The Science of Losing Body Fat | Alan Aragon

Dr Lyon

Welcome to the Dr. Gabrielle Lyon show and I am sitting here with the one and only Alan Aragon. 25 years of experience my friend, really one of the OG's in the space. In fact, he was one of the original individuals that brought evidence-based practices and protocols to the health and wellness space, which is absolutely incredible. Welcome.

Alan Aragon

Thank you so much for having me, Gabrielle. It's a real pleasure to be here.

Dr Lyon

I know this is so great. Thank you so much for coming down. Sure, for sure. We have lots to chat about. And one of the reasons I really wanted you to come down and for me to be able to spend some time with you is that the quality of your work is really outstanding. Out of all the individuals in this space. When you put something out, I feel that it is very trustworthy. And it's also consistently been that way. You know, somebody's like, Oh no, he was wrong. that or is that questionable? It's, you've really done a phenomenal job. And the only way somebody does a job like that, is because they have a really strong why I am curious is to why you do what you do?

Alan Aragon

It's, I think it's just how I'm wired. I don't know any other way to do it. And if I'm incorrect on something, or if I'm a little off on something, then my audience will let me know. Like I mentioned, if a figure is wrong, or if references wrong, my audience is just as diligent as I am. And they'll DM in this saying, Alan, I'm so sorry to bother you. But you know, this is in kilograms and not pounds. And I'm like, oh, goodness, you're right. Okay. Let's fix that. So, so yeah, that's really the only way I know how to operate.

Dr Lyon

And you're very meticulous.

Alan Aragon

Yes. Yes.

Dr Lyon

And you've always been this way.

Alan Aragon

Yep. Absolutely. Yeah.

Dr Lyon

How did you get interested in the health and fitness space? Because you really, you know, it's, it's interesting. Two decades later, when people start, it's usually in the beginning, maybe you're kind of seen as an outlier. A little bit of a rebel or crazy, or people are probably challenging your views. You know, when you started, why did you start? How did you start? You were definitely ahead of your time.

Alan Aragon

Yeah. I didn't necessarily, like come straight out the gate, knowing exactly what I wanted to do with my life. You know, being perfectly candid. There's, I'm capable of all kinds of stuff I'm... I have artistic ability, musical ability. And so and I love art, and yeah, and I love entertainment. And so I originally thought that, hey, maybe I'll be a musician, or, or I'll be some sort of an artist that I like to paint and draw and stuff. But then life kind of does what it does. And I got interested in just the idea of how do the bodybuilders on the covers of magazines, they look like that. That's, that's really cool. Because when you're a kid, a lot of kids are interested in in superheroes, comic book superheroes, and you just kind of have those those images burned in your mind, and they really sort of stick with you. And then when you see people looking like that, I don't know, for somebody like myself was just too, bro.

Dr Lyon

I don't think you're just a bro but. Okay.

Alan Aragon

It just totally interested me. And so I finally found a focus that I'm, it's all the things that I was interested in that could possibly dive into and...

Dr Lyon

How old were you?

Alan Aragon

Oh, boy. You know, before... before adolescence.

Dr Lyon

And it really inspired you.

Alan Aragon

It really did inspire me, but I didn't really dive into it. Because I originally was going to get a degree in graphic design. Because back in the, the 80s, the the career of personal training didn't really exist, honestly, like, it didn't exist until the late 80s.

Dr Lyon

That's wild.

Alan Aragon

And in the early 90s, it was just beginning to be accepted as a career path.

Dr Lyon

What were people doing? Was it a lot of cardio? Was it a? I saw the bandana and legwarmers...

Alan Aragon

Oh God, it was the fitness route. Career wise. It just didn't exist unless you wanted to own a gym. Okay. Or unless you wanted to be some sort of cardiac rehab type of exercise physiology side of things. Or even athletic training. So personal training, and the fitness field really was born in the late 80s. And so, just in time for the birth of that career path, I decided that, you know, I'm in this graphic design major, because I have an interest in art, but it's not exactly what I want to do. And I just want to explore this fitness thing. I have a handful of friends who are doing personal training, they're enjoying it. And having grown up in LA, there was this whole thing back in the 90s. There was this glamorous idea that you know, the people who are really enjoying their lives, their personal trainers and their personal trainers to the stars. And I thought to myself, personal trainers to the stars. That sounds really cool. Yeah. So um, The National Academy of Sports Medicine, who at the time was headed by the head trainer was Tom Purvis. And he was partnered up with Mitch Simon, they were beginning to sort of wake the industry up to a bit more of an objective approach, a little bit more analytical approach. And Neal Spruce was one of the guys behind that he started Apex Fitness. And now it's got fit, and who knows what else Neal is doing nowadays. So I just got my personal training certifications and got really excited about everything and decided to change paths and go into nutrition, as I did personal training in the 90s. And so that's basically the start of everything. And then, of course, 10 years later, as we were discussing,

Dr Lyon

did a nutrition degree, graduate degree in Nutritional Sciences...

Alan Aragon

experience, going from like,: 2003

Dr Lyon

Did you find that there was pushback? You know, it's interesting. So now you're presenting evidence based protocols. And we could agree that evidence-based, I don't want to say evidence based medicine, so we can say evidence based fitness and wellness is really a mix between what the science shows, and then also boots on the ground? Would you Would you agree with that?

Alan Aragon

Definitely, definitely. And people get mad at the idea of evidence based fitness. They get mad because a lot of the people in the evidence based camp are a little bit too focused on waving abstracts around from PubMed, they're a little bit too focused on arguing on the basis of who can post more links to studies who can quote more conclusions from studies. And while that's important, it's also important to assess the external validity or the real world relevance of the methods in the study. Who was studied? What was the protocol? How relevant is it to the real world. And so there has to be a combination of what we know in in research and what's been published in the peer reviewed journals. But there's always going to be these broad swaths of gray area that we just not, we haven't rooted it out yet, in the labs, and I don't think we will ever root it out. And therefore true evidence based practice is, what's the weight of the evidence in the research literature,

Dr Lyon

which exactly what you said, people, I think, really are very rigid on that. And that's clinical practice. And

Alan Aragon

You have to combine it with, with field observations, because field observations are always going to fill in these knowledge gaps. And they'll never be fully filled in. So true evidence based practice is bridging the knowledge gaps in the literature with what we see with real people in the field. And so it's that convergence of those things that makes evidence based practice.

Dr Lyon

Yeah, you know, in your book, you did a great job. So your book is 10 chapters, right?

Alan Aragon

Yeah.

Dr Lyon

And two of those chapters are dedicated to research evidence based practices and just helping the consumer the lay public. And I would say even non lay public interface and understand how to choose to study.

Alan Aragon

Trying. Yeah.

Dr Lyon

And everybody wants to know, I want to know, selfishly. You read a ton of literature. How many hours? Do you read a week?

Alan Aragon

Oh, boy, I'm afraid. Oh, I did just look at

Dr Lyon

Which again makes the finest individuals, the finest individuals in their space are the most well read. There is you know, that's true.

