This is great information, but I’m left with the impression that it’s mostly relevant for obese (or at least overweight) individuals, and younger individuals.
Older individuals, especially post menopausal women, will generally have trouble tolerating that level of exercise, and would require more recovery time than — according to your data — allowed within the window of effective (for weight loss) levels of exercise.
How would you recommend the populations that can’t physically handle these recommendations proceed? As you probably know, menopausal women can work out as hard as they can tolerate , follow a reasonable diet with reasonable caloric intake and still struggle to lose weight. Sufficient protein intake (with the calories from fat that naturally accompany it) leaves little room for anything else if low enough caloric levels for weight loss are maintained when your body doesn’t tolerate these high levels of physical activity.
Yes you are correct that sufficient protein leaves no room for anything else. The solution is to not eat anything else.
You do not need to eat an optimized diet to lose weight and it’s not a permanent diet so it isn’t a problem. Also eating very lean protein with salt allows plenty of low calorie vegetables.
This post isn’t about how to lose weight. It’s about how to not lose muscle when losing weight.
I agree many people may need to exercise less when hitting up against their recoverable volume. However, how many post menopausal women are primarily doing bodybuilding exercises? This is the issue. You need to workout like a bodybuilder first and foremost.
Ok. So short term you could be looking at a PSMF? Lots of lean protein and veggies and little else to make up your intake with the required how protein? Or am I getting the wrong end of the stick?
I’ve lost 0.6 pounds per day on lean chicken breast (which is much more tolerable if it’s very heavily salted) at every meal, a third of plate of veggies added for dinner, and a third a plate of rice at dinner added on heavy workout days.
I strongly recommend against repeating that because losing 0.6 pounds per day is horrible on the metabolism and immune system.
But if your reaction is “but then there would be nothing to eat but protein” it completely explains why you can’t lose weight.
Hi Chris, I am interested to know how long you did this for - if eating this amount of protein you lost only fat and no lean muscle. How much weight did you lose in the time you did this? After losing this weight what diet have you followed? What percentage of macros in a day? And was some of what you lost when on only protein water weight? Have you managed to maintain the weight you achieved after this cutting back? You mention your metabolism lowered. How much? Did you work this out by calculating the difference between the amount of calories you ate before the diet and what you could eat afterwards? Have you since managed to rev up your metabolism? If so, how have you done this?
This is so fascinating, and it would be worth a blog relating what happened to you during this diet and its after effects. Too little is spoken about the drastic diets people are doing eg the Fast 800 - how much lean muscle people must be losing? And Zoe do not say eat extra protein at all - even for older people. And the US arm of Zoe promotes going vegetarian completely.
Thanks Chris - I've scanned what you wrote and will go back and read it properly when I can. I am so glad I have found your blog - your self-experimentation and documenting the journey is invaluable; and the knowledge you share are confirming certain things I thought and you are definitely teaching me :)
I lost 7lbs over 13 weeks of near-daily hiking without changing my diet, and this was a significant increase in hours of physical activity. I was not trying to lose weight, but my experience again supports your recommendation to exercise more as the first step to weight loss. (I have maintained a stable weight within a 5-7lb window for most of the past decade, suggesting that my diet was not the limiting factor in fat optimization. Thanks again for your articles, which I prioritize over all other non-urgent reading.
Thank you, I am always vacillating back and forth about limiting calories and maintaining healthy macros. I do believe that strength training is the key 🗝️. Thanks for the clarification and precise strategy!
It is a good reminder that weight loss includes organs, muscle, and bone. Slow weight loss can cause one to give up even when progress is being made. It is helpful to have someone in your corner to keep up the good fight. That's how health coaches can be invaluable.
There are many examples of women 50+ who began strength training and are now lean and strong. I have followed several for years. Some names: Ernestine Shepherd who is now 88!! and started it all @shepherdernestine, Julia Linn now late 60s and had significant medical history @dolphinine, Denise Kirtley @fiftyfitnessjourney, Joan MacDonald @trainwithJoan ❤️ Of course we don't have to enter fitness competitions but we see how we CAN become healthy!
