Body Recomposition: How to Burn Fat & Gain Muscle | Alan Aragon & Dr. Andrew Huberman — Transcript

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1. 0:02I'd like to talk a little bit about body
2. 0:04recomposition.
3. 0:05Um
4. 0:06simple question to start off.
5. 0:08Is it possible to quote and quote gain
6. 0:11muscle while at the same time losing
7. 0:14fat?
8. 0:16>> Yes.
9. 0:17>> Great. That will be reassuring to
10. 0:18people.
11. 0:19>> Yes. Um
12. 0:20>> Does it require a caloric deficit?
13. 0:24>> This is the weird part. No.
14. 0:26No. A- A- And um
15. 0:29just super interesting, man.
16. 0:31My my friend and colleague Chris
17. 0:32Barakat, he collected all of the studies
18. 0:35that witnessed this recomposition
19. 0:37phenomenon with a recomposition, we call
20. 0:40it recomp. You know, with simultaneous
21. 0:42gain in lean mass and loss in fat mass.
22. 0:44So, he collected all the studies.
23. 0:46He collected 10 studies. And this is a
24. 0:49five This review was put out five years
25. 0:51ago. So, you can imagine there's
26. 0:53probably a few more studies that have
27. 0:54shown recomp now. So, we can say about
28. 0:55at least a dozen studies have shown this
29. 0:57phenomenon, which
30. 0:59we didn't necessarily think was possible
31. 1:01uh like 10 years ago. You know, we
32. 1:03thought, "Okay, you need a caloric
33. 1:05surplus to gain muscle. And you need a
34. 1:08caloric deficit to lose fat." But what
35. 1:10happened in these studies is
36. 1:12the recomposition phenomenon
37. 1:14is
38. 1:15I think seven out of the 10 studies w-
39. 1:18was a lean mass gain dominant
40. 1:22recomposition. So, in other words, more
41. 1:24lean mass was gained than fat was lost.
42. 1:28So, there were net gains in body mass by
43. 1:30the end of these these trials, which
44. 1:33would at least very strongly imply that
45. 1:36fat was lost in a caloric surplus.
46. 1:39>> If you were going to suggest to somebody
47. 1:41uh the best way to approach this, um
48. 1:44let's say somebody
49. 1:46loosely speaking, yeah, this is not a
50. 1:48competitive athlete. This could be man
51. 1:49or woman assuming that the same advice
52. 1:51would pertain to both. Um
53. 1:54is willing to do resistance training
54. 1:57three to four times per week. Let's say
55. 1:58three times per week. Do some cardio
56. 2:01three times per week um for about an
57. 2:03hour each session for for those.
58. 2:06Um and
59. 2:08they
60. 2:10are willing to eat maintenance calories
61. 2:13or slightly over and their goal is to
62. 2:16gain some muscle and lose some fat.
63. 2:19Where would you set the calories
64. 2:20relative to uh their needs? Would it be
65. 2:23an extra two to 500 calories? I realize
66. 2:26that's hard to say cuz you we should
67. 2:27talk in percentages, but let's just
68. 2:29let's just keep it broad for sake of a
69. 2:30broad audience.
70. 2:32Um how much more than maintenance should
71. 2:34somebody ingest? And and let's assume
72. 2:36that when they go in the gym, they know
73. 2:37what they're doing. They warm up for 5
74. 2:4010 minutes and then they train hard.
75. 2:42They take the sets close to failure.
76. 2:43They're doing you know, three to six
77. 2:44sets per body part. They're They're
78. 2:46training meet with meaningful effort.
79. 2:49And when they do their cardio, they're
80. 2:50somewhere between zone two and maybe
81. 2:52they throw in a
82. 2:54you know, a max heart rate workout once
83. 2:56a week. They do some some sprints in the
84. 2:57middle of their zone two and go back.
85. 2:59You know, this I think is pretty typical
86. 3:00of what a lot of people are willing to
87. 3:02do or currently doing.
88. 3:03>> I would say sort of the simple and
89. 3:04direct answer is to try to
90. 3:07keep the caloric surplus
91. 3:10pretty judicious. So
92. 3:1210%ish above maintenance conditions
93. 3:15which could which could be for
94. 3:17somewhere between 200 possibly 300
95. 3:21calories
96. 3:22above what what you see as maintenance.
97. 3:25And the common thread amongst these
98. 3:28re-composition studies was that protein
99. 3:31was very high.
100. 3:33Protein was somewhere between a gram to
101. 3:35a gram and a half per pound of body
102. 3:37weight.
103. 3:37>> Interesting. So now we've upped the
104. 3:39protein intake.
105. 3:40>> Yes.
106. 3:40>> Could we even say that the caloric uh
107. 3:42this uh 10% above maintenance should
108. 3:45come from quality protein?
109. 3:46>> Exactly. Yes, yes. And um
110. 3:49there's a series of studies done by Joe
111. 3:51Antonio and colleagues where they fed
112. 3:54the subjects
113. 3:564 to 800 calories above and beyond their
114. 4:00habitual intakes
115. 4:01just in protein.
116. 4:03And either recomposition happened
117. 4:06or
118. 4:07no significant change in body
119. 4:09composition happened.
120. 4:10>> Were they training?
121. 4:11>> They were training. They were resistance
122. 4:12training. And so what protein apparently
123. 4:15does
124. 4:16when you consume very high amounts of it
125. 4:18up to, you know, a gram a gram and a
126. 4:20half per pound of body weight is it just
127. 4:23sort of spontaneously
128. 4:26does some magical things. It'll drive
129. 4:28down your intake of the other macros.
