In this episode of The Thermo Diet Podcast Christopher Walker and Jayton Miller sit down and talk about some of their experiences when it comes to losing fat and not harming the body. They talk about nutrient density, cooking, mindset going into a fat loss stage, and so much more. Check it out and let us know what you think!
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Full Transcript
Jayton Miller:
Welcome back to The Thermo Diet Podcast. I'm your host, Jayton Miller. And I'm here with my co-host, Mr. Christopher Walker. How you doing?
Christopher Walker:
What's up? Glad to be back.
Jayton Miller:
Yeah, definitely.
Christopher Walker:
Back on the pod.
Jayton Miller:
So today we're talking about how to increase fat loss, right?
Christopher Walker:
Yeah. Yeah, we were talking about earlier, thought it'd be a good idea for an episode of basically, especially with all these, the great lockdown across the world and varying levels of it, depending on where you are in the world or different states in the US all treating it differently, that it's possible a lot of people that are listening to this might have gained the quarantine 15 and just need some little tips to get back on track and feel good again.
Christopher Walker:
So I noticed in the first month or two of the whole lockdown, just being at home every day was driving me nuts, but I just didn't feel that good. Even though I was getting walks in and certain days I'd get a lot of steps, then other days I would just sit in front of my computer the entire day working, but then you just, something over time, I didn't feel very healthy.
Jayton Miller:
Do you think that's from a lack of stimulus from social interaction?
Christopher Walker:
Definitely plays a role for sure. Yeah, it was weird. Yeah. But now that we're back in the office, it's good. It's all good. Yeah. After a certain period of time, I was like, "Screw it." And I'd just drive in every day to the office and just work from the office just to be somewhere else.
Jayton Miller:
I started doing that too.
Christopher Walker:
Yeah. Yeah. We were both in here every morning. But yeah. And then the gyms are open back up around here, which has been amazing. You really appreciate the gym a lot more when you can't have it for three months.
Jayton Miller:
Definitely.
Christopher Walker:
Yeah. And yeah, the gym that we go to, the guy's probably not going to close it, even if they do another lockdown. So it's pretty good.
Jayton Miller:
The Real Deal Russell.
Christopher Walker:
Real Deal Russ. Yeah. So let's think about it. So what were a couple of things after lockdown opened that you did right away that was different, that made you feel better?
Jayton Miller:
After lockdown was over?
Christopher Walker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jayton Miller:
I would say that the first thing that I probably did was I started hiking again, or going on much larger hikes. And obviously that helps. I mean, after our trip, our heavy trip to California, I woke up Saturday morning at like 200 pounds. The next day I woke up after an eight mile hike at 195 pounds. So, I mean, it can be pretty significant depending on what you're doing and the amount of heat and sweat and activity and stuff like that too.
Jayton Miller:
So... Let's see. Other than that, honestly, not too much. I mean, my training regimen stayed similar as it was before quarantine went in. My eating routine was pretty similar. Let's see. I started going on dates again. That tends to help a little bit too. Yeah.
Christopher Walker:
Yeah. Get those T levels back.
Jayton Miller:
Yeah.
Christopher Walker:
Yeah. I think important thing to note for people is, if your body, if you had a routine before and then say, you put on the quarantine 15, right? It's still such a short period of time that your body still has a set point in mind thing in its innate intelligence. So whether it's the fat loss thing or just getting back in the gym and getting strong again, there's still... It happened quickly, so then you can get it back quickly and you can get back to that, regain that same status really. And it made me think of it when you said after the quarterly trip for the team, we went to Palm Desert, had a great time. But then it's like only a couple of days of just vegging out, where then you can get it all back easy. And like you said, lost five pounds in one day, right?
Christopher Walker:
Yeah. Same thing with me. I think I gained four pounds and then lost it all within a day. So it's pretty simple, but that highlights the importance of establishing set points and having longer periods where you are staying at the same level of your weight, where your body just starts to adapt to it and then doing recomposition at that level, because then your body, it establishes that set point and then it wants to get back there because it's really normal for the body.
