Why We Get Slow Metabolisms & Should You Reverse Diet? Science Discussion ft. Dr. Eric Trexler

In this video I'm speaking with metabolism researcher Dr. Eric Trexler about metabolic slowdown, reverse dieting, metabolic damage, rapid weight loss, crash dieting, starvation mode and other topics.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Intro and topics summary
5:13 - What is metabolic slowdown/adaptation?
9:02 - Do bigger/fatter people have "slower metabolisms"?
17:28 - How to reduce metabolic slowdown when dieting
19:04 - Do refeeds and diet breaks help?
28:45 - Rate of weight loss (how fast to lose)
32:48 - Misleading/inflated "maintenance calories"
36:17 - Rapid fat loss/ crash dieting
40:11 - How should you train in a deficit? (Decrease load or volume?)
44:40 - Starvation mode
50:58 - Metabolic damage
59:20 - Reverse dieting

You can also listen on The Jeff Nippard Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher

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SOURCES:

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Eric's social media

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Outro Music:

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About me: I'm a Canadian natural pro bodybuilder and internationally-qualified powerlifter with a BSc in biochemistry/chemistry and a passion for science. I've been training for 12 years drug-free. I'm 5'5 and fluctuate between 160 lbs (lean) and 180 lbs (bulked).

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Disclaimers: Jeff Nippard is not a doctor or a medical professional. Always consult a physician before starting any exercise program. Use of this information is strictly at your own risk. Jeff Nippard will not assume any liability for direct or indirect losses or damages that may result from the use of information contained in this video including but not limited to economic loss, injury, illness or death.

[JeffNippard]

So many great topics covered in this video. Feel free to hop around with the timestamps below and you can also listen on The Jeff Nippard podcast on iTunes/Stitcher.
0:00 - Intro and topics summary
5:13 - What is metabolic slowdown/adaptation?
9:02 - Do bigger/fatter people have "slower metabolisms"?
17:28 - How to reduce metabolic slowdown when dieting
19:04 - Do refeeds and diet breaks help?
28:45 - Rate of weight loss (how fast to lose)
32:48 - Misleading/inflated "maintenance calories"
36:17 - Rapid fat loss/ crash dieting
40:11 - How should you train in a deficit? (Decrease load or volume?)
44:40 - Starvation mode
50:58 - Metabolic damage
59:20 - Reverse dieting

[anareis]

I have a 4-year degree in Nutrition Sciences (equivalent to being a dietitian in the US) and I can honestly say that Jeff's videos have taught me more about the practicality of that science than my degree. What you do is a public service. Thank you so much

[caelenow]

A doctor, professional bodybuilder, and a trainer?!? This dude is badass

[OurFitFamilyof]

This is something where listening to it once is not enough. Grab a pen a paper take notes and listen to over and over again. Thank you Jeff always enjoy these deep dives!

[emidarabderrahmane]

Jeff would hate me for that but anyway, lets make your life easier "badasse's" :
5:40: metabolic adaptation
9:00: do smaller people have fast metabolism and bigger people dont?
10:35: NEAT concept
12:05: leptin hormon and low testostern during metabolic adaptation
14:25: individual differences in quicker metabolic adaptation
17:35: can diet breaks fix metabolism adaptation
24:45 : how to attenuate the causes of low metabolism
29:24: the best rate of weight loss
37:20 : loosing fat without losing muscle
40:15: in a caloric deficit diet shift weight volume into more reps
45:00: starvation mode and losing weight
49:12: water retention and losing weight
51:36 : metabolic damage is recoverable
59:00: have plenty of recovery time
1:00:00: maintening your physic after your diet is ended

[Chris-yfzs]

18:31 go for a slower rate of weight loss, smaller deficit. Body responds better in terms of metabolic rate, hormones and loss of lean tissue. Refeeds and diet breaks are also an option.

***1:01:00 slow rate of weight loss plus go to maintenance every fourth week

21:45 sustainable weight loss

27:30 cardio not the answer while cutting

30:00 lose around 1% of weight a week

52:00 time to heal metabolic damage

58:20 harder if you don’t give time in between cuts

[blaker]

Possibly the best information on weight loss I've ever seen. Nice work fellas.

[ossen]

Screw Netflix, here you have a documentary. Jeff, maybe you should start doing documentaries? Maybe hire a crew.

[fredsonii]

I‘m normally in bed by ten, even on a weekend. Decided to delay that for once in order to listen to the interview. It’s 11:15pm now but it was totally worth it. Very informative and enjoyable at the same time. The chemistry between the two of you was so good. I hope Eric will be back on your podcast at some point. Thanks, Jeff!

[michelleuk]

52:50 I can relate to this! Took me 12 months to get my menstrual cycle back to normal! This was due to PROLONGED low calorie diets! I am now eating wey more, lifting more & finally getting lean but in a healthy and sustainable way with a fully functioning cycle 👍👍🎊🎉🎊🎉💗💗💗💗🍩🍩🍩🍩✌😘

[samwaite]

Knees weak arms are heavy. Dom Mazetti

[jacquelinearthseed]

Thanks for this Jeff. I love that you have real academics on here to get through the NOISE on social media. We need to be prioritizing “evidence-based” thinking in all fields but especially in fitness. Ideally it happens when scholars and real practitioners come together.

