Protein Scientist: What To Eat At Night To Burn Visceral Fat

If it's a protein dominant food, 30 to maybe 40 grams of protein 30 minutes before bed, you have an improvement.

And that could be improvements in resting metabolically, improvements in how hungry and full you feel the next morning. No changes in lipolysis or fat oxidation, which means you're not gaining any fat from this process. Dr. Mike Ormsby is regarded as one of the most respected experts in nutrition and body composition in the world. For the past 20 years, he has been helping thousands of people lose weight, build muscle, and transform their health with his sciencebacked and highly practical insights. If we bunk calories from protein, every time we see losses in visceral fat and losses in just total body fat, and then the best part is, so if you eat 100 calories of protein, you're probably only getting in 70 to 80 of those calories. And so instead of saying don't eat this, don't eat that, stop this, stop that, it's hey, today just add a protein shake.

I would love to know what are your thoughts about creatine, especially with regards to fat loss and brain health.

Yeah, that's a really good question, Reena, and we've actually tested that.

And so this conversation will probably challenge the way you think about fat loss, especially about eating before bed.

And I can tell you that it completely changed the way I think about nutrition, meal timing, fat loss, and even sleep. And if you've ever believed that eating before bed would make you gain weight, this episode might surprise you. My guest today is Dr. Mike Ornsby. He's a sport scientist and a professor with over 20 years of experience in nutrition, metabolism, and body recomposition.

and his work on pre-sleep nutrition shows compelling evidence that eating specific types of protein at night can actually help you reduce stubborn fat, visceral fat, improve sleep and recovery and even boost metabolism as we age. So, Dr. Ornsby, my first question, is it true that if we eat more protein that that can target stubborn fat including visceral fat?

So, we've done uh several different studies in this particular space arena where we're looking at adding protein to diets of people who either don't exercise or we add exercise programming into it.

And in several studies we've done since the early 2000s all the way through now, like 25 years of work, um we consistently see that adding protein to the diet is nothing but beneficial for fat metabolism.

ultimately uh losing of body fat body fat which is probably the most important indicator that your audience might be looking for. It's not just does it ramp up like the mechanics of it.

Yeah. Cellularly which I think is interesting but it results in actual fat loss. Interesting.

So it's just protein by itself. So if that person is not exercising increasing the protein still works.

Why does it happen that when you increase the protein it allows the body to burn more fat?

what is the mechanism behind it? Yeah, you know, Reena, there's several different schools of thought on that and that I believe that um the audience is probably well aware of some of the main ones. And so you I'm sure you've had guests that talk about the thermic effect of food and how that impacts uh you know the energy that we take in. And so for protein alone, you know, that's like 20 to 30% of the food we eat. So if you eat 100 calories of protein, you're probably only getting in 70 to 80 of those calories at the end of the day because you of what it takes to digest and absorb those nutrients. And so that's a primary factor in how protein can actually help us.

And it's just it's not going to be one meal. It's going to be compacted over time. And on top of that, we have this satiation factor. You know, you just feel fuller and and uh you know, less hungry.

And there's plenty of data to show that as well. The other thing is like what are we using the protein for? And in our data, in our hands, if we bump calories from protein as high as 40%, that's the highest that my group's gone. Um, and we've also going just 25% of dietary intake from protein.

And I don't love doing it percentages and we can talk about that, but that's how we design those studies. um every time we have a benefit um particularly when we include uh resistance training in the exercise programming that we see losses in visceral fat and losses in just total body fat. And then the best part is and also having an increase in muscle mass.

And so it's like this trifecta of goodness coming from um an excess of protein intake combined with purposeful training.

Yeah, that's so interesting. So when you say 40% because I think my audience is going to say, "Well, how do I calculate 40%?" cuz they're going to think about calories. If we want to think about grams because we're we're going to talk about your interesting you um study around pre-le feeding around protein but just protein during the day. Do you think about grams or do you think about percentages of calories? Grams for sure. We designed those studies on percentages for um one reason which was in the US we have uh sort of a myth around we already eat too much protein.

And if you look at the data, we eat enough protein. And so the AMDR for protein is like 10 to 35%. They base it on percentages. And most Americans are around 15%. So yeah, you're you're having enough.

Uh but the question is it optimal? Is it ideal? Is it what you want to carry on the best h uh health outcomes? And so for that reason, we wanted to show a percentage to show if we went from 15% which was normal and that was our control group up to 40% what was the outcome. Um and then in follow-up studies we said well 40% is kind of high to hit. That's hard for people who aren't used to doing that. What about 25%. And so we still saw really good benefits at 25%.

There were actually no difference from going as high as 40 which made us say okay you can just go 25%.

Now, I don't like percentages for this reason. If I'm feeding you a diet and I just give you more or less food in that diet, so calories. So, let's say I go from 2,000 calories to 3,000 calories, you're necessarily going to be increasing your protein if I base it on a percentage.

