Hello everyone. It's Louisa Nicola. Welcome back to another episode of the neuro Experience Podcast very excited. Because today in this episode, I have a fellow Aussie and practicing dietitian joining me, holly Baxter, Holly is a competitive bodybuilder, Fitness and Nutrition educator and coach. And in this episode Holly introduces the topic of how she would start and design a nutrition and
Resistance training program for someone who is starting out and wanting to add lean body, mass lose body, fat and improve physique. I know what you're probably thinking, that's everybody. And yes we touch on protein requirements. What macros are? And most importantly, the expectations of gaining muscle, especially when you're in a calorie Surplus. So there's so much to get through in this episode. I hope you enjoy it and if you do, please go through.
And leave us a written review. On Apple iTunes, Welcome to the New Experience Podcast, where you will learn the science of human performance and optimization. This episode is sponsored by eight sleep. The world's best sleep Fitness technology company. And guys, guess what? For now only you can get $500 off. That's right. $500 off your very own, eight Sleep mattress, or eight sleep pod, Pro cover. So if you sleep
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Have another Ozzy in here in the studio talking with me.
I'm very excited as well.
I've been following along your journey and a lot of your training principles and I have so many questions for you and I think I really want to start from the ground up and that is just understanding. I am a female. So I'm going to attack this from a female perspective. I want understand. What is your approach to training?
Male, who wants to start from the ground up with adding lean body mass and losing fat. Where do you start?
So I think that for a lot of females, one of the hardest things to kind of get their head around. First firstly, is this idea of they need to fuel more. I think there's a bit of a stigma or misconception that as soon as you start lifting that you're already all of a sudden going to
Turn into the Hulk if you're not, you know, really careful and it's just such a myth. So I think, you know, the first thing that, you know, I'm going to look at when it comes to, you know, working with a female client on building muscle is. Okay, let's get to the bottom of your tradition. Let's first start out. Okay, where are your cart maintenance calories sitting because that's going to help. Give me an idea about well. Number one, you know, how is their metabolic Health are they, or have they been sustaining their current body mass on an amount of calories that
You know, based on what we see as normal, you know, as being very inadequate. So the first thing is really just kind of looking at their your current intakes and then trying to slowly move them into a small Surplus. And if we look at you know a lot of the the studies are over feeding studies and there are a lot fewer of those than there are, you know, weight loss fat loss studies and even less again that are specific in females. So we're kind of going off, you know, a rather head.
A generous, you know, population group. However if we look at the Surplus that's necessary about ten to twenty percent above, your maintenance calories is about, what's recommended to optimize, you know, the hypertrophy response if we look at some of the study interventions where they've gone over and above that up to say 40 percent, or even, as far as 60 percent above their current maintenance calories, which is the amount of energy or calories.
Is that are required to maintain their current body weight, and their current activity levels. Those higher percentages, just tend to have diminishing returns. What we end up starting to see is a significantly greater amount and unnecessary amount of body fat regain. And it's no longer lean tissue. So it's not a huge amount of calorie Surplus that we need, but it's definitely, you know, the best way to I guess. Fast Track those results.
And like, that whole concept in itself is really challenging for a lot of women because there is this preconceived idea, I think, you know, from a societal standpoint where you're required to be, you know, a certain level of leanness and, you know, people seem to have so much values placed in there there, you know, self worth and who they are as a person based on their physical appearance. So this idea that they might need to eat more
Calories and put on a little bit of body fat in that process can be really, really daunting. So I'd say probably 50% of the women that I've at least had the opportunity to work with over my, you know, 10 plus years in this space, have been extremely hesitant to do that, and I'll have to kind of start them at, you know, maintenance with a building program and then gradually work them towards the idea that a surplus is okay.
That's a lot of, you know, psychological intervention to kind of get them to this place where they now really see the benefits not only from a physiological standpoint. But how that can be, you know, positive a positive influence for the rest of their lives. You know, there's a whole mindset shift and now they really are embracing, you know, these building phases because they can see, you know, the bigger picture and the long-term results. So yeah, diet is a huge component.
