S02E01 - David Syvertsen - Can You Lose Weight Doing CrossFit?

January 10, 2021 - Today's episode is again with David Syvertsen, owner and coach at my box, CrossFit Bison, in Midland Park New Jersey. We discuss if your goal is to lose weight and get thinner, can you achieve this with CrossFit?

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2021.01.10 S02E01 DAVID SYVERTSEN - LOSE WEIGHT CROSSFIT

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Sam Rhee: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Botox and burpees. I'm Dr. Sam Rhee, plastic surgeon and CrossFit coach. Host of this podcast, where we talk about plastic surgery, CrossFit, and everything in between, you can find more information at our website, Botox and burpees.com and make sure to like, and subscribe wherever you listen to our podcast. 
Today's episode is again with David Syvertsen owner and coach at my box CrossFit, bison in Midland park, New Jersey. We discussed. If your goal is to lose weight and get thinner, can you achieve this with CrossFit?
   All right. So our next topic and I have actually heard a lot of athletes say this off and on is, can I lose weight doing CrossFit? And I think we do have a lot of people who come and people have different goals. When they come to CrossFit. Some of them want to build strength. Some of them want to get big.
Some of them want to be super fit. But we also have a fair number of people who are overweight who are not particularly healthy. And they come here because they know that CrossFits a good exercise program and they want to lose weight. Can they lose weight on CrossFit? 
David Syvertsen: [00:01:13] 110% is there and there, there is no debating it, the bait is how easy is it for you?
What are you going to have to do? But this is what we've talked about in the past. This is one hour of your day, what are you doing? The other 23 hours? I've seen this happen a lot over this six, seven years, right? At bison, someone comes in with a goal of losing weight and they do, they have some weight to lose.
All right. They're not like they're not, 5% body fat. And they come into oh, I need to lose weight. That might be tough. There are people that could lose weight, come in with the goal of losing weight. They lose weight pretty quick, 10, 15, 20 pounds. And then they're members for two to three years, three to four years longer.
And then it starts to get to the point where that weight's creeping back up. And they might even be approaching the way that they were prior to CrossFit. They might even go past it. And then all of a sudden it's dude, I'm never going to lose weight doing this. And burned out. This hurts.
That hurts. I hate the workouts. I don't like the people, the coaching sucks. I don't like the music. I don't like the format. I don't like the space I'm out. They go try a new gym, a bootcamp, gym, Pilates, a personal trainer. They lose weight. 10 15, 20 pounds. And I'm like, dude, this is what's going to make me lose weight, not CrossFit.
Okay. I think what makes people go down initially then back up, you can get into some like muscle building because we lift a lot, right? When you're not stimulated mentally, you don't try as hard. If you start to really dislike the program that you're in. For whatever reason, right? You're not going to work as hard.
And it's probably going to affect you outside the gym as well with how disciplined you are feeding. So if I am not a happy camper here and I go find another place to work out and I work really hard, bootcamp programs are great, right? They burn calories like that. 45 orange theory, whatever you wanna call it.
They're going to lose weight. Because it's new, it's stimulating. They're excited to get there. You're not dreading to get going there. You are excited to get there and you just had this better outlook. You have this better attitude while you're working out while like I could see, and this happens to me sometimes where, I'll be two minutes into a workout.
I'm like Oh my gosh, this is miserable. This is so hard. This I hate squad. I, instead of me just like shutting up and just working out right. And. So instead of me working hard and grinding, it just turns into this Oh, woe is me. I feel so bad for myself. And I don't work hard. Don't burn calories, go home and try to sympathize by eating poorly right.
Or drinking too much. And I think that has more to do with people that can't lose weight here. Like it, it doesn't make physical sense for you to say you can't lose weight. If you have weight to lose by doing this. It doesn't make sense. 
Sam Rhee: [00:03:53] I want to unpack what you just said in a couple of different ways, because I think there's a lot that's really good in it.
The first is I think anyone who tries a new program will generally lose some weight because it's a new stimulus to the body. Yep. So that's why, and you hit the nail on the head. You start CrossFit, you may lose some weight, but then you plateau. Then you go to another type of exercise and then you might lose some more weight weight again.
And that's because your body acclimates to the stimulus. So if you do the same thing over and over at first, it's hard for your body. And then if you don't push yourself to go beyond where you were, your body plateaus, because it's now adapted to whatever stress you've put it on. And when people get bored, like you said, they are not.
