What Happens When You Lift Weights While Cutting Dr. Mike Israetel ~ Chris Williamson

of resistance training during a fat loss protocol

Super. Resistance training doesn't really help you lose weight. Uh, it does in the sense that it burns calories, but it doesn't burn a crazy amount of calories. It's a good amount, but nothing too insane. Resistance training builds and preserves your muscle tissue. So if I have someone lose 15 pounds over the course of 12 weeks, reasonable for a larger-sized person, they don't resistance train at all. Many of the Ozempic studies showed something like this. They'll lose, like, eh, you know, half of that will be muscle, maybe 5 pounds will be muscle, 10 pounds will be fat, if you're lucky. You're healthier. You look better. Your blood work is better. You feel better. It's not amazing. If you resistance train, and you've been resistance training consistently already, almost all of that weight loss will be fat, maybe, like, 13 pounds of it, and only two pounds of lost muscle. And because you keep resistance training after, you regain that two pounds back, like, three weeks later. And then so measured at three weeks after you finish that 12-week diet, you lost, well, 13-ish pounds of fat and no muscle. Visually, health-wise, feeling-wise, night and day. Here's the real kicker. If it's your first time losing fat and you don't train with weights, starting to train with weights while you start to kinda clean up your diet and lose a little fat, you can gain pounds of muscle while losing pounds of fat.

I thought it was impossible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time.

Yeah. A lot of people, uh, misinterpret more difficult than average to mean impossible. It's like saying flight is impossible, and then a helicopter goes by, like, bullshit.

[laughs] Fuck you guys.

It's a psyop. [laughs] So a really good example of this recently in the media was, uh, UFC president Dana White. Dana White had an unreal transformation. His health markers are just through the roof, and I think he lost something like a total of maybe 35 pounds on the scale. But because he started taking weight training very seriously during that time, he must have gained anywhere from five to 15 pounds of muscle. I mean, 15's a bit extreme, but I'm willing to go five to 10 for sure, just guessing. And that means he actually lost maybe 45 pounds of fat while gaining muscle. So he didn't go from, with all total respect, looking like, "Jesus, Dana gonna be okay?"

Hmm.

Or not really, "Jeez, Dana's really enjoying his wealth," kinda look.

[laughs] Yeah. It was that opulent weight.

To, "My man," that Caesar type of shit.

Yeah. [laughs]

Other people feed me.

Yeah, the, the, the biggest concern is gout.

Exactly. [laughs] Ew.

[laughs]

Again. So is this something wine can cure?

Yeah. Yeah.

Jesus. He went f- he could have gone from that with no resistance training to, like, oh, Dana White lost weight, and that's nice to hear.

Hmm.

But he went from that to, like, yo, what the fuck? Dana is Superman. When the hell is he getting in the octagon? You feel me?

Hmm.

That's a big deal. It's a big deal at deep health markers. It's a big deal at how you feel. Some people feel weaker after a diet 'cause they are. They lost a bunch of muscle. You gain muscle or maintain it