Alan Aragon

Yeah, well, yeah. Life Balance. I mean, still got to work on that. But

Dr Lyon

which means Alan is not having a work life balance that I'm working on. You know, it's, I totally can appreciate that. How do you vet information? Because there's a lot more information that's coming through now. I mean, there's tons of abstracts, there's tons of data, and we've had more journals. We don't have to go to the card catalog anymore. Oh,

Alan Aragon

Oh boy, remember? Absolutely.

Dr Lyon

You actually had a call people on the phone and look it up. And now the information overload is incredible. Absolutely. When you are identifying so you have a research review, which by the way I am I read I am a subscriber. And there's articles. How do you how do you vet that? What is your process? You got a process? I'm sure you do.

Alan Aragon

Yeah. And it's kind of a holistic, kind of see the big picture and weigh it against the backdrop type of thing. It's almost almost instantaneous. And, of course, I tend to be biased towards the longer standing journals, like American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Gosh, there's some some great review journal Nutrition Reviews. There's the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition,

Dr Lyon

Which you've published in I believe, right?

Alan Aragon

Yes, yes. Yep. There's the, the JSCR. And there's the SCJ, there's, there's a bunch of really good stuff in the nutrition and exercise, sports nutrition areas, for sure. And the ebb and flow of research as it comes down the pike is really interesting to have watched over the last few years when COVID hit, you just start seeing a lot of and this was kind of a serendipitous thing that happened to be a good thing. So we have all of these studies just being turned out, pumped out. We have all kinds of data. But we haven't quite tried to make heads or tails of it. And so what COVID did, was it made everybody have to stop their experiments. Yeah. And just take a look at all the data that we have right now. And just try to review it and say, what are we learning here? What are we? What are we actually getting out of this that we can put to practice? What kind of big picture? Are we getting out of all the training studies on rep sets and rest intervals and stuff? What what are we getting out of all the nutritional studies testing different doses, protein and carbohydrates and fat? And so? So yeah, it's been really cool to see a bunch of systematic reviews roll down the pike, a bunch of narrative reviews rolled down the pike, and even a bunch of just editorial and opinion pieces, saying, you know, this is what we think we know, in this area. So to get back to your question, after I just kind of went, Oh, no,

Dr Lyon

No, it's great. The listener definitely wants to know, they always want to know how the expert does it. And so helpful.

Alan Aragon

You know, studies for my research review, I number one, if it interests me, if the topic is interesting, then my audience will be interested in it because my audience, in certain ways are extensions of myself. Yeah. But I just love anything having to do with diet as it relates to body composition, either fat loss or

Dr Lyon

You do have that there's a ISSN paper on body composition. And I think that that was one of the most read and cited studies is this

Alan Aragon

That's right. That's true. It's way up there. Yeah.

Dr Lyon

Incredible. And we'll link it will link so people can...

Alan Aragon

proud of that. We wrote it in: 2017

Dr Lyon

it's interesting though I just want to, it's really interesting in the fitness world, it's, it's like fat loss, health and performance. And then kind of over here, it's health and wellness. But really, it's all interconnected. Yes, for sure. But it's never the focus, you know, body composition. And and I would love to talk, you have a great book called flexible dieting, which my audience knows very well. And if you don't you better, we'll also put a link to that. I am curious, I want to talk about body composition. And you led me right into it. So we're gonna we're going to talk about do what? for fat loss? What is number one? And I'll let you just kind of take it away. What are your current recommendations, you have really interesting stuff, as it relates to the Alan Aragon method of determining, which is amazing, which is people can learn from you, you've had a ton of experience. And no matter how much someone reads, there's something very critical about the experience.

Alan Aragon

Yes, yes.

Dr Lyon

Fat Loss, everybody wants to know how to lose weight.

Alan Aragon

Yes, fat loss, fundamentally. And, of course, it's hard to kind of delve into the nuances. It's hard to not delve into the nuances without complicating building will start real big picture. Fat Loss is generally a matter of sustaining a caloric deficit. So burning more calories than you ingest the over, essentially the course of the day, or maybe more practically, over the course of the week. Because every day is going to be kind of difficult. Some days might be surpluses, net, some days might be net deficit. But as long as you

Dr Lyon

What you don't know know is Alan was eating a large muffin, when he was coming in here

Alan Aragon

Haha, giving away the secrets.

Dr Lyon

Gluten-free. I'm busting your chops.

Alan Aragon

Yes, it's a matter of incurring a caloric deficit by the end of the week. And that's the trick for fat loss. Now, a little wrinkle, I want to throw in there in certain populations who have just begun their journey into training. And if they've got excess body fat at the start of the journey, then there's a phenomenon called RE composition, which we nicknamed recomp, where Fat Loss and Muscle Gain can happen simultaneously. And sometimes at the same rate, to the degree that your bodyweight can stay the same for a period of time while you're just basically swapping away fat for an increase in muscle tissue. And this usually happens, like I said, in novices and rank beginners with the excess body fat to give up people far from their potential for muscle gain. And

Dr Lyon

This is really kind of a sedentary person who is untrained, maybe they're walking like they're still overweight and not doing any kind of resistance or any kind of for practical purposes. Yes, any kind of intensive training. How much weight do you think someone can lose. That's, that's a difficult question, right? Because it depends on how overweight they are.

Alan Aragon

The practice guidelines that we issued just based on field observations, and just based on what we see is realistic. Fat loss, if you can set your goals to be one to two pounds a week, which is aggressive. Yeah, it can be very aggressive. Yeah, it's not easy. I mean, if you, you know, imagine losing 50-100 pounds a year.

Dr Lyon

That's what we're, what if you only had, I don't know, 15 pounds to lose?

Alan Aragon

Yeah, if you only had 15 pounds to lose, and you're kind of looking at the the lower end of that range. So the people who have a degree of overweight or obesity, then yeah, two pounds a week you can go on for that. Right. But as you start getting towards normal weight, and certainly towards leanness, that pound a week is really a challenge. But that that is generally the range that we're looking at one to two pounds a week.

Dr Lyon

And how do you how do you suggest people because you do coach people, you still do still coach do you do he loved that part?

Alan Aragon

I it's so challenging. And that's why I've gotten really picky with who I work with and who I can work with and because of all the other projects but yeah, it's always going to keep me grounded. It's something I'm always going to do otherwise you kind of lose touch with the real world.

Dr Lyon

When you are starting people with a goal of fat loss. You calculate their total calorie do yeah, why don't you take me throught the process?

Alan Aragon

This is kind of the epic part, right? So there's a number crunching side of things, the theoretical hypothetical number crunching side of things and then there's kind of the reality so the reality is that if somebody wants to lose fat, they are going to have a target body weight, or target body composition, we'll call it the target body weight. That happens to be their goal body composition,

Dr Lyon

would that be a body fat percentage?

