay. And for those people, you may intermittent fast, but it might look like something like this. Maybe you eat a late breakfast around 10am, you eat lunch at 2 and dinner at 6. You're still getting three meals in about an eight hour window and fasting for about 16 hours. So that's what you'd want to do if that's you, is three meals a day. Have about three hours to four hours apart per meal and get that three times a day. And then what you'd want to do is get about 40 grams of protein or a little bit more three times a day. That's what you want to do if you're an intermittent faster. Now I want to dive into the top supplements that make a difference for building muscle, burning fat and promoting Longevity. And these supplements are in ranking order and the first one here is going to be protein powder. Okay? Protein powder of all types, especially whey protein. If it's organic, a two grass fed, that's the best. That's going to help you in burning fat and building muscle. And it's also easier to digest. Now, I do want to throw this out there. One of the issues with whey protein is there are quite a few individuals that are sensitive to whey and dairy. If that's the case, then you want to switch over to a plant based protein or you can do a beef protein or an egg protein. Those are amazing options as well. But protein powder by far is the number one supplement you can take to burn fat and build muscle at the same time. Number two is creatine. Okay, creatine here has so many benefits of people of all ages. I get a lot of questions about should women take creatine? What about kids in high school? Yes, I think creatine is incredible. 5 grams daily for most people. Now, if you're a smaller woman and have, let's say you weigh 110 pounds, 3 grams of creatine daily is probably ideal for you. But once you get past 5 grams, the rate of diminishing return is pretty high. So you really want to focus on typically creatine, about 5 grams daily. And the benefits of creatine are it's going to support strength and lean muscle mass. Also, it has great benefits for the brain and neurological system. So creatine. And by the way, if you just pick two of all of the supplements on here, creatine and protein powder will give you the biggest impact to burn fat and build muscle. Now, next on here is an Omega 3 supplement. Okay, it could be a fish oil, cod liver oil, krill oil or algae oil, but omega 3s at 2 to 3 grams daily of EPA DHA greatly reduce inflammation. And this has been shown in studies to support insulin sensitivity, which can support weight loss and support muscle recovery. So you can get back to your workouts faster, lift more weight and see better results. The next one here, and this is not one a lot of people have heard of very often, but it is carnitine. Okay. Carnitine at around 2000-3000 milligrams a day shuttles fatty acids into the mitochondria. This is also great if you have low energy. Okay. This is going to help you get more from your workouts, especially from a fat burning standpoint. If you have hypothyroidism, this is a great One as well. Number four here is vitamin D. Three. Okay, so vitamin D, loads of benefits. Now, remember, vitamin D is like a. It's a pro hormone. It supports hormonal health, it supports bone building. It's also good for muscle building. But the biggest reason why vitamin D is important is it regulates testosterone and growth hormone. This, this is big for men and for women when it comes to building muscle, good lean muscle and burning fat there as well. So I love that one there. And then here's the next one here. This is a partner to vitamin D in so many ways. And it is zinc. Zinc is known as the immune system mineral, but it's part of the triad of nutrients needed for building testosterone. There again, also very important for immune production as well. Skin health there. And then the next one here, this is also part of this triad. This is magnesium. Okay, I'd recommend 300 to 500 milligrams of a magnesium glycinate or threonate before bed. Optimizing sleep in studies has been proven to be one of the most important things you could ever do to promote muscle building and recovery. And again, getting that deeper state of quality sleep. And it's also critical for testosterone production. It's important for methylation. So magnesium is important there as well. And the next one here is one that if you want to burn fat, might be one of the most important things, especially if you have insulin resistance. And that is berberine. It's known as nature's ozempic or nature's metformin. It's been shown in studies to be maybe the greatest herbal compound on the planet for promoting insulin sensitivity, which of course is important for fat burning and weight loss there, as well as especially of body fat. And then the last one here, maybe surprise for some of you, but it's doing a glandular supplement. Okay, now, when we get to the bottom, there are several things that can be put in here. I like a glandular. For men, if you need to boost testosterone, you could take testes literally as part of a glandular supplement or a male formula that has things like adrenals and testes and liver and many different glandulars in there. Glandulars are very high in minerals and vitamins that support those organs. And it follows an ancient principle called like supports. Like when you eat an organ, it supports that organ. So for men, testes, that's going to support your testicular health and your testosterone. For women, ovaries, that's going to support estrogen and progesterone and things. Also doing thyroid and adrenal, that's going to support hormones. So doing a glandular supplement can have numerous benefits there. And the last one here is taking an adaptogenic herb like ashwagandha as a great option there as well to lower cortisol. One of the biggest reasons why people can't burn fat like they want to today is their cortisol starts getting too high and cortisol will start stealing your sex hormones, the energy for your sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen and progesterone and dhea. And so if you can start to lower cortisol with herbs like ashwagandha, that's also going to help boost and improve your sex hormones as well, including testosterone and estrogen and your thyroid hormones there as well. So these are the top 10 supplements that you can benefit from when it comes to burning fat, losing weight and promoting longevity. Here