Bill Campbell PhD: 0:00

If you'd want to be aggressive and can be very aggressive for a short period of time, the evidence that I read would suggest that it's almost all positive in terms of body composition, meaning fat is lost, and muscle is retained.

Philip Pape: 0:17

Welcome to the Wits& Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry. So you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. Back on the show today is Dr. Bill Campbell, director of the performance and physique enhancement lab at USF. And he was on the show back in episode 92, where we discussed all of his findings on improving body composition through food selection, fat loss, training, diet breaks, you name it, and I invited him back on the show to revisit the latest in rapid fat loss, a very hot topic we'd love to talk about, including the practical findings from the challenge that we ran the Wits & Weights shred Tober challenge back in 2023, where we follow the protocol inspired by his research. So we'll discuss some other topics from his body by Science Review, like progressive versus aggressive calorie deficits. When does optimal bulking become dirty bulking, the effects of a keto diet on muscle building, and a new study that bill's Research Lab is currently planning I don't even know what it is. So it's gonna be a surprise to me when we get to that. I didn't ask ahead of time because I wanted to be surprised. So stick around to the end of the conversation if you want to find out more about that, in addition to his academic work, Bill publishes the body by science monthly Research Review. I think you're at 20 issues now and counting, right? Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah, 20. And I've read every single one. And they cover a lot of topics, a few of which we are going to talk about here. In that review, you don't just get the studies in their limitations, but also guidance from two experts in the industry related to that study, and that you can apply to your life. Dr. Campbell has also started holding some live trainings for subscribers, including recent ones that I've enjoyed on anti obesity, drugs, energy balance, and fat loss. So Bill, welcome back to the show. Yes, happy

Bill Campbell PhD: 2:27

to be back.

Philip Pape: 2:29

All right. So we want to start with rapid fat loss, everyone's favorite topic. And we can definitely get to your latest research and latest findings. But if you don't mind, we'll set the context with the personal experiment that I ran, we had members of the community run it out of 12 people who signed up seven got through it, which is pretty good. And I sent you a white paper and you were gracious enough to take a look and review and give me some feedback. So for the listener, just real high level summary of what it was, it was a 14 day protocol, four days in a 45% deficit. One refeed we brought the carbs back up. So the calories equated the maintenance calories, then four days in a deficit one day refeed four days in a deficit. So pretty straightforward. Target macros were a gram per pound of body weight for protein, around 25% for fat of from calories of vary by person. And the remainder for carbs, we tracked a bunch of details, I personally lost about 3.6 pounds of fat, and minimal muscle, you know, as best as I could measure that. And then the average for volunteers was three pounds scale weigh one and a half inch on the waist, and expenditure dropped by maybe 100 to 200 calories. A lot of people really liked the simplicity of the diet and how short it was, despite it being aggressive. So the conclusion that I had was it was effective to quickly shed fat while preserving muscle and kind of psychologically get through it. But I did identify some other limitations like would higher protein have helped? Would more satiating foods help would more, you know, properly using the refeeds and sleep and all this other stuff? Okay. So that's the context for the study bill. I'll stop talking and ask you like what are your overall thoughts? We can get into any surprises that you saw? Maybe maybe not. Whether you thought it was successful, and then we can talk about some of the details of the protocol. Yeah, my

Bill Campbell PhD: 4:22

first thought was I love that you actually took the the idea and then implemented it because we don't have much research on this. I think last time we talked, I did a rapid fat loss study that was a 14 day study. And then I reviewed an extreme fat loss or rapid fat loss study in my research review that was only like four days or seven days happening I want to look at it. So I'm very appreciative of people like you that know physiology that you you kind of like you map that out as your own personal experiment. I remember you sending me like the methods and everything I'm like, This is great. So loved, loved the fact that this was a Yeah, it wasn't something that you're going to publish. But it was an experiment. So that's when I, you can feel a lot better about okay, well, now we have actual data. And then I guess you were able to recruit some highly motivated people to unzip the first just the fact that you could execute on it and get other people. I applaud you for that. And then the, that my, my impressions after looking at the white paper that you wrote, was, it was, I guess I was, I don't know about happy, but I was like, Okay, this is good. This is what I would expect. And what I would expect was, since it was short, well, days of a pretty aggressive diet out of 14, almost all of the weight loss appeared to be from body fat stores. So that's exactly what we want. And I don't know how much we got into this last time, but I used to my former opinion was avoid this type of dieting. And now I have to kind of kind of contextualize that, and I say, you should avoid this aggressive dieting for extended periods of time. So that's the caveat, because there's too much research now. And even in application like you and your group, if you'd want to be aggressive, and can be very aggressive for a short period of time, the evidence that I read would suggest that it's almost all positive, in terms of body composition, meaning, fat is lost, and muscle is retained. So those are my general thoughts.

Philip Pape: 6:29

Ya know, it's, it's one of the biggest surprises from individuals running it was they were worried that it would be just disastrous, like, you know, from from a mental standpoint, or you wouldn't be able to, quote unquote, stick with it. But because of the high protein, you know, they were fairly full early on, it wasn't a big deal. The refeeds created these nice little moments of relief, and then it was short. So that's the key now, when people reach out and they say, How much weight can I lose on that? I say, you're gonna lose exactly the amount of weight that the deficit suggests you're gonna lose, like, that's my answer. Do you agree with that? Like, is there any, there's no magic to this? Or is there any tweak you would make like, even higher protein, you know, one and a half grams per pound or something to induce any better outcome of this diet?