Alan Aragon

That would be baked on in there. Like, for example, if somebody was, let's say they were let's just pick round numbers if they were 200 pounds. And they wanted to be 150 pounds. Got it? Okay, great. So their target body weight is 150, we already kind of baked in the calculations of what their current body fat percentage is, and what their goal, body fat percentage, and we determined that, okay, if they kept their lean body mass, or whatever it was, and then bam, they're their target body weight is, is 150. Got it? Well, it's currently 200. So we look at that target. And we know that, well, that target is 50 pounds less than the current targets. So we need to incur a caloric deficit in order to get there. So every body weight is going to have a target body weight, current body weight, you're always going to design programs around what your physical activity level is going to be like, because physical activity level is a huge part of energy expenditure. So this whole recipe we're trying to cook up, we're trying to cook up, well, how much calories maintains this target, target body weight? Like what is the what are the maintenance requirements of this theoretical 150 pound person that is 200 person 200 pound person is trying to reach what are the maintenance calories of that goal, body weight and at a given activity level? So that's the process we project we say, Okay, what, realistically, okay, this person can hit 150. And realistically, they're going to be doing, you know, X hours on average of training per week. And then we also factor in non exercise activity.

Dr Lyon

And so you're talking about, you're building out what it would take for this 200 pound individual until lose 50 pounds.

Alan Aragon

Yep.

Dr Lyon

And we are saying we're figuring out their.

Alan Aragon

What are their maintenance needs of their future self.

Dr Lyon

Of their future self, I love how you said that. And their activity, which is, which is really unique to you, you kind of baked in a very unique formula.

Alan Aragon

Yeah, there's training physical activity and non training physical activity. And we have to factor those both both those things in because some people are going to work as you know, servers. Some people are going to work as busy moms, some people are going to have jobs or they're on their feet, some people are going to have jobs, or they're just literally just seated at a cubicle.

Dr Lyon

On what percentage does NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis) play into this kind of equation?

Alan Aragon

It really varies. It can be as low as like 10 to 15% of your energy expenditure all the way up to like 50 ish, okay, so it really, it's just a huge range. Yes. So we factor in that target body weight, what your exercise activity is going to be, what your non exercise activity is going to be. And then what we have is this theoretical amount of calories that you're supposed to take in that will maintain this target bodyweight. And this is a lot of number crunching, and it's a pain in the butt. So um, I just my friend, David Galvin, shout out to David, he developed a calculator that just does the whole dang thing. And you just plug it in, you know, what's your NEAT level? How many hours on average per week do you train? And what's your target body weight? And there's steps to go over? How to figure even how to figure out your target body. So yeah, there's a free online calculators,

Dr Lyon

I saw that I may or may not have used it myself. Yeah, it's actually really your book is really helpful. So you then what happens? You build out a nutrition plan, and then also the training aspect. What about the training aspect? Because that seems to be really variable.

Alan Aragon

training hours are what we kind of baked into them that those target calories and training hours are just like, like, training training, not just

Dr Lyon

so this actually brings a really good point brings up a really good point. It's very subjective for people. Yeah. Have you noticed that when they'll say, oh, man, I just worked really hard and you're thinking you guys don't know Alan's very buff and you might go brother, you're not training hard.

Alan Aragon

Do you guys it's just for your audience. Yes, realize how buff Gabrielle is

Dr Lyon

All 115 pounds of me.

Alan Aragon

She's covered up but she's buff alright. Just trust me.

Dr Lyon

So how do you work in you know, there's calculations of light exercise moderate intensity where how do you kind of interface that subjectivity?

Alan Aragon

It's just an average like ballpark figure, okay. And this is a, I have to emphasize the use of a calculator to find out what your target body weight is and what your theoretical maintenance needs are as target body weight. And just running through formulas, using calculators, all of that stuff is mainly useful for people who don't know, and just have really no clue of what their current maintenance needs are. So if you have a grip on what amount of calories maintains you right now, then,

Dr Lyon

do you know what your calorie maintenance is?

Alan Aragon

-: 2800

Dr Lyon

That's pretty high. Pretty high. Yeah, yeah. So you're the guy that can eat whatever they want. That's why you're eating a muffin in between. So that's how effective and then I want to get into like specifics in terms of how you prioritize macronutrients for for fat loss. Because again, we're talking about fat loss. And also when people lose weight, it's not just only fat, right? It depends. And I think that people, we have this idea that we're going to go on a weight loss plan, and we're just gonna lose body fat doesn't always happen that way.

Alan Aragon

Yeah. So imagine that you do have a handle on what your current caloric needs are. And you don't need to bother with, you know, calculating,

Dr Lyon

But everyone should because then you don't know.

Alan Aragon

n, if it's a woman put her on: 1200

Dr Lyon

but when you say protein sound. What do you recommend? I already know recommend that the listener? Yeah,

Alan Aragon

a very simple benchmark would be around a gram per pound of target body weight.

Dr Lyon

And that's especially important as you're reducing calories, because you want to maintain that lean tissue.

Alan Aragon

Right. Right. And some people don't make the distinction of you know, target body weight versus current body weight. So somebody who's like 250 pounds right now. And let's say they are obese, you may be over prescribing protein if you work on current body weight, so you always want to operate on target body weight. So right around a gram per pound of target bodyweight, and for those who are afraid of protein, then you can go as low as 0.7 grams per pound of target bodyweight. Yeah. So that the protein range would be point seven to 1.0 grams of protein per pound of target body weight. And so you keep protein sound. And then you impose a caloric deficit. And so caloric deficits, that the degree of aggressiveness really depends on how much body fat that you have to lose. So somebody with a lot of body fat to lose, can choose to set up an aggressive deficit as high as like 20 to 30%. Down from what currently maintains

Dr Lyon

20 to 30%.

Alan Aragon

On the high end, yeah, the kind of the general safe range would be 10 to 20%. And it's interesting how the 10 to 20 range applies to so many things in nutrition. And so I'll take the liberty to kind of shoehorn that I love it that, uh, that guideline into setting a deficit, and even setting a surplus when we're talking about muscle gain, but Okay, so 10 to 20% off of what currently maintains, and you would go 20% If you want to, if you have more body, body weight, body fat to lose, and then you'd go 10% If you're just trying to kind of lose the last little bit, because the leaner you are, then the more careful you have to be with setting a caloric deficit because then your lean mass is more at risk for for you getting rid of it.

Dr Lyon

Yeah. Do you find that or have you found when working with people that there's almost like a stress response, that the deficit that that hunger, I don't know whether it increases cortisol for them or or, again, this may be a nebulous question. But do you ever find that the just really increases the individual's stress and they're able to execute, but it's, perhaps maybe they're holding more water or it's not the way in which you had anticipated?

Alan Aragon

Yeah, everybody is so different in how they handle caloric deficit assignments. Some people are just like robots and like machines, and they just go for it. And some people have stronger emotional attachments to food. And also, amidst all this, people have different perceptions and degrees of accuracy. And what they think is a certain amount of food or a certain calorie level

Dr Lyon

Which is really important to track if you don't know individual should have should track I've tracked for a very long time, my patients you better be tracking should track for a long time. Interesting.