What happens in reverse, too? Most people aren't looking to add more. They're looking to reduce body size or shape or body fat. And so if I reduce your calories from 3,000 or 4,000 to 2,000, that will also reduce your protein intake if I go by percentage. And so the way we do it practically speaking to actual people and humans who want to implement this into their lives is in in a in a gram per kg.

So it's relative to your size and your body weight. And I know you've had other speakers on about this, too, where it's it's really important to lock it in. And so if I'm designing a plate, the first thing I'm locking in on a gram basis is the protein in my fuel. And that way it's not a percentage which will eb and flow with dietary needs or your goals. It's static. And we know that a higher protein intake is more valuable when you're trying to lose weight. And so you don't want to be dropping that protein while you're also reducing total calories. Okay.

So numbers. I want to know numbers. Um so you've probably seen the other guests on my podcast.

And they talk about numbers. Usually people say a gram of protein per pound of body weight, but I did have a question around that. So first of all, so do you agree with that number?

Yes, I do. And we use gram per pound uh because here in the US we don't like speak in kilos. Uh but it and it just makes sense to people over here. But it's it's interesting. Um I tend to say that number, but everybody most people fall shy. And and so if I tell you a gram per pound and you weigh 150 lbs and you only hit 125 or 130, you're probably right at where I need you to be, which is north of 1.6 grams per kg. And so it's just a mental trick. It's easy to know one gram per pound of your ideal body weight is you're seeking. And then if you fall short, you're actually meeting what I want you to be hitting. Okay. So here's a question. If somebody is overweight and they say, "Listen, Dr. be I'm overweight and I want to be 50 lbs less. What should my protein be? The 50 lbs less that I want to be or the weight that I am now. I I would look at the body size of the person asking the question.

If someone comes to me and they have um you know excess ataposi for sure their obesity you know they're they're stricken with some obesity and implications of that then I would go for the ideal amount because just like if I'm taking you into the gym with me I wouldn't expect that the first day you're lifting the same weight as I am because I think that's good and the same way with nutrition.

If I'm if I'm dialing in protein, I wouldn't expect that someone who's never eaten like that can immediately go to the highest number. Um, I'm all about these small steps and incrementally changing for good. And uh I've seen it fail so many times when you throw the whole the whole book at somebody. You got to be training. You got to be eating. You got to be having this many calories of this. You got to have this much sleep. You got to wake up and look at the sun.

You got to do this that and the other thing. And it just gets too complicated. And it's for that reason that we slow it way down. And I give you one thing to do. And so for that, in this example, I would probably go for the ideal weight because that's what they're seeking. It's probably all they really need. Um, but there's no disadvantage to going higher. Um, and so that's an interesting caveat with this particular macronutrient. Yeah, I found that interesting and I love the fact that you say take it slow because your mantra is being consistent over being perfect, which I love that.

I can't tell you. I have so many people in my ketogenic group that they just really want to lose weight.

So, they will love the information that you're giving in this episode. Um, but if you are slow and being consistent with what you're doing, whatever diet you're doing. And that's why in this conversation, we're focusing on protein as that main lever, how much fat you want to eat is up to you and how much carbohydrates you want to eat is up to you. Although, I'll preface that I follow a ketogenic diet as I mentioned a lot of my audience low carb to ketogenic. So the protein number is very very important. Now you said that visceral fat lowers when you increase your protein.

So we're going to talk more about that. But talking more about visceral fat cuz people really want to lose a visceral fat. They want to lose the let's talk about this fat like if you're a female or something although we don't have much but they want to lose some fat. Um what do you think causes the visceral fat? What are the things that people are doing and eating every day that's causing that visceral fat to increase? Yeah. So that it's it's all obviously multiffactorial, right?

I mean like people don't get into these situations out of nowhere barring like a metabolic condition or disease state or something and and and everybody else this stuff comes on at a very slow pace over a very long time. And that's why we take the step-wise approach because you need to give yourself some grace. So if you're on the other side of this and you're trying to lose weight and lose visceral fat and lose fat in general, uh most people want it done now, like right now. I need to have this completed. Um, but then you really have to look at, okay, I I understand that, but it took you 25 years to get to this place and we need to actually go back in a step-wise order so that we have success in maintaining that actual uh weight loss.

Um, but in terms of adding the visceral side of this, um, you know, there's not one particular thing that would be visceral versus storing it somewhere else other than some genetic factors, but it's this like extreme sedentary lifestyle that we're all accustomed to. And I mean, if I think about my own life and if and and I'm in the field of, you know, I work in the space every day and it's still many days when I'm sitting right here at my desk and I'm like, "Oh goodness, I I better get up and move around a little bit." um and it becomes easy to do and then you get distracted and I have little kids and so then it's like okay I want to go hang out with them after work so then it's it you know you have these um pulls on your life and it's this extreme sedentary behavior and we did some work with a condition called osteocaropenic obesity three major problems so you've got osteopherosis or osteopenia um you've got a a loss of muscle mass in this psychopenic stage as we age and then we have obesity on top of it. So, it's like these three things. And we used to think that people who had excess ataposity and were at higher body weight had good bone density.