Bill Campbell PhD: 7:14

Now, my only consideration would be and I don't know how the the group of people that you got to follow it. If are they typically eating pretty high protein, I know, a general what I call general population person, they may struggle getting that much protein. So I would have a little concern that it might be too much. Now I'm always the more the better one dieting, that is my philosophy. And it's particularly with this when you're reducing calories, by nearly 50%. We want almost all those calories to come from protein. But bodybuilders wouldn't struggle with that they're used to that. But I've found that people that are relatively more new that don't appreciate what protein does in terms of its benefits for fat loss for for muscle gain. And like you said, it helps control hunger. It's just a big ask to ask somebody to get that much protein. But in this case, well, let me ask you, did any of your participants have any problems? And where would you rank them in terms of they're pretty experienced dieters? They've been resistance training for a while, how would you describe?

Philip Pape: 8:20

Yeah, I naturally biased the study, to join the study, as you have to already be lifting and tracking your food. So it filtered that out, I did have a few closer to newbies who were just, you know, very committed and made it happen. And then when I took the results, you know, some people did drop out. So we were left with the seven who stuck through it. And I separated it into an HIE adherents like a full adherence and not full adherence, and the full adherence group was 98.7%. On their protein, the all group was still 96%. So that close close enough, you know, very close. Yeah, close enough. So that's what I found. But I agree, like the big caveat, whenever I bring this up is this is not a crash diet. This isn't just somebody who's like, I got to lose weight. I've never done any of this stuff before. Give me your protocol. Let me run it like that. To me. That's a dangerous approach. It's an advanced approach. Sounds like you agree. right with that? Yes,

Bill Campbell PhD: 9:13

yeah. And the thing is, when you have I don't want to call them normal people who aren't fit. And when they try this, they don't they don't know. And they don't care about protein. They don't care about doing any type of exercise. So they're, they're really setting themselves up for ultimately having more body fat on their body because you have to maintain your muscle that's that's the key. So in the wrong hands, this strategy is is foolish and more harmful than good. In the right hands or with the right education and mindset. It's, it can be helpful and two things on that note, one, I like the idea of being really aggressive at the start of a diet, because that's when everybody's most motivated after you've been doing this for, you know, 14 days, you're kind of probably somewhat beat down and to ask somebody to continue is a big ask. So I like to use the language of let's leverage your high motivation to diet more aggressively in the first week or two. And we can get a bigger body composition, success in terms of losing body fat. The other thing is, when I've since I've been into this research literature, there's multiple studies that show that it actually is a better outcome. And most of this literature's in people with obesity. But if they have early Fat Loss Success, and let's, let's just define that as the more aggressive, they are early, the greater the long term weight loss is, and that's what we're trying to do, trying to get long term weight loss. And along with that, this is where the health benefits come in. If somebody is overweight, and starting this, and in an in tries this very aggressive approach, well, then we have all kinds of health markers, like triglycerides, or lipid panels, metabolic health, fasting, it's like all those other benefits, according to the evidence are also happening along with fat loss. Yeah,

Philip Pape: 11:10

for sure. I love that approach. And I would add to that someone who has excessive weight to lose, will probably experience some body recomp, potentially, even when they're dieting, because they have the brand new muscle stimulus from training that they're just starting. That's one benefit. The other thing with the aggressive start is your metabolism is at its highest because it hasn't gone through the adaptations. It's about to experience through your dieting phase. So why would you take like the inverse approach and go take it easy. And then later on, try to grow go more aggressive, and the calories are even lower? You know, I just started my whole fat loss phase this week. You know what I mean? That first, that first week, you always have where it's just this major change. And, you know, the lack of energies is showing, but I have a lot of calories to work with. So I'm taking advantage of a huge deficit early. I think it's a good approach. Yeah. Okay. Training, we didn't get into the nuances of it last time, based on the study so far, or your current work? Is there like an optimal type of program you would put someone through during a rapid fat loss phase? Or is it more of the principles of Hazon? As a progressive overload? And the tensions there the stimulus? You're fine? Yeah. Tell me your thoughts on that.

Bill Campbell PhD: 12:19

Yeah. So I've been actually I've been thinking about this a lot. And later on, I can tell you about some some research that we're planning. And as I look at this, this, let's just call it the concept of rapid fat loss or aggressive fat loss. I'm trying to think through different dieting lengths, and what each length would need to have in it. So on one hand, let's just say the shortest amount of time would be seven days. So there's, I have in my head, nothing on paper yet, but a seven day plan, then a 14 day plan, which is what kind of what you did. And then I would say there's also a 28 day plan. So the longer in longer the wolf and let me also say, if the the philosophy that one has to embrace, if you're going to do this is you are prioritizing fat loss. This is the, let's not pretend you're gonna gain muscle you're not. Let's also appreciate that, by doing this, you could lose some lean tissue. Hopefully not we're gonna try to do everything we can to maintain it. But that we are, we are saying, you know, what, if we put effort into fat loss, then we may lose some lean tissue. And I also want to say when we lose muscle, when dieting, it's not gone forever. We get that back pretty quick when the diet when the caloric deficit is over. So that's also some people think, Oh, I'm damaged for life? No, not not, not really, just it's a short term setback. So as we look at this 714 and 28 day, the longer the intervention goes, the more and more emphasis I'm going to put on a resistance training stimulus, because that's the longer a caloric deficit lasts, and the greater the likelihood of losing lean tissue. So now let me go to the very the, the the seven day what I call the extreme approach, I wouldn't I would not even have resistance exercise in that strategy in that in that seven day plan, and I'll explain why. And again, this is all theoretical, but borrowed from a published study in males with obesity, where they put them on a four day extreme diet, it was a 320 calorie diet, all those calories came from protein, and it was four days and then three days of going back to their pre diet maintenance calories, which again is what you did for your two refeed days. And that study again, now these weren't resistance training people, but I'm gonna borrow from them for days of this 70 75% caloric deficit it was they lost all body fat loss. They didn't lose lean tissue. shoe. And even water was accounted for after the seven days of refeeding. So we keep we even have that address that you know how much of that was water, etc. And my thinking is, if we look at the two tissues, fat tissue and lean tissue, that tissue was much more responsive, acutely, lean tissue was not. So yes, those subjects didn't lose lean tissue. And that's because I think that the, the intervention wasn't long enough, if you continue eating 320 calories, you're gonna lose lean tissue. And it's almost like you with this approach, go in hard, go in aggressive and then get out. And you get the body fat, adaptive response, the loss, but it wasn't long enough to cause a downregulation, or a an actual loss of lean tissue. Now, let's forward that to kind of a model that you did a 14 day now I think that's that is a long period, now you're not going to give somebody 320 calories, you're gonna give them more calories, but still be aggressive. Now, we need to have a greater stimulus for Annaba anabolism. So that we don't lose muscle. So that may look like you know, three days per week, four days per week, whatever that is, you know, at the end, this is all theoretical. But now we're going to at least we're going to have that as part of the plan. And then also with the 28 day plan, we're also going to make sure that there's a resistance training stimulus. So in your group, did you tell people continue to doing what they were normally doing? Or how did you manipulate?