Alan Aragon

Yeah, people, people highly different than that. And it usually is a stressful thing for people to try to sustain a caloric deficit. And so that's why it can become important to, you know, non linearize the process with diet breaks, or with just examining the the goal for the person and looking at their dieting weeks, some people are okay with daily caloric restriction, while others work better on a more nonlinear type of model, where some days they don't feel like they're dieting at all. And so yeah, there's different different ways to set that up. And it all has to be individualized to the person's goal and their preferences.

Dr Lyon

Yeah, I think that's really helpful for people to hear what is the next macronutrient, after you've identified their protein is going to be point seven to one gram per pound of ideal body weight or setpoint, body weight, and I know you're approaching hierarchy, where your your goal really is within that 24 hour period.

Alan Aragon

Yeah.

Dr Lyon

It's important to have your nutrition dialed in. Obviously, it's also important to have your insides dialed in, which is why I've partnered with insidetracker.com/drlyon. The reason is, is because you can do everything right on the outside. But the only way you actually know if you're doing everything right on the outside, is if you examine what's on the inside, you can go to insidetracker.com/drlyon, for 20% off their entire store. If you want to know what your vitamin D levels are, if you want to know what your insulin is your fasting blood glucose, then this is the place to go. And you can adjust accordingly. It will even analyze your DNA. And quite possibly, you'll learn your true biological age, you could add Inner Age 2.0 to any plan, for a limited time only get 20% off the entire Inside Tracker store. What is the next macronutrient

Alan Aragon

Either carbs or fat really, and it depends on how athletic and performance oriented the person's goal is that that determines what the next macronutrient we look at is so competitively athletic folks need a certain minimum of carbohydrate in order to operate at a high level competitively. Yeah. Whereas if you're looking at the

Dr Lyon

And what level, would you would you recommend I know the ISSN put out some position statements on that what is your recommendation for? And we're not talking about weekend warriors, we're talking about athletic performance.

Alan Aragon

Yeah, observationally. And this is something that hasn't been rooted out systematically where we have these hard thresholds and stuff, but just observationally across the range of competitive sports, whether it be from the strength oriented stuff, all the way to the endurance oriented stuff. The low end appears to be like three-ish grams per kilogram of body weight, which is like one, 1.5 to 1.7 or something like that grams per pound of body weight for carbs. And interesting. That's quite a bit more than keto.

Dr Lyon

Or low carb diet. So it's three grams. At the minimum,

Alan Aragon

three grams per kilogram body weight. So in pounds, er, you're looking at about like half ish. That. Yes.

Dr Lyon

So that's kind of the minimum for

Alan Aragon

right for athletic pursuits.

Dr Lyon

I found that to be true. Personally, I mean, they should have a sport where it's speed diaper changing. I would kill it at speed diaper changing. The three grams per kilogram per body weight is at the minimum prep.

Alan Aragon

That would be the minimum for both athletic athletic performance, as well as muscle hypertrophy. You know, while we're on the three

Dr Lyon

Yeah let's do it,

Alan Aragon

so three grams per kilogram that will be the sort of the minimum for hypertrophy. And

Dr Lyon

how you break that down in terms of pre post workout glycogen. In addition, I know that there's a lot of discussion in the space, whether it's a 24 hour event, not a 24 hour event, but a 24 hour intake versus post sports performance.

Alan Aragon

That would mainly matter if we're looking at endurance competition. So endurance competition is this whole thing unto itself all the way. Like, right here.

Dr Lyon

There's crazy people that are running 100 miles now.

Alan Aragon

Yes, yes. So interesting. There's a faction of folks who would argue that well, the current carbohydrate recommendations are are unsupportively high,

Dr Lyon

which are okay, yeah.

Alan Aragon

But But yeah, that that bottom in that three grams per kilogram cut off, that mainly applies to hypertrophy and strength goals, all the way up to like the bottom end for endurance recommendations for high volume endurance sports is actually six grams per kilogram of body weight.

Dr Lyon

And how would you define endurance sports? If the listener was like, Well, I'm running a marathon. Does that mean that I need to double my carbohydrate intake basically? Yeah, they do.

Alan Aragon

Yeah. Yep.

Dr Lyon

So six grams per kilogram

Alan Aragon

for high volume endurance stuff. And for anything from just strength sports to mixed sport mixed in team sports, it's like three to six ish grams, and some would say three to eight. But once you start getting into like, above six, you're really looking at high volume, endurance.

Dr Lyon

That's a lot

Alan Aragon

Type of a, yeah, competitive endurance event.

Dr Lyon

And when someone is trying to lose fat, would you say that they should focus on either losing fat or performance? And not? That the mix between the two?

Alan Aragon

Yes, yes. And it depends on the individual and the situation. But like, if you don't have specific athletic performance goals, if you're just a regular person living life, and it may be you have recreational performance goals for the weekend warrior game with with your boys,

Dr Lyon

or even if they're training, what every day, I mean, I work out every day, but I don't I just have body composition goals. I don't I don't really care about my performance.

Alan Aragon

Right, right. In that case, if you don't have significant hypertrophy goals, where your prime goal is, I want to put on some meat some mass Yeah. Seriously, go with your personal preference in terms of carbohydrate intake. Practically speaking, it's kind of impossible to go zero carb. I mean, you can

Dr Lyon

but that's not sustainable. Data doesn't support. How sustainable that is. I mean, there's nothing against I think that you and I can agree upon. We don't care if someone goes no carb or not. But in terms of sustainability, it's really difficult.

Alan Aragon

Sustainability, practicality and it's yeah, but like, if if you don't have competitive athletic goals, then it it really doesn't, it really doesn't matter how low carb you want to go, or how high carb you want to go. As long as your protein is in that right zone. Then you can Gosh, you can vacillate through the week. You can go keto going, three days a week, and then non keto going the other four if you want. If you want to mix it up. You can go like Pritikin again.

Dr Lyon

That's an old one. Yeah, for sure.

Alan Aragon

So so yeah. For people who don't have those competitive goals,

Dr Lyon

and just want to lose body fat you would recommend

Alan Aragon

it doesn't matter that carb and fat doesn't freakin matter. You want to go keto want to go deep keto, great fine, you know, do you with that, but the person who's going on keto is going to lose as much fat as you will, as long as that person is sticking to their plan and their overall caloric targets. And

Dr Lyon

realistically, it would be very difficult on a calorie deficit, depending obviously, to go high carb, right, depending, I mean, I'm sure there's

Alan Aragon

high carb, yeah, usually,

Dr Lyon

board. But if someone is on a: 1500

Alan Aragon

not going to have a lot of carbs to work with, anyway. Exactly.

Dr Lyon

Exactly. And do you have any preference on carbohydrate timing, if someone is trying to lose weight?

Alan Aragon

My preference on carbohydrate timing outside of athletic goals is whenever you want to eat your carbs, period done.