Iron into on eating in a surplus. I think a lot of women also really struggle to maintain a consistent high protein intake. I have worked with so many females and I guess, like, their initial dietary recalls. And particularly, for women that are over the age of 35 or 40, you know where they were born. Or, they weren't raised in this culture where, you know, eating lots of protein and lifting weights was normal.
You know, I think in our are, you know, age bracket and perhaps those that are, you know, born in the 2000s and the in the 90s, you know, they're kind of growing up with this idea that, you know, it's healthy and acceptable for women to be in the gym and lifting, so women in that 35, Plus age range are really not eating enough protein. So, I think first, identifying and pointing out to them, you know, what, a protein intake,
Should look like and we talk about those ranges being anywhere from say one point, eight grams of protein per kilogram of their lean body, mass all the way up to as high as a two point nine grams of protein per kilogram lean body mass. And I guess the conversion for the people that might be listening in from I guess the weird metric the pounds. You'd be looking at say 10 to 1 Point 3 grams of protein per pound of lean body,
mass many questions. So being in a
calorie Surplus is also obviously going to introduce many psychological constraints, especially for women, as you mentioned, but that has to be really coupled with the amount of exercise you're doing. So, you know, somebody comes to you and you start to introduce this minor calorie Surplus and obviously it's with good food whether that's through. I don't know whether that's from carbohydrates or whether it's through proteins or fats. However there is a surplus. Now you
Just have women introducing the Surplus without working out, right. I think do women come to you and maybe do too much of a surplus and they don't counter balance that with a proper strength training protocol and therefore, they just keep gaining what? Wait,
yeah, I've definitely seen that happen. I can't say that it's something that I've experienced only because I've been doing this for so long, but I've definitely had that, you know, women come to me and say you,
No, I'm really fearful of this process because, you know, I worked with this person and I just gained so much weight and it was just really uncomfortable and just not a pleasant experience for them. So there's definitely a fine art to balancing their calorie intake based on their energy expenditure through their exercise. So one thing I will say is that often I have seen where, you know, somebody will start working with me and we'll we start off working just to determine what their current maintenance.
Calories are and that is a really important step. Otherwise you're kind of just shooting numbers in the dark. So for the first week or two from me with any client, I'm really trying to be a have them be consistent with their tracking to get an understanding of what they are truly eating and it's like, you know, no judgments here. I want to know if you're binging at night time, I want to know if you're having a couple of extra spoonfuls of ice cream before you put it back in the fridge, you know, all of those things do add up. So when we finally make it,
A dietary, you know, recommendation. And it might be that I just move their protein from, say 80 grams, which might be their previous average protein intake up to 130, which might be better with, you know, within their recommended requirements based on their body weight, or their lean body, mass just that, adjustment alone without making any major changes to their carbohydrate, or fat intake. Will actually result in a really positive body, composition will change.
