Podcast Transcription: The 40+ Summer Travel Blueprint: Master Fat Loss with These Essential Nutrition Principles – Part 2

Ted Ryce: Welcome back to part two of the 40 plus Summer Travel Blueprint, my special series to help you stay lean, healthy, and confident all summer long, even while enjoying your vacations. This series is all about bringing back some of my best episodes, powerful, timeless lessons that will help you stay on track this summer without stress or restriction. 

So let's be honest, you want to enjoy your summer. You don't want to restrict all your food choices and maybe have a few drinks, but you also wanna look and feel your best and not come back feeling bloated and defeated from all the fun that you had during the summer. So in this first episode of the series, I shared my ultimate travel fitness guide, how to Stay in shape while you're on the road without skipping dinner, stressing about gyms, or falling off track every time you hit the road. 

And today, I want to take it a step further because even though summer is a fun time, full of relaxation, good food, good friends, it's also a time we tend to forget the basics. That's why I'm bringing back this powerful episode. A deep dive into foundational nutrition principles that actually drive fat loss, or at least will help you maintain your current level of body fat or weight while you're enjoying the summer. 

And no, this isn't about being strict or perfect. It's about having clarity so that you can enjoy yourself while still honoring your goals. So whether you're sipping cocktails by the beach or exploring new cities. This episode will help you keep your nutrition on point without guilt or overwhelm. So let's get into it. 

What do we know helps with fat loss? Number one, total calories. If you bring up calories these days on social media, you just get attacked. 

Oh, do you believe in that ancient bullshit? The Cal? We're not a calorimeter. Calories don't matter. It's the type of calories that matter. We're gonna dive into that, but that ain't true. And I, I just want to tell you this, for those of you who don't know me from a long time ago, I used to not believe in calories. 

I used to believe in carbs make you fat, and insulin is the driver of, of, uh, fat storage and disease and so many other things. I was a low carb person before all this low carb stuff got popular. I was a paleo before Paleo had the name Paleo. I've evolved because I didn't get results with what I was doing. 

So total calories. This is a fundamental principle that all animals, not just human beings, but all animals, you need to get more energy in than what you expend to get it. 'cause we didn't always have Walmarts and Kroger's and Whole Foods and Publix and Trader Joe's. We had to go hunt and work for our food, work hard for our food. 

And if you worked too hard for your food, if you hunted too many days and didn't find enough food, you starved to death or potentially to death. And animals today, animals in the wild, not the ones fed in cages and zoos, but they have to do the same thing. They can't expend energy. They don't just do what they want. 

This is a thing that's programmed into their minds, into their brains, into their behavior. This is a fundamental thing. We need to get more. Energy out of the environment than we, uh, put into the environment to get the food. Or we're in trouble, so total calories. Now. We are in a situation now where we don't work very hard for our food at all, unless you're like, well, I put in my credit card information three times before I was able to use Uber Eats to get my food delivered So hard. 

You know, unless that's your idea of hard work. We don't work very hard for our food. We're, we're so disconnected from it. We don't even see the animals get chopped to pieces like I did when I was in the markets in, in Southeast Asia where you see the pig head sitting there and the body just chopped up. 

Like we're so far so disconnected from it. It is all okay, but I'm just saying total calories. This is a principle. It's never going away. It is a fundamental principle. If you take more energy in, then you're expending, then you're going to gain weight. And, uh, if you're not exercising hard or even if you are exercising hard and you're eating past over a certain point, you will gain fat. 

In fact, so many people think it's hard to lose fat. It's not. It's quite easy. What's really hard is to help someone gain muscle without putting on too much fat. Now that is hard. That is tricky. Losing fat is so simple. It really is so simple. And if you're saying, well, it's not simple for me, I can't do it, I'm, look, you just don't know what you're doing. 

You know? It's not a judgment. I've been there, but you just don't know what you're doing. But total calories, this is something, it's the fundamental principle here. Now, what's the next principle? Protein. Protein, because we don't wanna lose just weight. Losing weight. This is a fundamental mistake that so many people make when they're trying to. 