Philip Pape: 16:37

Yeah, I did. I said, continue training. But if not, I think I suggested you had to you had to already be training when you started. But there were a few that were like, I want to just start training. Can I jump in? I'm like, you could try, you know, see what happens. But I suggested some very basic, like big lifts three days a week, full body type stuff, you know, just keep the intensity high, the load high, not too much volume, to manage recovery. So that's what we did. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Now, so on the most aggressive one, you said no resistance training as part of the plan? Are you recommending to abstain from the training because of recovery issues, or whatnot, or just it doesn't matter?

Bill Campbell PhD: 17:13

Yeah. So in that study, again, not really, this hasn't been done in resistance training people. And I'm going to do talk about what I have planned, I'm going to do this in females, at least, that's the plan. But a seven day extreme fat loss or rapid fat loss plan would mean hey, we are doing this because we want to lose body fat, that is the overarching the primary goal. So part of this plan is, at least in the research study, that's been published eight hours per day of walking, plus 45 minutes per day of upper body, cycling exercise or abdominal exercise with your arm. So your arms are like making pedaling motion on an armored domitor. So in that case, not only are calories at 320, but the very low intensity, physical activity, the volume has very high, again, eight hours in this public study. So at some point, we wanted to target fat loss. And if I were to say even if your resistance trained, let's also do a workout where now we're not maximizing what we agreed was the primary goal, which was fat loss. Now, again, at some point, whether it's 10 days, 11 days, I'm not going to have that same philosophy, we do one and resistance training stimulus. But we're going to be so aggressive in the seven day study, or the seven day plan. And by the way, the seven day plan, it's only four days of dieting, and walking the last three days, or rest and bringing calories back up. So we recover from that. Because again, if we did that for seven days, I think, well, we're probably going to lose muscle mass, then they're going to have extreme hunger afterwards. And they're going to gain body fat back. So it's very targeted, precise on the number of days and the the lower body, the walking as the exercise is very high volume. And I think throwing in resistance exercise is not going to accomplish anything positive for the overriding goal. Interesting.

Philip Pape: 19:22

Okay, yeah, that sounds very aggressive, and a lot of work. But it's short, it's extremely short. I did some quick math on my end, like, I'm probably at a higher metabolism than then an untrained person. But even if I were to dock it down a little, it would result in like 700 calories for me six or 700 calories, and I'd probably lose two and a half pounds or two, almost three pounds in those four days. Just to put the numbers in perspective. I don't know if that's similar. What you're seeing is like, pound wise, it's probably like two to four pounds, right is what we're saying. Could it be more? I guess you're heavier? Yeah.

Bill Campbell PhD: 19:56

In the in the study that I'm relying on in these males with a Obesity, they lost 5% of their body weight. So if they were 200 pounds, what that's 10 pounds, okay, over this seven days, and I'm reading this, and I'm thinking, I'm always thinking ahead, yeah, but they didn't keep that weight off. They did. They measured, they went, again, after four days, they went three days later. So seven days later, they still maintain their weight than they want a month out. They they gained a little bit of that weight back, but it was still they still had maintained almost all of that weight loss. And then they even did it a year out. They said, Hey, where are these people at a year out, and they still had significant weight loss from where they started. So that's where the the health benefits of this approach, again, in the right hands with the right perspective, can be an overall health benefit by losing this excess fat, because that's another thing. We have to appreciate excess adiposity is not healthy. And we're trying to address that first and foremost. And in that study, again, lipid panel increased fasting glucose, I mean, all of the the multiple markers were significantly improved. And they were maintained. Now again, I'm thinking before I read that study, if you told me yeah, this is what people did. And then they followed up a month later, I'm like, they gained all that weight back. Sure. They didn't. And it was again, it was very targeted and precise. So that's what's guiding me. And I'm going again, I'm designing a similar study around this principle.

Philip Pape: 21:30

So we're gonna keep teasing people on that. Yeah,

Bill Campbell PhD: 21:33

I'm happy to talk about it. We're very close to submitting the IRB for that study. So yeah, we're working on three studies right now. So we can talk about all of them. Okay.

