Dr. Stacy Sims on How to Lose Weight for Women and Men | Dr. Stacy Sims on The Diary Of A CEO

If a man and a woman came to you and said, "I want to lose weight." They

said, "I'm 200 pounds um and I'd like to lose some weight." Would you give them different advice on what to do?

Absolutely. Absolutely would. And it

comes down to a lot of we see this on social media all the time, calories in, calories out, right? So when we're looking at calories in, calories out, that idea of that algorithm can work

well in men. And the reason for that is the hypothalamus. So if we're looking at

the hypothalamus. So if we're looking at the hypothalamus, which is an area in the brain that controls appetite, it also controls our endocrine system. So

for men, they don't have as many of what we call our kiss peptin neurons activated. So this is uh neurons that

activated. So this is uh neurons that are responsible for when we have nutrients coming in. They fire and they're like, "Yeah, okay. We got enough

nutrition coming in that we can now accommodate for developing muscle and losing body fat. For women, we have more areas that are very sensitive sensitive

to to nutrient density. So when I say this, when we're talking about uh four grams of carbohydrate that come in and say they're carbohydrate from

fruit and veg, not from ultrarocessed stuff, those four grams of carb will affect the bodies differently between being a man and a woman. For a man, those four grams of carb coming in

primarily will go blood sugar and then be stored as liver, muscle, glycogen.

For women, it's blood sugar. it doesn't

get stored because for women in order to store muscle um and liver glycogen you have to have an activation of uh some enzymes from the liver as well as some

enzymes within the skeletal muscle itself to say yeah okay we want to store this we don't want to circulate it so then we start looking at how the brain is perceiving that so if the brain is saying yeah we can store this because

there's still enough muscle tissue around there's still enough blood glucose that we can keep going and we can survive the day. But for women, it sits there, the blood glucose sits there, and when it starts being used,

the hypothalamus is like, "Okay, where's the extra food that's coming in so we can keep going and countering the stress that's coming in?" And the best way from

a numbers perspective to look at it is when we are looking at calorie, baseline calorie intake just to exist and not get into any kind of endocrine or hormone

dysfunction and appetite dysfunction.

For men, it's 15 calories per kilogram of fat-free mass. For women, it's 30.

So, we start to see men do really well on things like fasted training. We see

men do really well on calorie restriction because the hypothalamus is not as sensitive to lower calorie intake

or to low carb intake or to high protein and um high fat intake. But for women, because the hypothalamus has more areas

that are sensitive to nutrient density.

What does that mean? Sorry, I'm not even sure what the hypothalamus is. So, the

hypothalamus is an area in the brain.

Yeah. And it's sensing. So, you have blood that circulates through the brain.

It senses temperature, how hot your your blood is. Like the thermostat or

blood is. Like the thermostat or something of the body. Yeah. Okay. So,

it's Yeah, it is a thermostat. It's the

appetite control center. It's how your body responds to salt, how your body responds to protein, carbohydrate, do I need more, do I need less? So, it's it's

like the control center for the most part. So, for women who come in and

part. So, for women who come in and they're doing fasted training, the hypothalamus is like, "Wait a second, we don't have any blood sugar. We don't

have enough carbohydrate to actually do this kind of training." So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to create a little bit of dysfunction here and I'm going to start downturning all the other

systems that need the same kind of fuel because I don't have enough just to do these muscle contractions. So, that

means you could end up losing muscle.

Absolutely. So, if a woman comes to me, it's like, I want to lose weight and I've been doing fasted training. I get

up, I have a black coffee, I go to the gym, I do my lifting, I do some of my cardio. So, my girlfriend does exactly

cardio. So, my girlfriend does exactly that. and then I'm not that hungry cuz I

that. and then I'm not that hungry cuz I did a hard workout at the gym. I might

have a protein recovery shake and then I'll hold off eating my first meal until noon. I always turn to them and go,

noon. I always turn to them and go, "Well, why did you go to the gym?"

Because all you've effectively done is burn through your lean mass. Your body

needs to have some fuel and the first thing that goes is lean mass because it's a very active component of the body. So, it would be better for you as

body. So, it would be better for you as a woman to have maybe 15 grams of protein if you're going to do strength or 15 grams of protein with 30 gram of

carb, which isn't a lot before you go do cardio and strength because this is just enough to raise your blood sugar to circulate to the hypothalamus that yes, there's some nutrition coming in. I'm

able to get that blood sugar working.

