Body Recomposition vs Weight Loss: What Programs Get Wrong

Have you ever bought a fitness program that promised to “transform” your body and help you lose weight quickly? Body recomposition takes a different approach. Instead of focusing on losing weight, it focuses on what that weight is made up of: building muscle while reducing body fat. In today’s episode, we break down body recomposition vs. weight loss and why understanding the difference can change how you approach training and nutrition.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Understanding Body Recomposition vs Weight Loss
• Why Most Programs Fail
• Common Mistakes in Weight Loss Programs
• How to Approach Body Recomposition Correctly
• Sustainable Change Over Quick Fixes

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome to the Stronger Than Your Boyfriend Podcast, a podcast for anyone into fitness, especially for everyone who is still obsessed with the number on the scale. We are Heather and Katie, owners of Barpath Fitness, here to help you sift through the bullshit and toxic misinformation that permeates the fitness industry. There's a lot of it. There is a lot of it. So 50 to 55% of US adults want to lose weight. Yes. According to, I don't know, the internet. The internet. America's obsession with weight loss is evident in every type of consumable media, from reality TV shows, like biggest loser, before and after photos on social media. The message is almost always the same: lose weight. And we disagree. Yes. Many popular fitness programs and challenges promise to help you transform and lose weight quickly, right? Like three weeks, six weeks, whatever it is. The scale goes down, the program claims success, and people assume they made progress. But then weight loss alone doesn't tell their full story. Right. And maintaining that weight loss is pretty much impossible when you lose it that fast.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Yeah. It's like the old story about, you know, everyone who gets into fitness, losing weight.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Yeah. Body recomposition, however, refers to improving your body composition by building muscle and reducing body fat. Yes. Which is what everybody actually wants. Yes. And instead of focusing purely on weight, recomposition focuses on your what your weight consists of. Yes. So two people can weigh the exact same amount, right? And they can look completely different depending on their body comp. Right. One might lift weights and carry a bunch of muscle, and the other might not train at all and carry a higher percent of body fat. Right. But they the scale would show the same number, but you'd look at them and their physiques and their metabolic health would be completely different. Yeah. So this is where the conversation around body recomposition versus weight loss becomes important. And understanding this difference is the first step to changing how you approach your training and nutrition and actually getting results.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Yeah. The scale doesn't mean anything. I mean, it can tell you trends over time. I don't want to completely disregard the scale's use, but I really wish that most people wouldn't use it anymore. That's the problem. And the biggest thing, especially when we're talking about losing weight and body recomp, they're two different things, they're two two different approaches, I would say, but both require building muscle in order to do them. And I'm and I'm also talking about weight loss. So in order to lose weight, which most people are trying to lose body fat, you have to be b burning more calories than you're taking in. The law of thermod thermodynamics. But if you're eating 1500 calories a day, and you cut down to what, a thousand calories a day? Like, and then what? Where do you go from there? How does that feel? It probably feels like shit. It probably feels like shit eating only 1,500 calories a day. So a big mistake when it comes to both of these is just the neglecting of the muscle building phase. And I think even people who are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that sounds good. I want to recomp my body, we'll probably still go into lose, lose, lose mode. So at first, I think you should go to build, build, build for a long time mode. Right. Even if you have body fat to lose, because where are you gonna cut from? Your metabolism isn't high if you don't have a lot of muscle. That that is how you increase your metabolism. We talked about this on a reverse dieting episode. The only way to increase your metabolism is to put more muscle on your body. Put more expensive tissue on your body that requires a lot of calories to keep. It's hard to do because your body doesn't necessarily want a ton of muscle, but it does like it. So it's like a balance, right? That's why, you know, you eventually can see diminishing returns unless you throw yourself on some steroids. But anyways, that's besides the point. So I I do think that it's hard because people just want to see the scale go down, down, down, and they just want to see their waist go down, down, down, or whatever they they're looking for. But you I also I think a lot of people, if they do focus on building muscle, they would be surprised with their body composition in that process, even though they're trying to eat more. Even though they're, you know, they're they're not doing as much cardio or whatever they were doing. I think most people are actually pleasantly surprised. Yeah. Like when you start to fill out muscle-wise, you're like, damn, I look good.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Yeah, your clothes fit differently, the things look good in the right places. Like it does impact your appearance in a positive way.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