But it turned out that they're so sedentary that they don't even move that weight around because the old thought was like, "Oh, well, you're still going upstairs. You're still walking, you know, to here and and from there, and so you're loading the bone a little bit." But it turned out that the the current state of that is it's so sedentary. like you know you go to these warehouse uh food stores and they have like scooters to go around in and it's it's like okay if there's a medical condition sure um but we just create this environment that's not that conducive to having an active lifestyle and it's that compounded over 45 years of life is where we see people run into trouble. Um I think the other side of that would be food related of course where we have either poor choices, we've got ultrarocessed foods, highly palatable foods, things that make us um don't really do much for us metabolically or micronutrient-wise. The choices we get when we're like out and about if we're not pre-planning, we have access to junk and that's uh the easiest thing to get and to buy.

And I understand that because it's hard to plan ahead. And so I think those factors over time are really what's adding the fat in every place that we look at. Absolutely. It was a bit of a trick question, wasn't it?

Because it was quite broad like what was the one thing that's giving people more visceral fat, but it's going to be many things. But I, you know, I used to really hop on about worse foods and foods and diet and you know, I can appreciate that when you change your diet when when people change what they eat, that's a massive difference in terms of their atapose fat, visceral fat, subcutaneous fat, liver fat. Um, you also mentioned glutius fat, which I hadn't heard of that term, which is a fat around your buttocks that women have maybe more of than men.

Um, but you mentioned the sedentary behavior and I didn't know that, you know, I'm I tend to be an active person. I walk. I do about 14,000 steps a day. Used to be 10,000.

Um, I weight train three times a week. I just did a training session just now.

But interestingly, you did say that, you know, some people they just don't move at all. And we have to appreciate that some people are in that environment and in that lifestyle. We want to encourage them if they can, if they have the ability to get out of that lifestyle uh by what we can talk about later on in in terms of movement. But that is going to cause a lot of visceral fat and inflammation in the body.

But if we compare it with protein, eat more protein, um that's going to help with overall health.

So let's get back to protein. Now you are famous for this pre-sleep feeding of protein.

eating protein or eating before bed. Dr. Ormsby, people are going to say, "Listen, if we eat before bed, that's going to put on fat." What do you have to say about that? I think if you say it that broadly, that you're right. If you eat anything you want before bed, you'll probably put on fat.

And if you eat a lot of it, you'll probably put on fat. And so, in some ways, it's accurate.

But every like everything, a scientist's brain, you're going to have nuanced answers to things.

And so, let me just sort of back up and sort of tell you where that all came from. Um, there were several studies in like the early 1990s that started to look at what happens if you eat a certain bowls of food at different times of the day. So, in the morning, in the afternoon, or later in the evening.

And those several that were in that realm were giving mixed macronutrients or proteins, fats, and carbs. They were giving north of 500 calories in a sitting, which is a decent meal.

Um, and they were doing it late at night. And in every case, you process it differently later at night.

So it's harder to process. You have less satiation from it. You're more likely to overeat.

And in that context, it would very likely add body fat to your frame if you keep doing that over and over.

Where we came into the picture was I was a college athlete. I played ice hockey through college and then I got into sort of um medium and longer distance triathlon afterwards.

And I was looking around. First of all, I was hungry at night, so I was always one that would just eat something.

I never really thought much about it. But then you saw TV shows that were like, "Stop eating at this time. Stop eating at that time." And I remember getting bombarded with that message on on social media or television. Social media really wasn't around yet. And at the same time, I'd look around at the athletes that I knew in these different spaces, some of the bodybuilder type people that I was um familiar with or working with, and they were the leanest people I've ever seen.

And they all ate before bed. And so I got to my first university position and was like, I want to answer some questions that I think are interesting and also would help the public good.

And so that's how it started. We decided to look into what were people actually eating that were still lean.

And it was very simple. They were protein dominant foods. Not solely, but protein dominant.

There was definitely a protein base to everything I was anecdotally just visually seeing my friends and acquaintances and stuff eating at that time. I was like, you know, let's just do that.

Let's just give people what I'm seeing people eat that seems to be okay. And let's do it in different conditions across different types of people. Let's do it in different ways that we measure it and let's look at different outcomes. And so 20 years later, we're still in this space and we have a ton of different studies going on um that are looking at everything from sleep outcomes to resting metabolic rate to fat loss over time to glucose regulation. We put CGMs on people now where we're looking at glucose monitoring all through the night. Two hormone changes that are occurring.

And in our hands, just the sort of the ending of the story is that if it's a protein dominant food, usually we're looking at 30 to maybe 40 grams of protein um taken before bed, 30 minutes before bed. So it's not dinner, right? Dinner we're calling two hours earlier, like your last bigger meal. Then you have a twohour span and then you have a protein bololis. In many of these studies, it's just a protein shake. Um and you take that 30 minutes before getting into bed.

In our hands, you see uh no detriment across any of the board in any of our outcome measures, but also sometimes no change. So, it's just not doing any harm. And in some cases, and not all, you have an improvement.

