Ep. #1176: Dr. Bill Campbell on the Science of Food and Weight Tracking

Bill Campbell: [00:00:00] The one study that again, that has really informed my opinion on tracking and success was there was a hundred people, they were overweight and researchers said, we want you to track your calories for three months. The consistent trackers lost 10 pounds of body weight. And they didn’t do body composition in this study, 10 pounds versus only four pounds.

So a 250%, if you want to play that game, 250%. greater weight loss. 

Mike Matthews: Hello. I’m Mike Matthews. This is muscle for life. Thank you for joining me today for a new episode, a new interview with my friend, Dr. Bill Campbell on the science of food and weight tracking and specifically macro tracking and weight tracking macro meaning macronutrient, meaning protein, carbohydrate.

And in this episode, Bill is going to dive into the science of macro tracking, of food tracking. He’s going to talk about its [00:01:00] psychological impact. He’s going to talk about its physiological impact. He’s going to talk about how it can support long term health and fitness goals. And that doesn’t mean that you have to track food forever.

He’s going to talk about that as well. And then in the second half of this interview, Bill is going to talk about another powerful tool for improving body composition, maintaining an improved body composition, and that is tracking your body weight. And just like with tracking food, many people are averse to tracking their body weight.

But as Bill explains in today’s episode, that’s unfortunate because if you go about it correctly, it can make you lose weight. The process of transforming your body composition easier, not harder. Easier psychologically and physiologically, not harder. And in case you are not familiar with Dr. Bill Campbell, he is a friend of mine, a repeat guest on the show, as well as a professor of exercise science.

Science and the Director of the [00:02:00] Performance and Physique Enhancement Laboratory at the University of South Florida. Bill has published over 200 scientific papers and abstracts, three textbooks, and 20 book chapters in areas related to physique enhancement, sports nutrition, resistance training, and dietary supplementation.

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Mr. Campbell, it’s good to see you again. Yeah. Good to see you. Looking forward to today’s discussion. Good topic. We’re going to be talking about tracking today, tracking macros, but also as we were talking about offline, I think we should [00:06:00] also talk about tracking body weight because they, these two things go hand in hand often if people are tracking macros or calories, they’re important.

Trying to lose weight, in which case they may or may not be tracking their weight, or maybe they’re trying to gain weight. Maybe they’re trying to lean bulk. That’s why they’re tracking their macros and their calories, but they may or may not be tracking their body weight. 

Bill Campbell: Yes. Yep. Just been doing some reading on that on both of these topics recently.

So this is great timing. 

Mike Matthews: Let’s start with tracking food, which is always a matter of controversy. You’ll see one camp, one school of thoughts saying how great of a tool it is, and then you have the other camp. Saying that being very resistant to it even claiming that it can increase your chances of developing an eating disorder or that it’s somehow perverse behavior.

Almost what are your thoughts? [00:07:00] 

Bill Campbell: Yeah, it seems like whenever I get arguments against tracking. Or resistance, it always goes in the direction and same thing for body weight. For that matter, it goes into the mental health segment which maybe there’s data to support that. And my response is ideal. And I communicate with a lot of coaches, like I fully.

Respect intelligent pro fitness professionals to use their best judgment on clients that may have trouble with that But to make blanket statements, which is always the resistance don’t ever do this Causes this i’m like no that’s definitely not true and can it happen in some people?

Yes, but is that because of tracking? I don’t know. I would say that’s just what they You know if it weren’t that it would be something else in my opinion that would be obsessive but I just think use your best judgment. If you think that’s an issue with somebody that you’re working with. 

Mike Matthews: Anecdotally, I can say now having [00:08:00] been conversing with a lot of people over 10 plus years now, I probably have, I don’t know, three or 400, 000 emails sent and received, for example, and that’s excluding the spam, right?

And then you factor in. Interactions on social media and so forth that the rule seems to be actually the opposite. The rule seems to be that tracking calories or tracking macros will increase your chances of success in reaching your body composition goals significantly with actually no downsides whatsoever aside from maybe the Logistics of how you’re going to go about it.

Are you going to use an app or are you just going to make a meal plan and do it more by, by portion size, or are you going to weigh and measure everything? And so that’s just my comment. Now, having seen a lot of people have a lot of success over the years, this is one of the consistent common denominators is that for at least some period.

They tracked macros or they tracked calories or they [00:09:00] followed a meal plan, which is the same thing. And it just in a different fashion. 

Bill Campbell: Yeah. It’s speaking to the research. There is no question. It’s a significant mover of success for weight loss. Like you, what’s the medical term?

When I fail to do something, I’m not liable. What’s the term that it’s a legal term. Do you know what I’m trying to get at? If you’re a coach and you’re hired to help somebody lose weight and you’re not having them weigh in every day and track their macros, it’s negligent. Yes.

You’re you are being, thank you. That word was not coming. I look at it as being negligent because the data is. Very clear of, and again, I can, I’ll share a study in a few minutes, some of the studies, that just stick out in my mind that helped inform my opinion, but yeah, it’s you’re being negligent if you’re not using these strategies for somebody that’s paying you to help them with weight loss, because it’s, you can’t.[00:10:00] 

You’re not giving them the tools 

Mike Matthews: they need. And so then where do you think these criticisms are coming from exactly? And like you said, I’ve seen the same, they often speak to some sort of mental or psychological or emotional problem or problems that are supposedly much more likely to occur if you track.

Bill Campbell: Yeah I have, and I don’t know where it’s coming from, but I have to think they’re seeing one or two people. That have had mental health problems that tracked and they’re attributing it to tracking as if it that just gave birth to this OCD or whatever, but again, that there was an underlying issue that not that I’m a psychologist, but it was just manifested in tracking.

And again, if it wasn’t tracking, it would be some other health behavior or some other behavior. Outlet in their life. I do have the, so I think that’s probably where it comes from. They’re trying to apply an [00:11:00] end size of one or two to everybody. And without the distinction of or one ignoring the research that it’s beneficial and to also ignoring.

Which I have a lot of feedback and having, students in my program that have struggled with or have had clinical, clinically defined eating disorders and how they’re how they have told me tracking and being on top of this has actually brought me out of that. I don’t have to be as obsessive with my mind when I have data to look at.

So there’s also that argument as well. Interesting. 