Christopher Walker:
But if you don't have that, a lot of people kind of go up and down all the time, then it can be a little more difficult. So it's a lesson in just balance and finding a set point, establishing it, and staying there and doing just recomposition, instead of, there's a lot of people just do that chronic low calorie dieting or chronic over consumption of food. So, their bodies are a little out of whack compared to that. But if you just took six months and stayed at the same spot and just lifted and try to do a recomposition of more muscle mass, less fat, get leaner, then your body starts to really, it rebounds really quickly back to that point.
Jayton Miller:
One of the biggest things that I learned during quarantine was a lot of the research that's coming out right now, and everybody was talking about it because all the gyms were closed, is that as long as you can maintain muscle size through whether it's high volume training or some form of strength training whenever you don't have access to a gym, then your ability to regain the strength is a lot easier because the muscle just basically has to relearn the movement patterns and things like that, rather than actually having to regain the size, plus the strength along with that. So I think that no matter what you do, just don't give up on it, just continue to go, continue to be disciplined with it, continue to refine the process and continue to love that process too.
Christopher Walker:
Yeah. I found it took me about a month of getting back in the gym before I'm getting back to feeling really good in the gym, which in the big scheme is not very long, right? But there were definitely days where I'm like, "Oh man, I'm so weak." And I'd be mid set of something where it used to be super easy. I'm like, "Dammit." But then I just remind myself of that same concept of like, "All right, just keep showing up, keep showing up." And then eventually after a couple more weeks, you're kind of back to normal.
Jayton Miller:
Yeah. So whenever you are deciding that you are going to on take a fat loss journey, what are some of the first things that you start doing?
Christopher Walker:
Well, I think a big one, if somebody's more new to it and doesn't have a gauge on calorie intake, is to track stuff. Track your energy consumption, because a lot of people over or underestimate it. And just find a sweet spot, really, to get to that Thermo effortless zone, which might take two to four weeks. But then once you're really dialed in, you're waking up every day and you're feeling better, you're looking leaner, just stay there. Keep doing what you're doing because you have momentum and then it just starts happening way more easily.
Christopher Walker:
I think people try to switch stuff up too often. They get frustrated like, "Oh, I'm not seeing any results." But it's only been a week, so chill out. Do it for a month, but dial in, actually track and calculate what you need to hit and then work on that.
Christopher Walker:
And then once the momentum is there, it starts to get stupid easy. Fat loss isn't really that hard. It's just a matter of getting momentum, finding something that is going to work, and then you also get the added benefit of the intuition on it, because you don't have to constantly track forever. It's just a period where you need a baseline really. And then once you have that, you already know like, "Oh, if I..." Even if you want to experiment with something else later, you can always fall back on that be cause you know it works.
Christopher Walker:
That level of calorie consumption or these types of foods or this meal pattern that leaves you feeling satisfied throughout the day, especially if you're all Thermo, all the cravings go away and it makes it really easy and it's like, hunger's gone and cravings. And then you just know like, "Oh, it's time for my Thermo bowl or my smoothie or whatever." It just gets really simple and easy.
Christopher Walker:
And then just a routine for weight training, I think is super important too. It's insane the difference that it, how good you feel. And then I've noticed just a recomposition in the last month of getting back in the gym, even though I lost 10 pounds during the quarantine, but then going back to the gym and now after working out for a month and now the muscle mass is back, the definition is back, it's just improving. Every week it's getting a little better. So, that's really important I think for fat loss, get in the gym. You need more muscle tissue.
Jayton Miller:
Yeah. I like that. I think that the biggest challenge for me whenever I'm starting it is the psychological component. So I have to examine, why do I want to lose fat in the first place? Am I doing this for external validation? Or am I doing this for myself? And so I have to kind of examine if I am doing this for myself, what are the reasons that I'm going to be doing that for? Typically it's just because it's a challenge that I like to put myself through.
Jayton Miller:
So I like to see, can I maintain this discipline for a long amount of time? Whether it's four weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks, however long it takes. Do I have the ability to formulate the habits properly that I need in order to make this happen? And then, can I redirect after the fact to sustain this and make it sustainable? So how can I make these habits long-term habits, I guess?
Jayton Miller:
Yeah. That's my biggest thing is I have to examine why I'm doing it and then take it slow. I think that's what a lot of people get caught up with is they want results immediately, but I think whatever you get fast, you lose fast too. So if you lose 10 pounds in a week, you're going to gain 10 pounds in three days probably. And so I think you have to realize that what is it? I think Zack says the long roads, the short trip or something like that?
