Fat loss isn’t just about exercising more it’s about understanding how the body burns energy. Large muscle groups like the legs, back, and chest demand more energy, making them essential for effective fat loss. Metabolism plays a key role, as the body must be in a fat-oxidizing state rather than relying on glucose. Factors like insulin levels, fasting, and proper nutrition all impact whether the body burns fat or stores it.

Building muscle while fasting is possible for those who are fat-adapted, emphasizing the importance of metabolic function over simple calorie counting. Diet plays a crucial role, influencing hormones that dictate fat loss and muscle gain. Rather than focusing on cutting calories alone, optimizing body chemistry through the right foods and supplements leads to sustainable transformation.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:04 – You Can’t Outrun a Bad Diet

01:53 – Importance of Large Muscle Groups

04:48 – Metabolism & Fat Loss

07:38 – Fat Oxidizing State vs. Glucose Dependency

10:21 – Fasting & Muscle Growth

12:50 – The Role of Diet in Body Composition

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:04] Okay. So I want to start off by going and saying yes, the the the statement you can’t outrun a bad diet is still, for the most part, true. Again, it’s a general ality, but it’s more or less true. So when we’re talking about exercising and losing more fat and that type of thing, we have to boil this back down to a metabolic function, right? So your body requires ATP to do work. ATP is made from 1 or 2 different way. Well overweight is made from glucose that’s made from fat. So sugar and fat. So if you’re wanting to lose fat this is what I work when I walk people through the fat loss thing. First thing we do is we get rid of fat oxidizing, say so. And again, not everybody can do the same exact fat exercising status. That is, we we we figure out the very best way for your body to be in a fat oxidizing state where you’re burning fat as a primary fuel source. Once you get there, then whenever you need more energy, your body has to burn more fat. So when we’re doing an exercise routine that is specifically set up to help you burn more fat. One of the things that we’ll do is work on large muscle groups a little bit more. Now, if you’re anabolic, you’re where they’re supposed to be. Then you don’t have to worry about overtraining as much. You don’t have to worry about. Any any of the, any of the, you know, point of diminishing returns function that you get without the testosterone or any of the anabolic you’re on. This is also why when people when I walk people through like when they want to bulk, they are build muscle and they want to cut fat. And when we’re doing when Anova, we’re doing, you know, primo or Deca or doing, you know, whatever it is.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:53] This is why that that factors in tremendously to the way that you can actually work out the regenerative function, which is important. That comes up in a minute. So as you’re exercising, you want to use the muscle groups that are going to require the largest amount of regeneration, which is also going to be your largest muscle groups. So when we train legs and we train legs in a very specific way so that, you know, the full range of motion, the full kinetic function, so that every piece has to work right. So the muscles in your toes so that your calf muscles, your entire tibialis and your, your quad, your hamstring, your glute me and your glute max and your ilia. So as so basically every muscle from your belly button down has to work. But then because we’re doing balance functions as well we’re also working the low mid back. So basically everything from your belly button to your toes is getting worked out. When you do a proper leg work out with this with this type of function in mind. So there’s again there’s different ways we do things. You can you can build muscle tissue. So it looks really pretty. You can build muscle tissue where it has substantial strength. Or you can build muscle tissue where it looks pretty and melt all the fat off and is pretty functional. So there’s little different ways that you tweak not only the diet, but the exercise to get where you were trying to go. The vast majority of people are fine with an esthetic workout. So you would you have a point is to build the muscle and burn the fat.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:15] So when we’re talking about that’s the vein that we’re talking right now. So we want to work legs. We want to work back. We want to work chest, delts and arms are going to be great, but they’re not as large of a muscle group unless you really tear them up. And that kind of that gets into like why we do individual body parts. But you can do you work your arms 3 or 4 days a week if you do, if you structure them out. Right. And that’ll help out. But what you really want to focus on is one of those big reasons why you really want to not skip like that. There’s so many reasons not to skip like that. Also, the fact that legs suck for the vast majority of us. The more you can tear up that muscle tissue, there’s just more surface area. And so and I’m not picking just on legs. But we’re gonna talk a lot about legs because it’s not the only one this works for. But the idea is bigger with this one. So when you really tear up your glutes, we really tear up your quads and your hamstrings and the whole leg. That’s a giant amount of resource that has to be. You have to have metabolic fuel you to have that ATP for. So when you work out your legs, especially if you do them properly, do individually, what ends up happening is that you require this giant amount of more energy to fuel them. So you’re going to have to create a lot more of that. So what you’re gonna end up seeing is you’re going to break down a lot more fat, which is great. As you break down that fat, your bodies have to, you know, to make the ATP, you’re gonna have to have the biochemistry, the methylated B vitamins, the, the folic acid, the especially the B6, any bio function, you’re going to have more bio function.