Philip Pape: 21:43

Well, the one that you specifically tease me about that you wanted to talk about? Is that that one is a different study? No, no, it's the rapid fat loss. Okay, we could just segue into it, and then get to the other topics, so we don't jump around. Yeah. All right. So

Bill Campbell PhD: 21:56

what we're doing is, so I kind of have two interests. So my first interest comes from my wife, she had a very difficult time through menopause. And my wife is somebody who's been fit her whole life exercises and attracts her macros eats high protein, and she basically hit a wall. And being married to a fat loss researcher, I would often do, you know, experiments on my wife, test her on this, to have her do this type of diet monitor this. And for the first time, in her adult life, since since we've been married, she was non responsive to a caloric deficit. And I was like, wow, this is, this is challenging me, because this shouldn't happen. So I just mentioned that because I want to start investigating and reading a lot of the research in this aging female population, it sounds horrible, my wife would say, I'm not aging, but whatever I'm gonna call it aging, the aging female population in their 40s and 50s. So having that interest, and then also the interest of just this rapid fat loss, we're going to do what's called a case series studies, which means we get a handful of women in a six 810, that we're looking at eight, and we're going to put them on a very aggressive, rapid fat loss. For seven days, what I'm going to do is have two women that are pre menopausal, we're going to have them eat, let's just say you know, a couple 100 calories, then we're going to do 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, or point seven five grams per pound. And they're gonna walk six hours per day, for four days. So very low calories, as much or almost all calories coming from protein, a six hour walking event, and we're going to do blood work, body composition, body water, metabolic rates, we're going to do all of the tests. And two women are pre menopausal to women are in menopause, meaning that you know, they're currently in the the rough spot for for some females that experience this. And then for females that are clearly postmenopausal to have those four are on HRT of some type, and two are not on any type of HRT. So just gives us an idea. Again, it's not a full blown study that's going to you got to be careful about conclusions you're going to make, but it's going to be the start of an area or a of a category of my future research interests. And I'm excited about this and I also want to make sure I give credit to my my research coordinator for this as Landon Shanahan. She's one of my masters students, and she's she's going to lead this project for me.

Philip Pape: 24:44

That's awesome. Yeah, I bet there's a lot of women listening who their interests got piqued because this is a very hot area today, right Peri menopause and post menopause for women. Because of like you said, there's things that we guys can't can't directly identify or empathize with necessary earlier with the hormonal milieu, right, changing so much at that time, and 40s and 50s is kind of that timeframe. So I love how you're segmenting into all these different pieces, the 200 calories. I mean, you're almost fasting, but you're it's protein. It's all protein, like you said. So point seven five grams per pound. And do you care about the starting weight being in a certain range for your subjects? Yes. So

Bill Campbell PhD: 25:24

what we have so far as my team and I are discussing this, they have to be resistance trained. So people that currently exercise, we will put a an exclusion criteria if they're too lean, because there's no fat to no body fat to lose in that case. So probably the only exclusion criteria would be if you know, if they're like stage a lean to start, and I'm just going to predict those will be a lot of the females that would want to do the study.

Philip Pape: 25:56

To nine or something like, yeah, exactly. Oh, man. And then the six hours of walking, what does that look like? Is this controlled on a treadmill? No,

Bill Campbell PhD: 26:05

it could be depending on the weather. So we're starting with the idea that we're going to do this on campus, so any female would have to live in the Tampa area. And ideally, I mean, it could be outdoors, or it could be on an indoor track, or it could even be on a on a treadmill. And what we want is I don't I hate overcomplicating things. I like things to be practical. So we're going to the instructions are you walk at a comfortable pace? So we don't want them hurrying. We don't want them barely moving, just hey, how would you normally walk? And we're going to have we're going to also do heartrate monitor pedometer. So we're going to get data on this. But I would like if this seems like it would be helpful to recommend to certain people, I just want them to say, Okay, I've got a walk for six hours. Now, does that have to be consecutive? I don't know, just over the 24 hours, a, a six, yes, six hour cumulative, intentional walk. So we're not counting like I need to go to the grocery store. No purposeful walking. And I imagine if I were going to which I am going to do this, I'm going to pilot this. I would imagine like I would probably do it in two hour segments. So two hours in the morning, another two hours right before lunch, and then two hours in late afternoon, if I would get if I had to guess and remember the male study, they did eight hours of this. That's a plus 45 minutes of arm ergometry exercise. So

Philip Pape: 27:31

yeah, I'd have to have a lot of podcasts and Netflix and everything ready to go my standing desk.

Unknown: 27:36

Yeah. My name is Tony from a strength lifter in my 40s Thank you to Phil and his Wits,& Weights community for helping me learn more about nutrition and how to implement better ideas into my strength training. Phil has a very, very good understanding of macros, and chemical compounds and hormones and all that. And he's continuously learning. That's what I like about Phil, he's got a great sense of humor. He's very relaxed, very easy to talk to. And one of the greatest things about Phil, in my view is that he practices what he preaches. He also works out with barbells, he trains heavy, not as heavy as me, but he trains heavy. So if you talked with him about getting in better shape, eating better, he's probably going to give you some good advice. And I would strongly recommend you talk with him and help you out. Thanks.

Philip Pape: 28:23

So Okay, a couple other questions come to mind. And one is, do you do a pre diet phase to measure their metabolic rate accurately.

Bill Campbell PhD: 28:30

So we're going to have them track their calories for I think up to two weeks prior, also track their body weight so we can estimate what their maintenance calories are. And then we also will measure their metabolic rate. So what yeah, we'll have all that data. Now the reality is, that's good data to have, but because we're saying, we just want you to get 1.6 grams per kg of protein, and as little other additional fat and carbs. So what you know, sometimes something comes along with protein. It's not we're not looking at as much of a caloric deficit. This is a what most people would call a what a protein sparing modified fast. Yep. Yeah. So that's, that's essentially what it is. And we're getting we haven't submitted this yet. So we're still I'm glad that you're glad you're asking questions because I didn't even think of the cumulative or does it have to be all at one time? Or can they split it up? Like that's that's something I just had in my mind but when you're doing research you need to we need to put that stuff out there.