And that could be improvements in resting metabolic rate, improvements in how hungry and and full you feel the next morning. Um no changes in lipolysis or fat oxidation, which means you're not gaining any fat from this process. And then um paired with other studies, we're also seeing no change in sleep, no change in sleep outcomes and improvements in some performance metrics.

Sometimes um in the studies that have exercise in the evening, this is kind of the caveat and the pre-le protein drink performance over time is improved in things like jump height, reaction time, uh reactive strength index, other markers that might be interest for some of your more active folks who are interested in staying sort of tiptop. Perfect. Okay. And if somebody is thinking, well, I am sedentary. I'm obese. I'm metabolically unhealthy. I have high insulin.

Can I do this strategy as well to get these outcomes potentially? Yeah, that's a really good question, Reena.

And we've actually tested that. And so, um, in three different studies. So, the first one we did was in overweight women, overweight or obese women. And when we gave them a protein shake, just a one-off, like a acute test. We gave them the shake at night, they came in the morning and retested, the metabolic rate was increased a little bit the next morning, which could mean that you're burning calories all through the night and maybe you're revving a little bit higher, which should be advantageous. The problem was our blood glucose values were also slightly elevated, which meant you probably had a higher blood glucose all night long, which could be a metabolic disadvantage.

And so we thought, you know what, in that particular group, we need to try something else. And so we we got the same women and we put them on four weeks of exercise training.

They're all previously sedentary. And when we just exercise trained them and did the same pre-le feeding protocol, all of that went away entirely. And so it was the the power of the exercise is just such a sledgehammer to metabolism that it made the benefits stay and the negatives go away from that particular angle. And that's the only study I've ever done that showed that negative glucose profile. In fact, now we use CGMs and we monitor that more closely and we don't see any changes to glucose um after consuming these small protein um any more than a placebo uh uh that you'd expect and nothing negative in terms of our growth hormone response or any of the other hormonal responses that you could potentially see at that time. Um so it's pretty inert.

And then my sort of philosophy was supplementation, new strategies, training strategies, and that if it if it won't hurt and it might help, why not give it a try if it's something you would like to try in your lifestyle? And I think psychologically it adds a value arena, too. So, and maybe you've worked with people like this um who just say they're hungry, like I just wish I could eat one more thing, and I'm I feel like I'm restricting it. To me, some of the biggest wins I get out of working with folks or just talking with them about what they can do is to not be restrictive, but to be additive.

And so, instead of saying, "Don't eat this, don't eat that, stop this, stop that.

" It's, "Hey, today just add a protein shake. I want you to add one thing. That's it." And so, it it sort of just flips it a little bit in terms of, oh, I'm not I don't have to stop something.

I'm actually going to add something to what I'm doing. And so we've done that before with like, you know, fish oil supplementation or just add some walking or, you know, add a little bit of me time and de-stress.

You know, there's different ways to to go about it. But in this case, if you have the option of eating before bed and you're already hungry, then it's about making a choice that's a protein dominant food. So, we've done protein shakes, we've done whey, we've done casin, we've done um plant-based stuff, rice and pea, we've also done cottage cheese as a choice because it's a casein sort of dominant product and other people are trying other things. We've done chocolate milk as well in the past. So, several different things that we've tried in the evening. Um, and all have similar but nuance differences depending on where you want to go with this. Next, chocolate milk.

You mean like how is that high protein if it's chocolate milk? Yeah. So that study was a protein carb combo and we used a product that had um enhanced protein in the chocolate milk and then we were looking at athletes specifically so female endurance runners and we were trying to improve running performance the next morning. Okay. So for my audience not going to advocate to have chocolate milk but as you're saying the different options could be like a whey protein shake.

Um question for you can you add like a little bit of milk to it? Cuz see, I like to make this protein pudding cuz since hearing your pre-leep feeding studies, I was feeling bad about eating anything prior to sleep, but sometimes you're hungry as you're saying. So, I would have like a scoop of protein and it's clean protein. And um if I add a little bit of like heavy cream or a little bit of milk, is that okay? And make it like a pudding. Yeah. So, the first thing is I would just make sure the protein number is dialed in. You want that to be 30 to 40 grams. And then the nuances around the other pieces of that are are really up to you and your goals. Um we I I'll say from a research perspective, we haven't studied that. But from a practical perspective, I know a lot of people that take our advice and then modify it so that they'll actually do it. So for example, in our cottage cheese study, um we actually took cottage cheese from the shelf from the grocery store and then I sent that to a lab to make it a a shake as well. So I had the identical nutrient composition in the shake and in the cottage cheese. And then the people in the study did it.

There were no differences between the liquid shake and the cottage cheese. Now I like cottage cheese.

But many people do not like the texture of cottage cheese and they will not eat it. And so because of that they we say well you have another option. And in our work we're showing there was no differences depending if you want to eat the semi-olid you know cottage cheese or if you like to have this uh actual just liquid protein shake. Um but there are a couple of things where they've added a little bit to it. So Luke Vanlon's the other researcher that does a ton of work in this space.