130. 4:30It will potentially
131. 4:32increase your
132. 4:34exercise energy expenditure and or your
133. 4:38non-exercise energy expenditure.
134. 4:41Um it will do odd things like I I talked
135. 4:43to Joe Antonio when he he got some
136. 4:45feedback from the subjects on his very
137. 4:47high protein study where he subjected
138. 4:49them to 2 g per pound
139. 4:51for an 8-week period.
140. 4:53And he had subjects come into him
141. 4:54saying, "Hey, I'm I'm like sweating
142. 4:56while I'm sleeping."
143. 4:57>> When you say 2 g of protein per pound of
144. 5:00body weight
145. 5:00>> Yeah.
146. 5:01>> are we talking about increasing total
147. 5:03caloric intake or just um using more of
148. 5:06one's daily caloric uh needs uh devoting
149. 5:10more of that to quality protein?
150. 5:12>> See, that's the super interesting and
151. 5:14kind of mysterious part. They're
152. 5:15literally saying, "Okay, maintain your
153. 5:18usual dietary habits
154. 5:20and then just add 50 to 100 g of protein
155. 5:23on top."
156. 5:24>> So you're eating an extra chicken breast
157. 5:25and a couple scoops of whey protein or
158. 5:27maybe some eggs as well and you're just
159. 5:30adding more quality protein.
160. 5:31>> Adding more quality protein
161. 5:33on
162. 5:33>> And we already learned that we can
163. 5:35distribute that pretty much wherever we
164. 5:36want. Get Get Just do what's most
165. 5:39comfortable for you relative to your
166. 5:40training and other needs. And you're
167. 5:41saying then but they're sweating in
168. 5:43their sleep.
169. 5:44>> Sweating in their sleep. Extra 80 80 to
170. 5:46100 g of protein just add it and
171. 5:49it's a
172. 5:50look it's a it's a free living study
173. 5:53so we're not surveying people in a
174. 5:55metabolic ward
175. 5:57so the increase in protein could have
176. 5:59translated to greater
177. 6:02energy expenditure through a you know a
178. 6:04number of pathways non exercise pathways
179. 6:06or exercise pathways it could put more
180. 6:07power to the ground during their
181. 6:08training
182. 6:10um
183. 6:11there could have been some you know sort
184. 6:13of some magic thermic stuff going on who
185. 6:15knows
186. 6:16but um and and also we can't discount
187. 6:19the fact that look when you're telling
188. 6:21people to add let's say 80 or 100 grams
189. 6:24of protein to to their
190. 6:26habitual intake
191. 6:28the weird thing about subjects self
192. 6:30reporting is they tend to
193. 6:33over report the healthy stuff that that
194. 6:35you assign them and under report the
195. 6:37unhealthy stuff
196. 6:38>> the good pupil phenomenon
197. 6:39>> yeah yeah exactly exactly and so um
198. 6:42there could be some misreporting going
199. 6:43on there
200. 6:44but over a series of like fiveish now
201. 6:47just stack the protein on top nobody
202. 6:49gains fat and some people lose fat
203. 6:52>> awesome
204. 6:52>> it's yeah it's it is pretty freaking
205. 6:54awesome now here's the the the thing
206. 6:57that needs to be said okay so
207. 7:00there was a metabolic ward study done in
208. 7:022013ish by Bray and colleagues where
209. 7:04they subjected the participants to
210. 7:07escalating amounts of protein
211. 7:10um
212. 7:11and
213. 7:12the it was a a protein overfeeding study
214. 7:14there were there were three levels of
215. 7:16protein intakes there was 5% protein
216. 7:18diet
217. 7:19um a 15% protein diet and a 30ish
218. 7:22percent protein diet
219. 7:25the calories total calories escalated
220. 7:27too there was no exercise involved with
221. 7:30this metabolic ward study
222. 7:32and the subjects gained both lean mass
223. 7:35and fat mass with the escalating protein
224. 7:38amounts so there's different stuff going
225. 7:41on
226. 7:42when you lock people up in a metabolic
227. 7:44ward and they can't train and then
228. 7:45you're escalating their protein intakes
229. 7:47and calories, they will gain fat and
230. 7:49lean mass, but in free living conditions
231. 7:52with resistance training
232. 7:54if you just over protein the subjects
233. 7:57they actually have a tendency to lose
234. 8:00fat.
235. 8:01Uh and it it is it's a really
236. 8:03interesting phenomena because it's been
237. 8:05seen repeatedly.
238. 8:05>> With men and women?
239. 8:07>> With men and women, yes.
240. 8:09>> The message I'm getting is if you're
241. 8:11going to add calories, add quality
242. 8:12protein.
243. 8:14>> Yeah.
244. 8:14>> Make sure you're resistance training.
245. 8:15Here I'm building on the previous things
246. 8:17we talked about. The distribution of the
247. 8:19protein probably doesn't matter as much
248. 8:21uh as just getting the total protein uh
249. 8:24correct.
250. 8:25>> Yep.
251. 8:25>> And
252. 8:26I find it very reassuring that I can
253. 8:28train fasted or not fasted mostly
254. 8:30because
255. 8:32very few of us have total control of our
256. 8:34schedule. So sometimes we need to train
257. 8:36first thing in the morning and we got to
258. 8:37catch a flight or head to work and
259. 8:39sometimes people only have time in the
260. 8:40evening and this kind of thing.