Mike Matthews: And then many other people are maybe receptive to the negative messages because they don’t want to track that. That’s it. And they would rather follow some sort of looser, maybe rule based type of diet like keto or any of the other diets out there that put much more emphasis on.

What you’re eating, maybe the quality of what you’re eating, even the [00:12:00] number of ingredients in what you’re eating, they emphasize those types of things and they deemphasize how much are you eating protein, carbs, fat, calories again, I think this is maybe me just being cynical, but I think it’s just a marketing ploy more than anything else, because there’s a famous quote from Carl Jung, something along the lines of.

What we need most in our lives to improve ourselves will be in the places we least want to look and that’s certain. That’s certainly true in fitness, right? So it’s if you’re struggling to lose weight, the place you least want to look is your calories and your macros because. You’re just eating too much food and a part of you probably knows that.

And so if you haven’t accepted that yet. Then somebody coming along saying that getting very particular with your calories, getting very particular with your macros, that’s obsessive behavior. That’s neurotic behavior and that’s diet culture and so forth, as opposed to the reality. Which is that it’s just, it’s a very effective tool.

Maybe it’s not for [00:13:00] everyone, but the baseline assumption should be that anyone listening, if you haven’t done it yet, your baseline assumption should be that it’s going to work very well for you. Would you agree? 

Bill Campbell: Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. And let me give. Just a counter argument to what we both agree with.

I’ve always stated a utopia would be somebody who doesn’t have to track and they can, what do you call it? Intuitively eat where, Hey, I’m lowering my calories. Naturally. I don’t track anything that, that would be awesome because it’s just less tasks on the day. But while I acknowledge that utopia. My personal story is when I track, I’m in a, I’m able to achieve and maintain a body composition that I like when I don’t track, I cannot do it in my week.

And my undisciplined, I don’t know, but I know if I’m not tracking. I will gain body fat. And I’ll explain what I think is happening. If I’m not [00:14:00] tracking and, oh, there’s Halloween. Perfect example. Tonight’s Halloween. I will take, two of these little fun size Milky Way bars. I’m not tracking it.

So maybe it’s five, but if I’m tracking, One, I might not have any, but I’ll have one or two and I’ll track it. So just the, whatever that is, I know from my own life, which by the way, because of these things, it’s why I’m in my opinion, a very good fat loss researcher, I can relate to. A large segment of the population who’s not perfect and is not totally off the rails, but I always reflect on, Hey, how am I approaching this?

And one, the research is clear. And two, my life experience tells me if I’m not tracking, I’m setting myself up for failure relative to body fat accumulation. I’ve had that 

Mike Matthews: experience as well. And I haven’t explicitly tracked food in a while, but the reason why it has worked for me is I eat more or less the same foods.

Every meal every day, even on the weekends, we’re all changing a little bit, [00:15:00] but it’s still the consistently the same thing. And so at some time in the past, I actually have worked out there was a time when I was tracking my meal plan, so to speak. And so I’ve already set a baseline that I know works for my goal, which is to maintain body comp and I know what portions look like.

And so it doesn’t matter that my calories are fluctuating by. 10 percent let’s say up or down because over time it, it all just evens out. And if I have noticed that I’ve gained a bit more body fat and the reason that would happen is if I’m deviating from that plan because I’m traveling or whatever’s going on, and now I’m not eating stuff that I eat.

Every meal every day and in some cases, like if you’re eating out a lot, tracking becomes impossible. And so that’s probably another benefit of tracking is it discourages you from eating foods that have a lot of quote unquote hidden calories like when you go to a restaurant and of course, like rule number one for making food [00:16:00] tastier is add fat.

Add butter, it gets tastier, right? But you don’t know that. You think you’re just eating mixed vegetables, but you don’t know that it’s mixed vegetables with 300 calories of butter. And, but if you’re making that at home, maybe you don’t add the butter. And so in, in my personal experience, intuitively eating has worked well.

If I basically just eat the same stuff. All the time. And if I prepare most or all of that food myself, yeah then it works. It works fine. But if I have to deviate from that’s when it becomes much more difficult. And so if I did gain some body fat and I want to just lose fat, can I do that intuitively?

Sure. But that comes back to, because I know, okay the pile of rice that I include in my dinner, vegetable meat slop, and I’ll just leave the rice out. And I’m going to, I’m going to cut down on my portion of oatmeal that I eat. There’s my deficit. I’m going to run that for a week or two, lose a bit of fat and then add it back in and I’m back to my baseline.

Bill Campbell: And do you prep all your meals? Do you do a meal prep service? [00:17:00] What, how do you handle this? Because again, you’re living in the. In the break, you eat very consistent meals. What’s your strategy? 

Mike Matthews: I so the meals are pretty simple. So I don’t do any special meal prep. I don’t use a service.

I just make the meals every day. But it’s very simple. In the morning it’s some fruit. It’s like a hard boiled egg, maybe a protein shake. At lunch, it’s a salad with chicken. So I do prep the chicken actually. So I have chicken. I just microwave it, toss it in my salad that I mix, some 50, 50 spring spinach mix, some arugula, some cucumbers, some goat cheese, just a little salad that I like, make dressing that I like.

So that’s five minutes, put the chicken and eat that. And then usually at some fruit for some extra carbs. And then in the middle of the afternoon, it’s a protein shake. Often some more carbs, either in the way of fruit or yeah, it’s usually fruit like have another piece of fruit and then dinner is vegetables just like a kind of vegetable medley with some lean like ground beef and some rice and then [00:18:00] around 9 30 or 10 before I go to bed or Maybe 30 minutes or so before I go to bed.

I have some overnight oats, which is a cup of dried oats, a cup of almond milk, some some salt, some protein powder. And so I do prep that I prep two cups at a time. So that’s two days. And then I re so it’s minimal. And that, that may sound very boring to a lot of people listening, but I genuinely like it.

Everything that I just said, I look forward to eating every day. And so that’s it. That’s my standard that I maintain. I don’t have to be, I don’t need variety just for the sake of variety. So long as I’m still enjoying the meals. And eventually I do get sick of something like take the salad. Eventually there’s just a point where I don’t look forward to it anymore.