And in Luke's group, they gave for 12 weeks, they gave pre-le feeding that included um like 27 and a half grams, like almost 30 grams of protein, but it also had some carbohydrates in there and also had a little bit of fat in there. Um and when they gave that over 12 weeks, the people who were participating in resistance training and having that pre-le protein um extra bolus of protein in the day had better outcomes for like muscle size and muscle strength and also um well those are the primary outcomes size and strength of muscle. Okay, perfect. So just to give people an idea, say if you want to have cottage cheese, I love cottage cheese. It is delicious.

I can have that all day especially prior to bed. It is so relaxing and nice because people find that if they can eat something and if you follow a ketogenic diet, it could be protein paired with a bit of fat, it can actually help you go to sleep better. Um especially if you have hormonal issues, um if you tend to not be able to um stay asleep sometimes if you eat something. The main thing here that we're talking about is calorie control. So it's it's less than 200 calories and that would be considered as a snack. Is that correct? Yeah, that's exactly right. It's got to be lower calorie.

Everything that's north of 500 calories or so that I'm seeing in the literature so far seems like it's becoming potentially a problem and particularly when it's a mixed macronutrient.

So carbs, fats, and proteins at at high amount um as you might expect. Now you you said sleep and sleep's really important. So for about 12 years we did this the first board when we never looked at sleep at all. Wasn't on my radar. And then we had some reviewers for our paper start to say, "Hey, what happened to sleep? What happened to sleep?" I'm like I didn't measure it. So then we started asking and the first few studies we did we just had a questionnaire. How'd you sleep last night?

How many hours did you sleep? And then the few studies after that we started adding technology to it where we could actually track it or try to track it. Um and so we did that for several years.

And in every one of our studies we saw no difference in sleep outcomes from having a pre-le protein drink or protein dominant food uh snack prior to bed on sleep outcomes. But that doesn't stop what you see on social media. And so you'll probably see it all the time. Don't eat before bed.

It wrecks your sleep. And a lot of that's anecdotal. And I'll tell you, Rean, if you told me if I eat before bed, I don't sleep well. You know what I'd say? Then don't eat before bed.

Then you don't need to do it. It's just one strategy. And the strategy is like it's almost entirely based on if you can get more protein in your day, this is one little spot to do it.

You're already home. It's convenient. you can look forward to it. It's a way to just add to the total daily protein intake, which is by far the biggest lever you can pull. Get total daily locked in. And if this helps you reach that goal, that's why we're doing it. Now, as Dr. Hy mentions, eating protein before bed can actually help you with your visceral fat and lose weight. But a question that people might be having is, well, if I eat all this protein, what else should I be eating? Fat or carbohydrates?

Well, according to Dr. Kbury and Dr. Berg, eating more fat with your protein is a very effective way to lower insulin levels and help you lose weight and fix chronic health conditions.

And dropping the carbohydrates to close to zero or following a carnivore diet is very effective. And with a zero carbo or a carnivore diet, I have seen so many success stories. People losing weight, fixing heart failure, diabetes, thyroid issues, all while eating more food and eating more calories.

And I experienced this myself when I went carnival 5 years ago. And what I found kept myself and my community on track was medical support through our team of carnival doctors. And that is why I created an online private community. It's called Go Carnival. This is where you can ask all of your questions to our team of doctors, including the ones that you see on this health podcast.

One of the best things about our community are our monthly challenges. We do things like our highfat challenge, our dairyfree challenge, our protein challenge, and this is where all of our members get the best results. So, if you want to try Carnival with the medical support, just head to gokarnnal.com and get your free 14-day challenge and your free meal plan. If you just eat like, for example, a whole big meal with lots of butter and something else, it's going to make you put on weight.

I don't see anybody that can eat that before bed and sleep well and not put on weight.

So having that small amount of protein can help with um alleviating hunger and with fat loss.

So just to give people options. So cottage cheese you have to make it around 27 to 30 grams of protein.

Is that correct? Or 25 to 30 grams of protein. Is is that correct? Yeah. And probably higher.

Like the latest data is looking at about 40 grams would be a perfect dose at that time from the information we currently have. How much cottage cheese do I need to eat then to have 40 grams of protein?

Yeah. Well, depend on brands and all that stuff, but you're probably looking at 3/4 of a cup to a cup or more. Easy. Okay. Can I have chicken breast slices or turkey slices?

Theoretically, yes, absolutely. But the study hasn't been done like but I don't see a reason why it wouldn't be the same outcome. Easy. Okay. Cuz that's nice. Um, can you So, the whey protein shake I'm going to leave a link in the show notes for people if they want a clean protein nonaffiliation.

I just thought I'll leave that link in case they cuz like some protein powders have lots of ingredients.

Um but if you get like a good quality protein powder. Um can you have boiled eggs or is does the the egg yolk the fat affect it? Is egg whites better? The short answer is it hasn't been studied. Although we've got grants that are out with different commodity boards like the egg boards to try to figure this out. Um, but that honestly that's the first thing that people were eating.