And if you're the if you're a person who's coming from not exercising, let's just say you eat the standard American diet and I'm still and you have and you have body fat to lose, and you know, uh if you go on a muscle building phase or go into one, I bet your body would recomp a little bit. And this is to say, like, you know, if someone is pretty consistent with fitness, they train, this probably won't happen for you because your body is kind of used to that. Like you've built some muscle, you've been lean, etc. But if you've come from no experience and you start to focus on eating whole foods and eating protein, your body will your body composition will shift, even though you might be eating more. Right. So, but then you get to the point where you're gonna get into like actual building mode. And sometimes that means the scale is gonna go up. Right. So that's why the scale, it's it doesn't tell you anything about your body composition. Because you could build muscle and keep the same amount of body fat on your body, but be a lower body fat percentage because it's the percentage of your body total body weight. So that's the cool thing about building muscle. You can technically get leaner if you put more muscle on your frame. Yeah. So that's it's like if you think about that, that's pretty fucking cool. But you don't have to starve yourself to be lower in your body fat percentage. So I really I really want to hone in on that fact. You know, if especially if you're a woman and you haven't really done like, I would say, wouldn't you say like a solid year of building, like eating? I I I really do think. And I understand like you can you're gonna get to a point where you're like, this is too much, that's good. Like get to that point where it's like this is too many calories, like I'm gaining a ton of weight, like that's fine. We're not saying you just like add in calories forever. Right. But if you are slow and your body doesn't need a ton of extra calories to build muscle, but it's more so about building up your your daily burn so that you can cut from a higher place. Yeah. And obviously the programming is key to this. Totally. Because you have to have progressive overload with your strength training, you're not doing a fuck ton of cardio to just like negate all this m muscle you're trying to build. It has to be a good program. And it's it's not it's it's easy, but it can get complicated because you have to know what you're doing as far as your training. But it it's hard mentally to just add in food when you're trying to lose body fat.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Totally. And I think the year that you're talking about with building, there are two options here, and it all starts with maintenance. So we have a whole blog, I think, and maybe I'll just do that. We have a whole guide, I think, on how to find your maintenance calories. So go find that. We'll link it in the show notes. But once you track for a bit and see what your main what is your current maintenance calorie intake with your current level activity, like what are you normally doing that keeps you at the same weight? That's your maintenance calories. Don't change anything. Don't change anything at first when you start tracking.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Do it for seven days. Seven days, yeah. I don't care if you go out on the weekends, I don't care if you eat out overnight. Just try try your best to track it and then take an average of everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

That's probably your average maintenance calories if you're not gaining or losing weight at this time. Exactly. From there, if that number is high enough, like, you know, if you're at 2,000 or higher, and maybe even it depends on your size, right? Yeah. It depends on your size, et cetera. But you know, if it's a comfortable number, you could do maintenance and just change the macronutrient profile for a while. Like if you're just if you track and you're like, wow, I'm at 2,000 calories on average, but you know, most of it is fat. Yeah, carbs, and like the protein is super low. You could keep it at 2,000 instead of going into a surplus. You could do maintenance and just kind of restructure the macros and you will see results building some muscle and probably even leaning out. Yep. Um, in that time. And so you could do that for a year. Or you could do a if you're really low, if you're at 1200 calories, if you're at 1500 calories, recommendation increase by a couple hundred here and there, you know, every few weeks until you get up to a point and you're building muscle for a year, and then that's when you start thinking about cutting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

And you might I don't think that you should tr if you're if you're going into a build phase, I don't think you should track any metric. That's the thing. Because I think it fucks with people too much. Like I wouldn't even I wouldn't weigh yourself, I wouldn't even track your body fat percentage in like DEXA to see even how much muscle you've gained. Because a lot of times you can have someone who's eating so low of calories. Maybe you need to put on a little body fat for your body to be in a healthy place before it wants to build muscle. So, like, maybe you put the first five pounds of weight on as body fat, but maybe you probably don't look bad if you needed to gain the body fat. And then your body is like, oh, we're in a healthy spot, we're gonna build muscle now. Now everyone is different.