Dr Lyon

As long as they're within

Alan Aragon

you, as long as you hit the target by the end of the day.

Dr Lyon

So is this where the concept of flexible dieting came up? That came out? You know, we were talking about that yet here. But I mean, I'm sure these concepts are all I know, because I've read it. These are all concepts within the book.

Alan Aragon

Right. Right. They're part of it. And there's a whole conversation about the anabolic window and carb timing, for growth and performance and stuff like that. I mean, there's a whole area of carb timing that applies to endurance performance on there, and there's a whole area of post exercise carb timing that applies to endurance events that have multiple glycogen depleting events within a single day. But if we're just

Dr Lyon

And what would that be for the for the listener to understand like a multiple glycogen depleting,

Alan Aragon

if we're talking about like triathlon situations or we're talking about like you you just ended a swim and then you're gonna get on get on a bike you know with it.

Dr Lyon

What about CrossFit?

Alan Aragon

Okay, CrossFit is one of those mixed sports that has a lower carbohydrate requirement than just hardcore ultra endurance stuff. And CrossFit observationally does best with hypertrophy type carb intakes. And so you're looking at anywhere from the three grams per kilogram amount all the way up to like six ish, seven, some would say eight. But it's definitely in that mid zone for carbohydrate intake for CrossFit, because it really is kind of a mix of systems

Dr Lyon

I've been really into that these days.

Alan Aragon

Yes, yes, but for, for fat loss. Eat your carbs wherever the heck you want. There's some really interesting arguments going on with with carb timing with respect to fat loss and stuff. But ultimately, when you look at the body of evidence, it just doesn't freakin matter enough. When you eat your carbs in the day, whether you front load your carbs in the day, whether you backload your carbs in the day, there's research supporting like the these little nuances in both directions. There's the whole intermittent fasting thing where there's different models within that where people are pushing, don't eat carbs after 6pm Or all, we gotta wait to eat carbs, and none of that frickin matters, right, and none of that none of it matters. And you eat the carbs when you want to eat the carbs. And you structure your diet in such a way that you can actually adhere to it in the long term. Because ultimately, in the end, what matters for fat loss is that you are sustaining this net caloric deficit by the end of each week, and you're stringing a bunch of weeks together, doesn't matter whether you have your carbs, pre exercise during exercise, post exercise in the morning or in the evening. None of that matters, of course, unless we're talking about athletic performance

Dr Lyon

Right. And also, I think that knowing the individual's body response, for example, some people can have a little bit of carbs, and then they're craving carbs the whole day.

Alan Aragon

Yeah. Yeah, very true.

Dr Lyon

Right? It really just depends on the person, for example, I tend to eat carbs later on the day in the day, because I just prefer it that way. If I have some bigger carbohydrate meal, first thing I'm looking for, I don't know, who knows oatmeal or whatever I'm looking for. So you know, I think that knowing oneself is really beneficial.

Alan Aragon

gotta individualize.

Dr Lyon

Yes. Yes, in I'm just curious, in terms of meal threshold, do you ever think about carbohydrates in terms of meal thresholds? For example, I mean, this is typically what I do in my practice. You know, depending on if the individual has a lot of weight to lose, they do seem to really be carbohydrate addicted, I try to minimize any kind of insulin response. So I keep carbohydrates, 40 grams or less per meal. Do you ever do any kind of meal

Alan Aragon

I haven't personally had that focus. However, I do notice that some individuals would rather concentrate their carbs into a single meal, versus spreading them out through each of the meals. And in my personal observations, those individuals vary, like some people will do great with an evenly spread district distribution of carbs through the day, and some will do great with just their carb bomb at dinner. So I think that that too varies

Dr Lyon

do you care what kind of carbohydrate they have. Do you care in general? Do people deserve to be vegetables or fruits? Do you have a preference?

Alan Aragon

I have a preference for for carbohydrate. And once again, this is like general population. Body Composition goals,

Dr Lyon

which everybody wants body composition.

Alan Aragon

Sure, yes.

Dr Lyon

You know,

Alan Aragon

Yes. I prefer that people go as whole and minimally refined, as possible, within reason, and even that is kind of a nitpick. With people who have sort of low, low targets with carbohydrate in the day, like for example, if they're shooting for some target of carbohydrate grams that are like 100 grams or less, you know, a few fruits and then you're already almost there, you know? Yeah. And so, but I would rather have people do the few fruits than just, let's say something straight, like chug down a coke or something. So, but Here's the interesting thing, as much as I theoretically think that everybody should go with these wholesome carb sources, like just try to keep it either whole fruit or potatoes or peas, beans, corn, jam, squash, and then the fibrous vegetables rounding out the, you know, the rest of it. When you look at the longest living countries in the world, half the carb sources is coming from like rice or noodles, which are basically refined carbs. And it's like, okay, well, there's room for that stuff, at least theoretically. And also, they're getting a lot of the other stuff right to they're consuming seafood, and they're consuming a bunch of other bunch of plant stuff. And then they've got these other factors that contribute non diet factors that contribute to good health so that it's confounded by those things as well. Who knows, maybe, maybe those countries with those folks will live to like 150 If they only like,

Dr Lyon

they better have some good skincare if they only got

Alan Aragon

got their carb sources right. Not eat so much rice and noodles, right. So. So yeah, I always think it's a safe bet to push for whole and minimally refined sources of carbohydrate, rather than the refined stuff. But with respect to the refined stuff, it all falls under a category of foods called discretionary calories. Or just the the YOLO margin, which I

Dr Lyon

think what is that?

Alan Aragon

YOLO?

Dr Lyon

Is that is that a bro? Is that a bro statement?

Alan Aragon

Yeah, yeah. So you only live once margin. So it's the 10 to 20% of your calories that are from kind of anything. Anything Goes whether it's cookies, cake, fried foods, deep fried foods, alcohol, all that stuff. Crap, junk.

Dr Lyon

What about fat? How do you and you know, I don't want to miss the opportunity to talk to you about hypertrophy. Sure, because you have published quite a bit on that. So I do have questions, I want to make sure that we touch on fat, your perspective of fat, also your perspective of seed oils, if you want to mention that. And I mean, there's so much to ask artificial sweeteners, but I do want to stick to fat, and then I definitely want to touch on hypertrophy. And of course training the training aspect. Everyone wants to know all about that.

Alan Aragon

Cool, let's do it.

Dr Lyon

Yeah. Okay, so in terms of hypertrophy, so we talked about fat loss. Now we move to hypertrophy, you mentioned that they figure out their baseline caloric maintenance, do they if they're looking for hypertrophy? Let's say for example, someone is 200 pounds. So we'll take that 200 pound person, and they want to have hyper--. They want to go through a hypertrophy phase, but their goal weight is, I don't know, 170 pounds? Would that be something that someone? How would they go ahead and calculate that? How do you have people target hypertrophy, just in general and calculations and macros?