Christopher Walker:
The slow roads, the fast road. I think it's like a Navy seal thing too. Like slow is fast... No. Smooth... Ah, fuck. I'm butchering it. Something like that. It's like smooth is fast, slow is smooth or something like that. I don't know. Similar concept. Yeah.
Jayton Miller:
Heck yeah. So what are some of the things that you pay attention to dietarily wise and physically, whenever you're in a fat loss journey?
Christopher Walker:
I think a big one is, first off you have to be in some sort of calorie deficit. So a big thing is to not go too big on the deficit, because that'll trigger cravings and it's just a natural compensatory mechanism for your body feeling like it's deprived and then the craving will come for something where you're like, "Oh, I'm going to..." And then you end up overeating. And so it's this binge purge cycle spectrum that I think, it's easy to avoid if you just take it slower and then do a smaller deficit.
Christopher Walker:
So, hitting that smaller deficit, but then focusing on nutrient density is a big, easy win because then the cravings aren't there and you feel full, you don't feel like you're restricting. You just feel good. And then I've noticed, last year when I was training a ton and really working on getting weighted chins up and dips and incline bench and all that, and really, really working on it, I was still in a decent deficit while my strength was going up because I was just highly focused on nutrient density and I never felt hungry or anything, but I had this awesome recomposition in a certain weight range where my strength just kept improving every week.
Christopher Walker:
And that's also really motivating, because you're focused on like, "Oh, my strength's going up." And you always have these strength goals, but then the diet just kind of falls in the background. It's like, "Oh, this is my routine. This what I'm doing." But it was because it was so nutrient dense that it worked so well, but a lot of people are like, "Oh, I got to eat some... It's a diet and I can't eat Hohos and Twinkies." And then they get so fixated on the stuff that they can't eat.
Jayton Miller:
You shouldn't be eating that anyways.
Christopher Walker:
Yeah. Yeah. Or McDonald's, or I don't know, but yeah, don't fixate on stuff you can't eat, just fixate on the quality of the food. And then you start to realize and your body learns as it weans off of any sort of junky food, how delicious good food is. And then it becomes a treat just to have a great meal.
Christopher Walker:
And then just also experimenting with cooking, I think, is super important because cooking is, the more you get into it, the more fun it is and the more you want to try different flavor profiles and stuff and learning new flavor profiles has been good. My girlfriend does a lot of Lebanese food, or at least the dishes are inspired by it, so I've been opened up to that of all these new flavors. She uses cinnamon in beef and it's so good.
Jayton Miller:
Yes. That is good.
Christopher Walker:
Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's like candy. And then she also does this awesome... Well, she uses lemon juice on everything, which also tastes really good. It brings out a lot of flavor, lemon juice and salt. And then she makes this awesome olive oil sauce stuff that you can put on anything, which I think it'd be good just to have in a bowl in the fridge, just put it on your eggs or put it on your Thermo bowl or whatever, but it's basically just lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and then finely chopped up tomatoes and onions. Also, you could just eat it out. It tastes so good.
Christopher Walker:
So experimenting with other flavors is good too. I mean, even if it's just a matter of say somebody's getting dialed in and they're just like, "Okay, I'm doing my ground beef, bone broth, potatoes, Thermo bowl," like a basic Thermo bowl, but then they just want a different spin on it in terms of the flavor. And then you can make those types of sauce type dressings or whatever that are good and have a ton of flavor, or try just using lemon juice or something new. Lemon juice and some hot sauce or cayenne. Cayenne and lemon juice tastes great.
Christopher Walker:
So it's just experimenting with that stuff. And then it starts to become more exciting. I think people view fat loss as this slow dredge of like, "This sucks. Can't wait till this is over." And then guess what happens when you think like that? When it's over, you gain all the weight back. So it's better to just make it a lifestyle and just the way you eat in general, and then just start exploring cooking, because cooking, you can kind of control the whole experience and it gets pretty fun.
Christopher Walker:
And I've learned more patience through cooking. I used to just be like, "I'm not going to cook. I need something now." But then the more I cook and the deeper I get... Finding simple stuff, like Thermo bowls only take five or 10 minutes to make, right? But then getting into other stuff where it's like, you're roasting something. So it takes longer or preparing something that does take an hour, but then you start to develop the patience, which I think is a good thing in general for the whole journey. And you start to enjoy it because it tastes so much better when you actually prepare something intelligently, instead of just whipping it all up.