[kaylaknoxxx]

Loved all of this! until 46:40 when you say "people who are actually starving" this is only referring to marasmus, when you see pictures you will also see bloating. This is called kwashiorkor, caused by a sever lack of protein. Then in America the homeless (I was homeless myself at one point) will go days without food, and then be given pizza, or fried food from the food pantry, with no where to store food you have no other choice than to eat what is given to you, whenever it is given to you. This causes it's own problems. Before I was homeless I was practicing martial arts 5 days a week, and I saw serious changes to my metabolism during my homelessness. I think it is important to understand malnutrition is indeed rampant in every country. That being said, as I am not homeless anymore and very interested in this topic, so I will continue, this is still a wonderful video.

[MrGflan]

This was so monumentally helpful for me Jeff. I’m stuck at 150 pounds and I think I may just be lacking sleep and too much cortisol, stress. I’ll look into the thoughts provided here. Thank you fellas.

[yegetatariku]

My notes, ladies and gents, hope it helps. Also, I recommend you listen to it yourself. Not only is it possible that I made mistakes but also it's a great informative video so yeah check it out.


Components of metabolism:
TOTAL DAILY ENERGY EXPENDITURE aka Metabolic rate= Resting metabolic rate + Specific dynamic action/thermic effect of food/or dietary induced thermogenesis+ none-exercise-activity thermogenesis (NEAT) + exercise-activity thermogenesis.

Smaller people have a lower metabolic rate. Leaner people have lower metabolic rates. Diets that result in weight-loss lower metabolic rates. Leptin, the most influential hormone when it comes to determining metabolic rate, decrease dramatically within the first four or five days and then continues to do so but linearly for the rest of the duration of the diet. Another things, like the production of reproductive hormones like testosterone, slows down as the diet goes on. Some people's metabolism adapts amazingly; these people are weight-gain resistant and the doctor speculates that these are the same people who don't struggle as much when losing weight.

Question: is there a way to limit the adaptation to continue weight-loss and break through weight plateaus?
No matter whether one is of the type whose metabolic rate adapts fast or slow, the goal should be to control this rate. So we can either deal with the causes or effects. The causes are: how big the energy deficit is; how long one has been dieting; how lean one is.
Therefore, to deal with the causes, one can slow down their weight-loss rate by lowering their energy deficit or implement two refeed days in a row or implementing diet brakes. Take your time, if you can afford to, to get to a body-weight that is maintainable.
The effects include loss of lean mass and performance decrements. A slower rate of weight-loss with appropriate distribution macros helps maintain lean mass and performance. Also, train smarter; train in a way that means giving time for proper recovery. Cardio is a recovery burden; therefore, avoid doing an excessive amount of cardio and also strength-training.

Doc recommendations of a rate of weight-loss: lose 1% of body weight-loss per week. For a more linear approach 0.5% of body weight-loss per week especially towards the end of the diet. More than 1% if you are starting with a high body fat percentage. 15 to 20% of a caloric deficit. 300 to 400 calorie slash.
NOTE: these are estimates. see what works and doesn't work and adjust accordingly.

Crash Dieting: it is not absolute suicide especially if you are not going down to extremely low body fat percentage. It's a viable option especially when the goal isn't to be as lean as possible with the most body muscle and the least body fat. If there is no necessity to do so though, don't crash diet.

Training in a deficit: When a point in training where glycogen levels are low and recovery isn't as it used the be, lower reps and increase volume. The opposite could be true as well.

Starvation mode: this is a dramatic way of referring to metabolic adaptation. There is no mode where the lack of weight loss or weight gain can be explained by eating less or starving. If one is for sure in a caloric deficit and not losing any weight, other explanations are at play. Other explanation: NEAT drop and water-retention. Cortisol induces water-retention. Cortisol= weight training, dieting, cardio + stress. Solution: take a break and recover; eat maintenance-level calories and skip the gym.

Metabolic damage: this is reversible. One can recover. The more rigorous the down-regulation, the more effort and time the recovery requires. Recovery is muti-facilitated. However, given a reasonable rate of down-regulation, recovery should start happening in the first four to six months.

Maintenance of a good but not crazy physique: slow rate weight loss and diet breaks namely eat maintenance every fourth week. Linearly eat maintenance or for example, to accommodate a big cook-out where you will be overeating, having a low-calorie day or days before it. When maintaining, you can also increase your intake slowly while keeping your eyes on body-weight and body fat.

Reverse dieting:
For Competitors: YES! Recovery Diet. Increase calorie carefully though; there are a lot of factors that go into re-feeding and recovery.
For the rest of humanity: a recovery diet is not necessary when the body fat percentage is not too low and therefore maintainable. Slowly introduce more and more calories, this will mean less recovery but it's fine you don't need it as you haven't done anything that needs recovering from, to re-establish a maintenance level.

[lorie_a_]

I was looking for a long, well-explained video on reverse dieting and not one of those shorter ones. Not that they're necessarily bad but I like to understand so I was hoping you'd pop up in the results and oh how happy am I that you did! This was an amazingly well-informed, informative video!

[julietamagnetto]

I was getting anxious because I'm about to finish my diet and wasn't sure if to reverse diet or not and then this video comes up in my recommended. Thanks algorithm lol

[zntpt]

Oh man, long Jeff Nippard diet video. Time to grab some extra butter popcorn and learn how to be healthy

[americandemon]

Jeff has a fanboy smile through the whole thing. He's so excited about this and it's so wholesome.

[jennyrstanley]

Great episode! Reverse dieting works and helper me recover from disordered eating at 1000 cals/day up to 1800 a day. I added a dedicated strength training regimen, cut my intense cardio way down and the results have been wonderful. Can't recommend it enough to those who eat too little and work out too hard. Eating way more, have a lot less body fat and visible muscle definition.