If you’ve ever found yourself frustrated with trying to lose weight, don’t worry. You’re not alone. There are so many weight loss tips available right now. But, it’s hard to know what’s actually going to make a positive difference in your life!
When it comes to weight loss, you want to make sure your methods are grounded in science. So many things can go wrong during a weight loss journey. You’ll want to make sure your weight loss is both safe and sustainable, without any unfortunate side effects or frustrating yo-yo’s on the scale.
Here at The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Show, we’re all about digging in deep to get all the science-backed tips and tricks we possibly can from the experts who come on our show. That’s why we had Dr. Peter Attia on the show to discuss all things health and longevity including weight loss. Today’s post is all about his tips for losing weight!
And when we say we dug in deep for his expert information, we mean it! This episode was so packed with essential knowledge on optimal fitness, the pillars of health and longevity, and more that it’s actually a two-parter. You can find watch the first part here:
Dr. Peter Attia’s Weight Loss Tips
If you’re not familiar with Dr. Peter Attia, let us catch you up to speed. This way, you’ll understand exactly how he knows what he’s talking about. Because you don’t want to listen to just anyone when it comes to your health you want to listen to an expert.
Who Is Peter Attia?
Dr. Peter Attia is a Canadian physician, author, and researcher who focuses on improving longevity through his work. And, he defines longevity a little differently than most of us:
“Lifespan and healthspan are important concepts because the word ‘longevity,’ most people make synonymous with ‘lifespan,’ so longevity is living longer, right? But, that’s not really true,” he told us on the Dr. Peter Attia podcast with TSC. “At least, not the way I define it. It’s also a function of the quality of life. And, I think the quality of life tends to matter more the older you get.”
To learn more about his revolutionary approach to longevity, you can watch part one of the Him & Her show episode here, and part two available here!
So, Dr. Peter Attia’s goal with his clients is literally to help them live their best lives all the way through. For some of those clients, weight loss is a significant part of their journey to their best life. Lucky for them (and us), Dr. Peter Attia has tons of knowledge on how to safely and sustainably lose weight. Let’s get into them below!
What Are The Best Tips For Weight Loss From Dr Peter Attia?
Live in a “default food environment.”
If you’re trying to eat well, but your pantry still contains your favorite junk foods, you’re going to want those foods. Like, bad. It’s a total willpower drain, and it’s going to cause you to slip up eventually.
Here’s Dr. Peter Attia’s alternative: “I preach this to my patients… The answer is default food environment. You only want to exert willpower in very brief spikes, which is when you’re shopping… But then, the goal is, set up the environment such that you don’t have to exert willpower when you’re in your home, when you are tired, when you are hungry, when you are weak.”
So, the best way to stay on track is to keep those temptations out of reach. Instead, Dr. Peter recommends stocking up on and eating whole foods that give you the nutrients you need. In his practice, there is no one-size-fits-all diet, because everyone is different. He does have a nutritional framework when it comes to restriction, though. We’ll dive into that next.
Talk with your doctor to determine if you should restrict your diet.
Dr. Peter Attia thinks of dieting as an experience of modifying three parameters (or, as he calls it, “pulling three levers in various combinations”). These are the levers he has identified:
- Dietary restriction (DR): what you do or don’t eat
- Caloric restriction (CR): how much you eat
- Time restriction (TR): when you eat (AKA intermittent fasting)
To determine what’s right for you, it’s best to both discuss your options with your doctor as well as be empirical with your diet practices. This means you should consider what different lever combinations make you, personally, feel your best.
Follow a balanced exercise regimen.
Dr. Peter Attia has a pretty intense exercise regimen himself, but he doesn’t expect you to do what he’s doing. As he says, “I feel so strongly that everybody exercise, that I just think we have to find a way to make sure it becomes natural. And, sometimes, for people who are not coming at it from a place of doing it, the goal is to do just enough to simultaneously accomplish the following: make sure they don’t get hurt, and make sure they see some positive benefit so that gets them a little bit hooked.”
So, if you’re someone who hates exercise, but wants to lose weight or live a healthier life, Dr. Peter isn’t going to throw you into his workout plan. He’s going to help create one specifically for you, that meets you at your level.
Every client is different, so every client needs something different. But, Dr. Peter did give us two areas to focus on: cardiorespiratory fitness and muscle strength basically, how well your heart works and how strong your body is.
For many clients, he recommends about four hours a week. “About 80% of that would be low intensity…and then about 20% of that would be higher intensity, specifically geared towards VO2 max training, which means you are training in what I call intervals of hell.”
This is often called HIIT, or high intensity interval training. Dr. Peter recommends that these intervals be between 3-8 minutes each. Most often, he recommends 4 minutes on, 4 minutes off. These intervals are typically used with cardio exercises, and Dr. Peter says you can pick whichever exercise you’d like: stairmaster, assault bike, treadmill, whatever works best for you!
