Before we get into today's episode, if you want to actually improve your body composition and are sick of random workouts that just wear you down and burn you out, that's exactly why I build Evolo. Evolo is science-back strength training designed to help you build muscle, improve body composition, and feel better in your body without beating yourself up or living in the gym. You can try Evolo now for two weeks free if you visit evolofitness.com. Welcome to the Dr. Shannon Show, body recomposition capsule. There's so much fitness advice out there, and quite frankly, much of it isn't true. So in this 10 episode series, we're covering all the science-based tools for body recomposition. You may have heard me cover many of these topics before, and some things will be brand new. I wanted to create one organized capsule of information that will give you all the important concepts for improving your body composition, because we know improving your body composition isn't just external. It has incredible benefits for your health, energy, mood, and longevity. I'm your host, Shannon Richie. Welcome to the show. This episode will teach you the nutrition basics to body recomposition. Nutrition is the primary lever for fat loss, and although strength training is the primary lever for muscle growth, you also need proper nutrition to support muscle growth. First of all, we'll be talking about calories in this episode. If that feels triggering to you, I have an episode about body recomposition without tracking calories. We did that with Hope Brandt, who is a registered dietitian. That episode is called Ask an R.D. I don't wanna track my calories. How can I reach my body composition goals? So if you want to look that episode up and listen to that one instead of this one, highly recommend. That said, calories are an important part of this process. I do like to strip away the stigma behind them and just try to see them as math as much as possible. And I know sometimes that's easier said than done. Also note before we get into this episode that I'm not formally trained in nutrition. I know nutrition science is complex and I don't claim to have all the answers. So please know that this episode is coming from my conversations and interviews with registered dietitians combined with my own knowledge and experience. If you need more guidance beyond what this episode offers, seek advice from a registered dietitian. So in this episode, we'll discuss calorie and protein needs for body recomposition. And I'll discuss some of the things that have worked for me. Some of my go-to meals and foods, things I've learned with tracking and more. So there are two primary levers in my mind that are the most important for body recomposition. So that's total calories and protein. And I'm not saying those are the only important levers, other macros, micronutrients, timing, fasting, electrolytes, supplements, all of those things may play a part. But for the sake of simplicity, and for me staying in my own lane as much as possible, we're going to keep it at those two things. And those are honestly the two things that I have focused on and had success with in the past. And I know many others can too, just keeping it really simple. So let's start with calories. To body recomposition, according to the registered dietitians that we work with, you wanna be in a slight calorie deficit. So think a deficit of 200 to 400 calories from your maintenance. To calculate your maintenance, use a total daily energy expenditure calculator. You can find one online. We also have a nutrition for body recomposition guide in the Learn tab of Evelo that was written by registered dietitian. The calorie number may not be perfectly accurate, but it does give you a starting point. The second important lever is protein. So the registered dietitians that we work with recommend eating 0.7 to one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. You can use your body weight now or you could try using your ideal body weight. So let's say your goal is to weigh 150 pounds. You'd shoot for eating 105 to 150 grams of protein per day. So when you have your calorie range and you have your protein range, you can start tracking your food. For me, tracking is a tool that has been extremely valuable. Through tracking over the years, I've learned things that I just would not have otherwise. It helps me feel properly. I know that if I am overly tired or irritated, it's probably because I'm underfueling. I've noticed that if I'm groggy or lethargic, it's because I'm overfueling or overeating. Tracking has given me a lot of awareness of how nutrition affects me. I also notice if I eat before I work out, I have a better workout. There are so many things that tracking has allowed me to start to pay attention to, aside from just body composition changes, how I feel and how I perform in my workouts are a couple examples of things that I've learned from tracking. I also know that I can eat more calories than I thought I could, which has been huge for me because it's so much more sustainable to know I can eat more. When I first body recombed in 2022, I talk about how I was eating about my maintenance calories and losing fat while building muscle. But odds are I was actually eating in a small deficit and my maintenance was actually higher than what I had calculated. So now I'm eating about 300 to 400 more calories than I did the first time I body recombed. And we'll see what happens, but so far that is feeling so good and so sustainable. So know that calculating your maintenance calories may take some tinkering, it just gives you a ballpark, and you may have to go up or down depending on what you're finding as time goes on. Let's talk about some tools for tracking, because I know tracking can feel daunting. You're like, I have to enter every single thing into an app and it can take a long time. First of all, you get better at it and you get a lot faster at it. When I first started doing this, I used my fitness pal and then I used Chronometer. Chronometer is an app that tracks micronutrients, which I loved to