I don’t want to eat it. I’m forcing myself to eat it. So then I change it. And so that means I’ll change the dressing or I’ll change Something that is going into the salad like the goat cheese was a newer thing that adds a new taste, a new texture. And then that’ll last me for a while.

[00:19:00] I might go six months just eating that until, and I don’t overthink it. I just, it’s just. Purely by emotion, like I’m about to eat this salad and do I want to eat it? And I’m eating it. Do I feel like I’m enjoying this or not? And once it’s a no, then I just change. And same thing with my dinner. So I can, I still want to eat a variety of vegetables.

I want to have. A serving or two of whole grains every day. So that’s my oatmeal and my rice. So I want the basic type of meal, but there are a lot of different ways you can prepare vegetables. So for a while, it was an Asian vegetable slop dish. And then I got sick of that. And now it’s for some time now, I’m not sick of it yet.

It’s a Thanksgiving themed vegetable slop. And so think of how you make stuffing. With the base and then the spices and the herbs and it’s basically, it’s like that, but for vegetable meat, rice slop. And so I’ll do that. I’ll do that until again, 1 day, I’m going to be eating it and I’m just going to be done with it.

And then I’ll just find another recipe. What’s another flavor profile that I [00:20:00] like? Cool. We’re doing that. And rinse and repeat. Yeah. And you actually have cookbooks, right? You’ve authored one 

Bill Campbell: or more, 

Mike Matthews: I think. Yeah. So I’ve done one. I’ve actually done two. One was the most popular is called the shredded chef.

And so that has a lot of simple recipes that are fitness friendly. So higher protein, lower calorie, but still tasty. And I enjoy making different types of food and eating different types of food, but I don’t enjoy it enough to give it any time these days that I mean, that’s it. Because especially I’m in the middle of building a house and it takes a lot of my wife’s time.

So I’m now she has to be at the construction site, helping that, telling them how to hang the lights and do various things. And so for some time now, I’ve been doing that. In charge of more domestic things. And so with the added, I just don’t care to take the extra time to make extra tasty food because my time is so stretched.

So I, when I want [00:21:00] to spend as little time as possible on food, I do exactly what I just explained and then. If I’m going to, if I want to have something special that would usually be on the weekends. So that might be a time where I am going to make, I am going to sit down with the recipe and make something that I like, or maybe I’m going to go out to a restaurant.

But during the week, I just stick to my meal plan, so to speak, and then just, Intuitively quote, unquote, follow it. 

Bill Campbell: Yes. Let me go into one of the studies that has, it’s the one that I always rely on for tracking like the effectiveness of 

Mike Matthews: tracking. Yeah. And that was the next question I wanted to ask to bring it back is let’s talk about some research on how effective this actually can be.

Bill Campbell: Yeah, so with one, we have to appreciate we’re all embrace a fitness lifestyle. Most of this research is not in fitness people. In fact, I think my lab was one of the first ones to even well, I think that the only flexible dieting like tracking back in 2016 [00:22:00] so a lot of the research we’re relying on is coming from overweight or with people with obesity.

So the one study that again, that, that. Has really informed my opinion on tracking and success was there was 100 people. They were overweight and researchers said, We want you to track your calories for three months and they did that. They monitored their weight loss. Actually, no, they actually gave them some parameters.

They said in order for you to be considered a consistent tracker, you have to track your calories six out of seven days per week. Mhm. 75 percent of the time, and that would be like, for example, like nine out of the 12 weeks they had to track their macronutrients, their calories, six out of seven days. The subjects that did that were categorized as trackers or consistent trackers.

Everybody else was categorized as an inconsistent tracker, so something less than that threshold. At the end of the 12 months, the [00:23:00] consistent trackers lost 10 pounds of body weight, and they didn’t do body composition in this study, 10 pounds versus only four pounds. So a 250%, if you want to play that game, 250% Greater weight loss.

They did one other variable as well. They looked at how many of these subjects lost 5 percent of their body weight, which is a clinic. That’s a clinically significant amount of body weight to lose half of the consistent trackers lost 5 percent or more, less than 10 percent of the inconsistent trackers lost 5 percent or more.

And the other thing it’s impressive. Yeah. Tracking. helped in that study. They didn’t even have to be perfect. They just had to be consistent a lot of the time. And 

Mike Matthews: practically speaking, just so people know what are we talking about exactly when we say tracking? Does that, are you thinking okay, my fitness pal and you’re logging everything that you [00:24:00] eat.

Bill Campbell: In that particular study, that’s exactly what it was. I think they actually did, they educated them on my fitness pal, that exact. So in that study, yes, it was tracking macros calories with a, with an app or technology is what the researchers call it with, technology based application, smartphone.

So yes, that’s, that particular study, that’s exactly what that was. 

Mike Matthews: And a common, a point of protest that that I’ve heard about tracking is this idea that it’s either you have to, you’re gonna have to track. Everything forever to really make it work and to really be able to use it to achieve and maintain a body composition.

That’s just something that’s an idea that is out there that if you just do it for a period of time, it might work for that period. But then when you stop, it’s not going to work anymore. And so a lot of people, they don’t like the idea [00:25:00] of. Tracking everything they eat forever. And so what are your thoughts on the best use cases for it?

And just on that idea that many people have that makes them resistant to tracking. 

Bill Campbell: Yeah, that’s a very That’s a wise question because I think there is some truth to that. First, my argument against that would be if you, and this is what I tell my students, this is like one of my philosophies of nutrition and fitness.

If you can get everybody to develop the skill or the habit of tracking their food for, let’s say, six months, they will have an education on food that will last them the rest of their lives. You have this general population who doesn’t know what a carb, where a carb comes from, or what a protein is, or a fat.

If they are educated on tracking, I like to say macros, tracking macros, they’re again, an education for [00:26:00] life because you don’t unlearn. Oh, butter is fat. Oh vegetables 

Mike Matthews: Are peanut butter. Is mostly fat. It’s not a good source of protein. For example, like per calorie, it actually sucks for 

Bill Campbell: protein and you get the using peanut butter.

You start to have an appreciation for serving sizes as well that you would never have without developing that discipline of tracking. So there’s the first thing this. And in fact, I do this in my classes. I would love if our education system would it. mandate that, in sixth grade, every student is going to like again, you can’t beat the education.

It’s practical. I could just see the horse out of that mandate. 