Increasing the level of stimulus so that their body has to continually adapt, right? So if you come here, you do the workout. You go through the motions, but you're not upping the intensity. You're not upping the weight. You're not upping the rep count. You're not, you're doing the same thing every time.
It's literally the same as just running on the treadmill, the same amount every day, your body adapts to it. And guess what your metabolism is going to change your body doesn't change. It's it starts to go back to it's 
David Syvertsen: [00:05:10] former state. It's more natural state, right? 
Sam Rhee: [00:05:12] That's exactly why I think when you say people need to get their attitude where they're not hating it because you have to buy into it. You have to try harder, right? Your intensity. 
David Syvertsen: [00:05:26] And this is not a come down on the athlete. This is where I actually feel my most pressure. As an owner slash coach slash one that programs that like, if there's pressure, I feel this is it. I know the fitness industry is a fat industry. It's and it's always going to be right.
Like we have people working out in front of freaking mirrors now, like what are we doing? But that's going to come and go and then something else is going to come up and there's going to be new technology that comes in the next decade. It's going to get people into working out and.
That the thing is you have to know that as much variety in CrossFit, it's still this like very like strength and conditioning, quick, intense workouts, in comparison to working out in general. Because a lot of people go for like these 50, 60 minute runs. Like we're never going to do that here.
As. Different as the moon moving patterns here in the length of the workouts is pretty much the same thing. It's week to week, I should say, right? You have a strength day of gymnastics day. You have no weight and yes, it can get old after awhile. And I think that. It's my job and Chris's job that we need to find ways to stimulate people here.
Like right now we're talking about our big, our next big equipment purchase that will probably help stimulate the gym a little bit. I 
Sam Rhee: [00:06:39] think the other thing is that what you said, what you do outside the gym? So I know if I need to lose... I myself as an athlete doing CrossFit, if I want to lose weight, I'm going to have to watch my diet. Yes. I'm going to have to count my calories. I know I'm going to have to, I know I've done this a million times before, and I'm going to have to go into somewhat of a deficit. Where I'm essentially burning more than I'm eating and I hate doing it because when I do it, I don't only lose fat, I'm losing lean body weight. I'm losing muscle. And you can see that in our athletes, for example, I'm thinking of one in particular who does CrossFit, but he trains for a triathlon. He is crazy skinny, like in a, like he's lost so much lean body mass. And, from a cardio perspective, he's great.
But he's so thin. Yeah. And there's that. That's because he just can't eat enough for all the calories. It burns calories. 
David Syvertsen: [00:07:42] And that's what that sport is. Like that's like the body type of a triathlete right. 
Sam Rhee: [00:07:46] Is really thin. Yeah. Yeah. And when I talk to people and the other thing I need to caveat is since I am a visitor, this does not constitute medical advice, and this is my own personal opinion and no one should ever follow what I do.
They should go seek the consultation of their other medical specialists. But CrossFit's an hour. And it's pretty high intensity, but you yourself has said, listen, if you need to run yourself in a deficit, you can starve yourself or you can also burn it on both ends and increase your cardio level.
So if you do a medium intensity, 30, 40 minute run a couple times a week, or, bike, or what have you like that's going to help a lot. CrossFit alone is not necessarily always the answer, but then you're going to have to, you yourself are going to have to mix in some of this other stuff.
And you're going to have to watch your diet. That the number one thing is diet. I don't have to do anything else. I can lose weight if I eat less and watch what I eat and I eat healthy. Yep. I will do that. And I've done it. I don't like it. Yeah. 
David Syvertsen: [00:08:44] I remember Chris Tafaro was, he went, he was going for these long walks.
They're in quarantine. And he was something like, I went for a, I think it was like one day was like a two hour walk. I want to say in those two hours he burned like 1200 calories or something. It was a crazy man. I was like, Holy cow. If you come in here and do this, like nasty, let's say DT.
Yeah. Like you are hurting after DT. It could be as fast as four minutes and go up to the 12 minutes. 
Sam Rhee: [00:09:05] And DT is the just so everyone 
David Syvertsen: [00:09:07] It's 12 deadlifts, right? Nine hang power cleans six shoulder overhead, it's five rounds. All right. So it's not a ton of volume it's with one barbell, I would say at a medium weight.
Yeah. It's 155, 105 RX. Yeah. That you're not going to burn them calories and, workout, you might burn 200. So if weight loss really is the only goal. If someone came to me and said, Dave, I need to lose weight. I'm probably going to prescribe do this three days a week. And then. Do you know, long endurance twice a week where you're moving for 60 minutes straight, nothing, high intensity, medium intensity.