Alan Aragon

If somebody is over a certain threshold, I mean, if somebody is on the higher end of over overweight or obese, then it is possible for certain individuals to have hypertrophy goals or muscle gain goals within there. But I think, generally, you need to pick a focus, you need to zero in on a goal. If your goal is to just get started and just get into better shape, then you have to look at your hypertrophy at that point at that starting point as kind of a default of the program. Because if your primary goal was muscle hypertrophy, then you would have to put the focus on that. You know, it's just kind of kind of, it works a lot better if you can zero in on a single goal. Now, if somebody let's say they're obese, they're straight off the couch. And they just like, oh, man, I have a lot of body fat and I have no muscle. Let's let's kind of get this thing rolling, then they would have to accept the fact that okay, well, recomp is possible. I'm just going to comply with the program. And I will gain a certain amount of muscle, but I won't necessarily be gaining muscle at the maximal rate. And I just kind of have to accept that. So yeah, you touched upon a population who it's sort of hard to kind of manipulate and sort of focus on what exactly they want to accomplish because they will be recomping. But now if we finally get them to intermediate status, yeah.

Dr Lyon

What about the intermediate individual and how would you define a intermediate, an intermediately-trained person who now wants to build muscle?

Alan Aragon

Sure. Okay. So I'm somebody who's intermediate in terms of, let's say, body composition and training. Intermediate they're, they're not obese. They could be on this sort of like the lower end of like over overweight or the crossing over into normal weight. And they've been training consistently for at least a year. And then, then you can if it's been consistent, then you can kind of call this person. Well, you've been training but you're not at a rank newbie. And I hesitate to put timelines on stuff hard timelines, I've talked to Brad about this. Brad Schoenfeld is like, you know, you can work with certain people, and you work with them for just a few months, and they're at a more advanced training status than somebody who has been training for a full year. So it's really kind of a an individual thing, where some people just gain strength and adeptness

Dr Lyon

is just genetic?

Fortunately, it's the injustice of biology.

Dr Lyon

Yeah, yeah. I've seen this. People didn't look at a weight. And they just and they just adapt!

Alan Aragon

Yeah, absolutely.

Dr Lyon

I mean, maybe they were really well trained. And then they perhaps haven't trained for a long time. And then they just go and pick up a weight and it's just not even fair.

Alan Aragon

I looked up Phil Heath's competitive history. And that dude, I think he won the Nationals within two years of like, just serious, consistent bodybuilding. He freaking won won the national thing.

Dr Lyon

He's amazing.

Alan Aragon

Unbelievable. Yeah, genetics is a real thing. And

Dr Lyon

unfortunately, unfortunately, for nutrition for a fit individual, right, so the, I guess one question is, how much muscle can someone put on any year? And is it different for male?

Alan Aragon

Yeah, if we're to kind of boil it down to heuristics, it's about one to two pounds per month, which is a lot depending on whether you're kind of more of a newbie versus more of an intermediate. So if you want to gain if Recommend and women? I hate to I hate to say this, and women hate to hear this, but an intermediate male trainee. Can Can gun for a pound of muscle a month. an intermediate

Dr Lyon

depend on age as well are not necessarily

Alan Aragon

not necessarily. Okay. Yeah, I mean, there is some some drop off. That happens as you get like towards 70, 80, 90. Ish.

Dr Lyon

You'll always be a decade older than you are. Yeah,

Alan Aragon

pretty much. Yeah, no matter where you are. Just just just just push it off. But yeah, women gain muscle. At most, I mean, they, they usually gained about 30%, at least 30%. I want to say 50%. At the rate that men do.

Dr Lyon

So hormonal, you think or is it estrogen, or is it fiber type, capacity to lift heavy, not saying that women can't lift heavy, but just pound per pound,

Alan Aragon

their net rate is lower, because they tend to have a lower net amount of muscle mass and body mass. But actually the rates proportionally are the same, they're the same, but just that the amount is like women are about 30 to 50% less. So their rates are the same but but proportionately the same, but net is going to be lower. So just to be on the safe side, an intermediate male can gain a pound of muscle a month if he does everything, right. Intermediate female, half of that, if she does everything, right, so if you project that, over the course of a year, you know, you're looking at 12 pounds versus six pounds. But that's still I mean, you do everything everything right. And two years, you have 24 more pounds of meat.

Dr Lyon

Yeah. Is there a cap? Is that, you know, there's the the discussion of the fat free mass index, is that where that plays in? And I know that the love for you to explain a little bit about what this is. And the reason is, is I'm very curious about what is someone's muscle potential, we talk a lot about body fat is really the primary target and arguably because it does have health endpoints that are a problem, you know, depending on how much weight you have, but what about that skeleton muscle mass and fat free mass index? Yeah,

Alan Aragon

one thing that we can pretty much count on as far as muscular potential goes whatever your whatever the average adult muscle mass is average healthy adult. The potential for

Dr Lyon

I'd be double that

Alan Aragon

Double right? That'd be pretty cool. But it's right around 25 ish percent beyond that, if you do everything right in terms of nutrition and training. So that would be Yeah, muscle mass 25% above and

Dr Lyon

beyond that be above and beyond the average

Alan Aragon

average for an untrained individual, which is interesting,

Dr Lyon

as an untrained individual would essentially be a sedentary, unhealthy model. So again, understanding that 25

Alan Aragon

25% Yeah, and it's a lot when you math it out, it's a lot. So if you take like For example, you take the average adult male, at 20 pounds of muscle on

Dr Lyon

that's yeah. Do you think that there is ever a way? You know, there's this idea that some people are ... or some people, there are different body types that plays a roll into their muscular potential?

Alan Aragon

absolutely does. Absolutely it does. That's because people regulate perturbations in energy balance differently. Some people have a much Yes, yes. Some people have a stronger homeostatic drive, meaning that their body is much more defensive about preserving the status quo. Because I'm at a very kind of basic level, the body doesn't know that we're trying to lose 10 pounds, trying to gain 10 pounds. Anytime the body sees an imbalance in energy, it senses a basic threat to survival. And so all of these survival defenses switch on. And so with some individuals who are trying to gain muscle, and you're trying to feed them an extra 500 calories a day, what can happen with a lot of guys, or women who are hard gainer types, is they'll have a natural tendency to ramp up non exercise activity. Or, you know, we'll call NEAT or non action non exercise.

Dr Lyon

Like they were just fidgeting or getting up and moving around. That's right.

Alan Aragon

That's right. Just subconscious movement in subconscious, just muscular work, even while going through the sleeping cycle. So

Dr Lyon

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I had no idea. Yep,

Alan Aragon

tossing and turning, you know, just muscle contraction stuff. So, yeah, there are certain individuals who are apparent hard gainers. But what happens is their non exercise Activity Thermogenesis ramps up and swallows up that that caloric surplus that you're trying to impose, like the extra few 100 calories that you're trying to impose on them. It gets swallowed up by their ramped up non exercise activity, which is like you said, the fidgeting, the non exercise movement.

Dr Lyon

What do people do? How would one overcome that?