see after I was consistent with just calories and protein. But now I'm at a point where I tracked my calories for a long time. So I can kind of ballpark it a little bit more. I know the approximate calories and protein. And so I loosely track. I haven't entered anything into Chronometer or an app in a long time. If you struggle to input everything into an app, one thing that I have been doing is using the talk feature on chat to PT, and I'll just talk to it and I'll ramble off everything that I ate for the day and have it estimate my calories and my protein. And this takes about two minutes. And it's probably not super accurate, but it is a tool that you can use if you're struggling to stay consistent with your tracking. When it comes to tracking though, especially if you're new to tracking, I would recommend entering it into an app because you also need to enter in like dressings and oils and things like that. And so it may take some accuracy in the beginning, but once you get good at it, you could use a chat GPT or at this point, I just eyeball. I usually don't even enter anything into an app or even get it from chat GPT at this point because I have just gotten so good at understanding where my general calories and protein are for the day. So let's finish talking about what my personal nutrition looks like and what has worked for me. I will never tell you that I'm perfect when it comes to nutrition or that you should aspire to eat like me. I have just found what works for me. I really try to apply gentle consistency with my nutrition just like I do with my strength workouts, but I will share some of the things that I've learned over the years. So I'll tell you my experience with fasting versus eating before exercise. I'll talk about my favorite proteins and snacks and meals. I'll talk about how I incorporate alcohol and treats. I'll talk about my philosophy on the weekends and I'll kind of discuss how improving my mental health has improved my nutrition. So first, fasting. I know this is a hot topic of debate and I do not claim to have the answers and I see experts arguing about it online all the time, but I have tried both ways. So I have tried fasting and I've tried not fasting. For me, I think I have a better workout when I eat something before I work out, at least a banana. A lot of times I'll have like a banana and a protein bar or something before I work out and I just find that I get higher quality workout. I'm able to take my lifts closer to failure and do more reps. So I think over time that has been more effective for me to eat before I exercise. But again, I've done it both ways. You can try both ways if you want or if it's recommended by your RIT. As far as eating after exercise, I don't stress about getting something right away afterwards. Rarely do I do that. Usually I am taking class or I'm teaching class and I'm rushing off to do the next thing. I'm not like sitting down to have a meal right afterwards and sometimes I won't eat for hours later and I have found that I can still build muscle without eating something right after. Again, there are people saying that you have to eat right after especially when you hit perimenopause and I've seen other experts argue that that's true and that it tends to be more of a window of time in which you need to get your protein for the day. So if you can eat right after your training, I say go for it, but I don't stress about it personally. I just stress about staying consistent with my protein throughout that whole day, no matter kind of when it happens. Okay, next, my favorite proteins. I'm not gonna lie. This is where I take a B plus mentality when it comes to nutrition, especially right now. I have two kids under two and I'm running a business and there's just not that much time for cooking and cleaning the kitchen. If you have young kids, maybe you can relate to this. It is all hands on deck at night and it's difficult to be cooking and managing the stove while my toddler is trying to jump off the couch and the baby needs to nurse. It's just insane. So I've been heavily relying on convenience foods right now, but every time I eat, whether it be a snack or a meal, I do try to incorporate some sort of protein source and that's usually a meat like chicken or salmon or ground turkey or ground beef, but I do eat a lot of more processed convenience foods. I eat a lot of protein bars. I like the Quest ones or the Costco ones. I personally think they taste fine. If you're picky, don't listen to me because I really don't care what they taste like. For me, it's just like convenience and get it down, but I like those and I think the macros are good on those. I also do some protein powder. I wouldn't say I do protein powder every day, but I do it often, especially if I'm in a pinch. So I'll mix it in water if I have to. I don't do that very often. I haven't done that in a long time, but sometimes I'll mix it in water or I'll put it in cottage cheese or Greek yogurt with some fruit on top. I like the just ingredients, strawberries and cream protein powder the best. I've tried so many protein powders. That's my personal favorite. I also do a lot of beef sticks, so like chomps, and those are really easy to just grab and go out the door to have a snack on hand that's high protein. And finally, I'm a big dessert person. I always need to have something sweet after dinner. I like to make my dessert have some sneaky protein. Sometimes I won't do this. Sometimes I'm like, I want to cook here a Klondike bar, but other times, most of the time, I try to choose a dessert that also happens to have some protein. So Halo Top Ice Cream has a good amount of protein actually. I'm not doing this right now, but pre-second baby. I would use the creamy and make some protein ice cream. There's tons of recipes online, so look them up. But I would do protein powder, fair life milk and some sugar-free pudding mix. Put that in the creamy and then you have, you can eat like the whole pint. Those are really good and a great way to sneak in some extra protein. So if you're like, wow, that's a lot of