unknown 9:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

People have different muscle building genetics, people have different leanness, body types, etc. But I just it's just m emotionally a big mind fuck to track. Yes. Because you could weigh in or uh scan in on a really off day. And sometimes your body's just doing shit and you don't know why. Yeah. Like what? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Especially if you are a woman. Yeah. Or if you have a cycle or your menopause, any of those hormonal fluctuations will change your weight daily.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Yeah. By a lot. I mean, I'm a small like short, small person. And I could even fluctuate by like five pounds. Yeah. You know, like I'm probably more like seven. Yeah, I mean, it not not so much day to day, but like in a week, you can be, oh, my period's coming up. There's five pounds up on the scale. Yep. Okay. That's a pretty big swing for I'm only barely five three. Like I'm not that tall. So yeah, it's just, I don't know, I can't imagine the swing for someone taller. Right? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

All right, so heading back to what we were talking about with understanding your maintenance, the other thing to understand is your total daily energy expenditure. So your T D E E. And this represents the total number of calories your body burns in a day. So that includes your basal metabolic rate, your exercise activity, non-exercise movement, and the energy required to digest food. Non-exercise movement is the biggest piece here that I think people have an opportunity to change before they even change their program. Oh, yeah. And this is also called, you'll hear this, called NEAT, non-exercise activity thermogenesis. This is everyday movement outside of structured workouts. So walking around your house, doing chores, taking the stairs, parking far away and walking more, walking your dog. This, there's a lot of opportunity here to increase your daily calorie burn by a lot with just a few habit changes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

I I also think with this, if you're in an unhealthy spot as far as you don't move that much, get to the point where you're making it a habit, just for your overall health. But when we're talking about aesthetics, which is more of what this episode is talking about, you probably will lean out even if you are in a build phase, or you just won't gain that much body fat if you're in a build phase. But on the other hand, when you're in that cut phase, after you've done the building and you've gotten your metabolism up and your calories are high, this is by far the biggest lever I think people can pull. Yeah. And, you know, you could do it just as simple as tracking your steps, maybe increasing your steps a little bit. If your steps are already high, I don't think doing extra cardio is the answer because your body is an adaptation machine, and that's we all that's what we all need to realize is that no matter what you're doing, it's gonna learn and it'll adapt to it, and you'll have to make a change eventually.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Yeah. I think one of the other things people don't realize is that when their calories are severely restricted, your neat goes down. There's research that shows like your non-exercise activity decreases because your energy decreases as you eat less. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

So this isn't a bad thing. I think everyone thinks, oh, my metabolism sucks. It's no. Your metabolism is doing exactly what it should be doing to have to allow you to survive. Because you could literally survive off of a couple hundred calories a day if you needed to, maybe not forever, but your body would slow its metabolism down so low so that you could survive. So I I that has been a pretty eye-opening way to talk about this for clients because it's like it's not, it's not that your metabolism's slow because you've aged, etc. It's just that it's responding to what you're giving it. Right. So if you're not giving it muscle, you're not giving it, you know, movement, you're not giving it protein, etc., well, it's just gonna respond to whatever environment you're in. Exactly. So yeah, I just keep harping on the build, but you gotta build muscle. That's literally the only way. Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

So let's talk about how to body recomp. So let's say you're like, okay, I'm bought in, I've decided not to focus on weight loss, I'm gonna focus on fat loss and building muscle, which is what I actually want. Once you're bought into that idea, how the hell do you do it? Yeah. Well, you start with strength training, yeah, you should be consistent and progressive with your strength training. Your volume should be overcreasing over time as your body adapts. That is like rule number one. Yes. Strength train. Yes. Don't stop. That's most important. Number two, protein intake should be sufficient to support the muscle repair and development. Yeah. So if you're gonna track anything, track protein. Because now you know if you're eating enough to actually build the muscle that you're working on in your strength training.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