Lose fat, they end up losing weight. And do they know where the weight came from? They assume it comes from fat. But where it really comes from is uh, when people go on really strict diets and don't eat enough protein in particular, if you cut your calories too low. If you don't eat enough protein, it comes from lean mass. 

That means muscle. And if you lose muscle, it's like losing money. It's like losing, you know, the, the valuation of your business is less, or the, or I guess the valuation of your house is less. You've just lost, you lost muscle. That's losing net worth. You messed up, in other words, and now it's gonna be easier for you to put back on the fat. 

So easy because muscle contributes to your metabolic rate, but beyond that, it contributes to your weight. And bigger bodies can eat more calories. So we wanna make sure that we're really, we're working out, we're doing resistance exercise. But uh, since we're not talking about resistance exercise today, we're talking about nutrition. 

What do we do? We make sure we eat enough protein because it maintains your muscle mass. A lot of what happens to my clients is they end up putting on muscle. I'm, I don't run a fat, oh, I'm sorry. I don't wanna run a weight loss program. I had one of my clients shout out to you, bassy, who gained weight, and she was freaking out on me. 

She's like, this isn't working. This isn't working. I gained weight. I'm like, do a body fat test. Her body fat dropped from 26% to 18%. Huge drop. Huge. Her weight went up. So again, resistance training, but eating, making sure we're eating enough. Protein is critical. Protein does a few other things. It helps you. 

Stay satisfied. In other words, if you're satisfied, you're not gonna wanna keep eating more. And a lot of people who maybe just eat a carb heavy meal, then you're like, you know, people say that about Chinese food. It's like, I ate Chinese food, but now, um, you know, it's two hours later and I'm hungry again. 

1. So eating more protein is gonna help you stay satisfied for longer. Another thing that protein does, it has a high thermic effect of feeding. Now, I know that sounds a little weird, but it just comes down to this, whenever you eat food, digesting the food is an energy intensive process. If you ever chewed some chewy meat and your jaw starts to get tired, you're working your jaw muscles.

But even beyond that, your body has to work and release hydrochloric acid, release digestive enzymes like amylase to digest the food, and then it needs to assimilate it in your small intestine. It's energy. It takes energy. It's work. All work takes energy. That's just a fundamental thing. And so protein. It takes more work to digest. 

And you may say, well, is that really, is that really a thing? Is that really relevant? Is that a big enough deal? And the answer is yes, because what we know is that about timber, if, if you eat a carb, heavier fat, heavier carb and fat, heavy meal and low protein, about 10% of the calories that you ingest get used up to digest the food. 

But a protein heavy meal can be up to 30%. So let's just use some sample numbers here. So, if I ate a thousand calories, but the meal was mostly carbs and fat, about a hundred calories are used up in the digestion and assimilation of that meal. But if I'm eating a, a protein heavy meal, 300 calories, so 300 calories get used up. 

So it's a big deal. Another thing is that as we get older, we need more protein. We start to experience what's called anabolic resistance. So we need more protein. And I know that goes counter to some of what's said and we're not really gonna talk about that right now. Like some scientists, and I use that term real loosely, will say that, well, protein actually predisposes you to. 

Cancer, and we're not gonna talk about that right now. But I will tell you this, people are dying and having, their people are dying mostly from heart disease and, um, heart disease is mostly from a lack of exercise and too much body fat. So hedge your bets on higher amounts of protein because the protein causing cancer. 

The protein cancer connection, that's not solid. But, uh, everything that I'm saying about sarcopenia in, in other words, the age related loss of muscle, that's solid. People dying from heart disease and lack of exercise, that's solid. So where are we at? We, we've talked about total calories. We just talked about protein. 

Now let's talk about carbs versus fat. The arguments rage on the internet, carbs versus fat. But the truth is it doesn't matter much for fat loss. Here's what matters most. Do you like eating fat more, or do you like eating carbs more? You know what I've found the majority of people like eating carbs more. 

Here's what I do. I have pe, my clients track their nutrition and we look at their choices. And if they end up eating more fat, then we skew the, their, uh, calories, their fat loss calories towards eating more fat. Or if they eat more carbs, we skew it towards eating more carbs. So what I'm trying to say here is it really doesn't matter for fat loss. 