Philip Pape: 29:32

Yeah, cuz I my head is it's kind of like when you first learn to train and you learn plate math, and it's just in your head all the time. You know, I have like expenditure math in my head all the time because I think I know you and a lot of the research talks in terms of like percent deficits and stuff like that. And I think in terms of like, percent rate per week, so it's more relative to your your expenditure and your body weight and and so when I hear like the term like when you said a non responsive to a calorie debt For sit right, I challenge that language a little bit. And you know, I did that by email to you with linear live trainings. Because to me if if you actually are in the calorie deficit, it will work. It's just that what you're saying is the attempt to be in a deficit resulted in you not being in a deficit?

Bill Campbell PhD: 30:16

Yes. Or it become so untenable for a let's just say, for a female? Yeah, let's go to 600 calories. Good. There you go. Right. Exactly. It's not really what you know, nobody wants to nobody wants to do that. Yeah. Nobody wants to nobody wants to wreck Well, I don't want to recommend that. But yes, I mean, in theory in and maybe not even in theory, maybe in reality, hey, that's what if you want to lose fat, you're struggling, that's what you need to do? Or is there other things in play? And again, I'm, I'm admitting, I have a lot to learn in that population. But man, I'm telling you soon as my semester is over may 7, amen. I'm already getting the stack of articles that I'm going to pour through this summer.

Philip Pape: 30:57

That's going to be awesome. Yeah, no, and coaches like us who work with those women feel free to reach out because when, you know, I see the strangest things, you know, I call it strange. It's just that there's some other variable at play. And it could be, you know, thyroid function and hormone imbalances. It could be the change in their behavior with life stress, and everything else, you know, there's a million things that come into play. And it sounds like what you're doing with this study is, you're like, let's just shoot way down under that threshold with the 200 calories, just just really drop it and see if that responsiveness occurs. And if it differs based on your menopausal status, which sounds like what you're trying to get out here. And that's pretty cool.

Bill Campbell PhD: 31:33

Yeah, and maybe we recruit women, the two women in in menopause that are Peri menopausal, like, Hey, you, we want to recruit women who are not responsive. So let Yeah, like you're saying like, you're, you're telling me you can't? What if we have to be this extreme? Okay, yeah, well, I lost fat. But yeah, but you lost a lot less fat than the two women that are, you know, early 40s that are pre menopausal, or, or maybe, maybe they lose just as much fat. And then that's an that's a narrative that a lot of people don't want to hear like, Okay. When, when it's very well controlled. That was that was lost. So that that's a potential here, but I'm just excited to learn and then to, you know, to obviously publish this and share it. Yeah,

Philip Pape: 32:19

no, I am as well. Is there anything else you want to say about that? Because I think you gave us a lot of the details. Yeah,

Bill Campbell PhD: 32:24

I think that that's the extent of where we're at. And again, hopefully submitting that soon. So we can start collecting data in April.

Philip Pape: 32:32

Nice. Okay. Yeah. Well look out for that, for sure. And I'm sure eventually will be in your body by science in some way. Get your? Yeah. Okay, so we have some other kind of related topics here. The next one is from your issue 12, study one. And he was on the progressive versus aggressive, slash consistent calorie deficit. The title for folks listening is efficacy of progressive versus severe energy restriction on body composition and strength in concurrent trained women, Vargas Molina at all from last year 2023. And just to summarize, the study, compared to strategies for restricting calories, right over eight weeks. And to clarify, because it gets confusing, constant aggressive, my understanding is, the intake was 25 calories per kilogram of fat free mass. So that's what it gets confusing people listening, because we don't usually think in terms of relative to fat free mass, right? Yep. So 25 calories, the progressive moderate, started higher at 40 calories per kilogram fat free mass, and then progressively dropped to 25. Both groups consumed a similar number of calories. But I know there's a caveat, because the progressive group didn't reduce their calories as much by the end of the study. And then they both lost similar amounts of body fat and lean mass and no differences in strength. What I find interesting before I even ask, the question is it seems the opposite of what you're talking about earlier? Starting more aggressive, right? Yes. 30? Yeah, less aggressive and getting more aggressive. So tell us about that study. And then maybe even like, is there a scenario that fits this? What are your thoughts on that? Yes. And

Bill Campbell PhD: 34:09

I think there is a scenario that fits us and it is exactly the opposite of what where I believe is the ideal again, somebody says, I want to I want to lose body fat. Then I'm going to say, Okay, again, this pretending I'm putting my coach hat on here for a moment. You want to lose body weight. So you're motivated, how motivated are you? i Let me suggest that we be more aggressive, or as aggressive as you're willing to be this first week or two, because your body's going to be most responsive, and let's take advantage of your motivation. This study did the opposite, so to speak, it said, let's start. Very, very, you know, just let's just dip our toe into the water, have a very limited caloric deficit and then make it greater and greater and greater. As time goes on, and And what I've come to learn is, even though I'm gravitating towards this, let's punch you in the mouth, figuratively speaking, that's get into a deficit and, you know, and then and then come out of it. Wow, that's appealing to me. Some people do want no part of that. They would much rather let me start slowly. Okay, this is not ruining my life. Let's go a little bit more. So, the one thing I love about this study was, it provides an option and some evidence that it's just as effective as a, you know, let's just go on a diet and stay there. Or you can ease into it. And again, borrowing from other research where I like being more aggressive early. So it's all about the coach client relationship, and getting to know your client and what they prefer. That was my big takeaway from from that study, for