processed food, I know. I'm not telling you that you should aspire to be like me. I know the processing may not be the best and I do aspire to someday get all my protein from Whole Foods, but that's just not where I'm at right now. And to be honest, the past two times I've body recombed, I've done the exact same thing. I've eaten protein bars and protein powders. So it's working for me right now to do some of that because it's convenience and I can get it in and I can stick insistent with it. So that's protein. Now let's talk about alcohol treats and weekends. So as far as alcohol, I have been drinking a lot less over the years. So as the years have gone on, maybe the last five years, I've drank less and less, mostly because now I have kids, so I don't wanna feel bad the next day. But I would say that I do drink in social settings. I probably have two to four drinks spread over each week. Sometimes none, like last week I didn't drink at all and sometimes more than that. I also sprinkle in some heavier drinking days, like when I'm at a wedding. I'm just not one of those people that I'm like, I'm never gonna drink or I'm only gonna drink two drinks. I sometimes wanna have a good time. And so I might have more than that on a special occasion, but I really try to keep those few and far between. I typically don't drink at home. If we're just on a regular night, occasionally I'll make a cocktail for Kenneth and I at night, but that's maybe only happened like twice since Jack was born. So it's pretty infrequent and I would just call myself more of a social drinker. And drinking less has really, really helped me in so many ways, but it's really helped me with my body composition goals. As far as treats, I'd say I have a treat every single day. Most days of the week, I would say almost every day I'm having something sweet after dinner, like I said. Sometimes it's a cookie, sometimes the Klondike bar. Other days it's more of the high protein, but I really try to be conscious of my overall calorie intake for the day and I budget for that because I know I'm gonna want that at the end of the day. Now weekends, on weekends, I'm a lot looser with my food and my nutrition and this has really worked well for me. During the weeks, I'm busy and so food is just kind of like get it done. And on the weekends, I am more social and we go out to eat a little bit more. So I've never tracked on the weekends, but I also don't like to see my weekends as like cheat days. I just don't find that to be very helpful because I would rather be more balanced on a day-to-day basis than have one day where I eat like 4,000 calories and then eat 1,500 calories on every other day or whatever it is. And I definitely have my days where I indulge and eat far beyond my maintenance calories, but I do try to keep those days few and far between and try to be consistent overall. So that's what's worked for me, take it or leave it, but the last thing I wanna talk about is mental health and nutrition. Remember, these are two areas that are not my lane. These are not my formal education. This is just my personal experience in case it helps anyone. So I've had to do a lot of work on my relationship with food. I was raised in a household where food is how we dealt with emotions, good or bad. So if you're sad, let's go get ice cream. If we're celebrating, let's go get ice cream. If you're bored, why don't we go get ice cream? And so I'm an emotional eater. And when I have any sort of discomfort that I'm dealing with emotionally, whether it be anxiety or sadness or boredom, I want to eat, especially those indulgent foods like ice cream. I'm not saying that I've fully fixed this, but I've had to learn strategies that help because ultimately it doesn't feel great, right? And it doesn't fix the emotion. So the year before I went to PT school, I gained about 15 pounds and this year was extremely stressful. I had something happen in my life that was stressing me out. And I was also working three jobs to save for physical therapy school. So I was stressed and I was overeating the mac and cheese and the fast food every single day. And then during PT school, I kind of swung the other way with under eating. And eventually the last five years or so, I had to really find strategies to manage my mind because I ultimately knew that that would put me in a steadier place with nutrition. My mindset has changed completely over the last five years. It's what has allowed me to build a business, improve my relationship with my husband and my friends and my family. It's allowed me to now see body composition changes. Maybe that's for another day, but managing my mind to me is such a huge part to having consistency with nutrition. So again, without going too far into this, I've learned that managing my mind is key. I know that if I don't manage my mind, I could easily let my nutrition habits get out of control. I'm just not one of those people that naturally eats for the needs of my body. I think that I'm actually starting to get there after all these years, but it has truly taken a lot of time and honestly some tracking for me to even learn what proper fueling feels like and looks like for my body. So tracking alongside managing my mind were the tools that really helped me in this process. Nutrition is so tough because as I'm alluding to, it can be more loaded than just eating a slight calorie deficit and track your food, no big deal. It sometimes does take peeling back layers and working on your mental health alongside your nutrition habits to make a sustainable difference. So although I'm teaching you the basics today and I'm telling you that it doesn't need to be complex, that doesn't mean it's easy. But to me, it's worth taking the time and maybe even this whole year to learn. Track if that helps you, get some professional help if you're struggling to manage food in a healthy way and most importantly, don't beat yourself up if it isn't perfect. All right, that's nutrition. In the next episode, we are talking about how to dose your cardio for body recomposition. We'll see you tomorrow.