Mike Matthews: Quickly, just to speak that idea, I think It could work quite well. If you have kids who are learning the fundamentals of nutrition, learning about energy balance, learning about macronutrients, and then the practical application is to track not for the purpose of changing their body composition at [00:27:00] all, but just to your point.

So they just can start seeing it. In reality, in the foods that they eat, and so if they were learning, for example, that it’s important to eat enough protein, and here’s why, especially when you have a young body that’s growing and they then start looking at the foods that they’re eating and they start understanding the macronutrients in those foods that just like we see it in people in the fitness world.

Sphere, it is very enlightening where, especially with women over the years, I’ve heard from so many women who didn’t realize just how little protein they’re eating until they started tracking where you have a woman that maybe weighs 120, 130 pounds and, or more or whatever. And she’s eating 40 grams of protein per day, and she didn’t realize that until she started tracking.

And I think if it were done in the right way, it could be very positive. And again, like you said, it can give somebody an education that is going to benefit them really for the rest of their life. 

Bill Campbell: And then the other part of that, what about the argument? Hey, if I [00:28:00] start tracking and it does provide success.

Now I’m on the tracking train for life. So to me that, that is or that, yeah, 

Mike Matthews: that it doesn’t, you only, it, as if it’s like, Oh, it only works when you’re taking it. And when you stop your appetite returns and then what, 

Bill Campbell: Yes. So one my, my thinking is that is not true for everyone. There will be some people that naturally can shift to an intuitive eating lifestyle because now they have the education.

Oh, I see that a serving size of peanut butter looks like this and not five times what I thought it was. So one, that is, I don’t believe that’s true of everyone. And. For for me, it is true again. I’ve been in this, I’m nearly 50 years old when I don’t track, I make poor decisions when I track, I make better decisions again, call me lazy, call me undisciplined, whatever it is, but it doesn’t change truth.

And for me, that’s just the truth. So if I want to [00:29:00] not be obese, As I age, I’m going to have to track that’s, that is my reality. And I would rather know. Then just make a blanket. I don’t like that. And how do you go about it? What’s your system? Oh, for tracking or just, okay. So one thing, let me say this.

I’m very wise in my own mind because when I stopped tracking and I gained weight, then I go on a diet where, because I’m a fat loss scientist, I’m always experimenting on myself about does this work? And Now I’m getting to the point where I’m, getting case study data on these things.

So I don’t necessarily, like I use this to my advantage to again, just to make me a better fat loss researcher. My strategy for when I’m tracking is pretty, it actually has evolved. So it used to be my fitness pal was the first one I’ve used and then they started charging. So I’m like, I’m not paying for this.

So now I use what do I use? I use another, just another app 

Mike Matthews: macros for. Is it a, is it, so is it [00:30:00] macro tracking or is it calorie tracking? And that’s another thing I wanted to ask you about because people may be wondering why the emphasis on macro tracking in particular. 

Bill Campbell: Yes. So I do, I track macros, which, and when you track macros by default, you’re getting calories because every app that I’ve ever used tracks that.

The reason macro tracking in the fitness space makes a lot of sense is because oftentimes we have A protein bias to build muscle to recover from workouts. So when you’re, if you’re just tracking calories you’re not getting very important nutrient data intake, which is protein. So that’s why tracking macros, I think is, it makes a lot of sense.

Now, if I had to define my philosophy, I have a protein anchored. Flexible dieting system for myself. And what that means is let’s say I’m trying to lose some body fat with my maintenance calories are 3000. So let’s just make the math easy. I’m going to eat 2000 [00:31:00] calories per day. I’m going to say, okay, I need to get 200 grams of protein, a gram per pound that I know will maximize my muscle mass.

Give me some feelings of fullness. So that’s what I mean by protein anchored before I start each day. I have, I know I want to get 200 grams of protein. So that’s 800 out of my 2000 that are already accounted for. Now this protein anchored, flexible dieting philosophy, the flexible dieting says, okay, I’ve got 1200 other calories to fit in.

I don’t care where they come from. They can come from more carbs. They can come from more fat. Maybe tomorrow I want bacon. Maybe the next day I want more rice. And I would suggest that it doesn’t matter the carb fat breakdown for weight loss. As long as you don’t go into extremes, when you start going into the extremes, then I can start giving you some scientific evidence that you are sacrificing some things.

So that, that is my system. So it’s very focused on protein and total calories without much [00:32:00] of a consideration for carbs or fat from day to day. 

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Bill Campbell: What, when I’m on my system, which I’m not always on my system, but when I am, everything’s prepped ahead of time.

So yeah. So like on Sundays, I do a lot of my grilling for chicken, or if I’m doing what it’s almost always chicken, to be honest. So here’s a great example of just life. So my daughters are now teenagers. We don’t have many opportunities to eat dinner together. So whatever my wife makes, I just said, Hey, whatever you make, if we’re together, I don’t care about my Mac.

This is a phase of life that, again, I want to prioritize time eating together. I don’t want my family to revolve around my, I’m not going to step on stage. So that’s something that I’ve five, seven years ago, I would have said, no, this is what I’m eating. And, you make your own thing for you and, the kids.

And that one, it didn’t go over well. Got to, you got to pick your battles. 

Mike Matthews: Maybe that’s not the juice is not worth the squeeze. 

Bill Campbell: Yes. So there’s a real life implication [00:37:00] of, Hey, I’m going to track and I’m going to make sure I don’t run out. And then I’m just like, Hey, not right now. And again, that’s not every night of the week.

That’s actually limited times. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. And the reason I asked that question is I just know hearing from many people over the years when they were getting. Calibrated when they were getting used to tracking, they would, that would happen sometimes where they are eating let’s say more carbs and fat from the beginning of the day and then, 3, 4, 5 PM rolls around and they realize that there are 100 grams short on their protein, but they only have 200 calories left because they ate too much carbohydrate and fat throughout the day and weren’t paying attention to their protein.

Bill Campbell: I have an answer to that. If you’re gonna overeat, overeat on protein. Very simple philosophy. So if don’t overeat on carbs or fat again, because that’s much more likely to be converted to body fat. Before I forget, I wanted to tie in another study that’s very related to the power [00:38:00] of the power of tracking essentially.