are the top 10 supplements to help you do just that. And then peptides. The Top peptides are BPC157, TB500, and then a combination of ipamorelin with CJC1295. These are the peptide combinations that will support the most fat loss and muscle gain, all while supporting longevity. Now, if I was just saying weight loss and not longevity, maybe I would reference the GLP1, but that's going to cause you to lose muscle, not just fat. So these are the three that are going to help you the most with fat loss and muscle gain simultaneously and support your hormones and longevity. Now let's dive into pillar number four. Listen, you can nail your training, you can hit your protein targets, you can take all the right supplements, but if you don't live the right lifestyle and follow the fourth pillar, especially around sleep and hormone support, you're going to leave half your results on the table. And what happens hormonally in your body when you don't get enough calories is cortisol goes up. Your body starts feeling like, oh, I'm in starvation mode. Oh, I'm not getting enough calories. And so cortisol goes up. Because think about hunter gatherers. If they were starving, they would have to do everything they could to go and kill a, you know, a wild animal in order to eat and survive or go and hunt for berries or nuts or seeds, the way we're wired, if our body feels like it's in starvation. But now there's a difference between being 200 calories in deficit and 500 or 800 or 1000 calories in deficit. So this is why, if you have ever done really strict dieting and cut your calories in half. It worked against you and actually hurt your metabolism. You can go a few hundred calories in debt, and that's okay. But once you reach a certain threshold, your body goes into fight or flight response. Cortisol goes up and then your body takes all of its hormones and starts diverting it to cortisol. So now your body gets thrown off with your thyroid hormones. Your testosterone drops, your leptin is impacted. So all of these hormones that support fat burning, muscle building and metabolism are completely thrown off. It's called the cortisol steel. And this cascade starts to happen. So you never want to go too far into debt. Calorie wise, you can go, let's say 300 calories and that's fine. But when you start dipping for most people below that 500 calories, your hormones will work against you in a really strong way. So again, go a little bit in deficit, 200, 300, maybe 400, but not below that in your caloric deficit. And here's the other big one. Sleep. Sleep is construction. Sleep is when your body heals. Listen to this study. When somebody went from eight and a half hours of sleep in that night to five and a half hours of sleep, they had 60% more muscle loss and less fat loss, all while doing the same workout. And this is primarily due to growth hormone. When your body is producing enough melatonin and cortisol drops, your body also releases growth hormone, which repairs muscle. It burns fat and allows your body to recover. That's why it's absolutely key. Now, the last thing I want to touch on here as well is the importance of strength. Strength is a longevity marker. In fact, there are great studies on grip strength being important than your blood pressure for longevity. So if you want to live a long time, lift weights, do resistance training, do everything you can to build strength and muscle over time. It is a powerful promoter of longevity. In fact, those who had a strong grip strength had 23% lower mortality. So 23% more longevity. And those people that have low muscle mass have a 200 to 300% higher death rate. So muscle is a longevity organ. By the way, every time you are doing a repetition of strength training and think about this next time you're working out, your body is systematically reducing inflammation. It's improving insulin sensitivity, it's supporting neuroplasticity in your brain so your body can rewire and heal. It strengthens immune function, supports digestion, and even promotes autophagy for cellular cleanup and detoxification. Every muscle contraction is Healing up to a point. Now listen, those of you that are doing excess CrossFit and and working out 20 hours a week, you're breaking down your body too much and that's actually causing excess inflammation. But following the program I'm sharing here with you now, your body is actually getting younger. Especially if you're working out three to five days a week for one hour weight training, one hour resistance training. It's powerful. By the way, there is a power of compound interest. The earlier you can start lifting weights, typically when you're a teenager, the better. But no matter where you are in your life, you can see big benefits from starting resistance training and doing the full on program I'm sharing with you here. So here's my challenge to you this week. Okay? Do one of three things or all three. A. Increase your protein intake. Okay? Take your body weight times 1 or 0.7, between 0.7 and 1 gram and eat that in protein daily. Okay? Spread it out over at least three but ideally four meals. B Start resistance training at least three days a week, ideally, but up to four. And then do about eight to 12 reps. During that training, do about a 45 minute to one hour per session and then build your foundation, especially with prioritizing quality sleep that eight hours a night. Here's the reality. Muscle is not vanity. It regulates your metabolism. It controls blood sugar. It fights inflammation. It protects your brain. It predicts how long you live. Loss of muscle is one of the clearest signs of accelerated aging. And building it back or building it for the first time is one of the most powerful things you can do for your long term health. I want to say thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe show where each and every week we're diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually. If you go to the show notes and click on the link, we have a guide to download your guide on how to burn fat, build muscle. I go through the exact supplements and the exact diet and program of what you need to do to optimize your results, whether you're a man or a woman. And also, don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast. Millions don't know the truth. Thanks for being on mission with me. I can't wait to see you on the next episode.
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