Philip Pape: 35:51

sure. So it's interesting, you mentioned that some people would prefer that, to get their feet wet, I wonder, I wonder if we identify the buckets that those people fall into. And where I'm going with that is, like, when I work with a client, they want fat loss, we don't do it from day one, right? We spend some time pre diet to get everything in order, their training, the protein, their habits, get all the mental demons is out as, as much as possible, create that positive self identity, right. And then we go after it, in which case, the aggressiveness maybe is more palatable, versus somebody who's just like, I've never done this before. I'm just gonna jump in that that's kind of one bucket. But I suspect there is another bucket, like you said, that's different than you and me that just naturally in any scenario wants to take it slowly first and see if it's working. Do you agree? Or like, is there anything else I'm missing? Yeah, no, I,

Bill Campbell PhD: 36:41

and I'll speak with confidence. I know, there's people that want to do the slower initial because I communicate with them. Like, I have a lot of conversations with people. It's kind of how I keep myself informed for research. There are there are people most of these happen to be women that I communicate with, like, yeah, I want to start slow, and then get, you know, kind of into this mindset. And if I had to, if you were going to tell me tomorrow, I have to cut my calories in half, like I would, it would just give me a ton of anxiety. But if it's only 10%. Now, again, I don't think that's personally I would never want to do that. But I I'm not a psychologist, but I I know enough. What you're motivated to do, you're going to do best. So what that's why I have to ask you these questions. And then we're going to come up with a plan that you will most adhere to, for you to get the most success. So yeah, that study was it is not how I would design a weight loss

Philip Pape: 37:38

program. Right, right. And I totally understand what you mean, because I'll usually map it out on a graph visually for someone and say, Look, here are the three kind of glide paths that you get based on the aggressiveness. So you could make the trade off, you know, if you're psychologically you want to take it slow, just know it's going to take longer, right, just by definition, it's going to take longer, maybe like you said in this study, you actually ramp up the aggressiveness. And that's kind of a way to shorten the duration. What about the phenomenon in here where the progressive group didn't quite get to the level that was intended with the calories? Is that a big deal? Because it didn't seem like a big difference? But what do you do you know what I mean? Yeah, and

Bill Campbell PhD: 38:20

this is where I'm speaking outside my, my expertise, I'm thinking, to, you're already dieting, and it's a lot of people struggle with just reduced calories. And then you look ahead, Oh, I gotta do some more next week and more next week. It's like, Where's the light? There is no light with that hurts not, it's not way into the future. So that could have been, hey, this approach does does, you know, it's, it has a limitation. And that's one of them. Which, by the way, let me just turn this around, when you start aggressive, and I mean, real aggressive, kind of like what we've been talking about so far. And then like, the next week, you're going to increase the calories. So you're doing the opposite of what this study did. You're like, Oh, I get all these extra calories. But it's still it's still it. Depending on the you know, the outlay of the diet, it could be a pretty, still could be a pretty large caloric deficit, but your perception is compared to what I just did last week. And I will whatever that psychology is. I love that, like I'm looking forward to these greater calories.

Philip Pape: 39:23

Yeah, yeah, same thing. Same thing with refeeds. And diet breaks. I mean, your client says, Look, I'm going on vacation. I'm going on a cruise, should I and I'm like, let's stop right there. Chances are, Plan A is just, you don't even need to track you could if you want it's fine, but just just go back to maintenance. You're all you're gonna do is suspend it for a week and you're gonna have a blast on your cruise. Like, that's the goal of life. Enjoy your life.

Bill Campbell PhD: 39:45

Since you mentioned cruises just when I was younger, many years ago, I used to be a personal trainer, and I did this full time. And there were an I used to work in country clubs where a lot of people will go on cruises, and I'll never forget A lot of these are more than a few times these people that I knew they would they would do a lot of the the aggressive chronic dieting to get in shape for their cruise. Oh, when they came back, it was more than one time, it was a significant amount of weight gain. So they did everything wrong. They starve themselves. And then we're on an environment where they had unlimited access to food, and probably not a lot of physical activity. So anyway, whenever, whenever somebody and you've mentioned, hey, I'm going on a cruise and diet, I'm like, Okay, let me

Philip Pape: 40:40

Yeah, no, no, no, not at all. We might even like gradually get them up toward maintenance before the cruise just so they get used to being there. And it's not this binge fest. Yes. Okay, so yeah, let's, let's go to the next topic, because I'm really excited about this. A few questions came up in my head recently that I wanted to ask you, this is about dirty bulking. Okay. Issue 18. Study one. And this is about like, what's the limit for optimizing muscle gain versus fat gain. But a lot of talk about this recently, I've talked about the helms study that that we're, we're dealing with here as well, Eric Trexler, and others have been on podcasts constantly talking about it, as as I'm sure you have. So the study is, quote, effective small and large energy surpluses on strength, muscle and skinfold thicknesses in resistance train individuals, a parallel groups design. And they compare 1020 and 30%. surpluses above maintenance for building muscle and gaining strength. So both both measures, and they found that basically the 10% seem to be optimal, beyond which you gain more fat, and no more muscle beyond that. And it agrees kind of with the, if you put it in percent rate terms, like point two to point 3% body weight a week is roughly that same thing? That's generally I think, yeah, yeah. So you know, people use different terms like clean bulk, lean gain, dirty bulk, whatnot, I definitely want to ask you just about the general recommendation if people haven't heard this before, and then the pros and cons of for different goals. But then I want to get into some other questions. So what are your thoughts in general, like 10%? Do we think this is a very definitive finding here and agrees with all the other evidence so far? Yeah, my