The reason you’d want to do this VO2 max training is to increase the amount of oxygen your muscles can extract from your blood while working out. Having a high VO2 max and more muscle mass is associated with living a longer life.
To learn more about VO2 max training, you can listen to Dr. Peter Attia explain his approach here.
Be conscious of your alcohol use.
“If you’re trying to lose weight, if you’re trying to put on muscle, like, what kind of effect does the alcohol play in holding some of that back?” Michael asked Dr. Peter Attia when he appeared on the show.
“I think it’s hard all around, right? I think it’s the calories that come with it are huge, the knock off effect it has on eating other crap you shouldn’t eat, and then truthfully you feel worse. It’s the performance. So you don’t perform as well,” Dr. Peter told us when he dove deep into the effects of alcohol on the body.
He says a modest amount (like, a drink per day) is okay, as long as you avoid the ways alcohol can damage you “long before you actually see the molecule damaging your liver.”
According to Dr. Peter, there are two really big ways that alcohol can cause immediate damage. First, you don’t want it to keep you from getting a good night’s sleep. Second, you want to make sure it’s not lowering your inhibitions around foods you don’t want to be eating. These can both cause issues during your weight loss journey.
Aim for losing three times as much fat than muscle.
If you can lose even more fat than muscle in a ratio higher than 3:1, even better. The important thing is that you are maintaining as much muscle as you can. Remember how we mentioned higher muscle mass is associated with a longer life?
But, that’s not necessarily the only reason you want to pursue that ratio of losing fat mass to losing muscle mass. We’re guessing that, if you’re hoping to lose some body weight, you’re specifically hoping to lose body fat. Whether it’s for health reasons or aesthetic purposes, you want your muscle to stick around when you kick fat to the curb.
This is one of the reasons to be cautious of weight loss drugs. While weight loss drugs can be a powerful tool to lose weight, they may not be safe or sustainable long term. Everything depends on the person, of course, so be sure to discuss what’s best for you with your doctor.
But, we want to make sure you’re aware of all of the potential benefits and risks. Dr. Peter told us that sometimes, these drugs suppress appetite in a way that makes you less interested in protein-heavy meals. As a result, some patients lost a significant amount of weight, but half of it was muscle.
Additionally, since weight loss drugs work as an appetite suppressant, sometimes your appetite comes back with force once you’re off them. If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you may need a more sustainable long-term plan. Weight loss drugs may help you lose that weight, but most people gain weight after going off of the drugs.
What Diet Does Peter Attia Recommend?
Dr. Peter Attia doesn’t recommend one specific diet. Many diets have benefits for different people. Even vegan diets are ones Dr. Peter can work with, as long as it’s for the right reasons. Think: ethical or personal preference, like not wanting to harm animals or disliking the texture of meat, rather than the belief that all animal products are inherently unhealthy.
Dr. Peter follows his nutritional framework of eating whole, nutritious foods within a combination of the restrictions mentioned above: dietary restriction (what you eat), caloric restriction (how much you eat), and time restriction (when you eat). He did mention that intermittent fasting does not appear to have a specific benefit over other restrictions.
Work with an expert and your own sense of intuition to determine which restrictions are best for you. Your diet should make you feel energized, satiated, and overall GOOD.
We loved having Dr. Peter Attia on the show.
We seriously could not get enough of our conversation with Dr. Peter Attia. We gained so much knowledge from him that we had to split the episode into two parts to make sure you got all the hot tips and tricks you’re looking for! They’re seriously both must-watch episodes. You can find part one here, while part two is available here.
For more weight loss tips, check out Lauryn’s postpartum weight loss experience, #2. She found so much joy and confidence through weightlifting and other forms of movement. Follow her tips to find your own joy and confidence, too!
Ready to explore your diet options? If you’re looking for something really intriguing, another one of our fave guests, Mikhaila Peterson Fuller recommends the Lion Diet. If you’re wondering, “What is the Lion Diet?” Don’t worry, boo! We’ve got the details here. And, if you’re curious what Dr. Peter Attia had to say about this one, he says while this type of diet does appear to be effective, he’d like to see more research on it.
You can discover even more diet options in these episodes:
- Darin Olien on Fatal Conveniences & Making Minor Changes That Massively Impact Your Life and Health
- Dr. Mark Hyman on Diets, Chronic Disease Protocols, Functional Medicine, & Healthy Routines
- Dr. Paul Saladino on Exposing Seed Oil Dangers, Raw Milk Benefits, & Why The Food Industry Lies To You!
We learned so much from Dr. Peter Attia! What was your favorite tip? Let us know!