However, I will say this, carbs matter for psychological health because carbs help shuttle the amino acid tryptophan. Across your blood brain barrier. That helps you create more serotonin, which more serotonin helps you feel better. And low carb diets. If you Google ketogenic diet and panic attacks, you'll read a lot of anecdotal reports from people or stories, in other words, of people having panic attacks because they went low carb. 

That happened to me. And, uh, that's it. I had some really bad time following a, a very strict low carb diet. So, um, it was also low calorie, which adds additional levels of stress to your body. So carbs do that. Carbs also fuel performance. So if you're only lifting weights three times a week and you're, you know, not pushing yourself that hard in terms of, uh, let's say in terms of like, you're huffing and puffing, you're just lifting some weights and you're, you know, working a muscular exhaustion, but. 

You're not pushing yourself that, that hard. Well, maybe, maybe you can get away with eating less carbs. You would have to experiment to know. 'cause some people feel a lot better when they eat carbs like me. But I do Brazilian juujitsu, I do Muay Thai, and there's no way I would try any of that without eating enough carbs. 

So carbs, fuel performance, they also have an effect on your psychological health. Now fat fat's a bit different. Fat is connected with hormonal, uh, production. So you do need some of it. In fact, what a lot of the low carb crazies say is that, oh, you don't need carbs. You can live without carbs, but you can't live without fat. 

And you know it. That's true. There's something called rabbit starvation. It's just a term because, uh, during I think the, the exploration of America, these guys, uh, were trying to live on rabbits and ended up dying because the fat content. Of their diet was so low that you need fat to survive. However, uh, you don't need that much. 

And certainly carbs can improve the quality of your life. So when people say you don't need carbs to stay alive, it's true. It's just doesn't staying alive, uh, surviving isn't optimal. Okay, we wanna thrive. But back to the fat situation, fat does help with hormone production, but you don't need that much of it. 

And there's certainly nothing healthy about going out of your way to pour olive oil on your food or uh, coconut oil in your coffee. If you're adding fats to your diet because you think it's helping you, you're just adding more calories and getting fatter, most likely, and causing your health to get worse. 

So we'll talk about this because nutrient optimization is different than fat loss. 'cause you can lose fat in an unhealthy way. Can't you get thrown in jail in Thailand and get fed? You know, like with the Thai diet, you're gonna lose weight like crazy. But it's because you're in prison and you're not being fed enough. 

So, does that make sense? It's kind of a silly example, but it's true. Or get stranded on, uh, you know, a, a desert island, a deserted island rather. Like Tom Hanks in Stowaway, he's gonna lose every single one of you right now would lose fat. Every single one of you. Oh, I just can't lose fat. I don't know, maybe my slow metabolism bullshit. 

Go get stranded on a desert, uh, deserted island for a week where you have to, where you're eating insects and drinking coconut water. Having to work hard for your food, you will lose. You will lose fat. This has already been figured out. It's just that it's really hard to do it in the modern food environment. 

That's what your struggle is, not anything else. Not pre menopause, post menopause, low testosterone. None of that is not your age, not any of that. Now those things may have a effect on trying to gain muscle, but that's a totally different conversation. Fat loss is separate. So the, the next thing beyond that we need to talk about is whole foods versus processed foods. 

Well, there is a difference here. Whole foods are certainly better for you. But why and why are processed foods not as good for you? And I will say this. I eat processed foods. I, I ate, I eat sugar every day. Added sugar every single day. Not the sugar from fruit. I have that too, but I have sugar every day. I had, um, a dark chocolate drink that is delicious. 

It's mostly dark chocolate, but it has about eight grams of sugar and every serving. I had two servings today, so 16 grams of added sugar. So you can get away with eating whole foods and processed foods, but we want to, and you know, and this is part of the thing, so many of us, we think, well, I can't eat that. 

That's a bad food. This is a healthy food. That's an unhealthy food. And the truth is, it may be better for you physiologically, but it's harder for us psychologically. And the psychological aspect of nutrition is something that is really underappreciated. I'll talk about that more in a second. So. What is the difference between physiologically whole foods and processed foods? 