When I was first just watching this, what most of the athletes were having was some type of a eggs before bed. It was like scrambled eggs or boiled eggs or fried eggs or something and it was the whole egg, not just egg whites. So, I don't know. Just that just watching with my eyeballs that tended to work. Okay. Cuz I've done that previously where if I'm hungry prior to bed, I've had one egg or two eggs at a maximum two eggs. The only problem is that that has 12 grams of protein, not the, you know, 25 to 30 grams, but that helps you with sleep. And just one other point is that this extra protein before bed, as you said, it helps with your extra protein in a day to achieve that. It's not like you need to keep adding on protein cuz most people don't eat their protein and it gives them an opportunity, as you said, prior to bed. Yeah. And I think the other cool thing is that you'll start seeing there's an explosion of these products on the market right now. So, it used to be we just take a normal protein shake and go. And casein was the one that we used in a lot of our original work. And then some head-to-head studies went casein against whey and they were very similar. So, you could go either way. Well, either type of protein, whey or casein with um what people like in in terms of that. Um but there's a new player on the market and it's called alphalactalbumin. And alphalactylbumin is a derivative of uh basically human milk and it's in baby formula. It's been in baby formula for a long time. Um and that is a type of fractionated protein that has a high tryptophan content and the tryptophan may help with sleep.

So the connection was there for like infants and babies and then marketing folks pulled it out said what about adults because now we're all really hyperfocused on sleep right now and put it into a product. And so there are several studies that have been done in other labs where there was a benefit to having that particular type in terms of getting a good quality protein plus having something that could help you sleep even more. Um and so we're actually testing those products right now in different populations to see how how they do compared to just whey or casein.

Um so there could be some new things on the market. And the other way you'll see it is just like preworkout supplements. They started as just caffeine and then they went into like this whole mix of things that people don't know what they're taking and consume and then go go work out.

The pre-le space is changing where I see now products that have protein plus sleep ingredients theanine and magnesium and zinc and other things that 5HTP for example that could help from many different ways.

You fall asleep faster, you stay asleep and then you also have a protein dose that could help with recovery o over the night time period. Amazing. Okay, moving on from protein before bed, which is amazing. So, protein timing. Now, I have a question. When you first wake up in the morning, is it important to have your protein as early as possible? Some people say eat within an hour of waking.

Some people say it doesn't matter it's protein during the whole day.

To me, that's personal preference. So, I personally go to bed thinking about waking up and eating.

So, I'm hungry each morning and I'm still having a protein shake before bed. Um, and uh, and so for me, I enjoy that, but there's no data that says that's like 100% better than some other technique.

It's just what you prefer. So, if people are in like this intermittent fasting camp or they're they're not eating until noon or something, um, that's probably fine as long as you can get total daily protein intake the rest of the day. It might be different if you're like a highle bodybuilder who cares about tiny little increments, but if you're not that person, which not many of us are, then it would just be personal preference at that point. That's so funny. I love food as well.

Like I think about food. I don't think about food all the time, but I look forward to eating.

Even if it's protein, like I eat like six eggs for breakfast in the morning. It's a lot of eggs, but like I just love food. So I can And then even if I can eat prior to bed, I can do that too.

I mean if I have my whole protein and everything under control but I really enjoy eating as well.

Um so question around protein around exercise. Do you have the timer close to exercise or can you eat it whenever?

Yeah. So the short answer is you can eat it whenever. Newer newer new data are out all the time showing that again it's a total daily intake that matters the most. However, just like pre-Eing there's no downfall to having it quickly and it might be better for you. So there's no downfall and it might help. So for me, I'm doing it and but if I just am in a situation where I forgot it or I don't have access to it or I'm traveling or something, I just don't I don't have all my things sorted out, it's not a problem. You're going to be totally fine. So there's no downfall uh to doing it. But it's also um just I think if it's too much to worry about and you're you're someone who really gets anxiety around trying to make sure everything's perfect in your life, make it make that not a thing. you can have it anytime you want and not really have any worry about muscle gain or muscle maintenance at that point. It's a nuance strategy that I would move to secondarily to dialing in my daily protein. So, if somebody is insulin resistant and they're met they're metabolically inflexible, so elevated glucose and they say that they're fasting insulin is elevated.

But when we talk about protein timing, is it better for that person to eat their protein in less meals in a day or more meals in a day to not have the insulin spikes? Yeah.

Uh, good question. um from the data I'm aware of again the change like for that person to lower that insulin value would be driven by the fat loss that's coming from their total caloric intake and driving down the atyposity sort of resistance or uh changes it's making at the cellular level to allow glucose into the cell. So from that perspective in and then combining with the data that I've done um I would probably say that the protein if as long as there's a protein dominant food and you're doing that throughout the day um I don't know there would be much of a difference in those two strategies uh over time as long as there's a caloric deficit and you're getting total daily in total daily protein intake in at the level that we're looking at right it's 1.6 to 2.2 two grams per kg or more. Um, I don't know that it would make a big difference at the end of like a 12 week or 12 month period. Yeah. So, that's my understanding. So, it doesn't really make that much of a difference because I think people when they eat more protein, they think, "Oh, well, that might spike my insulin." But, it's whatever you're eating with the protein. So, in the sense of a ketogenic diet, if they eat fat with the protein, that mitigates the insulin spike, for one example.