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:48] So there is a big metabolic function about fat breakdown that aids this. But that’s a different conversation. So when you’re going through this when you’re working those quads or you’re working up the whole leg, you’re going to get this giant amount of damage. Now, not only does it require more energy to function, it’s going to require more energy to heal, regenerate, and repair. And so as you’re working out, what you’re going to want to do is you’re gonna wanna make sure that it has all the chemistry to do that. So if it runs out of it, runs out of, you know, the amino acids, if it runs out of the omega three fatty acids, it runs out of the cookie, it runs out of chemistry. It can no longer regenerate and rebuild. And a lot of the energy that your body requires to the way that we see the oh, you built a muscle that you lost much fat. A lot of that is keyed on regenerating this muscle tissue, because the amount of the amount of energy that your body requires to build and repair muscle tissue is tremendous. And so the regeneration, the healing piece, that’s where the metabolic chemistry really comes into play. And so that’s where you really gotta focus on it. That’s why, you know I take so many supplements. That’s why I recommend, you know we really try to do major body transformations. Okay. All right. We’re going to do a 90 day cycle. We’re going to do you know we’re going to you know three four month cycle. We’re really going to push really hard. That’s why we make sure that the antibiotics are where they’re supposed to be. Because, you know, you’ve really got to focus in on, you know, the supplementation, everything else. You got to really focus on, on how are we going to regenerate and heal, because that’s the big piece.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:18] So not only you have to break the tissue down, but you have to make sure the body has everything it needs to regenerate and heal that tissue. So grow that muscle tissue. In the process of growing the muscle tissue, you’re going to have a couple different things happen. One, you’re going to require a giant amount of of ATP or energy. You’re going to require giant nutrients to create that new tissue. Remember, your body doesn’t make tissue out of nothing. It’s got to have something to make it out of. And it’s not just protein. It’s it’s there’s a lot of cellular function. There’s a lot of fatty acids. There’s a lot of, you know, things that are in there. So there’s a giant nutrient need. But once you satisfy that your body can regenerate and heal, you’re going to produce you’re going to require a giant amount more energy to rebuild that once it’s built, it will then require more energy to sustain itself, not a giant amount or better, require more energy to sustain itself. So you have this process ongoing now. If you also do like for instance, cardio in the right zone, you know, usually it’s a, you know, a labored breath know not super hard. This is for fat loss. This isn’t for cardiovascular training. This isn’t for speed training. This is specifically for fat loss. What you’re going to do is you’re going to hold your body in that position where it is is not quite anabolic, but it is I’m sorry, anaerobic, but it is kind of right there. And so what’s happening is that your body is going to start producing. It’s going to start using more and more and more fat to burn this stuff off.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:38] Now here’s the thing. If you’re not in a fat oxidizing state, what’s going to happen is your body’s going to burn up a lot of glucose. That glucose is going to take some water with it. So it’s going to make your muscles look smaller as you lose the water. You’re going to start losing a lot more weight. But again weight isn’t the option. The object right. It’s fat. And so what’s going to happen is that you’ll you’ll lose this. This is where it happens. Like people go in the gym, they work out really hard. Like, oh, I lost 5 pounds. Yay! And then they go and they, they car back up, they eat the carbohydrates in, they drink the water and they work right back up where they were because your body didn’t need to burn fat. It had plenty of glucose to use as fuel. So when we start talking about how we’re trying to get these to run, you’ve really got to look at your metabolic function. Because if you’re running on a glucose state and you’re constantly refilling your muscle tissue with glucose, you’re not you’re going to get that. You’re, oh, I got great cardiovascular function or I’m getting stronger, but you’re not going to lose that fat. Use. Your body isn’t burning fat as a primary fuel source. You can usually see this I usually see this when I pull people’s blood. We’ll look at the insulin levels. The more insulin levels, the higher the insulin levels you have, the lower the chances you’re burning fat. Insulin tells the body, hey, we’ve got plenty of sugar. We’re going to run on the sugar system. When those insulin levels start coming down, that’s when we start burning fat.