Well, whole foods take more energy to digest processed foods, like the name suggests is it's pre-digested is process. So it's easier for your body to get the calories out of the processed food. So if you're, if you're eating a piece of pizza versus eating a piece of steak and a potato. A whole baked potato. 

Your body's gonna work much harder to get the nutrition from the steak and potatoes versus the processed food, which it just, the pizza just sort of melts in your mouth as you, as you chew it. It, it, it liquefies quite easily. Right. Are you thinking about pizza like I am right now? So the other thing about processed food that's really important here is that processed food stimulates your brain differently. 

Processed food. And, and you. Okay. You probably know that, like if you ever felt like addicted to social media, for example, why is it that it's so hard when someone responds to your comments and you wanna get in this conversation with them? I. That. Why? What, what is that thing? Why, why do I feel so compelled to get back to someone I don't even know on social media? 

Well, it's because it triggers your reward system. You get a, a dopamine spike, a specific neurotransmitter in your brain gets spiked when you eat. I'm sorry, let's stay with the example, right? When you're, when you're on social media, that's why you feel so compelled to do it. That's why it, it's addictive. 

So processed foods have a similar effect on your brain, and I wanna give the example, now I use social media because it's something that we deal with all the time. Every single one of us, pretty much. But I'm gonna give you another example that may, uh, be more, maybe something that you don't have experience with, but it may help paint the picture a little bit better. 

So, so coca leaves. I'm gonna be on my way to South America soon. And COA leaves have been used to make tea for the people in the Andes to deal with altitude, uh, sickness and also to help with energy levels, but somewhere, and it's been used for who, who knows how long, I don't know, hundreds or maybe even thousands of years by the indigenous people in South America, but. 

Somewhere, I guess in the eighties or seventies, someone figured out how to isolate the compound in coca leaves and create cocaine so nobody is shooting people or, you know, engaging in criminal or lascivious acts because of coca leaves, but cocaine that's caused a lot of trouble. And to take it a step further, cocaine's been processed into crack, which is, uh, free basing. 

So you smoke it and it has an even more powerful effect. And if you've ever been around, I mean, I'm from Miami, I've been around crack heads and you see it, this, the devastation. So look, processed foods isn't crack cocaine, all right? It's not cocaine either. And nobody needs to do cocaine, but we all need to eat. 

And we're all going to eat processed foods every now and again. But it's important to understand that processed foods affect our brain differently. It causes this, it triggers our reward system. I mean, just think about it. I don't need to even explain it. So scientifically, think about. A whole baked potato with no set, with nothing on it, just a plain baked potato or even better boiled potatoes. 

Do you have that picture in your mind? I want you to really picture this. Don't close your eyes if you're driving or if you're running, but I want you to think about boiled potatoes. Now, think about potato chips or if you like, uh, french fries. Think about french fries. Same thing, but it's been processed. 

Potato chips have been sliced thin, fried in oil to make crispy and added fat. French fries are crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and, uh, have been fried in fat. So these processed foods, I mean, the French, there's never gonna be a time where french fries, uh, or, or boiled potatoes or a plain baked potato tastes better than french fries. 

Do you, do you understand that? Do you get that? I mean, just thinking about it, just like so much better. Milk is never gonna be as exciting as ice cream. So processed foods, even thinking about these things, it's like, Ooh, did you say ice cream? Oh, did you say, you know, french fries? Hmm. You know, french fries with some salt and uh, and some ketchup. 

Oof. Delicious. There's never gonna be a time when boiled potatoes taste that good. So, and that's because, think about it. Did you decide that you liked ice cream more, or do you decide, did you decide that french fries were better? Why is it so common that people feel that way? It's because the innate wiring in our brain. 

The next thing we need to talk about, so we talked about total calories. We talked about the importance of protein. We talked about carbs versus fat, and now we just talked about whole foods versus processed foods. The next thing we gotta talk about here is satiety, because it's very important. Satiety is, well, I'll say it like this. 