So 

Mike Matthews: before, before you do, can I just quickly, I just want to add a practical comment for people if they’re having issues. With what I just mentioned, so you have this protein acre in what I have seen work well is just extending that down to individual meals. So figuring out if you’re, if you want 200 grams of protein, and if let’s say you’re going to get all of that in one meal.

Three meals or more or whatever, but you already have that worked out in your meal plan, so to speak. And so you don’t accidentally get to dinner 100 grams short on your protein because you followed your protein anchored plan where you had your protein shake in the morning, you had your chicken at lunch.

Maybe there was another protein shake in the afternoon and now at dinner, you have, 30, 40 grams or whatever left. Just as you wanted. And so long as you follow those protein feedings, [00:39:00] then, like you said, it doesn’t matter so much where your carbs and fats fall. So long as your calories are where you need them to be by the end of the day.

Bill Campbell: Yes. No, I love that. Yes. And we know also if you’re dividing your protein up approximately an equal. Doses throughout the day, you’re doing everything you can to maximize your lean mass gains from your resistance training program. So there’s another benefit of that. 

Mike Matthews: Yes. Yes. Anyway, sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to share that because I’ve seen that work well for people who we’re struggling with running out of calories.

Before they hit their protein target, 

Bill Campbell: so that’s another study that’s really informed. My opinion is a natural extension to the I’ll just say the horror of not tracking. So researchers recruited a bunch of people who were overweight or with obesity who wanted to lose weight and What they did was they divided them into two groups, so one group, which I call the [00:40:00] failure group, not because they’re failures, but because they were failing to lose weight.

And three things characterized this group that the researcher said, Hey you’re in one group and the other subjects are in another one. One, they claim they were eating less than 1200 calories per day and couldn’t lose weight. You’ll see that all 

Mike Matthews: over social media. I’ve made made a tongue in cheek posts on multiple networks that has all that has always done well, or it’s I’ve been eating 1200 calories per day or a thousand calories per day and not losing weight.

Said somebody who has not been eating 1200 or a thousand calories per day and not lose weight. Yeah, correct. 

Bill Campbell: Not losing weight. Now, don’t want to go down this rabbit trail, but I do want to mention it and we’ve, you and I have never talked about this yet, but I do think there is something to this menopause transition population.

Something’s going on where years ago, I’d be like, Hey, you’re just not, you’re not dieting hearted. Like I, I’m just, I will. In [00:41:00] my opinion, I’m acknowledging there’s something unique. To this menopause transition phase of life. Now, again, we don’t have time to go down to that rabbit hole, but I’m making an exception for that group.

For some of those people, 

Mike Matthews: I’ve actually seen that as well. I’ve so I know that could be another podcast, but just anecdotally, I’ve seen it enough where I’ve also made a mental note where I don’t I have maybe have a couple of ideas, but I haven’t looked into it deeply, but that does, there does seem to be an actual exception, not to the laws of physics, not to energy balance, but there, there is something that seems to be uniquely difficult for women for talking about body composition in that phase of life.

Bill Campbell: Yes, and some 10 percent 20%. I don’t know what it is. And just to elaborate. It’s not that they can’t lose weight. It’s just that the level, the number of calories they have to consume become so low that it’s just It’s not sustainable. It’s [00:42:00] preposterously low. So we’re both acknowledging, Hey, there, there’s, there may be some truth to, to, there might be an exception due to that phase of life or that physiological or morphological changing that occurs in that five, 10 year window.

Mike Matthews: But for any women in that phase of life who are maybe newly starting on a body composition transformation, you don’t assume that you’re going to have to eat some preposterously low number of calories. Don’t assume that it’s going to be uniquely difficult for you. Bill said, it seems to be a small minority.

So again, baseline assumption, the right expectations are that your body is going to respond great. And. You’re not going to, you’re not going to have any special difficulties. It’s going to be straightforward and maybe it’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be fun all the time, but you, it’ll work in your body just as it works in most everybody else’s.

Bill Campbell: Yeah. Yeah. And again, I’m doing more research in [00:43:00] that area, which you’re helping support that this study though, they said, okay what defined this one group, what I’m calling the failure group. That’s how I remember them. They’re eating less than they claim to eat less than 1200 calories per day.

They had more than two times the amount of dieting attempts to lose weight compared to the other group. And they also were, they said, Hey, the reason I can’t lose weight, it’s because of my, they blamed it on metabolic and genetic factors and the other group. Which I will just call the control group also overweight, but they weren’t, they didn’t blame their current body composition on metabolic or genetic factors and they weren’t making a claim that they’re eating less than 1200 calories.

So what the researchers did was brought them in for extensive testing for two weeks. They wanted to say, okay, you’re not losing weight. Is it because your metabolism is slow? Is there something to that? Or is it because you’re over estimating the number of calories you think you’re getting from physical activity, or is it also [00:44:00] because maybe you’re eating more than what you think you are?

So they tested these things. And the reason this study was so powerful was very controlled. So they use doubly labeled water, which basically means. They knew exactly, or to the best technology that we have available today, they knew exactly how many calories they were burning from all form, from all categories of metabolism.

So thermic effective food, resting metabolic rate, physical activity, non exercise activity, thermogen. So they knew everything. So they, I’ll just phrase it like this are summarized. They knew how many calories they were burning each day. Because they were also monitoring body composition, they could tell if they were eat over eating or under eating if they gained weight during these two weeks, they could almost know to the calorie.

Hey, you over ate by this much. It’s the only thing that explains this gain in body fat or even lean mass. So what they did. They compared these two groups and after the two week intervention, the failure group, the [00:45:00] ones that said, I can’t lose weight because of these things. They let’s start with exercise.

They realized that they were over estimating their energy expenditure from exercise by 250 calories per day. The other group, Also overestimated, but it was only by 125 calories. So only half, then they also looked at metabolism. Do they have a suppressed metabolism? Answer was no, nearly the same. Fact, the failure group had a 90 calorie on average, 90 greater, a 90 calorie.

Advantage in terms of how many calories they were expending each day. So this is now the last thing the, and I wrote this number down. So I would have it. They said that they, when they were, tracking their food or whatever they were doing, they said that they were eating 1, 050 calories per day during these two weeks.