I would also argue that here's the here's the other thing. I think, yes, you have to track your protein. You gotta track everything. Yeah. It's just there's no way around it. If you want to make significant changes in either direction, there's no way you can do that without knowing what you're taking in, what, how many steps you're you're programming, etc. It you're not magic. Like if you have a lot of, if you have a lot of weight to lose and then you go from eating McDonald's every meal to Whole Foods, yes, you will lose weight, but you will plateau at some point. So I think it should, I I I would argue we should expand that to like you gotta fucking track, even if it's just this little, even if it's just this short period of time. Right. You're not gonna make changes, big changes in either uh in either direction. Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

So yeah, we had a whole episode talking about intuitive eating and how it's a really cool goal to be able to eat more intuitively, but it exists on a scale and you still have to uh have a baseline. It's kind of like it's kind of like the fact that you have to build discipline before you can like go off program, right? Like you have to know the system before you can break the system, yeah. Kind of thing. That's how I see intuitive eating. Like you have to understand exactly what you what your body wants, what your cravings are, what you are supposed to be taking in, what you are taking in, and then you can add in some intuitive eating sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

And on that note, no one is gonna do that. No one is gonna get there. I'm I'm not there. I'm at it. Okay. But I just think most people in in modern life. Oh, it took me 20 years pretty much to get there. Intuitively? Yeah. Like I want a donut. Like I just I feel when I'm like right now, later in the day, I'm hungry, like a donut would be really comforting right now.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

But do I need that donut? Yeah, but you understand the difference between your craving and your, you know, what you need.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

I yes, I do. And that is but it's you have the discipline to actually. Yeah, but it's like intuitively you're like, you're sad, and you just want some ice cream. You know, like that could be intuitive to someone where they think that they're like, oh, like I'm it's my period's coming. Oh, my body wants ice cream. Like, I just no one's gonna go. No one's gonna most people aren't gonna work that hard to get there. I and it's really hard with food fucking everywhere. If we were all living off the land and hunting and growing food, yes. Sure. But we're not. There's food in literally everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

You're right. You're right. Yeah. If you have 10 plus years of nutrition tracking, then you can start thinking about new. That's what I think. But you have to, but you've had to track track. I I did track for years, and I still track once a week or so. But it's not even that.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

You put in the years of tracking to get to that place where you're like, okay, well, I I eat, you know, I know what these foods are and I know about how much that is. Like it doesn't have to be i exact, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you have to have enough experience before you can intuitively. And it's like, intuitively, did I did I need those saltines we ate? Like, no. Rob, I still don't really see it. Maybe you needed some salt. Yeah, well, maybe it is 86 degrees today. So it's like, I you know, I don't know. It's just most people aren't gonna get there, or nor do they want to. And people think that tracking is just a pain in the ass. Well, it's really not. It's not a pain in the ass because you have an app that literally does it for you. Right. So if you're not gonna do it and your app doesn't do it, no one's gonna do it. So therefore you'll never know. You will always be guessing.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

I will also say the hardest thing about tracking is going out to eat. You cannot be going out to eat all the time. No. And have a clear picture of what you're eating because the restaurants, even when they have the calories on there, it depends on who your chef is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Like it really depends. They want that shit to taste good. So they can say it's 600 calories, but maybe they just put two extra tablespoons of butter in your dish and now it's eight. So you don't know. You don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

You can only control what you can control.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

The safest option is like a salad with a dressing on the side.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

You know what I mean? Uh yeah, a big protein where you ask for the veggies, like a chicken breast and you ask for the veggies steamed and something like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

And it's like, yeah, it sounds boring. We're not telling you to never go out to eat. And you can kind of guess, but Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

I'm just saying if you do it more than once a week, this is really hard.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

It's hard to get a really good picture on where your calories are at. And if you're in that fat loss phase you're and you don't know why the needle isn't moving, I would probably recommend not eating out. And I'm not saying to never do it, but it's like once a week is fine, I think. You know, depending on what you're doing. You know what it reminds me of? It's just like people in their their alcohol. It for one for some reason, over my 13 years being a trainer, that is the one thing people won't fucking budge on. And I'm like, okay, that's fine. Then the then the then the fat loss won't budge. It's the funniest, it's funny. It's just like it's not gonna budge. It's the biggest difference. Yeah, and I'm like, you this is this is one and the same. Yeah. If you are going out to eat and you're not tracking, and you're kind of just like, well, I'm eating healthy, it's not gonna budge. It's not enough. I promise you, it's not enough. If you're okay with that, good for you. But if you want to make big changes in one direction, even for building muscle, you gotta, you have to track at least for a little while.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