And that is where I think you just don't get that kind of programming in most CrossFit gym programs. It's an hour class. You can't do that stuff. So if weight loss is the only goal, then you need probably longer work. But I think that's still 110% secondary to. What you're doing outside the gym.
Sam Rhee: [00:09:55] I think the other thing is that people need to realize first weight alone is such a bad measure of health and fitness. And I see that all the time in my practice, I use it because we all use it because it's an easy, it's an easy metric 
David Syvertsen: [00:10:10] and easy metric is a metric. So it always, I always thought you should know exactly like roughly what you weigh.
Sam Rhee: [00:10:15] And I look at the health of people. The weight is really a poor index of whether someone's healthy or not healthy. And I think that initially when some people actually start CrossFit, because they're building muscle, they might actually paradoxically gain a little bit of weight, but if you look, but if they were to actually look at their figure and how they looked, which is why we take pictures at a lot before and after a lot of our recent traditional challenges that we did, that's very important because that's going to really show you not so much your weight, but.
How you look right. And how you're reshaping your body and your body fat 
David Syvertsen: [00:10:49] percentage, right? That can give you a general idea. I actually think that's probably a more important number and there's a lot of scales you can get now. And technology is pretty good with that stuff. Now, you don't have to use like those clips anymore.
You can get, $50 weight scales where it's probably within, it's probably within. Correct within 2% give or take. And I would probably, I would, if you're really trying to chase after a metric, I would chase that before I would chase my weight. You can, there's dozens more than that.
I'll have examples on social media of people that. Weighed one 30 in this picture weighed one 50 in this picture, but the one 50 you look like 
Sam Rhee: [00:11:23] thinner. 
David Syvertsen: [00:11:24] Yeah. Yeah. One 30 just looks you got nothing there. I actually think I've found this with females a lot where they gain weight coming into CrossFit and what is happening?
Oh my God. And yeah. This is the first time they've done weight training. So they're building muscle and that's a misnomer about CrossFit is that you just get disgustingly big. And I think that's become less and less of a factor in trying to quote, defend CrossFit. But. If you've never weight trained, you're going to grow muscle, like muscle will add weight to the number on the scale, but that doesn't mean you're getting fat or it doesn't mean you worse.
Sam Rhee: [00:12:03] No, you actually generally look better than 
David Syvertsen: [00:12:04] yeah. And you'll start. Yeah, too. That's probably one of the main purpose of the of a muscle is you can, it can help you burn more calories in the long run. And if you have more muscle mass on your legs, you won't tire out as quickly on certain workouts.
That's, we can go down a whole rabbit hole with that, but. That it is possible to gain weight because you've done cross it. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not. 
Sam Rhee: [00:12:25] I think the issue also is self perspective. How realistic is it that these, some of the athletes that I see, the goals that they're achieving, wanting to achieve, for example before I started CrossFit and you did something similar, you were running a lot, right?
A lot. I ran three miles a day and I was eating at a deficit and I got probably about 15 pounds. Less than I am right now, but was that a sustainable and appropriate long-term life solution, right? No, three miles a day. I could already tell if I did that another year, my knees would be shot. My ankles would be shot. My hips would be shot. I have no cartilage in my legs. These are, these are the same people, 10 years from now who get knee replacement. And where am I going to go with that? That's not sustainable. So and. Would 150 pounds be, even if I liked that look, is that really the right look right for someone like me, it's not. And I think the problem is some of these people, and it's so hard because it's self perception and it's where I need to be. Yep. That's so hard to change. 
David Syvertsen: [00:13:31] Yeah. I feel bad for people. And when I say people I'm talking to like you and I too, because. We're in the same boat.
There's a lot of pressure because of the social media age that when you are on Instagram and you're on Facebook, like fitness is just always associated with people that are shredded, and I think it's, I think one of the greatest things about cross it has turned the dial a little bit towards what can you do with your body?
I remember writing a blog about that in 2014, about fitness, health, and fitness and exercise is about what you can do, not what you can look like. And. That it's a hard pill to swallow because the market is telling you, you need to look a certain way. If you want to consider yourself fit, and that's a whole nother discussion probably for another time is like, what should your goal be when you're exercising?
Should it be a look, does that make you like vain? Should it be your weight? How come, like who said, that's what sh should be? It's your Instagram? It's you going to the beach? You want to look like that person, but what do you know about that person? Like a lot when you're chasing, after a look.
You have to consider so many different factors about genetics, training, background, diet, nutrition, like you don't know what that person eats. You just know they look good, and that's that really kinda, you can open up a box when you really, if someone, and I love it when people are really open with me as a coach about what their true goals are.
