Welcome to Straight Talk on Health. I’m your host Dr. Chet Zelasko. Straight Talk on Health is a joint production with WGVU in Grand Rapids MI. I examine the practical application of health information. Nutrition. Exercise. Diet. Supplementation. I look at the science behind them, and let you know whether it’s something to consider or not. You can check out other things that I do on my website Drchet.com and sign up for my free emails.
I like watching television. Certainly not all of it but cooking, home reno, good drama, and once in a while, a good blow something up movie. Every once in a while, someone says something or does something that I have to check out, just like I do with health news. Is it real or not? Before I go any further, this podcast is actually about plateaus in fitness and weight loss. Let’s begin with what started me down this path.
I was watching a sort of dramedy—a series that combines wit and dark humor with the ‘a who done it’ mentality. In this case, the episode took place at a southwestern state BBQ joint in the middle of a secluded area. While it wasn’t the focus of my research, I found out that the episode was actually filmed in the Hudson Valley in NY state. Go figure.
Back to barbecue. While the pitmaster was explaining the secrets of BBQ to the main character, he went into great detail about the types of wood used in smoking beef brisket, pork shoulder, and ribs. He explained that each wood had a specific flavor or note that enhanced the meat in different ways. Then he used an expression I had never heard before. He said that you have to wait some time beyond the stall before the meat was actually done and ready to eat.
What was the stall? At some point during the smoking process, around 160 degrees in the center of the piece of meat, the temperature will stall there for several hours. That’s a point where an inexperienced pitmaster or home cook may be tempted to add more wood to the fire. That won’t work to raise the internal temp but it will cook the outside too fast leaving the meat not as moist nor as tasty as it could be.
What is the science behind the stall? It’s actually simple physics. As the heat reaches the internal parts of the meat, it forces the water to the surface of the meat which serves to cool the meat along the way until it gets to the surface and evaporates. Until that happens all throughout the meat, the temperature stalls at about 160 degrees. Once the water is gone, the cooking meat will rise slowly to match the temperature of the smoker, generally set at 220-230 degrees. What you get then, if you eat BBQ, is a little patch of heaven because the inside will be moist, juicy, and laden with flavor.
While I don’t smoke meat very much, I do slow-cook a pork shoulder now and again to make pulled pork sandwiches. My cooking temp just dropped about 100 degrees when I do. I’m also going to try it the next time I spatchcock a turkey and slow roast it. There isn’t as much fat in the poultry as the pork but it’s worth a try.
Segway to weight loss and fitness, both cardiovascular and strength. I often get asked about plateaus in both areas. Why can’t I keep losing weight? I can’t seem to improve my fitness very well—help! I just can’t seem to add much muscle. What can I do?
Genetics probably impacts gains and losses a little bit but maybe this example can give you some perspective.
Let’s consider the biceps muscle. While there is a mix of muscle fiber types, some being slow twitch while others are fast twitch, we’ll use an average approach. In a single muscle fiber 6 inches long, which would mimic the length of the bicep muscle tendon to tendon, there are about 300 quadrillion amino acids. But wait, we’re not done.
A motor unit is a single neuron and all the muscle fibers to which it attaches. There are about 775 motor units in the bicep muscle but wait, we’re still not done. Each motor unit can control, on average, about 750 muscle fibers. So, the amount of amino acids found in the biceps would be 300 quadrillion times 775 motor units times 750 muscle fibers per unit. Let’s just say that’s an incredible large number. Research has shown that while we can’t increase the number of muscle fibers, we can increase the amount of contractile proteins within each muscle fiber. The amino acids found in 10 grams of the typical protein powder could provide an adequate amount of amino acids to add contractile protein to some muscle fibers IF that’s all the amino acids were used for. But remember, hormones, DNA, collagen, skin and many other organs are competing for those amino acids. Additional protein intake can help.
But wait, we’re not done yet. In order to supply the nutrients while removing waste products, there would need to be an increase in the number of capillaries serving the growing muscles. Those take time to build. The tendons would need to be strengthened in order to maintain attachment to the bones. The bones would need to get stronger as well to handle the additional work load. And that’s still not all. The mitochondria have to increase in size and number to provide energy for the new muscle proteins. The nerve cells controlling the motor units may have to increase in size. And we’re still not done yet.
What I’m saying is that it’s going to take time for that to happen. Depending on genetics, training regimens, and nutrient intake, there will be a lag, or a stall, before all the assembly required to sustain the muscular strength or cardiovascular fitness before it shows. The same is true for weight gain. A person has to over eat for a long time before more fat cells are needed and the ones you already have are filled up, to gain body fat.
What’s the point? If you’re trying to gain muscle, it’s going to take time to build the support structure to maintain it. If you’re trying to lose body fat, it’s going to take time for all the supporting structure to be reabsorbed—and that’s why plateau’s happen with weight loss. How long of a stall? I don’t know because no one has really studied that in detail. In talking with people who have lost a lot of weight, it took 18-24 months before they could eat more normally again. That’s just a personal perspective on working with so many people over the years. Just understand that when the stall happens, you just have to stay the course. It isn’t as simple as BBQ because there is solid physics behind the stall but being patient is the one thing that will work to achieve your health goals.
Okay. Staying the course. Boring! If you want to get off the schneid, another way of describing a plateau, there is a way that I can recommend you do that—providing you’re fit enough to handle it. Interval training. I know that high intensity interval training is a thing nowadays but before researchers tried to show benefits with HIIT to save time, good old fashioned interval training was the way to deal with a plateau.
Pure and simple, the idea was to damage muscles by doing intervals on a track or a bike. Damaging muscles increases it’s metabolic rate as it needs to use more energy to rebuild the damaged and build more muscle. How is it done?
The workout it self should be 30-45 minutes long. I’ll use an exercise bike as an example. Warm up by peddling easy for 3 minute. Then, increase the resistance to a level you can only sustain for about a minute and cycle as fast and hard as you can for 30-60 seconds, such that you can’t even do one more second. Take off the resistance and peddle easy for 3 minutes or so to recover completely. Repeat the interval cycle for 8-10 reps. Cool down and you’re done. Do that twice per week for 4-6 weeks and you’ll be off the schneid. I have yet to see the approach fail to get someone’s fitness level increased and their body weight decreased. But again—only if your doctor tells you you’re fit enough to do it.
That’s it for this episode. If you like this podcast, please hit the like button and tell your friends and colleagues about it. Until next time, this is Dr. Chet Zelasko saying health is a choice. Choose wisely today and every day.
Reference: Risk Analysis. Arsenic content and exposure in brown rice compared to white rice in the United States. February 2025. https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.70008