So okay, so that was number two. Oh strength training and tracking. Great. Um don't measure your progress by the scale. Well, yes. That's number three. So strength improvements, changes in your body measurements if you want, visual changes, pictures, the way your clothes fit. Um, DEXA scans and bioelectrical impedance can be fine. They have a lot of room for error, which we talk about in one of our other podcasts. I can't remember which one. Um and if you're using them for trends over time, that's great. Um, but the best tracker and indicator of progress is objective strength, I think.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

I yeah. Also, it's something that you can see in real time. Right. Like you can literally just oh shit, I put five more pounds on the bar this week than I did last week. That's good. And it's not like, oh, I have to wait four weeks to see my body fat go down. Like, right. Yeah. That's just something that if you don't focus on, you'll know, yeah, you'll notice it when you're totally changes in energy is another good one too.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Like if you are training the right way, you're not doing excessive HIT and cardio, and you you are in this building phase and you're actually eating more and you're working out hard. But like the right amount, your energy, at first you'll be tired and sore, right? Especially if you're new. But over time, your energy will go up. Sleep will improve.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

You'll notice uh what the difference is. Yeah. You know, versus like, this was my first workout, I'm feeling tired. Like, you probably sleep really hard, but that's a good thing. Yes. But when your body adapts, but you're consistently moving, it's it's just a different, consistent, clean energy. Totally. Versus like you know, if you drink too much caffeine and you have energy and you're wired, like it's not like that. It's just natural energy. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Um, number four, trust the process. It's a long-term goal. So consistency and a vision, essential. Like you can't just say, I have a wedding in three months, I want to lose this much weight. I don't care about afterward, really. That's yeah, yeah. You don't care about afterward? Bullshit. Yeah, those are some of my least favorite things. Like, I will we have helped people get nice and strong and even cut for their wedding, but Caitlin. Yeah, but in like a healthy, sustainable way. Yeah. And it's possible, but you need to have a long term vision. Like, sure, we'll help you out for you know the next six months for your wedding, but we We need a plan for the following year. Yeah. Like if you are going to be cutting for this at some point, you won't cut for six months. But you know, if you're cutting for four weeks, eight weeks, twelve weeks, depending on where you're at, we need a comeback plan. So when you're back from that honeymoon, what's after that?

SPEAKER_00 22:13

And I would argue, you t when's your wedding? It better be a year away. Yeah. Because I'm not gonna cut.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

I'm gonna say six months isn't a bad timeline, actually. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

I want a year. Like you're I'm gonna treat it like a bodybuilding show. Like we gotta bill, bill, bill, then we can cut. And then we're gonna come back and reverse diet you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

So obviously, fat loss should be strategic in temporary phases, and staying in that deficit indefinitely is not productive at all for your body composition. It's not productive for your health or your metabolism. It's just gonna make your metabolism drop if you stay at low calories. Yeah. Um, number five, last one, consistency over perfection always. So do the thing 85% of the time. It's better than you know, missing all your workouts.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

And let me tell you, let me ask yourself this. Because a lot of people, man, everyone has a scale in their house. And a lot it's actually pretty surprising by how many of my clients weigh themselves every day. So ask yourself this. Okay, your scale went to down two pounds today. Did it change your life? Do you feel better? Are you even leaner? Did you go poop to shake a big poop? Is that why? I'm gonna guess probably not. And if it was from one day to the next, probably water weight. Yeah. You didn't lose two pounds of body fat in a day. Nope. And this isn't about quick fixes. This is about long-term consistency until the day you die, hopefully. So the quick short-lived scale droppage isn't a goal, and nor should it be, because you will all you will always be disappointed. And I would argue that if you're always focused on what you look like, you will always be disappointed. There will always be something that something more that you want to read. So just ask yourself that. Because I can also have you weigh yourself and then chop your foot off, and you'd be lighter. And I don't think you would feel better. I think you would feel worse. Yep. Okay, on that note, on that note. Alright, so