Bill Campbell PhD: 42:20

general interpretation of all the research would would, would be that that number 10%. Now real quick, that's not based on a lot of studies, but based on the studies that we have, as soon as you go above a 10% caloric surplus, so that's eating 10% more calories than you currently do, where you're maintaining your weight. What that study reported, and a few others that are, again, we're talking a handful of studies, what happens is after 10%, you're maximizing the your body's ability to maintain to increase lean mass. And above 10%, that's kept you're not building on more muscle. But any additional weight gain is now body fat. So anything above 10% is no more benefit to lean mass, muscle hypertrophy. And piling on which I can use those terms because we, that's what the other research would say, piling on excess body fat. And that 10% seems to be the the range. And let me also say this that study, a lot of people misinterpret that because even the abstract said, we put people on a 5% a 10% and a 15%. Surplus. That's not what they did. That's what they prescribed. But what the subjects did, approximately, and was what you said it was approximately 10% 20% and 30%. It was like, it was like 7% 18 and 28%. I'm just gonna say 1020 30 to make it easy. But a lot of people were like, they look at what they was prescribed, and they're like, whoa, 15% No, no, it wasn't, it was 30. It was almost 30%. So when you read that study, if anybody's going to read it, look, don't look at what the researchers prescribed, look at what the subjects actually ate, what their actual caloric intake was reported as. And I

Philip Pape: 44:14

wonder if that was just a consequence of you're given a target you're trying to book. So you're gonna go a little bit over that target on a regular basis? Because that's the way I think when I'm talking I don't want to be under you know,

Bill Campbell PhD: 44:24

yeah. So you might as well might as well go all in. So,

Philip Pape: 44:28

yeah. Okay, so a few things come to mind what one thing people get confused about is, there's this asymmetry between losing and gaining, where when you lose if you're training, right, what the goal here is to maintain like 99% of your muscle mass and lose predominantly fat, right? So it's like, let's say even if you're not that successful, 95 to five ratio of fat to muscle loss when you lose, but when you gain there's this limit of you know, you're like in the 5050 range or the one to three, you know, two to three range of whatever, depending on your training age. And so you can't just like, from what I've seen, I don't know if you agree or not, the 3500 Calorie rule applies to fat loss very easily. But not there's, it doesn't apply mathematically to muscle gain, it seems you have to go lower than that, like more conservative to gain are like, Have you explored that topic or talked about it much?

Bill Campbell PhD: 45:22

Well, yeah, I've I know that math. So a pound of fat is equivalent to 3500 calories. A pound of muscle, lean, lean mass is like 550 calories. So if somebody were to say, hey, 3500 calories, I'm going to gain a pound of muscle. No, I mean, if you were going to convert all of that to muscle, you would gain six pounds about you know, approximately six pounds of muscle. But as we all know, the body is slow to build muscle. So if you're going to overeat 3500 calories, say a week, you can you can rest assured that that's not going to lean tissue accretion. Yeah.

Philip Pape: 46:04

And that's, that's a great way to put it, the ratio that you just said of like the 550 to 4100 of the total, right, when you add muscle and fat, is what roughly would you'd gain, of course, again, depends on your individual response as well. The second thing about this is there's this adage, right, mass moves mass, and there's there's truth there. I sent you a message earlier on an Instagram I think like that was going to bring this up, but I don't know if you saw, but it's okay. The concept is that you know, mass moves mass, the heavier we get, the more we can push our maximum strength, even if all we're gaining is fat, and a lot of people think well, if I just dirty bulk, if I go all in and just a 30% surplus, my lifts are going up, I deadlift, my squat, everything's going up. I've got to be building extra muscle tissue to support that right? And the answer still seems to be no, in which case, not why not. But why are the lifts continuing to go up? Because this study did show a benefit for maximal strength? In the quote unquote dirty bulking group?

Bill Campbell PhD: 47:04

Yes. On an absolute basis. Yeah.

Philip Pape: 47:07

Absolute exact not relative. And that's that's key, which then there's something at play, I believe it has to do a cross sectional area and leverages and things like that. Do you know, like the subtleties behind why the maximal strength continues going up with weight,

Bill Campbell PhD: 47:22

not enough to say, I'm sure some, some biomechanics would say I'm all wrong, but But I will say I'll, my knowledge is what you said, the more maths you have, the more maths you're going to be able to to move. And the other thing is, when we look at all of the overfeeding studies, when they overfeed subjects by 1000 calories a day, or 500 calories a day, for weeks on end, they gain significant amounts of body weight, and some of that is lean tissue. So there's people aren't gaining pure body fat, they are gaining lean tissue even without lifting. So I'm not if somebody is a larger person, or they gain weight, they are going to gain some lean tissue and they will be stronger. And some of that is maybe because of the lean tissue they gain. But other things that like what we were saying earlier is they have more mass, they're going to be able to exert a greater force on an external object, because they have our larger mass. Yeah,

Philip Pape: 48:18

and if we take it to the extreme sumo wrestlers, right, we know that they're they have tons of muscle mass. It's this, I guess, the old school powerlifting thought of why don't I just gain 150 pounds and get the not the relative strength, increased body weight, but just the absolute strength? And then when I cut, I'm gonna have way more muscle than somebody who did it the sort of, you know, the 10% surplus way, but I don't think it computes that way. Right? Is that, is that correct? Or is there a benefit to that?

Bill Campbell PhD: 48:47

Yeah. I don't know the rules of powerlifting. But I believe there's it's always a relative strength, like they convert it to a Wilk score. But I'd have to, I'd have to text my buddy Leigh Norton,

Philip Pape: 48:59

every hour, get them on the show. Okay, a couple more questions, then let's go the other direction. Lean gaming, everybody loves the idea of Lean gaining, maintain main gaining gained teeny, right? All the buzzwords of, okay, instead of the 10% surplus, I'm gonna go with the 5%. Or I'm gonna go a 2%. You know, just above that maintenance. Which, you know, my take on that as always, okay, if you want to spend years and years building muscle, you could do that. Is there a disadvantage from a relative from a relative standpoint in doing that? Or is it just a time? Like, you're just dilating the amount of time? Do you know what I'm saying?