I'm able to get that blood sugar into the muscle. I'm able to stimulate the

the muscle. I'm able to stimulate the mitochondria in the muscle to actually use some more free fatty acids. I'm a

able to tell the liver that I can actually get through this and use these free fatty acids instead of storing them. It only takes a little bit of food

them. It only takes a little bit of food to then have benefit for what you're doing. For a man, if he's like comes in,

doing. For a man, if he's like comes in, I have a black coffee, I go to the gym, I do my strength, I might do a little cardio, I have my protein afterwards, and then I might delay my meal. like

that's all right because you have a longer window for recovery. The

hypothalamus isn't as sensitive. You're

not burning through lean mass. You're

developing a stress on the body and we know that it's really good that you had that protein post exercise because that's going to create some muscle protein synthesis and hold you over till

you have your meal. Okay. So, I'm going to try and explain this to you um like I'm a 10-year-old, which is the exact level of IQ I have on this subject matter. Yeah. So, you've got this

matter. Yeah. So, you've got this hypothalamus in the brain, which is basically this sensor. It's trying to figure out, make sure everything is in I'm trying to think of that big word

that someone taught me.

Homeostasis. Homeostasis. Everything is

level, right? Yeah. And a woman's hypothalamus is more sensitive. So if my partner wakes up, goes to the gym, has her black coffee, goes to the gym, does

a big workout as she always does, her body, her hypothalamus is going to panic a little bit more because it's

going to assume that there's stress on the body now and it's going to look around to see if it has sufficient blood glucose levels. And it's and it's not

glucose levels. And it's and it's not gonna because she's not had anything for a while. She's not going to have the

a while. She's not going to have the sufficient blood glucose levels. So,

it's going to start burning her lean muscle mass. Exactly. Which means that

muscle mass. Exactly. Which means that she's she's essentially gonna it's like one step forward, one step back. Right.

Super simplified. For a guy has his black coffee in the morning, goes to the gym, does the workout, the body looks, and because the hypothalamus is less sensitive, it's less requiring of there

to be higher blood sugar levels, doesn't care as much. So, it's going to it can also tap more into our liver and

muscle glycogen stores. So, it's going to say, "Yeah, okay. Well, we have a little bit of blood glucose. We need a little bit more. So, let's tap into those stores and pull them out." So,

it's less reluctant to go straight for my lean muscle mass. Exactly. As an

alternative fuel source.

That's interesting. And what's the evolutionary story of this? Why why does this make sense? when we look tribally like there and I might get hit by some sociologists are like wait this isn't

completely true but for the exception there are some tribes that didn't fit into this but for the general idea from a biological evolutionary standpoint

when we had times of low calorie intake so we had to go find the beast or we had to go out and find calories it was at a disadvantage for the woman to be

pregnant or to have a baby an extra mouth to feed So in times of low food intake, the reproductive system or the endocrine system of a woman would wind

down. So she would become amenoric or

down. So she would become amenoric or lose her menstrual cycle for a while.

But it didn't affect men in that same way because they had to lean up and get fitter and faster because they had to go fight the beast where they had to go find the calories and bring it back. So,

when we're looking from that evolutionary standpoint, in times of low calorie intake or low food intake, a woman's body will start to conserve and wind down because it thinks that there's

a famine coming. But for men, they're not as sensitive and the body's like, "Oh, not a lot of calories coming in.

That must mean there's a fight that I have to prepare for. So, I'm going to lean up. I'm going to address all of my

lean up. I'm going to address all of my fuel systems so that I can tap into all these alternative fuel systems so that I will have the energy to be able to go and fight the beast to bring the

calories back. Mhm. So when there's

calories back. Mhm. So when there's adequate calories available, we see that women will lean up. They'll become uh more acutely aware. Cognitive function

comes up. Carbohydrates are really important. So we see that there is a

important. So we see that there is a development of egg maturation. we have

better endocrine pulse. So that means that our hormones that pulse on a daily basis, they actually have the full pulse um and return to baseline to encourage the body to have a really robust

endocrine system. So that's thyroid,

endocrine system. So that's thyroid, that's our menstrual cycle, it's all the things. But when we start pulling the

things. But when we start pulling the calories back, all that stuff winds down.