And part of that comes down to the thermogenic effect of food. So each of those three macronutrients protein carbs fats, and alcohol is the fourth macronutrient. They each have a different thermogenic effect and essentially, that is just the cost or the energy cost to break that macronutrient down through the process of metabolization. And then what's left is basically, you know what, what your body can do with it. And if you're, you know, expending a lot of energy every day. Then, you know, those calories can be
You know, utilize for the purposes of activity, if you're not exercising in that energy is then stored, but with that shift in protein because protein is the most costly and I'll give you the example of if you've got 100 calories worth of a protein only containing food. So let's say we're using pure egg whites just as an example. It's nice and easy, and you were to compare, another 100 calories, from dietary fat, and let's say we're using
Avocado. So after that protein is broken down and metabolized the thermogenic effect or the cost of that breakdown is about 30%. So what we're left with now is only 70 calories so now the body has that 70 calories to do with what it needs for various functions in the body, the fat, on the other hand, although it was a hundred calories that came from the food itself. The fat fats basically has a thermogenic effect of
zero to one percent. It's basically all available to us. So if we were to compare those two macronutrients whilst on paper, they contain the same energy value after we've actually broken it down. One knee is going to shift our balance energy balance in, you know, a more negative Direction. So just a shift of protein for somebody may actually be significant enough to actually cause weight weight loss. Even if calories
Pia to be equated. So, I see that quite a bit in people that haven't had a very high protein intake. But like you said, there are often times when people will go into that Surplus, and they weren't really are very confident in their true maintenance calories at the time, and then maybe they've worked with an inexperienced coach who has suggested to them. We need to do this build, you're going to eat, you know, in a surplus. And they've just really overshot the mark and unfortunately,
Lee, they could be doing all of the evidence based training programs, you know, that they're being done, you know, almost perfectly, you know, there's the progressive overload. There's the specificity there, you know, being consistent and maybe they are increasing their protein intake. And they've been doing that, really, well, as well, if that calorie Surplus is too great for their requirements, then yes, they can put on body fat. However, what I will say is,
The goal is to be adding muscle, then that is a far better position to be in than being in a deficit because we need to have energy available to lay down new tissue. If it's not there. Where do we grow muscle from? So, you know, I always use myself as an example because when I was in my early 20s, I was doing the resistance training, but I was so conscious of putting on body fat. I was you know,
Drastically under eating. I was probably 18 anywhere from 1,200 to maybe 1,400 calories a day. And then binge eating, or, you know, going through some kind of overeating, you know, process that was all a result of poor Stress Management. But, you know, in that situation, it doesn't matter how much training I was doing. I wasn't getting any results because I just couldn't gain strength. I was under fueled undernourished and I wasn't putting on muscle. So I just stayed the same
And I hear that all the time women feel like they're doing so much lifting and they're also doing so much cardio and then those two things together, you know if it's been done at an extreme, they can start to mitigate each other and you know the high intensity cardio if too much of that is being done, you know, concurrently with resistance training, you know, that directly impedes mtor signaling Pathways. So if we were trying to
to optimize the the process of building muscle, you'd really want to be focusing on prioritizing any hours that you do have for activity towards resistance training. And if you've got to the extra time to do some cardio, I would say try to spread them out by at least three or four hours so that you've got time to potentially replenish have a meal so that you've got some extra energy availability so that you can do that session effectively or try to do them on
Days. So that there isn't that interfering interference effect?
Yeah, I think the I think it's a huge misconception, right? Especially when it comes to females, they just want to go to the gym and run on that treadmill or do anything. That is cardiovascular base, because that's how you really feel. And this is, in my opinion, and I'm coming from an endurance sport. I was an elite triathlete and just that feeling of running and running for 5 miles, compared to doing a strength,
Out. I feel in myself, I'm like I'm just shedding the kilos. If I'm if I'm running when in actual fact is probably much better to have a balance between strength or resistance training and cardio. Do you find that women just have that mixed up?
Yeah, so I do think there is still a little bit of misconception. I know, I'm probably living in more of a bubble because of the industry that I'm I've been in, but I think for a lot of women that aren't, you know, in
Do the bodybuilding or the physique competitor space? There is a lot less information available and I guess you hear all the time. You know, you should be fasting in the morning. Then you're burning more facts when you're fasting or you know, cardio is, you know, burning more fat. So you should be doing that. Now part of that is true if you were to compare potentially, you know, to 30 minute workouts, right? Let's say you did a 30-minute
Resistance training session, but it was a fairly low intensity. Maybe you're working at a rate of perceived exertion of six or seven. So we're not really close to failure and which using lots of isolation exercises. We're not really hitting any big, compound exercises and, you know, overall that 30 minutes of work, maybe equates or amounts to, I don't know, let's say it's 220 calories. You could go out and do a bout of cardio for 30 minutes, whether it's
Very intense Ramen or some kind of a boot camp or interval session, and you may expend a lot more energy in that 30 minutes. However, if your goal is to increase your daily calorie intake, if you'd like to be able to consume or foods that you enjoy, or if you'd like to create shape and have muscle, then that our resistance training is only
He of exercise that's going to support that with any amount of significance, some kinds of high intensity cardio where you might be utilizing, you know, dead balls or you know, wait sandbags or that type of resistance. They've been shown to have a positive effect on hypertrophy but it's only going to get you so far. It's really the resistance training that's going to enhance that muscle building effect and ultimately the more muscle you build over time.
