In partnership with

Good morning, and happy Fall, y’all! May the incoming crisp air and falling leaves remind you how beautiful it is to let things go so new life can grow. 🍂 

*Friendly reminder: Even if you’re not interested, it means a lot if you click the ads in my newsletter! I get paid for every click, whether you purchase or not. And after recently being laid off from my full-time job (☹️), I sure could use it right now. Thank you!

(If this email was forwarded to you and you'd like to receive this weekly newsletter, sign up below!)

Try this to help you unwind before bed

Some nights, slowing down and switching off is the hardest part.

That’s where AGZ comes in—the new nightly drink from AG1 designed to help you unwind, sleep well, and wake up in the morning without the grogginess that you may get from other sleep products.*

Rather than overriding your body's natural rhythms, AGZ helps your
mind and body ease into rest with easy-to-absorb ingredients such as Saffron, Magnesium and Ashwagandha.

You can choose from three tasty flavors, Mixed Berry, Chocolate and Chocolate mint and every first purchase comes with a FREE AGZ frother.

Click HERE to give AGZ a try

_{*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.}

How my physique changed after 10 days in Italy

“Drew! I thought you just got laid off! Italy?!”

Correct. The day before the trip we’ve been planning for months, I lost my job. 🙃 It was mostly all paid for, so I wasn’t about to not go! And boy, what a fun time it was.

As you may suspect, with a 10-day vacation in Italy comes LOTS of pasta, bread, and cheese. But it also came with a ton of walking and countless hills and stairs! Below, I’ll break down how my body changed over these ~10 days that were very different from my usual routine.

The muscle & fat changes

I did an InBody body composition scan at my gym the day before we left and the day after we got back. Here’s what changed:

• Body weight: Down 3.5 pounds! Might not be what you’d expect, but we’ll dive more into why below.

• Skeletal muscle mass: Down 3 pounds… Yeah, sad. But let’s break that down a little:

  • Arm & torso muscle mass: Down ~3 pounds. Makes sense, considering I wasn’t able to workout my arms/chest/back/abs at all during the trip.

  • Leg muscle mass: Stayed the exact same. This was a bit of a surprise considering I didn’t do leg exercises either.

• Body fat: Up ~0.6lbs. Not bad at all! I’ll gladly take that near-negligible increase.

Not directly correlated—but related—to muscle mass is muscle strength. Since being back in the gym, I have seen my strength on most exercises take a little dip as well, but I’m confident this can be recovered quickly.

Why do we think my body composition changed in these ways? Here are my theories:

It checks out that I lost a bit of muscle from my arms and torso. I really wasn’t doing anything to keep them active over the course of this trip. But I’m not overly upset. I just did another scan yesterday (about a week later, after being back in the gym), and I’ve already made up about half the losses. Muscle mass can fluctuate, but when you lose a little over a short period, it’s not hard to gain it back pretty quickly as well.

As for my lower body, I was surprised I didn’t lose more muscle mass there, but after further consideration, that also makes sense. While I wasn’t resistance training, I was walking 20,000 steps or more basically every single day. And many, many of those steps were up and down hills and stairs. Since I was using my legs so much all day every day, my body decided it was a good idea to hold onto that muscle and put it to use!

The slight uptick in body fat wasn’t a surprise at all; I’m just glad I didn’t gain more! I also attribute this to how active we were over the course of the trip. Keeping my low-intensity physical activity way up allowed me to eat pretty normally without much excess energy being stored as fat.

On the nutrition front, probably my biggest blow—which surely contributed to all of the above—was the lack of protein I was consuming. Italians in general eat smaller portions than we do in the US. And many dishes come without any real protein source.

• Going into this trip, I told myself I wasn’t going to stress about protein. I would just get it when/where I could, but otherwise enjoy the vast variety of Italian cuisine I could sample.

• I was honestly probably eating well under 100g of protein on most days, which is less than half of what I aim for when in my routine in the US.

My takeaways & where I go from here:

If I were to keep eating like that and staying out of the gym for many weeks or months, I am sure I would continue to lose muscle and add body fat over time. But hey, it’s vacation, baby! I’m confident I can quickly regain anything lost and get back on track to making progress again.

Protein is seriously so important for metabolic health and skeletal muscle mass. As I wrote a few weeks ago, it takes both protein consumption and resistance training to achieve good muscle health and growth, and I really had neither while there. Keeping those as cornerstones of my everyday routine helps keep me healthy.

Boy, Americans don’t walk enough. I know we were exploring and adventuring on a vacation, so we undoubtedly were walking more than the average Italian. But just the infrastructure and social life over there are so much more inclined to walking. The neighborhoods, vibrant streets, rolling hills, etc. just mean that walking is much more integrated into everyday life than for most Americans. We would all do well to incorporate more walking into our daily lives.

So what’s next for me?

I’m wrapping up my “cut” (body fat loss goal) at the end of September and planning to “lean bulk” (focus on adding muscle mass while limiting fat gain) for October through February. Since I’m going to be running quite a bit as I train for upcoming races, my goal is mostly to maintain or just add a little muscle in my legs/glutes. I mostly want to focus on adding muscle to my arms (biceps, triceps, shoulders) and core over the next several months.

With this new focus in mind, I’m hoping to add 5-10 pounds of muscle by February 28th while only allowing my body fat percentage to creep up by ~1% or so. This should put me in a good place to start cutting again in March and look even closer to my goals by next summer.

What is your experience with vacations and changes to your diet and body? Have you observed similar changes (even if not tracking with a scan)? Do you have any favorite trips for balancing healthy habits with relaxing and enjoying? Hit reply and let me know!

✅ Take Action

Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.

Level 1: I can’t say it enough, but ensure you’re eating 0.75 to 1.0g of protein per pound of your ideal body weight on as many days as possible!

Level 2: Walk, walk, walk! If you can increase your daily step count, you will simply begin to feel better and look better, full stop.

Level 3: Don’t stress when you take vacations/breaks! They’re meant to be enjoyed. You can choose a habit or two to try and maintain, but have confidence in yourself that you’ll be able to get back into a healthier routine when you’re home and reverse any losses to start making gains again. It’s totally doable. 💪 

✍️ Drew's Picks:

• Two stellar podcasts for you this week:

  • A masterclass with “The Glute Guy” on improving your physique on the Huberman Lab podcast.

  • A round table on training for longevity on Dr. Peter Attia’s podcast.

Ciao for now! Hope to see you back here next week with even more education, another ad to click, and more movement for improvement.

Keep moving,

Drew

The content in Move to Improve is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. It is always a good idea to consult with a trusted health professional before making any major lifestyle changes that could have a significant impact on your health. This is not a medical resource, and any opinions and articles are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional. Please think critically and take what I say with a grain of salt (aka don’t sue me).