And I don't, I have no problems. So I was like, dude, I just want to look at naked. I don't like it, but I, because I think it just brings you down a lot of different into some dark places, but. It does at least there it's honest. And you can work with that. It's the person that won't admit that, that it's hard to really help them.
I think this addresses some of the societal issues too, because. We see a lot and I, this is such a stereotype, but we do see a lot in media of what an ideal body looks like, what it should look like. I know athletes here who are like Oh my gosh. I think I'm getting traps. Like these things on my neck.
They're so big here. This is this. Isn't the way I should look as a woman. And I'm like, No, they're not that big. And they actually looked just fine. Yeah. And yes, you should have some definition. Yeah, 
I think it adds I'll say this, like my, my, I think it looks beautiful on a girl when she has some muscle with some muscle in her body and I think that's.
It really does. It's attractive. 
Sam Rhee: [00:15:49] I've gotten the, yeah, but you're a CrossFitter. Yeah. So of course you, I see your pro athletes and they all look crazy. Yeah. I've seen your Katrin Davidsdottir and they're like, no, that's not my look. And I say, I understand that you may not be trying to get to that aesthetic.
David Syvertsen: [00:16:03] I tell people all the time, I was like, honestly, if you tried to look like them, you 
Sam Rhee: [00:16:06] never, you never train way too much. And those, 
David Syvertsen: [00:16:09] those girls eat four to 5,000 calories a day. 
Sam Rhee: [00:16:11] If you have some definition to your shoulders and your arms, trust me. Not just me as a CrossFitter, but everyone is going to find that.
Yeah. Yeah. 
David Syvertsen: [00:16:20] Honestly, it just shows, it shows it's an objective result of your hard work, right? That's one thing I really wish people took in. You should be proud of that because you didn't get that by sitting on the couch and watching TV, you get you were getting, you got your butt up for year after year, and you should be really proud of it.
Sam Rhee: [00:16:38] I think that's going to take a while for society to sorta shift cause there's cultural issues and societal issues, but certainly I have a daughter and there's, there'd be nothing that I'd find happier than having fit models. Yeah. As her yeah. Goal 
David Syvertsen: [00:16:58] people that she looks up 
Sam Rhee: [00:16:59] to. Yeah.
Who don't look like? I don't want to choose any particular. Yeah. 
David Syvertsen: [00:17:05] They haven't had that problem. A carbon yeah. 
Sam Rhee: [00:17:07] And I would much rather have her look like Tia, Claire Toomey. And, Yeah. I know there's some people who would probably disagree with that and that's fine.
And like I said, it's going to take a long time trending in that direction. I think so. And I think that it's just going to take some time, but I think that people do need to be realistic when they look at themselves. 
David Syvertsen: [00:17:23] And then it comes back to your topic. W I don't want anyone to think we're going off on a tangent.
This comes back to you can wait, you can lose weight with cost it, but what, tell me why. Have a reason why you want to lose weight because honestly it's probably because that's just the way you came up. Like you just thought that's what was the result of working out as I lose weight?
Let's think a little deeper than this guys. All right. Let's be a little intellectual. Let's be a little smarter than that. Okay. Your workout results go far beyond what the number on the scale says. 
Sam Rhee: [00:17:53] So there's no doubt if you want to lose weight. You're going to have to push yourself in whatever exercise you do and be consistent, maintain intensity, even for your longer stuff or your short term stuff.
Your diet is so paramount. There's nothing else you can do. That's more important than your diet. If you choose to go on a deficit diet, you're going to lose both lean body mass, as well as fat. And that's workable to an extent, but it's not. Long-term sustainable. Yep. And and you're gonna have to maybe take stock of yourself.
Listen, if look more like rebel Wilson than I'm so bad at medias, Selena Gomez. Then maybe you need to realize that you have a good aesthetic for who you are and take that. But you know what that, that gets, like you said, you go down 
David Syvertsen: [00:18:36] that dark place, man. 
Sam Rhee: [00:18:39] But I will tell you this, especially at CrossFit, you will certainly find a bunch of supportive people.
Yep. We do delve into nutrition. I've probably learned more about nutrition here then. In my entire life in med school included. And I think that we are open to saying it's not just CrossFit, it's everything, your lifestyle and it's your life. It's your lifestyle. Yeah. And that's important.
David Syvertsen: [00:19:01] Awesome. You can get every episode of Botox and burpees, wherever you listen to podcasts. Or go to botox and burpees.com. thanks for listening