I'm that drives all kind of governs, your metabolic rate because that is the most energetically costly tissue. So the more of that metabolically costly tissue, it's a more. Your body needs to sustain it. And that also, then comes with the added flexibility of eating more Foods, eating more of the things that you enjoy, because it requires and demands more energy. So, it really depends on what somebody is goals. Are, you know, of
Person came to me and said, hey I just want to lose body fat, I don't have any interest in, you know, losing a sorry, adding any more muscle. Then I'd say okay well we might be able to get you so far with cardio, but there's also going to be a point where, you know, you do need to have muscle to help with energy expenditure. So, you know, that's when we see people starting to Plateau enough, the only alternative route route for them then is to continue creating a deficit.
Which is, you know, more restriction of calories or more, and it's like energy output more activity, which can become really extreme in some cases because there is that element of metabolic adaptation. So the body starts to adapt, you know, if we're already doing six days of cardio and it's one hour and it's really intense at a certain point. You're going to meet a new maintenance calories. You've got it. You're already eating a certain amount of food. So once you reach that Plateau, you kind of have to
Keep going in order to keep losing body fat. And a lot of times you'll see people just get to the point where it's like I've got no more hours in the day to do more exercise to lose that body fat. So the only alternative is restrict calories further and some in some cases people are already at their calorie floor, like there's no more calories to take. It's like, what did you want to eat? Are sure. Or you can choose to add muscle, which is going to cost your body more over time and that
Can help contribute to, you know, long-term fat loss maintenance.
Yeah. You see, you've made some really great points as it relates to gaining muscle. And I think what we talked about on the Euro experience often is how important lean tissue is, or muscle for longevity for overall health. And most importantly, and our perspective brain health. So we speak a lot about the different Maya kinds that are released during
Strength training, Amaya kinds are muscle based proteins. That are secreted from the skeletal muscle. Go into the bloodstream, come up and go into the brain and have an effect on cognitive processes. But we also know that we can have more mitochondria when we build more muscle. So, we know now, especially all the listeners on the, your experience that more muscle is good. However, I really want you to talk about how hard it is because in my opinion, I believe
Is it is not easy to just do some weights and put on muscle is really hard to even put on a kilo of muscle, or a few pounds of muscle does require consistency. It does require surplus of energy or calories and it also requires knowing what to do in the gym. So can you talk to us about how one actually goes about, like, in terms of training? How many days a week do you need to train? What do you need?
Need to be training, how many sets, how many reps?
Yeah, so I think, first and foremost, I just want to point out as well for women because we have lower testosterone levels. It is a little more challenging for us to build as much muscle as as males. But if we look at the studies in natural drug-free athletes. So we're looking at, you know, a lot of natural physique, competitors. Like me the maximum amount of lean body mass or I shouldn't use the correct terminology
The fat free mass that can be acquired over a say, an 8 week study intervention. It's about, I don't know, two and a half kilograms and that's fat free Mass. If we detect we take away, like, what contributes, you know, that fat free Mass. We're looking at Water, we're looking at increases in organ mass as we grow, you know, much smaller amount or a smaller percentage of that is actually, you know, skeletal muscle tissue. So,
If we look at once am in a in a four-week period, for instance it's about half of a kilogram that we can actually add per month. So you know try to visualize what half a kilo looks like I've got a water bottle over here, which is exactly 500 wheels. So we'll say, I don't so different units of measurement that for all argumentative purposes. Like this is 500 grams of new tissue. And if we disperse that evenly over my body, that doesn't look like a whole lot. It does it.