Alan Aragon

Eat more? Get in touch with a two handed diet man,

Dr Lyon

man. Yeah, that's, that's intense. Yeah. For do you work with a lot of I get a lot of questions about menopause and perimenopause. And by the way, your wife who is just turned 50. Looks amazing.

Alan Aragon

Thank you.

Dr Lyon

Arguably, she must be your longest client.

Alan Aragon

She calls herself Yeah, yeah, she tries to give me more credit than I deserve. So I'll take it. That's fine.

Dr Lyon

Fair enough. Fair enough. Do you find that women around menopause gain weight more? And if so, why? And, you know, it doesn't seem like it's that that has to happen. I'm sure people ask you this all the time.

Alan Aragon

Yeah, for sure. For sure. There are environmental forces at work that affect behavior. And so in middle age, there is the unique set of stressors that prior like younger adults do not experience. So there are work related stressors that younger adults do not necessarily experience. There are health related stressors coming from below and above. So the people who have the toughest time changing their body composition are middle aged parents, because they're dealing with environmental pressures from below from the kids. And they're dealing with other stressors coming from above with like aging and ailing parents. And it's very tough for people to navigate just a multitude of stressors stacked on one on top of the other, you know, the stereo typical wine mom.

Dr Lyon

So what I want to point out is that I didn't hear you say that you go through menopause and something metabolically happens, where you are destined. So you navigate it up beautifully. And basically what you're saying and a lot of the data would support that, you know, in randomized control trials that if diet, lifestyle behaviors are accounted for, again, oftentimes women do lose muscle mass during that time, whether it's a change in hormones, or and they're not keeping up with dietary protein or training. But you know, the idea that someone goes through menopause and has to put on weight, there is that redistribution, but you have not seen or read, which are very well read that there is some metabolic derangement specifically, at least what we understand yet.

Alan Aragon

Yeah, the gray area is the redistribution of the hormonally mediated redistribution of body fat accumulation. And so, there is some research would show a tendency towards more central adiposity or

Dr Lyon

right now anecdote I've seen that anecdotally. I mean, I've seen that in my practice,

Alan Aragon

there is that aspect, and that is probably hormonal immediately. But that doesn't mean that this isn't something that can be minimized or even avoided to a degree, depending on lifestyle, depending on training, depending on diet. And a lot of this redistribution stuff, it can come in the form of visceral fat, it's not necessarily stuff that you're doomed to experience.

Dr Lyon

And visceral fat is the fat around the organs not subcutaneous such as the fat that you see.

Alan Aragon

Yes, that's right. That's right. And so a lot of these changes in the middle aged female body and middle aged female physique and body composition, are due to lifestyle factors are due to modifiable factors.

Dr Lyon

Like you said, a lot of people for whatever reason, there's an increase in alcohol intake. And how does that affect in terms of weight loss? How have you seen it? or what have you experienced in terms of the data? How does that affect fat loss? Weight loss is a purely calories or

Alan Aragon

its calories. And it also individuals are affected differently by alcohol, some for some people, it spikes appetite. Well, for most people, it actually gives people the munchies. And in certain social situations, where there's alcohol involved, and that will lower inhibitions, and then you have a much less clear judgment of what you want to plow through. After you have the drinks in terms of the 2am hot wings,

Dr Lyon

Right right. This makes sense.

Alan Aragon

Yeah, yeah. And so there's a definite disinhibition phenomenon that goes on there. That translates to how much you get in terms of food servings, and what you reach for in terms of food servings. So all definitely affects that.

Dr Lyon

So that's it's somewhat multifactorial. What about the training influence on all this? Do you do training programs for people? Or do you guide them? What is

Alan Aragon

I usually outsource them out to my colleagues, but I think I have done it. Yes.

Dr Lyon

Do you? When someone asks you for a baseline recommendation? Do you give it to them? Do you say okay should be our goal is fat loss, I want you to be doing resistance training for five days a week, what do you do you give them some,

Alan Aragon

it depends on where the person is at in their training journey. So rank beginners, you have to just kind of start them, where you meet them where they're at, and whatever they can do. There's various programs that can be like a two days a week, full body, three days a week, full body, those are kind of the archetypical beginner type stuff. And then the more intermediate stuff, you start going into upper lower split, taken four days a week. And then as you get a bit more advanced, then you can go push the legs take twice through the week. Or you can stick with the upper lower, taken four days a week and then add a day of specialization or two.

Dr Lyon

So lots of hypertrophy resistance. Do you have them? Do you always recommend if someone is and I say this hesitantly to weight loss resistant, that they do high intensity type interval training? Do you have them add that in?

Alan Aragon

If if they prefer that kind of thing, and they're very time crunched and they are orthopedically ready for that and cardiac wise, ready for that and they prefer it cool, great, fine. But for most people, it's good enough to get them to just walk more.

Dr Lyon

So it's not as difficult perhaps people are overcomplicating the execution aspect of what they need to be doing.

Alan Aragon

Yeah, that's right. That's right. And with resistance training, you have to assess the individual and see what it is that they actually like some people hate the idea of going to the gym and pushing and pulling.

Dr Lyon

I still think they should do that

Alan Aragon

I mean, you know, I love it, but some people hate it. So just do calisthenics at the park. You know, go climb a rock somewhere, go go find some really, really big something that you like that involves some external loading, whether even if it's your own body weight, which can be significant. Yep.

Dr Lyon

What about fat?

Alan Aragon

Yes. Let's go for it.

Dr Lyon

How much fat so basically, what you're saying is as long as it fits within your caloric goal or whatever you have decided whether you're into deficit or surplus do you care what kind of fat they get? There's lots of controversy controversy, especially seed oils went crazy. Yeah.

Alan Aragon

Oh, man. Yes, yes. I was just on max lugavere's podcast.

Dr Lyon

I love Max. Max is awesome. Shout out to max. Hey, Max.

Alan Aragon

We love you, Max. And a lot of the comments there like Max you You need to, you need to get Gabrielle in here to clear this clear this carb and fat thing. And so So hopefully, you know, you're not gonna choke me out by, like, say something wrong.

Dr Lyon

What people have to understand is that I think we're all in this together. And we can always disagree. That's right.

Alan Aragon

That's right. And a lot of the things that people argue about online, the most passionately, are over just sort of the icing on the cake. I mean, we agree on the cake, and we're arguing over the icing ridiculous. Sometimes we're even arguing over the sprinkles, right? So um, so yeah, yeah, let's talk about fat. There is a seed oil situation that went bananas. And I think this is where people kind of, kind of get it wrong. They they read a blog, or they see a video where somebody says seed oil, bad. seed oils are really bad. I got a comment, somebody, somebody challenged me on the seed oil thing. They're all eyes on you, you know, arr I hate you. Because you you think that seed oils are okay to eat it but or you think that seed oil is horrible

Dr Lyon

Do you have thick skin after all this people are they are...