Jayton Miller:
And the amount of joy that comes whenever you're able to cook that for another individual, it feels good. I'm just going to throw those steaks out there from the trip.
Christopher Walker:
Oh yeah. Jayton put down some good grilling out on the trip. That was awesome. I had a hunch, because Mike was like, "Who can grill?" Mike was going to grill and I was like, "I think Jayton could probably grill because he's from Texas. So he's probably got some sort of state pride about grilling." And then we asked you and you were like, "Hell yeah. Let's go."
Jayton Miller:
You dang right.
Christopher Walker:
So how many steaks did you grill? Was it like 20 or something?
Jayton Miller:
There was a lot and they were big, old thick ribeyes too.
Christopher Walker:
Yeah, they were big. That was a great meal.
Jayton Miller:
Yeah, it was. Big old baked potatoes.
Christopher Walker:
Two hour baked.
Jayton Miller:
Yeah. They were really good. But no, I got compliments on those steaks. I was like, "Oh yeah, that feels good."
Christopher Walker:
They're good. Yeah.
Jayton Miller:
Whenever you have found your groove, is there a specific meal pattern that you find that's most effective?
Christopher Walker:
I've found a couple different things. Sometimes... Well, first of all, I think it's really important to listen to hunger because sometimes you won't be hungry and then you can kind of just have something smaller and then other times, you're really hungry and then the pattern also that I've seen is interesting with, essentially just being flexible with it's really good and having some go-to stuff, but then if you're not hungry at night, say, and you don't want to have a big old 1500 calorie Thermo bowl and you're just like, "I'm not that hungry." So maybe just make a good omelet or something.
Christopher Walker:
And one thing I've been doing recently with omelets that's delicious is the eggs in avocado oil and then oysters in the eggs as it's cooking and then some lemon juice in there and a little salt or a little partial scoop of the bone broth zoo broth. And then it's got tons of flavor because the avocado oil really helps bring the flavor into the oysters. So they're not just like boring oysters. But those are really satisfying and it's lower calorie, easy to cook, tons of nutrients.
Christopher Walker:
So just basically rolling with the punches and listening to your body. And then sometimes if I eat really light at night though, I wake up in the morning, I'm like, "Damn, I'm hungry." So then I'll just eat a big breakfast. So that makes it easy. And then you're not hungry for the rest of the day. So it's just, I don't know, I think you just got to have go-to stuff that you know works and then be flexible within that in terms of timing.
Jayton Miller:
Yeah. I think whenever I find the most success it's whenever I focus on regulating blood sugar. So I'll wake up in the morning, I'll have a small meal, and then I'll usually have orange juice and collagen and then maybe a little bit of milk throughout the day, keep me super light, feeling good. Go to the gym, feel great, I'm not weighed down. And then I have a giant Thermo bowl at the end of the day and I'm basically going into a coma after that because I can't hardly move. And then I take some Sensolin on top of that, post-workout, and it acts as a glucose disposal agent. So the next day in the gym, I just get massive pumps and it feels absolutely amazing. I also notice that I'll gain a couple pounds the next day because the amount of glycogen retention that I'm getting in the muscle, it's amazing. I love it.
Christopher Walker:
Yeah. Sensolin is where it's at. And Sensolin is great for if you're trying to, especially in that first month of trying to get to that effortless zone, because it just stomps the hunger, the appetite, you get halfway through a big Thermo bowl or something and you're like, "I'm too full." And it's a good tool, it's good to use that because it's very good ingredients. So it's part of like, don't put yourself in positions where you're rabidly hungry and then end up overeating if fat loss is a goal.
Christopher Walker:
So yeah, but it really just does come down to regular activity. 10,000 steps a day walking helps a lot actually, a surprising amount. And then-
Jayton Miller:
Sunlight's going to help too.
Christopher Walker:
The sunlight, getting a lot of sleep. I think the leanest I ever was, I was sleeping a lot. I would go to bed by 08:00 every night and I would sleep like, I don't know, 12 hours a night regularly. It was awesome. Then on the weekend, try to get 16 hour, but you feel great when you wake up and then it does help you get leaner because your body's just so rested. It feels good.