The other is how much you're eating in a day. and not eating all these carbohydrates and processed food which spikes your insulin and causes inflammation, insulin resistance.

It's not elevated protein. So that's where I was getting with that question. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I think we're on the same page for most of that. Like, in terms of you can choose which way you want to go at that, but at the end of the day, the insulin and glucose metabolic dysregulation that's going to occur will be better off by losing some body fat and adding some muscle to your frame by doing this training and these higher protein techniques because you've got a better glucose disposal system at that point. And then you can you can tuck away glucose in those spaces.

And so, I don't know that we I would say one's driving the other. I would say if you can build your base of muscle mass for longevity, for health, for glucose disposal, any other things um including fat loss, I would I would angle take that angle. Add muscle, add protein, and the rest of it will be necessarily better at the end of a training block. Perfect.

That is my next question. So, getting into exercise now. I had this question as we age and I tend to see people like my father-in-law, he's 78 years old, my mother is 72, people in their 60s or 70s, they can't handle as much food, they can't eat as much food. And that made me think to ask you this question, how can you increase your resting metabolic rate? What are the factors apart from protein?

Is it increasing muscle? Many different things affect it. total body size, uh your activity level, your your your food intake, your food choices, but muscle is one that we call uh the most metabolically active tissue in some cases. Now, there's some nuance around this because the data actually show that if you add like a kilo of muscle, you only burn an extra like 10 to 20 calories probably um at rest. But where the conversation needs to sort of shift is like that's true. It's not a ton to your resting metabolic rate, but having more muscle or better quality muscle should make you be more active and move around in a better movement pattern and perhaps do more because you feel better. And so you can't really capture that in a study that's based in a metabolic chamber. And so you you sort of need to extrapolate those data.

Okay, it's not as high as we thought by adding muscle in terms of a closed sort of cage scenario.

But when you go into real life and now you have more muscle, more functional uh ability to move around, um my expectation is you would have even more uh energy expenditure as a result of that.

And so, but it's an you're right, like for the as we age, we also are less hungry. And if we add a high protein diet on top of that, now you're full from the protein and don't want to eat anymore.

In fact, we had one study with older women who are all breast cancer survivors and post-menopausal and we asked them to add uh three protein shakes in their day to their meal. So like meal protein shake meal protein shake meal protein shake and what we found we made a mistake in that study and we wanted the protein group to have higher protein intake but they had so much protein and they didn't tell us this and we didn't measure their diets until the end of the study which was a mistake.

they stopped eating protein in their meals. And so at the end of a 12-week study, there were no differences in our pro in our high protein and our low protein group because the one who were supplemented stopped eating enough of it in their foods because they were so full.

And so that changed several things for us. We had to now monitor um their dietary records weekly instead of after the end of the study. Um and so that was a big thing. And then we had to really pay attention to how do we keep them at the calorie load that they need. and my parents and my wife's parents and things that we're familiar with. If we add protein, they might eat less food.

And so, has to be a strategy to it. There has to be some education around it where you don't stop eating other things just because you're having a higher protein intake because at that point, you could lose some of the micronutrient value of the other foods and other sort of benefits we'd be looking for.

Yeah, it's definitely a consideration to when you eat more protein, you get really full and then you just can't eat food. I get I hear that a lot when people that are older than me. I'm 42.

So then when I think about people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s or even 80s, their considerations and how they feel is very different. They say, "Rena, I'm can't eat as much as you or even people that are younger.

" Um, so let's talk about activity. I'm very interested in this. So if somebody is just starting in terms of resistance training, what would it look like in a week? something that maybe even starting from body weight, what would that look like in terms of a workout to put on muscle?

So, at that level, someone who's not exercising and not familiar with it, just about anything you do would be a good stimulus to start growing muscle. So, so at at the at this like sort of baseline level, everything is such a stimulus and you're such a responder at that ba at when you're just starting out that uh yeah, you can you can be pretty broad in what you're what you're trying to do.

And so if I was programming that and let's say you're like, "Hey, I've never done anything.

What should I do?" First thing I'd do would say, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is it you can resistance train five days a week?" And you'd tell me two. And I'd say, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is it you can you can resistance train three days a week?" Like, "Ah, eight." I'm like, "That's not high enough. On a scale of 1 to 10, uh, how likely is it you can resistance train, you know, twice a week?" And I would say go for that. start at that level because that's the place that you can sustain this for a lifetime and I would start at that little space and then once I know they can do two days a week for this person I would probably start with movement patterns body weight exercises to begin with maybe some light weights all supervised to begin with to make sure that we are staying away from anything that could be um injuring us because it's important to have proper form um but that yeah baseline level what can you handle in terms of days per week and then you're probably going to respond to anything I throw at you. So that's a nice time to like hyper respond as a start. Okay. So in terms of other types of training, so someone's just starting their resistance training and they're doing more of that body weight, anything that they can do apart from so just starting like maybe they do squats, push-ups, stepups, anything that's moving their body is better than being sedentary. Now I want to move on to and then if they can use weights as well, maybe they can use use light dumbbells and then progressively overload in that compound movements. How many times per week should they do that?