Sorry, you know, I think for me what I'm working with clients and it's the protocol protocols that I have certainly implemented for the last few years is I'm taking like a minimum of six months where I am not even thinking about being in a deficit. I am exclusively focused on consistency with my training putting in some big. You know, big program volumes in efforts to build more muscles. So you know, you're looking at three kilograms
In a six month period, now that's substantially more and you'll see that on a fit on a physique when you diet them back down, but you've got to be realistic with. Okay, what physique is it that you are striving for and how much muscle really do? I realistically need to put on this body to look like that and in some cases, you know, I've had women come to me and it's like the real number is about 10 to 12 kilos of muscles. So, like, do that math? That's years of time out of a deficit, out of a death.
Sit. So I think, first off, we've got to be realistic with the time frames. It takes to actually acquire that new tissue when you're doing everything, you know, based on all of the evidence based, you know, approaches. So when it comes to actually putting together a training program, it's going to look a little bit different for everybody and that's largely due to the fact that everybody is, you know, at their own, you know, place on their fitness journey. So for somebody that's brand-new maybe they haven't really
You know, they're a bit intimidated by this, whole body, building physique thing going into the gym and they haven't done that type of training before. It might be as simple as starting a starting them out with two days a week and we're doing maybe 30 to 45 minutes at a fairly low training, intensity. And again I used rpe as the example of training intensity before which is just rate of perceived exertion. So we want to stay somewhere within that 6 to 10 range, too.
Make effective or have effective results. So for somebody that's just starting, we might be on that low end of that range and over time as that individual adapts to a new training stimulus. As that volume increases over time, we need to start challenge them in challenging them, even further. So it where somebody starts it's always a little bit different. So I guess the best way to look at your
Our own training right now and decide. Okay. How do I know I'm going to be making progress? Is you look at your total number of sets times the Reps times the weight that you lift. And that's going to give you a total volume in either pounds or kilograms, whatever unit of measurement you record your training and then you total up what your training session equates to. And then you want a total, your week of training up and see. OK, in seven days, I have lifted.
X amount of pounds. And I'll use some examples from clients that I'm working with right now. So, in a deload week, I've got a couple of people that their training volumes in pounds amounts to somewhere, maybe around 75,000 to 85,000 pounds of volume. And then, over a six-week mesocycle, we're starting to see that number go up and up, and up to the point at week, six, which is their most challenging week, where we may have gone from, you know, the d load starts at
Sets at a low intensity. And you know, progressively, it's worked up to three sets for a few weeks and then maybe were weeks five and six. They're working at some of those compound movements as for working sets and they progressively increase volume. Now, they're up at 145,000 pounds of volume by week six. So tracking those volumes month-to-month is actually really important. And moreover, when you change training
M&M's. So let's say you've been doing a program of somebody's Fitness site and you know, it was really good because of bored of it now and you find a new trainer and you're like they've got a new six-week challenge or whatever it is. And then you use their program. You could actually be regressing your volume, if you're not tracking and thus, you're not making any progress. So volume tracking is important. Now, it's not the only I guess measurement that is necessary.
For achieving results but it's definitely a strong, you know, predictor or driver of, you know, adding muscle. So yeah, I guess that's kind of like the overview in general. You want to make sure that you know, every month that you're trying to make some small progression and it may be as small as a one or two percent increase, you know, over a four-week period. And particularly in the case where you might have dumbbells that jump from 15 to 20.
And a half, you know, that's a big job. So you may not be able to go from 3 sets of 10 at. I don't know 15 kg up to three sets of ten or twenty two and a half. You may only get a few reps and then have to put him down. So a better strategy might actually be to just try to work towards one more rep. You know, that's one more little bit of volume I retiring. So how people progress always looks a little bit different, how you set somebody's program up? Kind of depends on. Okay well I need
To know what you've been doing, in Everett's to make sure that I'm least going to match your program to begin with. And then we're going to try and make some progressions.