Christopher Walker:
And then nutrient density, big thing. And then some sort of small deficit that's sustainable and finding regularly what works over that first month, figure it out, dial it in and just do it and enjoy it and stop focusing so much on it. That's another problem. Psychologically, as people get so fixated on, "I can't do anything else. I'm working too hard or I'm so busy with this and that and blah, blah, blah." That then they think that they have to just focus on the diet in order to make it work. And then that's just a false excuse in their head. Like, "I can't do this because I'm so busy with all that." It's like, "No, you got to eat, just eat a certain way and figure it out and then just stop focusing on it and just do it every day."
Jayton Miller:
I think a lot of people don't have enough going on and so they fixate on food and stuff because that's the only thing that their mind has the ability to focus on. So keep yourself busy, read, learn, do new things.
Christopher Walker:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what... I'm just thinking out loud about friends, business owners, people that I see that are entrepreneurs or somebody who's got a lot going on all the time. They go at one of two directions, they either let their health go completely, and I think that's because of the excuse of like, "I'm too busy to focus on it." And then the other ones are in their 40s, 50s or something and they're just shredded, in awesome shape and they're dialed in on all their nutrition, tons of energy, everything. But they're living the same lifestyle really in terms of the work, but then they just have... It's like a decision that they made.
Jayton Miller:
Yeah. One of the things that stuck with me from this California trip is whenever me and Rob went to go work out afterwards, he was all like, "This is the one thing that I need to hold myself accountable for because our job is stressful enough and I can't be stressing about this. So I know if I take care of this, then I have that much less stress to worry about whenever it comes to my work." And I got to thinking about that a lot and how I think throughout my life, the times that I've been the most productive is whenever I've had a very consistent routine and I've focused on myself and my work and that's it. So-
Christopher Walker:
Yeah. Try to make it an operating system. I hit the gym every other day or whatever. I eat these types of foods. This is what I do. I take my supplements at this time every day. Yeah. And then it's just an operating system, you don't have to think about it. You don't have to put effort into making those decisions and you can make the decisions elsewhere where they're more important in your career and whatnot.
Christopher Walker:
Yeah. People get too obsessed with just meticulous dieting stuff or they get caught up in all the paralysis by analysis type thing. Over studying and just like, "Oh, that study said that. And that one said that." It's like, "Okay, well, whatever. Just find the..." For example, like Thermo, we put so much work into... And Thermo's a progression and it'll evolve over time, but at the current state even, it's just, it works. It works for a lot of people. Just do it. And it's very simple to follow and enjoyable.
Christopher Walker:
People in the Thermo group posting like, "This is the good life. Can't believe it doesn't feel like a diet. It's just awesome." So just go with it, dial in the calorie number that you need to hit on a daily basis and then just enjoy it and stop focusing so much on trying to pick the perfect thing. And that's usually the people that are just yo-yoing back and forth or jumping between fad diets for their whole life. Happens a lot.
Jayton Miller:
And there is no secret. I think that's what a lot of people are searching for is the secret to fat loss. There's not one. It's super simple, get in a calorie deficit, find a routine that you can stick with, and build the habits that you need in order to allow for success to happen and it'll come.
Christopher Walker:
Yeah. And just give your body the nutrients it needs, whether it's through your diet and/or supplementation. And it starts to, when the hormones are balanced, it really starts to be simple. You sleep well, sex life's good, the fat loss becomes a lot easier when you're focused on it, and then you just feel good. So yeah, there's no secret
Jayton Miller:
The way that I kind of put it in the Perfect Thermo Course is, you enter into the state of abundance, your body no longer wants to have that excess stored energy on it because it has an abundance of energy that it's already producing. And so, because of that, it's naturally going to strip off those excess energy stores because it already has an abundance that it's creating. So yeah, I completely agree.
Christopher Walker:
Cool. Well, hopefully this was a helpful discussion. We're going to wrap up the podcast right now. Hopefully you guys can use some of these tips to shed off some quarantine 15 and enjoy it in the process.
Jayton Miller:
Thank you.
Christopher Walker:
Thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.
Jayton Miller:
Have a good one.