And when they use their doubly labeled water, it was actually [00:46:00] 2, 100 calories per day, over a thousand calories more. 1050 to be exact on average. So taking this back to tracking when you’re tracking, you’re not going to be off by that much when you’re just intuitively eating. Now this may be an extreme example, but this is published data.

The best controlled study I’ve ever seen on this with the use of the double label of water and body composition assessments. Look at that difference though. And and that’s, 

Mike Matthews: you could be off by a few hundred calories per day, which is very easy to do if you’re just eating intuitively, especially, let’s say, if you have a higher fat diet.

Where one extra tablespoon of oil is what another a hundred calories or something, right? So it’s just so easy to accidentally overeat by a few hundred calories. But if you have your diet set up properly, that might be your entire daily deficit, three or 500 calories might be your intended deficit. And it, that.

Is something that [00:47:00] again, I would say is very easy to do, even for people who are tracking with really everything that we had to use upon tracking with everything that we’re talking about, like they’re not brand new to all of this. And yes, 1000 reading by 1000 calories per day might sound ridiculous to people listening, but even that, depending on what you’re eating, it actually can be surprisingly.

Easy to do. 

Bill Campbell: Yeah. And again I think that’s an extreme example. Those are general population people not living a fitness lifestyle, but to what you said, many people are going to prescribe for themselves at 300, 400 calorie deficit, and if you’re off by that much, you’re living this life of dieting. And you’re getting all those negative.

Oh, I’m hungry. And you’re not actually dieting. It can be very psycho. There’s a psychological power to, if you think you’re dieting and you’re not now you have not, now I can appreciate, I can’t lose weight and I’ve been dieting all these weeks. Have 

Mike Matthews: you 

Bill Campbell: really? 

Mike Matthews: That’s true. They’re very well could be a [00:48:00] nocebo effect there.

And then there are the very real constraints that come with dieting, even if you’re not technically dieting because you’re accidentally overeating, but that does mean you probably have cut certain things out of your diet. Maybe things you just tend to overeat. So you’re just not buying them right now.

And maybe you’re not going out to eat as much as you normally would. And so those are Or not just in, in your head. And so that also adds to the frustration of, okay, I’ve been sticking to this regimen, you think for, months now, and I have very little to show for 

Bill Campbell: it. I know we also said we were talking about not just tracking, but just body weight.

Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: this was going to be the, this was going to be the segway. I was like, let’s talk about that then. Okay. That’s tracking food. What about tracking body weight? 

Bill Campbell: I should be moderating. I should be running this podcast the way that, so this was a study that I just read recently and what researchers did was they recruited.

Over people that were [00:49:00] overweight and it was a three month intervention and they told everybody Weigh yourself every day and they gave them scales that had Bluetooth capabilities. So there was instantaneous feedback to the researchers Remotely which subjects were actually weighing themselves every day versus hardly ever And then most days is a week.

So what they found was, and the way that they categorized the subject in this study was, okay, we’re going to have the subjects that did weigh themselves every single day, seven days per week for three months. And then the other group of subjects was everybody else. So even if they weighed themselves six days per week, the two groups that I call here is the everyday group and the most days group.

What’s very, what was shocking to me was the, how close they were in weighing in versus the actual success rate of the weight loss. So the subjects that weighed in an average of seven days per week, and there is no [00:50:00] app, you either did it or you did, they lost 20 pounds of body weight again, unfortunately, no body composition here, but not a fitness study.

They lost 20 pounds over the three months. Everybody else who did not weigh in every day, their average was 5. 4 days per week. So when I just, let me just stop there. When I think weighing in five days versus seven days, not a big deal. Not a big difference. I wouldn’t expect there to be much of a difference because it’s nearly every day, almost six days per week, they lost seven pounds over the three months, 20 versus seven.

So to me, the conclusion was. There’s a big difference between weighing in every day and weighing in most days. If this is where this is, has built my philosophy on coaching. If you have a weight loss client and you’re not at least prescribing or making them accountable for weighing in every day, it’s [00:51:00] negligence on your part as a coach.

Mike Matthews: And out of curiosity, do you remember what the median was in the not everyday group? I’m just curious was that average skewed up by a lot of sixes and a lot of, the, there are a lot of zeros and ones in there, but there were enough sixes. I’m just curious. Yeah, 

Bill Campbell: no, I know the average is 5.

4, but I don’t think that I don’t recall reading a median. 

Mike Matthews: Okay, just curious because sometimes the averages again, if you have a lot of sixes and a lot of zeros, then you can get to some average that but regardless, the point stands and I totally agree on the utility of weighing every day and then understanding and I’ve spoken about this and I’m sure you’ve written about this of you don’t have to.

But Put a lot of importance on your day to day fluctuations, but taking that average over, let’s say, seven days and watch that average, how it moves over time. And then women often, I think it makes sense if their weight fluctuates a lot with their with menstruation, then exclude the week where it’s all over the place because that [00:52:00] data is useless anyway.

So weighing yourself. On the other, call it three weeks or so, and then again, looking at that average weight, as opposed to fretting over it being up one pound one day. And then, or if you’re trying to gain muscle being down one pound and so forth. 

Bill Campbell: Yeah. Yeah. I will say though, in that study, everybody in the study was told to weigh themselves every day.

So I don’t think there would have been many zeros because I, And it was a retrospective analysis. I need to say that as well. So it’s possible there could have been some zeros, but it was, I don’t think there was, I wouldn’t anticipate there being many zeros in that study. 

Mike Matthews: And what are your thoughts about weighing when you’re just trying to maintain?

So in the context of weight loss you made your position clear that, and you’ve backed it up with just one study of. A number that, that you could refer to and that it’s a very useful tool. But what are your thoughts in the context of where you’re not. intentionally [00:53:00] trying to change your body composition other than you’re hoping that you slowly gain muscle over time, but you’re not trying to lose fat per se.

Bill Campbell: Yeah. And I can’t cite research on this, but I’ll answer this just reflective of my own life. If I’m not doing these low hanging fruit tracking macros, tracking body weight, I gain weight like it’s, I’ve seen that so many times. Yeah. It’s a preventive measure for me. If I see the world through how I live, I think it would be, it’s just as effective to maintain your weight.