I've never heard of actually anyone, you know, really breaking it down like that. Like I myself, if I think that's amazing to actually track the amount of load that you're putting on your body, I mean, it makes sense. When you think about it like scientifically and in a physics standpoint, right? How much load are you putting on your body each week each month?
Unfortunately, my training, there is just due to my career, but I think that that is really important, I'm going to start doing that. But one thing that I've that I've got to point out is let's take my mother, for example, a 68 years old and our daily fights revolve around her going to the gym. I, you know, I pound her every single day on the phone. I'm like, are you going to the gym today? And one thing that I think is profound, when it comes to women of all ages is starting,
From base one, which is learning how to squat. And I speak about this often. I think I have to duel master class with you, actually, literally. I do not like how important it is for a woman just to know how to squat. I think it's extremely important. And I also think that a lot of people really don't know too much about, and I've heard you speak about FEMA length. That's something that I never really took into consideration. So, can you talk to me about like the fundamentals of squatting and what femur length has to?
Deal with it.
Yeah, absolutely. Well I first want to put a disclaimer out there. I'm not. I guess an exercise physiologist but I've spent a lot of time with them I guess as a clinician and then also going to them for my own I guess Rehabilitation or just to kind of improve my own performance. So I could I'll just speak to it based on my own experiences and a little bit of reading. So I guess it femur length when it comes to squatting makes a world of difference about I guess.
It's how you position yourself in a squat? So I guess the easiest way to describe this, if you've got somebody that has very short femurs their squat is going to be relatively upright. You'll see this very commonly, I guess in like some of you Olympic weightlifters, you'll see them just kind of Pop down pop up because they're FEMA's, don't really have to get out of the way. In order to hit depth on the flip side, it for someone like me. And there are a quite a
You are professional powerlifting athletes that have extremely long leavers. It and it's not necessarily the best thing, but because they've got long levers, they have to push their knees out. And, of course, when we move our knees out like this, what happens? Our chest comes down. So we've got a very bent over squat position. So I guess the disadvantages for somebody that has a very forward.
And leaning squat is that that's going to load quite a significant amount on their spine. It's like if you think about holding a weight plate in you know nice and close to your body, you could call it, hold it here all day, right? But if we hold it out with maybe one arm for an extended period of time it's going to start to get really heavy because the load and that's I guess tension is going to start to grow. So you're kind of subjecting your yourself to a little bit more spinal loading.
And those folks tend to do best with a low bar, squat, because if you can imagine, if you've got the squat, the barbell or sitting quite high, on your back, and you go down for a squat and you're leaning far forwards that your center of gravity is going to be pulled for words. If you've got the bar sitting high up on the back but if you can do a low bar squat, where it actually just sits nice, nice and underneath your scapula and you kind of wing it.
It's bringing the bar position back closer to your center of gravity so that you're going to be positioned for a more powerful squat. So that was a really important Learning lesson for me. Because as somebody that's always had high, long femurs, I was trying to high bar Squat and I was like this is not working for me. I feel like I am. I'm only only going to get half way down because if I go any lower, the bars going to move. I'm going to fall forwards which is not legal in
Border collie, lifting, you know, you'd have to hit depth, which is parallel, you know, your hip bones got to be line with your knee. So yeah. The only way for me to really be able to hit depth and that's actually a good thing from a muscle hypertrophy standpoint as well, because now we're working the entire range of that muscle length. We're not just working half the muscle by doing half of a squat, you know. So you're able to get better hypertrophy results, but, you know, I was a lot stronger. And guess what? If you can lift more low
Load over time that's going to equate to likely bigger muscles. You know, those things. Go hand in hand. So I guess that's kind of the basics of the different differences in femur length and then the differences in bar position that you can squat with.
