Energy balance, nutrition, & building muscle | Layne Norton, Ph.D. (Pt.2)

**Peter Attia** (0:11)
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Now, without further delay, here's today's episode.
My guest this week is Layne Norton. Layne was a previous guest on episode 163 back in May of 2021 In that discussion, we only got through about half of what I wanted to, so it was pretty clear that Layne was gonna come back for round two. In this episode, we really dive into two major topics. The first thing that we get into is energy balance and what role macronutrients and calories play in weight loss.
This really gets into the energy balance equation and what it means, what it doesn't mean, is a calorie a calorie, and what this means in various contexts around different diets. We also speak about the struggle people have with tracking food and calories on their own across a variety of diets and how all of this can impact someone's nutritional habits and behaviors. The second half of our conversation really looks at the importance of protein and weightlifting through two different case studies. So the first is how Layne would work with a roughly 50-year-old female who wants to improve her health through nutrition and exercise, but was more interested in cardio than lifting weights.
The second is a case study looking at a 40 to 50-year-old male who wanted to begin to focus on maximizing muscle mass. Now again, these are both hypotheticals, but I kind of chose them because I think they can be quite illustrative of what many people are going through. We end this conversation by looking at a number of supplements, including whey protein, branch chain amino acids, leucine specifically as one of the branch chain amino acids, creatine and nitric oxide boosters. Now by way of background, Layne is a bodybuilding figure and physique coach, a natural pro bodybuilder and a professional power lifter. He received his undergraduate degree in biochemistry and a Ph.D. in nutritional sciences from the University of Illinois. So without further delay, please enjoy my second round conversation with Layne Norton.
Hey Layne, good to see you again, man.

**Layne Norton** (2:38)
Yeah, I'm happy to be back. I'm stoked for this. We had the marathon session the first time and I think we got through like a third of the topics that you were interested in. So we'll see how we do this time.

**Peter Attia** (2:47)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and of course, a lot of people had a bunch of follow-up questions. So it's some combination of all the things we didn't get to talk about the first time, plus some new things I thought about and you and I have had a bunch of emails exchanged over the last few months, coupled with some of that residual stuff. But one of the topics that people really want to hear you and I talk about, because I think there's this belief that we are going to be so orthogonal in our views and we will have not a single thing in common, although I'm pretty sure this isn't going to be the case, is on energy balance and the role of calories in weight gain. So why don't we just lead with the fireworks that everyone is hoping for? So talk to me about energy balance, calories, and weight gain.

**Layne Norton** (3:33)
So I think one of the big misunderstandings is people don't really understand what energy balance truly is. If we look at what most people think it is is, well, I track my calories in, I track my calories out. Therefore, if I am burning 2,500 calories a day and I'm tracking 2,000 calories a day, I should lose one pound of body weight per week linearly, and that's just how it should go. Perfect math. And when that doesn't happen, they go, we'll see this doesn't work.
And there's a lot of different reasons for that. But before we get into that, let's talk about what energy balance actually is. So it is calories in versus calories out, or the energy you consume versus the energy you expend. And it's worth talking about real quick before we get into that, what do we mean by energy? A lot of people say, well, calories don't even exist. You can't look at them under a microscope.