Feels like this was written for me! But it’s impossible to reach that level of exercise when you’re post menopausal and your HRT isn’t hitting the spot yet-exhaustion and aching muscles and joints are prohibitive. That’s why I want to work out how to lower my SHBG to benefit from testosterone to be able to exercise to that level!
The study with 6d/week exercise certainly sounds interesting, unfortunately they don't really go into more detail about the exercise protocol. It may be difficult to replicate at home or in a semi-crowded commercial gym (there's always someone blocking the circuit) without extending the time between sets. I'm wondering if there are ways to achieve a similar amount of total exercise at home or on the road, perhaps with elastic bands, kettlebells, heavy rucking and some cardio outside or if the minimum effective dose of exercise might be lower provided one exercises intensively every day.
Great article which helps me zero in one a couple holes in my own approaches/attempts. I recently also found Roy Taylor’s personal fat threshold and like your advice for 6-12% body fat plus ensure your health is improving. Do you have any other possible rules of thumb for health markers for finding a personal fat threshold (blood pressure, waist to height ratio, fasting insulin/blood glucose etc.)? I’m probably asking a bit much, but a future feature would be interesting (or two, one for older men/women one for younger men/women). On the other hand if this isn’t where you are interested in going, I suppose I should take some personal accountability and go reread Staffan Lindeberg’s book.
This article makes great points. However, when you practice intermittent fasting, that dramatically increases HGH which preserves lean muscle mass. For example, in this randomized controlled trial,https://nature.com/articles/s44324-024-00025-2 subjects had their HGH increase of 1500% by doing to 24 hour fasts per week for the first 2 weeks and then one 24 hour fast per week for the remaining 24 weeks of the trial.
1500 % increases in hgh! That sounds like a great reason to never fast for 24 hours! Why in the world would you want to boost something that is elevated cancer?
Just as a note of comedy…. In reply to your comment ‘ if you find yourself stuffing yourself silly…. Then stop it’. Can I just point out that my husband used to say that the most dangerous and scary thing you could ever do was try and take food off a pregnant woman - well that applies to one on high dose progesterone as part of their HRT too!
Thinking more my only question is how sustainable this approach would be. If you achieve your optimal leanness with your additional 6 hours of exercise and the max protein, what happens when you drop you r exercise to a more sustainable level? Can you titrate your exercise down a bit to reach a maintenance level?
I think there is a ctitical error in the article. Where it states, "Eat enough protein. Obtain 1.2-1.8 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight (0.55-0.82 grams per pound of bodyweight)." It should be 1.2-1.8 grams of protein per kg of bodyweight.
Thank you for this! Have you written anywhere about toxic mold exposure and the effect that it has on stubborn weight? Since living in a house with toxic mold for 18 months, I gained 50+ pounds (despite no real change in diet or activity) and have had an almost impossible time losing it. Any thoughts or resources for those in this situation? Or should I just follow the advice laid out here?
Ah, sorry, I worded that wrong. I moved out of the house about two years ago and have still not been able to lose any weight since then. Any thoughts as to why that could be or where to look? I’m struggling here.
Well I would definitely follow the advice here to see if the weight is no longer stubborn because if this works then by definition the weight isn't stubborn and you just haven't tried the right approach. However, if it doesn't work at all or if makes your health crash I would define that as stubborn. But if you haven't tried a good weight loss strategy then I think it's simpler to believe you haven't given it a good shot yet than that you have mold toxins that you haven't detoxed.
This is great information, but I’m left with the impression that it’s mostly relevant for obese (or at least overweight) individuals, and younger individuals.
Older individuals, especially post menopausal women, will generally have trouble tolerating that level of exercise, and would require more recovery time than — according to your data — allowed within the window of effective (for weight loss) levels of exercise.
How would you recommend the populations that can’t physically handle these recommendations proceed? As you probably know, menopausal women can work out as hard as they can tolerate , follow a reasonable diet with reasonable caloric intake and still struggle to lose weight. Sufficient protein intake (with the calories from fat that naturally accompany it) leaves little room for anything else if low enough caloric levels for weight loss are maintained when your body doesn’t tolerate these high levels of physical activity.