And let me say. This would be for people who struggle to maintain their weight. Some people don’t, they don’t have to struggle at all. My wife for many years, she didn’t need to do anything and maintained her weight. But yeah, my opinion is if you struggle tracking your weight each day and ideally your calories is going to prevent you from gaining excess body fat.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, I agree. I think regular weigh ins is a highly underrated tool for Maintaining [00:54:00] your preferred body composition, specifically for preventing fat gain. Again, something that many people are resistant to, and sometimes it’s because it tells us what we don’t want to see. We don’t want what we don’t want to hear, but of course, that’s also why it’s so effective.

I think that you’ve mentioned how you tend to make better food decisions. If you’re tracking your macros, you probably also are influenced to some degree. Positively, if you’re tracking your body weight, because Whether you consciously are thinking about it, there’s a cause and effect relationship between eating poorly and seeing that number go up.

And so it’s just another little, maybe another just element of reinforcement that positive reinforcement to keep doing the things that, you want to do. It will, you won’t have to face the consequences of weighing more than you want to weigh but then also what I’ve seen is that it can help people who are accidentally over [00:55:00] eating, correct it before they’ve gained so much fat that.

Now they’re discouraged and now maybe they don’t even want to weigh themselves because they, and I’ve seen this maybe more in women than men, but it’s not exclusively a female thing, but we’re now they’ve gained because they haven’t been tracking and they realize, and I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, but I certainly have where, especially over a period of lean bulking where I’m, I know I’m gaining body fat, but that’s the point I’m trying to gain strength and pushing.

But then there’s a point where. It just hits me. I’m like, I just feel fat now. Like I’ve crossed a threshold, from not fat to fat. And so I’ve seen when that happens. And some people, they haven’t been weighing, they haven’t been tracking their food. They’ve been accidentally overeating.

They’ve been slowly gaining fat that they haven’t really seen. Because when you look at yourself every day, but then they then there’s the day when they look in the mirror and they realize that Oh, wait a minute. I have a gut now that was not a thing. The last kind of image that I have in my mind that, but that’s where I’m at now.

And then [00:56:00] not wanting to weigh, because then not wanting to see, wait a minute, how much have I actually gained? Can’t 

Bill Campbell: be that bad, can it? 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, correct. And then you’re like it looks pretty bad, but I don’t want to know how bad it really is because that’s going to make you feel even worse.

So my point is by regularly weighing and maybe the frequency, you can play with that listeners. What if you’re trying to maintain and find the frequency that works for you? I would not recommend once a week for what it’s worth because if you have a bad way in, like maybe you’re just holding a bunch of water, maybe you haven’t pooped as much in the last day or so, then you can have a discouraging number that’s not really reflective of reality.

So more frequently than once a week and but by keeping that in place, then you can prevent the scenario 

Bill Campbell: that I just outlined. Yes. And on the other side of that spectrum, if you’re weighing once a week, you might have a day that where you weigh in, where you’re two or three [00:57:00] pounds less than what you think.

And now what are you tempted to do? Yeah, you’re like, Oh, I have room. I’m going to the fridge actually right now. That is exactly. I’m not saying I would do it, but I am admitting that would be the temptation. If you’re only weighing once a week you’re going to be unduly biased by a high or a, or an unexpected low day and both can work against you.

Mike Matthews: Another point that’s worth commenting on with with weigh ins, it’s similar to what we were talking about with tracking food that the claims that can increase the chances of developing an eating disorder, or it’s going to harm your mental or emotional health. Of course, with tracking body weight.

Then those types of claims are made, but it’s about body image disorders and whether it’s some sort of dysmorphia that can occur or where maybe it goes into the direction of becoming grotesquely skinny and [00:58:00] being, becoming obsessed with losing weight and putting too much attention on weight.

For example, I know someone now, this is. A fringe, but some people, they hear these stories and then they become alarmed where I know loosely a guy who, I don’t know if he still does this probably does, but I know at one point he would weigh himself several times a day. And if his body weight was higher than a certain number, come like 3 or 4 PM, he would just stop eating.

Until his body weight would until his weigh in would put him below. So weird behavior, right? There’s nothing productive about that. And so yeah, extreme, right? And so again, there are claims that well, if you get into the habit of weighing yourself, it might push you into these extremes. And again, I see these claims more made toward women than men.

But what are your thoughts on those types of 

Bill Campbell: claims? One, I would say just as a counter to that, [00:59:00] there could, there may be some negative outcomes from this for some people, but there are also negative outcomes from excess body fat. And those are numerous and those are known. Those are well documented.

So it’s not just all negative. We also want to prevent the gain of excess body fat. But in terms of the, would that drive somebody to extreme behaviors? I would just work with that on a case by case basis, not making any assumptions that’s going to be most people. So here’s, I’ll give it a perfect example.

I was working with a with a female who didn’t want to weigh in every day, but recognized the importance of doing this. And. What we came to was, and it’s funny, we just call it like the wrist test. Particularly during her menstrual cycle, there were days when she would be a little more puffy. So if she could put her fingers and touch her fingers around her wrist, I’ll weigh in that day.

But on days where she couldn’t do that, she’s I’m already [01:00:00] not in a good place. So we can’t, we had an agreement. Yeah. Don’t weigh in those days. If that’s three days a month, five, whatever it is, I think that was a great compromise. And again, I didn’t push her to do this every day. It was meeting her.

Hey, okay. You’re telling me this is giving you some anxiety. What can we do? And that was an agreement that, that I imagine worked for her. That’s a great tip. I’ve 

Mike Matthews: never heard that one before, but it, Immediately makes sense. I like that. 

Bill Campbell: Yeah. And it worked for her because she happened to have the finger length and the wrist size where that was a good little test for her.

Mike Matthews: We’re coming up on time, but I want to make sure that we’ve covered everything that you wanted to cover on this body weight tracking topic. Is there anything else that you wanted to say on that before we wrap 

Bill Campbell: up? No, nothing on the the details of, weighing in macros, I think we covered it, but I do want to, I want to thank you.

And not many people know this because you don’t ever talk about it, but you donate money to my research [01:01:00] lab. Where I get to research all of this stuff about fat loss. So one, thank you for doing that. And you give the money in a way that it’s at my discretion. So there’s no, there’s, I know you have your reasons for wanting to support science, but it, To me, if I owned a business like Legion, Hey, study my products, make sure that I can get marketing ROI on this.