Bill Campbell PhD: 49:32

Yeah, I agree with you. 2%. I mean, that's not even outside the the rounding errors of the rice that I'm measuring, so 2% is probably not enough to move any tangible needle 5% Probably yes. That that would actually I would feel like okay, you actually are increasing your calories, but anything less than a 5% increment. I would say you're unless you're weighing your lettuce and your rice kernels. I wouldn't bother with 2%. So that I don't think any again, nothing. Very few people are going to be that precise.

Philip Pape: 50:09

Yeah, good point, um, from a practical. From a practical standpoint, you would only know in hindsight, if you just over months like seeing the average weight trend go in that direction, but then it's too late. You've already gone past the point we made those decisions. And then what about women versus men? This this study was Was this on men? Yeah, train? Yeah. Yeah. All

Bill Campbell PhD: 50:30

of the studies that I'm aware of, and in fact, I don't know if women would sign up

Philip Pape: 50:34

for, say they don't want to gain weight for a study. Yeah. Because maybe there are I'm sure

Bill Campbell PhD: 50:39

there are some but even not in one geographical location, I think you'd have a hard time recruiting. And And sadly, you don't have there's no trouble recruiting females for fat loss studies. Men, that's you know, that's, it's good for those that need to lose body fat. But I think we're both aware a lot of women think they should. And it's like, no, you're you're lean like it. Yes. It's unfortunate that you have whatever pressure that makes you have to lose her feel like you want to lose more. All

Philip Pape: 51:08

right, in the interest of time, I wanted to touch one more topic, and that was the anti anabolic effects of the keto diet, study the issue 18 study to the effects of a ketogenic diet on body composition and strength in trained women speaking off as a fat loss study, regardless, Molina 2020, but they compare it to keto diet versus a high carb diet in resistance trained women, the keto diet group lost more body fat gained less muscle mass. The caveat there is they also ate on average, 270 calories less, but then you note that that could just be a result of the higher satiety of the diet. And then the higher carb group gain muscle mass and strength. So I have a whole bunch of notes here. But let's just jump in for time. You know, and talk to me about your thoughts, like let's is keto, recommended for anyone outside of medical conditions to be honest, for if you if you care about building muscle.

Bill Campbell PhD: 52:01

So it is not the ideal diet if your primary goal is to build muscle? That study was a microcosm of other studies in males than the study was in females, but we have the same data in males. We have cellular data, where a ketogenic diet suppresses anabolic signaling in skeletal muscle. So if the goal is to build as much muscle less possible, it is not the best diet choice. On the flip side, if your primary goal is to lose body fat, the ketogenic diet has a lot of utility and value for the people who can follow it for expressing the reason that you suggested earlier. There is no other diet that suppresses appetite. Like a ketogenic diet, it's the best diet for making you have less hunger. So if it's a fat loss, I would put this on the table for clients like, hey, what do you think about this, you want to lose body fat? Here's an approach that would max that maybe help you with this? Again, if somebody wants to gain muscle, it's not the best choice. But then even then I would say, D, okay, you're not going to gain as much you're not going to optimize muscle. But do you like the ketogenic diet? Yes, yeah. I like it. Okay. Do you have any goals to step on Mr. or Miss Olympia stage? No, okay, then maybe this is still a diet for you to gain muscle, but you're just not going to gain as much as you could with this diet, because again, there's a little blunting of the of anabolic signaling. And we also have a study of males where it's suppressed testosterone as well.

Philip Pape: 53:38

Yeah, right. And in this study, that was, yeah, you mentioned that that was an from a distance study. Sorry. Yep. And you also say, Yeah, repressed suppression and muscle protein synthesis, was what we're talking about here. Is keto, really more satiating? Or is it is it keto, compared to an uninhibited diet, more satiated? I say it like that. Because yeah, my clients I know, you know, eat a lot of fiber and nutrient dense foods, high satiety foods, you know, potatoes and apples and oranges are in there is if you're actually paying attention to satiety, is it more satiating? I'll say,

Bill Campbell PhD: 54:11

maybe not if, if you're controlling for fiber, and if you're controlling for protein, so where that statement comes from, is, when you look at all of the studies where they didn't control for anything, ketogenic diet, sometimes or many times will lose more body weight. And then the false narrative is obviously it's better. It's like no, they significantly less calories. So there is some evidence to suggest that ketones help suppress or lower appetite. So in that case, it would be unique, but how much would that happen if calories and protein has controlled and fiber? Maybe maybe not as much, right?

Philip Pape: 54:52

Yeah. And in a fat loss phase that gets fairly either drawn out or aggressive, the fat or the carbs end up being somewhat low. Oh, anyway, I would say not maybe not keto low, though, for because I guess we're defining is like maybe 50 or 30 grams, you know, some of that down in that range. Okay, cool. I know you gotta go. So is there any last thing you want to mention? Otherwise you can tell people where to find your stuff. And I'll make sure to throw those in the show notes.

Bill Campbell PhD: 55:16

No, but I would love to have you contribute to my research review in the future. So hopefully, you'll take me up on that offer. You're a scientist. And I think you gave me some background of your past education, et cetera, et cetera. So, but thank you so much for having me on again. And let me talk about the things that I love to talk about.

Philip Pape: 55:33

Thank you so much bill on on the record, I will definitely be I would love to contribute to your review, because I'm a passionate follower of it myself, as well as a lot of our listeners. So thank you. Again, I'm gonna you know, throw all this information that you review in there as well how people can find you on IG, and we're going to be in touch so enjoy the rest of your day. And thanks for coming on. Yes, thank you. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.