425: Fix Your Diet: Understanding Macronutrients, Calories, Training, Supplements and More (Through an Evidence-Based Approach) with Alan Aragon

Today’s Guest

Alan Aragon

Today, the guest is Alan Aragon, and if you’re in the fitness industry, you’ve likely heard of him. He co-authored the most-viewed article in the Journal of International Society of Sports Nutrition’s history on post-workout nutrition. He’s the guy who helped us change our post-workout protein recommendations based on the best evidence. Not only has he worked with notable clients like Stone Cold Steve Austin, Derrick Fisher, and Pete Sampras, but he also helps educate other fitness professionals about what they do with their clients regarding nutrition. Alan specializes in fat-loss nutrition, muscle-building nutrition, and he’s here today to give us a different perspective.

This is an information-packed episode. Alan will go into fat loss and what people need to do to finally start getting the results they want. Ted and Alan also dive into the ketogenic diet, which is super popular right now, so you’ll learn about the effectiveness of it as well as what it means long-term and whether you should do it or not. Also covered are dietary fats and their effect on cardiovascular health and weight-loss plateaus, why they happen, and how you can get around them.

Alan brings the evidence-based approach. He’ll share what being evidence-based really means and why you should care about it even if you’re not a researcher or in the fitness industry.

You’ll Learn

• What Alan does and his journey from personal trainer to a nutritional counselor, researcher, and lecturer (4.29)
• New research on improving body composition and athletic performance (5.35)
• The most impressive person Alan has worked with (7.03)
• What evidence-based really means and why it matters to your health (9.35)
• The misconception and the reality regarding research results and why you still need to pay attention to personal trials/self-experiments (12.40)
• Why there is confusion about the first law of thermodynamics and why it matters (16.16)
• The importance of training to improve body composition (19.05)
• Ketogenic diet vs. Calories-in-calories-out (20.50)
• The importance of protein in your diet (25.05)
• Insulin and weight gain (26.22)
• Why there’s so much confusion over health and fitness information (28.30)
• Is the ketogenic diet safe? (31.55)
• Making sacrifices to lose weight: Are they worth it? (36.03)
• Can a ketogenic diet help fight cancer? (37.20)
• How fat affect your heart’s health (40.30)
• Health benefits of coconut oil, butter, and blood lipids (43.00)
• The craze of fish oil supplementation of the early 2000s and what the research is saying now (46.46)
• The web of epidemiology, tightly controlled experiments, and how the two types of literature converge (52.32)
• Food quality vs. counting calories (55.35)
• 3 Reasons you’re not losing weight on a calorie deficit diet (1.02.05)
• What non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is and why you need to be aware of it (1.05.20)
• How to effectively manage clients expectations (1.09.22)

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Links Mentioned:

• Legendary Life Podcast Review
• Legendary Life Program

Connect with Alan Aragon:

• Website
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Blog