And you don’t do that. So Kareem always facilitates this and I just want to thank you for donating money, allowing me to use that to any project that I see fit what we’re doing currently with the money that you’re donating. Is we’re actually studying weight loss resistance in menopausal females, and you know that paying for blood work is expensive.

So we’re using the money that you donate to pay for some blood work so we can get these hormone tests that we need. So make sure I would want everybody, all your listeners to know. Maybe I should do a better job 

Mike Matthews: with my publicity or something. I don’t know. [01:02:00] I just do it. I’m not because I’m not looking to get special attention for it.

I’m doing it because I genuinely want to support good research. And I feel like it’s a way that I can give back to the scientific community. That I’ve benefited greatly from because I’m not a scientist. I’m a desk researcher if you want to call it that. So I rely on people like you and I’ve relied on people like you to do the hard work so I can write books and write articles and record podcasts and even sell supplements because, I’ve, From the beginning, I’ve relied heavily on peer reviewed research for formulating supplements and it’s not other people are doing the work and there are so there’s so many questions.

There’s still so many questions that need answers like this weight loss resistance. 1 is. To make some breakthroughs on that front could help a lot of people and a lot more than many people who aren’t experiencing it realize because I’ve seen firsthand the frustration and I’m sure [01:03:00] you have, particularly in women who are dealing with that.

Issue. 

Bill Campbell: Yes. And to that point, my wife, and she’s giving me permission to talk about this. She experienced exactly this could not lose weight. And I’m thinking you’re married to a fat loss. And I historically, I would help her when she wanted to get real lean, I would monitor everything, bring her into the lab and do these tests.

And it was. It has literally changed my professional life because I’m shifting to studying weight loss in young, metabolically healthy people that it’s pretty simple. You pull the levers and they lose weight. And now this, this middle aged woman category is not so simple for some of them.

And I want to know why. And I don’t, I may never find out why, but I’m going to spend the rest of my career trying to find out. Thank you. 

Mike Matthews: I look forward to subsequent interviews on that topic, [01:04:00] especially as some of these question marks get resolved and the questions may outlive you of ultimately what are all the mechanisms in play.

But I think that you don’t need to necessarily have a full understanding of why to understand enough to understand what to do and how to get through it. As 

Bill Campbell: painlessly as possible. And that’s a good point. I am an applied researcher, so I’m not necessarily the researcher looking at, looking for mechanisms.

I am looking for, applied solutions, whether that be hormonal, diet, exercise, whatever. So yeah that’s a good distinction. I’m glad you mentioned that. 

Mike Matthews: This was a great discussion per usual and let’s wrap up quickly with where people can find you find your work, tell them about your research review.

Anything else in particular that if they’re still listening and they like this interview, they’re probably going to like these other things. 

Bill Campbell: Yeah. So finding me [01:05:00] is easy. Instagram is the only place that I’m at. It’s a bill Campbell, PhD. And. Every study that we talked about has I’ve featured in my research reviews.

So my research review is more than just summaries of studies. It is literally me educating the reader. And I think it’s for fitness professionals. That’s who it serves the most. If you go to my website, billcampbellphd. com, I review research and I have expert coaches come in or expert or physicians or somebody like you, you’ve been a contributor in the past that.

I summarized the research and these other experts apply it. How would you apply this into the lives of your clients? And it’s solely focused on fat loss and muscle gain, muscle hypertrophy. Billcampbellphd. com love it. 

Mike Matthews: Thanks again, bill. Look forward to the next one. Yeah, thank you. We will terminate today’s episode shortly, but first [01:06:00] I need to tell you about the biggest sale of the year going on right now over at my sports nutrition company, Legion.

So from now until December 4th over at buylegion. com, that’s B Y L E G I O N. com, when you buy any one of our supplements, you will save billions. 50 percent on the next one that you buy. And in addition to that, we’re also offering free gift cards on all orders over 99. So it’s a free 10 gift card on orders over 99.

It’s a 20 gift card on orders over 149 and a 40 gift card on orders over 199. And so what that means is you can save very bigly. On all of Legion’s most popular products, like our whey protein isolate, our pre workout, our post workout, multivitamin, fish oil, creatine powder, creatine gummies, energy drink, and much more.

Now, none of that is to say that you [01:07:00] need supplements to achieve your fitness goals, to build muscle, to lose fat, to get healthy. You do not. However, the right ones can help. And why should you buy the right ones from Legion rather than a competitor? A few things. With Legion, you get clinically effective ingredients and doses, and so what that means is every ingredient and every dose, which is important, In our supplements is backed by peer reviewed scientific research demonstrating clear benefits and all of that research is openly cited on every product page so you can fact check us on every claim that we make.

Legion’s products are also naturally sweetened and flavored. And while artificial sweeteners may not be as dangerous as some people claim, I am not an alarmist about these chemicals. Studies do suggest that regular consumption of these chemicals may indeed be harmful to our health, and so you won’t find any of them in Legion’s [01:08:00] products.

In addition to no artificial sweeteners, Legion’s products also contain no artificial flavoring, no artificial food dyes. No artificial fillers and no other unnecessary junk. All of my products are tested for purity and potency in an ISO 17025 accredited lab, which screens for heavy metals, microbes, allergens, and other contaminants to ensure that my products meet FDA purity standards.

All of Legion’s supplements are also made in the USA with globally sourced ingredients in NSF certified FDA inspected facilities that adhere to current good manufacturing practice standards. And finally, Legion offers a no return necessary money back guarantee that works like this. If you don’t absolutely love our stuff, you let us know and we give you a prompt and courteous refund.

You don’t have to fill out forms. You don’t even have to return anything to us. And all of that is why Legion [01:09:00] has sold over 5 million bottles to over 1 million customers who have left us over 45, 000 five star reviews on our website and on Amazon, and all of that makes Legion the number one brand of natural sport supplements in the world.

So again, go to buylegion. com now. Save some major coin on everything in our store and see for yourself why scientists, athletes, doctors, and everyday fitness folk alike trust Legion for all of their supplementation needs. I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, give Subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don’t miss new episodes.

And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn’t like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you [01:10:00] have. Ideas or suggestions, or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, Mike at muscleforlife.

com muscleforlife. com and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you’d like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I’m always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.