Exercise Scientist’s Masterclass On Losing Fat - Dr Mike Israetel - #804

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Dr. Mike Israetel. He's a professor of exercise and sports science at Lehman College and the co-founder of Renaissance Periodization. If you've ever wondered, is this diet actually working? Then you're probably not alone. However, there are now scientifically proven optimal methods for losing fat in the most efficient way possible. And today we get a full breakdown of the most evidence-based approach for fat loss from the best teacher on the planet. Expect to learn how the physiology of fat loss actually works, whether calories really matter in your weight loss journey, if you need to count macros when trying to lose fat, how to actually build and keep six-pack abs, whether there are any fat loss supplements worth your time to take, how long you should stay on a diet for before taking a break and much more. Mike is probably the hottest thing in sport and exercise science at the moment from the evidence-based community, which is basically just the truth when it comes to everything to do with health and fitness. I don't think there's anyone growing more quickly or as popular or as candid as him. And he is a competitive bodybuilder himself. So it's not just something that's theoretical and maybe even works in practice, but practically how he is using these insights and applying them to his life in a way that's frictionless. It's all here. So we did one about how to build muscle. This one is the other side of the coin about how to lose fat. So I hope that you're shredded in two weeks after listening to this. Before we get started, a slightly sad statistic for you, which is that 60% of you listening to this aren't subscribed. If that's you, please just navigate to Spotify and press the follow button in the middle of the page or an Apple podcast. There's a plus in the top right-hand corner. If you subscribe, I promise that you will lose body fat at least 10% more quickly than you were already intending for it to happen and it'll make me happy and you won't miss episodes when it goes up. So please go and do it. Thank you very much indeed. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Dr Mike Israetel.
Look at how lean you are. Lean, tight head.

**Mike Israetel** (2:32)
I think most people, when they get lean, they become more attractive, I become less because my grotesquety of my, whatever this is, is more revealed.

**Chris Williamson** (2:39)
Someone commented on our last episode saying that, watching Chris and Mike talk to each other is like seeing two alien head races meeting for the first time. I think it was a predator versus alien reference.

**Mike Israetel** (2:52)
Which way am I?

**Chris Williamson** (2:52)
I'm predator because of this ledge. I have a prominent brow.

**Mike Israetel** (2:57)
You could have been a good wrestler. That's good in wrestling.

**Chris Williamson** (2:59)
You're sticking it in your face. Okay. You are Mr. Science Man, Dr. Science Man of exercise and getting jacked. Our last episode is fantastic. Everyone should go and check that out. Today, I want to talk about how to lose fat. People can get jacked, but if you're not that lean, getting jacked kind of isn't as good as it could be if you were a bit more lean. So today, I want to do one stop shop ultimate breakdown, fat loss. What is the fundamental physiology when it comes to fat loss?

**Mike Israetel** (3:32)
So if you download the RP Diet Coach app, it actually makes tiny little app molecules that go into your bloodstream and make you happy and lean. No, wait, the plug was supposed to be for later. The fundamental physiology of getting leaner is a question of sort of, what is your body fat there to do? And your body fat there is there to do a few things for you. It lubricates your joints. It provides some of the architecture to your cell surfaces, et cetera. But adipose tissue, it's a subcategory of all of your body fat. And it's designed a little bit to protect internal organs and some other things like that. But it's mostly designed as an energy reservoir because in our evolved ancestral timeline, everything up until modernity, food availability was predictably intermittent, which means you had some food today, maybe a lot of food, maybe the tribe killed a mammoth or something. And if you could only eat what was there and then you got full and you were like, man, and you kind of buzzed off, then the day after it's rotting mammoth and you can't eat it anymore.