Burn Fat Faster: The Protein Strategy That Changes Everything
Optimal Protein Podcast with Vanessa Spina
Vanessa Spina
4.6 • 795 Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2026
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is fasted cardio really better for fat loss?
Or could eating protein before your workout actually improve fat burning, muscle retention, and long-term metabolic health — especially for women?
In this deep-dive masterclass recap, Vanessa breaks down the science from her interview with exercise physiologist Dr. Katie Hirsch and unpacks the research on:
- Fasted vs fed training
- Essential amino acids before HIIT
- Muscle quality vs muscle size
- Intramuscular fat and metabolic dysfunction
- Perimenopause and anabolic resistance
- Protein timing for body recomposition
This episode reframes the fat loss conversation away from "burning fat during workouts" and toward what truly matters:
Preserving muscle, improving protein turnover, and protecting metabolic capacity.
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🎙 The content in this podcast is for informational purposes only and not nutritional or medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider before making major dietary or lifestyle changes.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Optimal Protein Podcast. I'm Vanessa Spina. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, |
| 0:09.2 | Vanessa, and I am so pumped for today's episode. Today, we are doing a deep dive and recap of my |
| 0:16.4 | conversation with a brilliant researcher, Dr. Katie Hurst, someone that I had been wanting to have on |
| 0:24.0 | the podcast with us for a while. She is an exercise physiologist and researcher specializing in |
| 0:29.7 | protein metabolism, muscle quality, and female physiology. In today's episode, we really focus on how to optimize fat loss and all of the |
| 0:41.2 | research that she has done that is incredibly fascinating, including studies where they compared |
| 0:47.2 | doing pre-workout feedings of protein versus carbohydrate and the surprising results of her research that can really inform |
| 0:57.3 | how we make decisions around our training and optimizing our body recomposition and fitness. |
| 1:04.4 | So it was a really deep diving conversation into fat loss, female physiology, how we can optimize our fat loss and |
| 1:14.6 | our physiques while taking into account the latest science that she has been a huge part of. |
| 1:22.4 | I am so excited to unpack everything on the episode with you all today, and we are going to jump right in |
| 1:28.9 | after this quick break. Friends, I want to share something that I've been working on behind the |
| 1:34.7 | scenes, and I am so excited about this. Now, I've mentioned that last summer I used a structured |
| 1:41.7 | approach doing protein sparing modified fasting days, strategically implemented, |
| 1:47.3 | and I lost over 14 pounds of body fat while preserving all of my lean mass and muscle. |
| 1:53.9 | Now, this is the first time in my adult life that I tried an approach that was actually |
| 1:58.8 | incredibly effective. It wasn't extreme. It managed my hunger. |
| 2:05.3 | It managed cravings. I enjoyed all the meals that I was eating while I was doing it. It felt effortless. |
| 2:12.2 | So the point that I almost forgot that I was even on a diet at one point. I didn't want another unsustainable crash diet. |
| 2:20.5 | I wanted something that would help me lose just only body fat, reduce my fat mass, protect all my |
| 2:28.0 | muscle. So I decided to build something that I wish had existed for me. And it's called |
| 2:34.1 | the Protein Sparing Modified Fast for me. And it's called the Protein Sparing Modified |
... |
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