Yes you are correct that sufficient protein leaves no room for anything else. The solution is to not eat anything else.
You do not need to eat an optimized diet to lose weight and it’s not a permanent diet so it isn’t a problem. Also eating very lean protein with salt allows plenty of low calorie vegetables.
This post isn’t about how to lose weight. It’s about how to not lose muscle when losing weight.
I agree many people may need to exercise less when hitting up against their recoverable volume. However, how many post menopausal women are primarily doing bodybuilding exercises? This is the issue. You need to workout like a bodybuilder first and foremost.
Thanks, that makes sense, but wouldn’t ammonia overload or other effects of “protein toxicity” become a problem in exclusively lean protein?
If someone has a urea cycle disorder.
Ok. So short term you could be looking at a PSMF? Lots of lean protein and veggies and little else to make up your intake with the required how protein? Or am I getting the wrong end of the stick?
Yes if that’s all the parameters allow.
I’ve lost 0.6 pounds per day on lean chicken breast (which is much more tolerable if it’s very heavily salted) at every meal, a third of plate of veggies added for dinner, and a third a plate of rice at dinner added on heavy workout days.
I strongly recommend against repeating that because losing 0.6 pounds per day is horrible on the metabolism and immune system.
But if your reaction is “but then there would be nothing to eat but protein” it completely explains why you can’t lose weight.
Hi Chris, I am interested to know how long you did this for - if eating this amount of protein you lost only fat and no lean muscle. How much weight did you lose in the time you did this? After losing this weight what diet have you followed? What percentage of macros in a day? And was some of what you lost when on only protein water weight? Have you managed to maintain the weight you achieved after this cutting back? You mention your metabolism lowered. How much? Did you work this out by calculating the difference between the amount of calories you ate before the diet and what you could eat afterwards? Have you since managed to rev up your metabolism? If so, how have you done this?
This is so fascinating, and it would be worth a blog relating what happened to you during this diet and its after effects. Too little is spoken about the drastic diets people are doing eg the Fast 800 - how much lean muscle people must be losing? And Zoe do not say eat extra protein at all - even for older people. And the US arm of Zoe promotes going vegetarian completely.
https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/how-i-lost-my-covid-weight?utm_source=publication-search
Thanks Chris - I've scanned what you wrote and will go back and read it properly when I can. I am so glad I have found your blog - your self-experimentation and documenting the journey is invaluable; and the knowledge you share are confirming certain things I thought and you are definitely teaching me :)
I lost 7lbs over 13 weeks of near-daily hiking without changing my diet, and this was a significant increase in hours of physical activity. I was not trying to lose weight, but my experience again supports your recommendation to exercise more as the first step to weight loss. (I have maintained a stable weight within a 5-7lb window for most of the past decade, suggesting that my diet was not the limiting factor in fat optimization. Thanks again for your articles, which I prioritize over all other non-urgent reading.
Thank you, I am always vacillating back and forth about limiting calories and maintaining healthy macros. I do believe that strength training is the key 🗝️. Thanks for the clarification and precise strategy!
It is a good reminder that weight loss includes organs, muscle, and bone. Slow weight loss can cause one to give up even when progress is being made. It is helpful to have someone in your corner to keep up the good fight. That's how health coaches can be invaluable.
There are many examples of women 50+ who began strength training and are now lean and strong. I have followed several for years. Some names: Ernestine Shepherd who is now 88!! and started it all @shepherdernestine, Julia Linn now late 60s and had significant medical history @dolphinine, Denise Kirtley @fiftyfitnessjourney, Joan MacDonald @trainwithJoan ❤️ Of course we don't have to enter fitness competitions but we see how we CAN become healthy!
Feels like this was written for me! But it’s impossible to reach that level of exercise when you’re post menopausal and your HRT isn’t hitting the spot yet-exhaustion and aching muscles and joints are prohibitive. That’s why I want to work out how to lower my SHBG to benefit from testosterone to be able to exercise to that level!