Why do we eat so much? Two reasons we're hungry, or we're having cravings. So hunker is when you need food because you need to fuel your body because we all need to fuel our bodies. There's no one that can last without eating. I mean, I think the longest fast was actually quite long towards the better part of a year over like over 300 days, I think. 

But that wasn't a very obese person. And it had to be medically supervised the whole fasting experiment. So if you're extremely obese, you can go with food for maybe a hundred or 200 or however many days, but we all need to eventually eat or we die, right? So we need to eat or we die. But, uh, so that's hunger. 

Cravings is something different. We'll talk about emotional issues in a bit. But I want to talk about satiety because this is super important. It's not me just saying this because I needed to put stuff down to talk about super important. So satiety is how do we manage our hunker? And in sometimes some of us think we have cravings, but it's really we're eating foods that don't satisfy us. 

So there's a few things here. Number one, having a higher protein intake will make you feel more satisfied. A higher carb or fat intake. Now the exception here is the ketogenic diet. Ketones help with hunger, but that's a separate issue. And I, and I'm not gonna go into the ketogenic diet because I'm not a fan people, most people, uh, can't keep it up even if they like it initially. 

And I don't think it's optimal and there's just no need for being that strict. But I just wanted to acknowledge that, just to be thorough here. So if we're eating a normal diet, a normal, right, we're not trying to restrict any one macronutrient, like for example, cutting carbs or even cutting fat so low. 

If we're eating a mixture of these macronutrients, how do we deal with this hunker issue? And it's really simple. So I, we already talked about protein, but the next thing we need to talk about is, um, whole foods. Whole foods are more satiating than processed foods. Think about that. So processed foods, how like there's a saying, right? 

For Lay's potato chips, I bet you just can't eat one. It's because you eat one and you're not satisfied. So you did another and you keep eating another and you're still not satisfied. And then before you know it, the whole bag is gone and you're still hungry. So that's not cravings, that's just processed foods inability to help you with your hunger. 

So satiety is huge. So besides focusing on protein and whole foods, we can also focus on something called gastric distension. 

So what does that mean? The stretching of your stomach helps with satiety. So the best thing here is to have, this is what I do personally. I, I eat soups. Soups are, um, amazing for this. Soups are absolutely amazing for this. So soup, you eat a larger volume of food because a lot of it's water, it's soup. And when I was in Thailand in Bangkok, I was having a soup every day. 

I was having this amazing, uh, wonton and noodle soup called bgi. And uh, it was delicious. I would have it every day. Fresh vegetable broth. It also, not only was it tasty and delicious, it also helped me not be hungry. So, uh, having things like soups, uh, eating more vegetables and having, and making sure you're drinking enough water, drinking enough liquids, 'cause sometimes we're dehydrated and what we really need is some hydration, but we eat food instead because we get water from our food. 

Not from dry crackers, but if you're, uh, having yogurt like I had for breakfast this morning, there's a lot of water in it. Or if you're having fruit, a lot of water in it. By choosing foods that, um, that help kind of fill you up and have a high volume and stretch your stomach, that helps too. And this is, no, this is not just some, it's not some stupid life. 

And, you know, biohack, this is legit stuff that you can use in the real world and make a d to make a difference. Try it out. Now, I happen to love soups. You may not, but you know, sipping herbal teas throughout the day can help too. So these are the major things when it comes to fat loss, so I'm gonna end this here, but I hope you got a lot, a lot out of today. And these are all things that you can start to think about in your life. Think about. During your day, all the opportunities that you have to eat during your meal times. 

In other words, are you making the right decisions? Are you, are you monitoring how many total calories that you're eating? Are you making sure that you're getting enough protein in. Do you do better on higher carb intake or higher fat intake and making sure that you have less of the other nut macronutrient? 

Are you focusing on foods that help you feel satisfied? Or are you going to foods like potato chips where you can't just eat one and you end up eating the whole bag and then you're still hungry? Are you focusing on whole foods that will help you feel more satisfied? That will help you give, uh, that will give you more nutrition, that will help fill you up. 

Focusing less on processed foods, but still having enough processed foods, enough desserts and things, um, so that you feel like you're not being so strict and depriving yourself.