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:54] And so that’s just how the metabolic function works. And so you can like if you’re running carbohydrates you can burn off your carbohydrates, and then your body can switch metabolically and it can start burning fat. But that’s going to be that that process is it takes longer and then you’re gonna be really hungry. You’re going to go eat more carbohydrates. If you eat too many carbohydrates, you’re gonna get fat. This is why sometimes, especially for endo morphs, especially female in the morphs where you’re doing all the cardio and you’re working out. You’re supposed to, but you can’t lose the fat. This is why it’s your metabolic function that’s screwing you up. And so what ends up happening is that if you get in the right dietary function, if you get in a right metabolic state, you can now all the exercise you’re doing is failing. You start paying off. If you’re in inner work, like me, this was this was my thing. I was a big fat guy, but I worked out all the time. So like the big fat guys in the gym that are super strong and you’re like, man, that guy works out all the time and you know, he eats a good diet, but he never he’s never losing any fat. Why? His insulin sensitivity levels are higher. So he stores things faster. So that’s one of the issues we get into. So that’s how we start using the diet and the exercise to burn the fat. Now, if you’ve never had anybody put you in one of these states, it’s a little bit different than just figure out your macros. But it is a really, really, really easy thing to do. The other fun thing is that once you’re running in a fat system, your body is not gonna be hungry, so you can fast. And in case you’re wondering, you can build muscle tissue and be on a fast.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:21] When I was getting ready for bodybuilding, I was putting on muscle tissue. I was doing three day fast because, again, my body had plenty of energy from all the fat I was. I had. It was burning that I was giving myself lots of amino acids. I give myself lots of nutrients. And so my body had the chemistry all it needed to build muscle tissue, and it was burning the fat for the energy source. So that’s that’s how you do this. So again, you’re not gonna be able to use your, your exercise to out train a bad diet. For this reason. So if you get your diet squared in first then you work out. That’s when you see everything fall off you. And you don’t have to this whole like, caloric deficit trash, like, quit listening to this, like, look at the metabolic function. It’s the sugar function. So an insulin function. It’s a protein function versus a glucagon function. Remember the G from glucagon. That’s what GLP is. That’s what the GLP is. It’s glucagon. So when you actually look at this it’s a metabolic function. What you’re eating gives your body specific nutrients. Those nutrients tell your hormonal system what to do when your hormonal system is now acting. Now your hormones are telling the body how to do these things. You can tell your hormones how to work by changing your diet. You can use your pieces like that too, but you can by changing your diet. You’re going to tell your hormones what to do, and then your hormones are going to tell your body what to do. So that’s why. That’s why your diet piece of this is so hypercritical when not only you’re trying to get healthy, but we’re trying to lose fat and build muscle tissue.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:42] So, you know, and this is one of the things we walk people through all the time. We have trainers trying to be like like, trainers must hate you. Trainers love me because like, my big thing is like, here’s how your diet can be set up. I need you to work out with somebody who knows what they’re doing. And so go workout hard with these guys and make sure you have them every day of the week, because they gotta watch your form every day. So, trainers, let me see. You guys are trainers and you guys are looking for somebody to do all the hormone work and all the other chemistry work and just let you train. Call me okay, to set up. But this is how we this is how we walk through this metabolically. I’m sure that I lost a bunch of people. I try to do, like, a two hour lecture in 12 minutes. But there’s this is kind of where it is. And so if you’re like, man, I’m working out all the time and I’m not losing any fat or I’m not, I can’t I can’t see my gains like I’m getting bigger. And we see this all the time. I see this all the time with my 20 year olds. They’re getting bigger, but they’re not getting cut. And the problem is, is like, I want to see my muscles. I’m working so hard. You know, I’m I’m I think I’m eating right and doing the things they’re not eating right. That’s the thing. Like you can put on mass like. Yeah. Like eat your eat your white rice and your chicken. You’ll put on mass, but you won’t cut up if you’re in a more firm as a window.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:12:50] So we’ll have to kind of go back through and I can walk you through how to do it. And you still get to eat pizza and nachos and pie and a pecan pie like every night. Pancakes, cookies like ice cream, like the whole thing again. It’s about the chemistry. It’s not about the calories. It’s not about the food. It’s about what chemicals you’re putting in your body and what you’re asking your body to do with those chemicals. So if you guys are stuck in that spot, give us a call. I’ll walk you through it. It’s really, really fun. Usually people learn this in the first month or two. And then they’re good. But there’s lots of questions as we go through it. And that’s one thing. But this is really, really fun. So if you’ve never if you’ve worked out a long time and you’ve never gotten the results that you’re looking for, is whether gaining muscle mass or losing fat or specifically gaining that definition, this is the thing you’ve got to focus on, is the actual chemistry of what you’re eating, and then what those hormones are telling your body to do. So if you guys have questions on us, hit us up. [email protected] drop em in the comments and we can get everything moving. You guys have a great day. Thanks for your time.

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Dr. Matt Chalmers

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