The study with 6d/week exercise certainly sounds interesting, unfortunately they don't really go into more detail about the exercise protocol. It may be difficult to replicate at home or in a semi-crowded commercial gym (there's always someone blocking the circuit) without extending the time between sets. I'm wondering if there are ways to achieve a similar amount of total exercise at home or on the road, perhaps with elastic bands, kettlebells, heavy rucking and some cardio outside or if the minimum effective dose of exercise might be lower provided one exercises intensively every day.
Great article which helps me zero in one a couple holes in my own approaches/attempts. I recently also found Roy Taylor’s personal fat threshold and like your advice for 6-12% body fat plus ensure your health is improving. Do you have any other possible rules of thumb for health markers for finding a personal fat threshold (blood pressure, waist to height ratio, fasting insulin/blood glucose etc.)? I’m probably asking a bit much, but a future feature would be interesting (or two, one for older men/women one for younger men/women). On the other hand if this isn’t where you are interested in going, I suppose I should take some personal accountability and go reread Staffan Lindeberg’s book.
Thanks for this.
This article makes great points. However, when you practice intermittent fasting, that dramatically increases HGH which preserves lean muscle mass. For example, in this randomized controlled trial,https://nature.com/articles/s44324-024-00025-2 subjects had their HGH increase of 1500% by doing to 24 hour fasts per week for the first 2 weeks and then one 24 hour fast per week for the remaining 24 weeks of the trial.
What happened to their lean mass and fat mass?
That’s what matters.
1500 % increases in hgh! That sounds like a great reason to never fast for 24 hours! Why in the world would you want to boost something that is elevated cancer?
https://www.livescience.com/44436-anti-aging-hormone-may-actually-shorten-life.html
I think the idea is to loose a couple pounds not a couple years.
Just as a note of comedy…. In reply to your comment ‘ if you find yourself stuffing yourself silly…. Then stop it’. Can I just point out that my husband used to say that the most dangerous and scary thing you could ever do was try and take food off a pregnant woman - well that applies to one on high dose progesterone as part of their HRT too!
Pregnant women should under no circumstances whatsoever EVER being trying to lose weight.
Thinking more my only question is how sustainable this approach would be. If you achieve your optimal leanness with your additional 6 hours of exercise and the max protein, what happens when you drop you r exercise to a more sustainable level? Can you titrate your exercise down a bit to reach a maintenance level?
Yes, just get into caloric balance first.
I think there is a ctitical error in the article. Where it states, "Eat enough protein. Obtain 1.2-1.8 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight (0.55-0.82 grams per pound of bodyweight)." It should be 1.2-1.8 grams of protein per kg of bodyweight.
That’s a typo. Will fix.
..and this is 1.2-1.8 grams of protein per kg of ideal bodyweight?
Is this per lb of actual or ideal bodyweight for protein? Thanks!
I would think ideal should work but the studies did not use ideal, they used actual.
Thanks for your reply
FYI…The comments are shut off on your latest Chron’s post and the 4 page protocol link is broken.
Thank you for this! Have you written anywhere about toxic mold exposure and the effect that it has on stubborn weight? Since living in a house with toxic mold for 18 months, I gained 50+ pounds (despite no real change in diet or activity) and have had an almost impossible time losing it. Any thoughts or resources for those in this situation? Or should I just follow the advice laid out here?
Well to begin with, move out of the house or aggressively remediate.
Ah, sorry, I worded that wrong. I moved out of the house about two years ago and have still not been able to lose any weight since then. Any thoughts as to why that could be or where to look? I’m struggling here.
Well I would definitely follow the advice here to see if the weight is no longer stubborn because if this works then by definition the weight isn't stubborn and you just haven't tried the right approach. However, if it doesn't work at all or if makes your health crash I would define that as stubborn. But if you haven't tried a good weight loss strategy then I think it's simpler to believe you haven't given it a good shot yet than that you have mold toxins that you haven't detoxed.
Got it. Thank you, Chris! I really appreciate it. Hope you have a blessed Christmas (fellow Orthodox Christian here and big fan of your work).