Yeah, that's really important. I am, I did a I did a squat class, literally, it was at this gym in Sydney. I was thinking, why am I even doing this? And I learned so much about the way that I squat. So, I'm so happy. I did that and I think that
He should really go out and learn the fundamentals of how to squat and obviously how to just add generally, lift weights. Okay, so still on the topic of females. I want to know about hormones. So when it comes to female specific hormones and do you train around that. So, for example, a lot of Science Now is coming out around how to properly train around the menstrual cycle. So do you take that into consideration when setting your programs for your athletes? Yeah.
Yeah. So I honestly I haven't had a look at I guess. This study is in probably a few months now so I don't know whether anything new has come out. So the last time I checked checked this was probably August. So if there's a meta-analyses or a systematic review that's come out since then I'm sorry. But up until that point basically there was a bit of a divide in the research so there are four or five could have keys studies that look at the menstrual cycle and how it impacts strength.
Hypertrophy and the results basically say that the females have very subjective experiences of whether or not their period has an impact on their strengths and or hypertrophy outcomes. So what we see is that some individuals tend to have, you know, an extremely, you know symptomatic, menstrual cycle where, you know, they're kind of in debilitate, debilitating pain, they've got all the cramping, you know.
They have extremely low energy, perhaps they're not sleeping very well and often that is kind of right in the lead-up to having, you know, the cycle. So we're looking at the second phase where we're seeing High progesterone levels potentially lowered each region levels. And it is that combination of east region and progesterone change that can contribute to those less than favorable symptoms. It's also what contributes to, you know, I was feeling a little bit Moody that hype.
Gesture. An Loi sturgeon is also what contributes to the water retention. So, we see our total body water levels increase by about, one to two percent, sometimes more in certain individuals. So it's a period where your body literally a period, where your body is really shifting, and it happens quite quickly. So, you know, to be able to adapt to that big shift in just total body water on its own. It's quite quite difficult to come to terms.
Where they know if there's anybody listening. I mean, I know for me, around that time of the month, I see like a four or somewhere between two to four kilos of increased body weight, just on the scale. Now, that's not saying that I put on body fat around that time or that because I'm taking a contraceptive pill that. Oh my God, all of a sudden, my weights going out. No. It's because of the shifts in hormones. That actually contribute to that, those increases in total body water, and it's uncomfortable, and it's a mixture of interested.
And extracellular water. So not only are you feeling heavier and it can be quite substantial. I don't know if anyone's tried to do a hard spin class or a StairMaster a big rung. When you know they've just chowed down on Thanksgiving you know lunch or you know a big meal like that that extra weight in a really short period of time you're going to feel it when you're moving so it's not always Pleasant. So you know in those particular
Ocular cases for the women that do really find that their symptoms are quite severe. Those are the folks that I plan and intentional deload. You know we're looking at when their period is two months ahead and it's every four weeks we are putting in a deload. And that's the week that I'll probably also do some kind of a diet break or take the calories back to maintenance to give them a little bit more flexibility with their calories to, to be able to cope with.
Some of those physiological and psychological symptoms. Yeah,
that's I'm so happy that you pointed that out because we just get so many mixed messages around cortisol and, you know, you should train in the mornings on a faster. Some people know you shouldn't because it's too much of a cortisol Spike and there's just so much information out there. So I'm happy that you that you answered that. Now, I've got two more questions. The first is just backtracking from a more speaking about protein requirements, you mentioned, what was it? 1.6.
So anywhere from
one point eight, two, two point nine grams of protein, per kilogram of your lean body mass. So you see lean
body mass can you please explain to everybody what that is so they don't get it. Confused with their actual you don't, they don't just step on the scales and things. Yeah. So what is it?