Alan Aragon

so thick. So I just, I took the bait. And I said you did I did. I took the bait. And I decided to dedicate like two days of arguing if need be

Dr Lyon

Which is a long time, my goodness

Alan Aragon

You know, I'm competitive in certain ways. So I said Alright, so let's let's, let's take a look at this issue. Your first mistake is making the claim that seed oils are this single, monolithic species, when in fact, there are many different types of seed oils. And they differ they have different health effects. So which seed oil are you against? And what health outcome Do you think it adversely affects and at what dose and what research

Dr Lyon

These are very important questions

Alan Aragon

Yep, it's like, what what research would you cite to support this? And of course, he didn't answer. Right, because you can go down the list of seed oils and look and see how they have different health effects in different contexts. When people are railing against seed oils, what they're really legitly railing against are anything hydrogenated any vegetable, vegetable, we

Dr Lyon

all can agree on.

Alan Aragon

hydrogenated. Any oil, any vegetable oil that's just repeatedly used for frying just over and over where you're creating these oxidation problems that are going to negatively impact any number of health parameters. And so, um, you know, all of those things. Yeah. Would it be better if we use like coconut oil or olive oil? You know, for the high heat stuff, the repeated frying stuff? Well yeah I would but there's a logistical challenge. With greasy spoon restaurants, they're not going to fry their fries, and you know, all of our coconut oil or beef tallow or so. So yeah, you you can ruin your health if all you do is eat deep fried foods that have been fried in seed oils.

Dr Lyon

But it seems as if there's this desire to pin all bad outcomes on these one things, whether it's red meat whether it's seed oil, and that is a huge oversight.

Alan Aragon

It is a huge oversight. So we both agree that you're not going to want to eat food that's been fried over and over in, you know, let's say soybean oil.

Dr Lyon

Right. So it probably tastes terrible. Yeah,

Alan Aragon

it probably take a taste terrible. Yeah. However, drizzling sesame seed oil over over your food, which Asians have been doing since the beginning of time, that actually has shown positive health effects. So what seed are we talking about? Yeah, what context? Are we talking about it? It all matters.

Dr Lyon

It does. Yeah. I would say that Don Layman also agrees with you. He said the exact same thing. Now, I want to ask you a question, which I think was my most exciting question. I'm really hyping it up. The people that I have found that are really innovators in their field are always reading and searching. And they're typically 10 years ahead. Oh, boy. Okay, not to put the pressure on 10 years. Don't feel the pressure. It's okay. 10 years ahead of what is kind of coming out and I'm just curious. So you put up this flexible dieting book, which is phenomenal. And thank you, Anna. It is amazing. And you put a lot of work into it. And it's really well done. And it's it's great to interface with whether they're a clinician or lay public, you know, person. It's amazing. My next question is, what is on the forefront for you in terms of what have you been thinking about? Maybe you haven't talked about I'll give you an example. I'll give an example. For myself, I'm very curious about the gut microbiome and how is it possible that the body could generate its own amino acids? And I think that that in the next 10 years, we're going to find things out about essential amino acids. We never, we never could have imagined. So I'm curious, is there anything that you have been interested in, that maybe you haven't really publicly talked about? Or things that have piqued your interest?

Alan Aragon

Yeah. Yes. Yes, that I, it's not that exciting. But I'm noticing that there are a lot more people in my age group, who are stronger, more vigorous and more mentally lucid than they were, like, 25 years back. So yeah. And so I'm interested in how can we preserve that? Through the lifecycle? How can how can we make tomorrow's 80 year olds be like today's 50 year old?

Dr Lyon

That's incredible.

Alan Aragon

So that's kind of what what I'm very interested in? Because I don't see any really good reason to start feeling old that 50, 60, 70

Dr Lyon

I would agree with you Did you know that I'm a trained geriatrician, did you know that I did a fellowship at Wash U.

Alan Aragon

amazing. I didn't know. I'm not surprised. Because, like, I looked up over achiever in the dictionary, and it was a picture of you like this, right? So yeah, yeah, I'm not surprised.

Dr Lyon

So that's really interesting. And what have you seen or read? See, I knew it, I knew it. I'm telling you guys, that the people that are at the top of their fields are always thinking about the next thing. I know it. Because is there, there's striking similarities by individuals that have been in their profession and are on a road to mastery there. I'm telling you, there are striking similarities.

Alan Aragon

I gotta tell you, um, a lot of this is just motivated, just by watching the years in the decades go on. I find myself saying a lot, that I feel stronger, more vigorous, more functional now than I was 25 years ago, when I was 25. And so and there's sort of this old school mentality, that old people start getting old at 40, you start declining at 40. And I personally didn't see that for myself, even when I crossed over being 50.

Dr Lyon

So there's a mindset component and also a lifestyle component that yes, we don't know how to age, right? I mean,

Alan Aragon

look, and I want to figure out what that is. And I want to try to find out how we can just sort of push that that curve out a little bit.

Dr Lyon

Do you have any initial thoughts on what that looks like?

Alan Aragon

Yeah, I think that if you look at the way that sarcopenia happens, you can look at sort of three, three components of it. So there is a physical activity component or a dis-use a muscular disuse component, where it's literally the use it or lose it phenomenon. Like if you just immobilize a limb, even just a single limb for two days of the mobilization, you can see muscle loss, okay, so at muscular atrophy can happen at any age, it's not a function of of chronological age,

Dr Lyon

which is incredible for people to understand that sarcopenia a disease of muscle, you know, strength mass function actually begins can begin in your 30s way earlier.

Alan Aragon

Absolutely. And then there's the kind of the related phenomenon of dynapenia. So whereas sarcopenia would be more of the age related or the disuse related loss of muscle mass. dynapenia would be the age related loss of muscle strength. So they kind of go hand in hand. And there's a little bit of a debate amongst academics about what's what do we got to concentrate on more, we've been focusing on sarcopenia so much that we've forgotten about dynapenia. So but it is an issue of disuse. So that's on the one side and on the other side, there is the contribution of sub optimal protein intake on the development of sarcopenia and dynapenia. So there's disuse. There's sub optimal protein intake. And then the third major contributor, ironically, is just general overconsumption combined with under training that will get people obese. So the accumulation of body fat at higher and unhealthy levels can contribute to the phenomenon of sarcopenia. Since obesity can inhibit muscle protein synthesis, and sort of have this kind of bi-directional vicious cycle going, so sarcopenic obesity sarcopenic obesity. Yeah, so it appears that the three pronged approach to mitigating sarcopenia and dynapenia. And all of the negative health consequences related to that would kind of add up at a very simplistic level be, let's get training, right. Let's get protein right. And let's get body composition. Let's control excess accumulation of body fat. So I think that there's a lot to kind of look at within those those three avenues.

Dr Lyon

I completely, completely agree with you.

Alan Aragon

Good. I'm in good hands. Good.

Dr Lyon

Alan, thank you so much for spending the time with me and sharing your knowledge. We are going to link your book, your research review, your Instagram, your website, your Twitter. Am I missing anything? Social Security number? Your retinal scan. I'm just kidding. Thank you so much.

Alan Aragon

Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.