Again, the answer would be around what can you sustain? So I'm all about this like what is your level?

But if we're past that, then I would probably move into a place where you're hitting each muscle part uh for something like seven to 10 sets per week. And so I would base out over how much time I have in the gym that day. And then I could do if I had a longer time in the gym, I could do probably just two days.

But if I have a shorter amount, like me, I always have like 42 minutes. And and so I need to then go more frequently. But I just don't have a long time in each day. And so I'd spread that out over time. But I try to hit each muscle part at least main movers roughly nine, you know, sometimes se somewhere seven to 10 um uh sets per week is what I'm trying to hit with that.

But I will say we have data that show um one add resistance training like that has got to be the key driver that should be the base of what you're doing and and be the anchor to your training program.

So if something's got to go give up something else and stick with the resistance training part of your training program. Now on top of that I've done a series of studies with a lead author named Paul RCO. And Paul started this series of studies called the prize studies.

And the acronym stands for protein is the P. R is resistance training. Um I is interval uh or sprint training.

S it was stretching or yoga. And E was endurance. And so you really hit many different kinds of exercise with a high protein diet. And in those papers, you can look them up.

Just search prize u uh weight loss or body composition or something. The pi papers will pop up. And in those studies, the multimodal type of exercise was most beneficial for visceral fat loss, body fat loss, muscle maintenance or muscle gain. And all of these studies are in middle-aged or older older individuals.

Amazing. So, if you had to choose, if somebody was to increase their protein, but they had to choose between sprinting or resistance training for visceral fat, what do you think is better? Oo, again, just my opinion, I would I would do resistance training.

That's good. I love resistance training. I think that when people build a foundation of exercise, maybe it's walking, resistance training, and then add on a hit training session, that's probably the way to go in terms of how to get the most bang for your buck without exercising all the time. And I think that if people are just less sedentary, that's kind of the way to go. What are your thoughts about creatine, especially around fat loss and brain health? Uh, so the work on brain health is really interesting.

So Darren Kandow and some of his group, you know, they've done a lot of this work and and others. Um, and it's fascinating. You know, I'm part of a group that looks at creatine through group called ALSC and they've got so much data for decades on how important it is for many different aspects. The fat loss angle of that I'm not completely sold on yet, other than secondarily.

And the secondarily part of that is if you're adding muscle mass because you can do a little more resistance training volume. We now know this is like the coolest thing that's happened is that the muscle talks to the fat and so these extracellular vesicles called MIR1 leave the muscle with resistance training travel to fat atapost tissue and tell it to start burning fat.

So adding more muscle tells fat to to start going away. It's amazing. And th those original papers, they're they're just fascinating. They're very high level. Um, and it's just it's like the combination of how our muscle talks to our fat and how our fat talks back to our muscle. Now, we know these connections occur is just it blows my mind every time. And so, I'll be sitting there like doing a training session thinking, good gracious, what's I don't know. I think through like the the tiniest nuances while I'm actually doing this stuff. And it's it just blows my mind.

Our our human bodies are just fascinating. And if we just listen to them and not the crowd of other media that's going on, we can learn a lot. Now, is there anything that we missed in terms of fat loss and health apart from the conversation about eating more protein, resistance training?

Anything else when it comes to achieving better health? Those are some of the big anchors. I think I would also go to other big levers like stress and sleep. Um, and those things can just disrupt you.

Like you you're probably aware if you have one bad night, it can wreck your day. Like you're just like for me like I'll be totally irritable, but then also making bad decisions and um your training goes downhill and all this stuff. So if you can dial in those things, it's really good. And then you know stress is something that is uh ubiquitous. It's kind of everywhere, but what's your thing?

Like what's the one thing you know that puts your head space in a in a better place?

So, like my wife would tell you straight away like go train like you're being a problem right now.

So, so you you got to figure out what that one thing is for you. But those are other big levers to pull even before I would get into even nutrition or some of the training stuff is you got to be sleeping right and you got to have some handle on your level of strength. Absolutely.

I think that when people get outside and they do more training or walking, it just gives people more space and time to lower the cortisol, lower the stress and improve their health. But Dr. Ornsby, thank you so much for your time. This has been an amazing episode all about protein, resistance training, how to lower the visceral fat, and even about sleep and the mindset. I'll leave all the links for your information in the show notes. But Dr. Ormsby, thank you so much for your time.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me. It was really fun. Thank you for joining me today this episode with Dr. Mike Ormsby. Now, if you love this episode, check out this one by Dr. Donald Layman.

It is everything about protein, how much you need, resistance training, and why it's so important for your health.

Finally, thank you for your interest in root cause healing and I'll see you next