We have, I guess if you go and have a dexa, scan just as an example, which is one of the research tools to kill of, collect your fat bass, or determine what your fat mass is, which is your adipose tissue compared
Your fat free mass and it's kind of two compartments. So fat mass is fat mouths. That's just your like a dip asset sites. That's your fat cells. And then we've got your fat free Mass, which is actually a combination of many things. It's not just your skeletal muscle tissue. That includes things like your hair, your skin, your nails, your bones, your organs are lean tissues, they are not fat. And then we've also got skills.
Little muscle tissue that falls into that fat free mass or a lean tissue, and then water is also a fat free Mass. So, when we're getting those types of measurements, those two compartment models. What we're looking at is those distinctions, and unfortunately, it's very easy to, I guess, get a reading or result, that feels like you've regressed, or you haven't been able to make progress, but we've got to remember that.
Because the fat free Mass measurements are also incorporating, you know, your body water, the conditions under, which you have a dexa, scan are really important, and even in a clinical setting or in a research setting, we have to do those tests like three times and take the average because there's still some into individual variation. So, when we're getting body fat, testing done and specifically, using a dexa, which is the best in my opinion for
The general population we're not going to go and do underwater, weighing or anything like that, it's just not accessible unless you're in a research setting you know, we need to be going in on a day where there hasn't been alcohol consumed, the day prior we would prefer to go in on a day after having had a full day of rest. And the reason for that is those two variables, change your total body. Water alcohol can be a deacon cause dehydration and then also if you're exercising,
As in the day before or words, the day of we've got to think about the inflammatory response to activity, particularly in the case of resistance training. So no training the day before. No alcohol a day before and you want to go in fasted first thing in the morning, ideally so that we're testing under the same conditions. If you do it, you know, in the morning, one day. And then in the evening another day now, we're comparing potentially differences in, like food that you've taken in, you know, if you've eaten
Nothing one time and then the second time you go and have it, you're going in and you're already had three meals. Well, there's fluid in those meals. There's also physical mass in those meals, which will all register as either water and or potentially, you know, fat tissue. So, I guess that's the in a very roundabout way. That's the difference between, I guess, fat free mass and then lean tissue or fat-free tissues. And it's
Port not to kind of confuse the two
now very important, thank you for clearing that up. Last question we were speaking offline and you're talking about this new thing that you're doing and it's incorporating an entire board of directors at if you will when it comes to health. So what are you working on right now?
Yeah so I have actually just decided to step away from one of my existing coaching companies and create an all-female companies. So it's been something on my mind than a lot of
I've wanted to do for a very long time and that is really just to empower women to achieve their best to and the whole concept or premises of this coaching team is to build a team of products and services that are by females and designed for females. So I have been going through a bit of a rigorous interviewing phase the last few weeks, we've concierge, MD, endocrinologist, hormone specialist food psychologist. So
Body to help with the psychology of eating and our behaviors that can influence, you know, our ability to achieve our goals and not just like, health and fitness goals. But could be Financial. It could be relation, or like, all of the domains of life. So, food psychologist and then, of course, dieticians and then exercise science professionals. So that, we've really got an Allied Health Team of individuals that can kind of collaborate in a really easy fashion, because most of the work,
That we do now on is online. And my clients are all over the world, so if somebody lives in Germany and they need some support for, you know, mental health counseling, or they need to get in touch with, you know, physician that can do some of their blood work. That, you know, specializes in, you know, female specific issues, whether it's p cos whether it's something to do with, you know, perimenopause perimenopause or what have you, it's difficult to kind of coordinate that. And then,
The best practice. So, I really wanted to integrate, you know, that Allied Health Team under the one roof, so that we can refer in house and have a really comprehensive like, you know, care for our
clients. That's incredible. I'm so excited to see when that is launched. Now, where can everyone find you and find out more about you?
Yeah. So I'm most active on Instagram and also YouTube, so my vote the accounts are the same. It's Holly T Baxter.
And then when you go to my Instagram page, you can see all the links to my website, to our nutrition coaching apps to our training apps, everything is obvious. So yes you'll find it all there.
Thanks so much, Holly for being part of the neuro Experience
Podcast. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure talking to you.
