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Lose Weight or Fat? Part 3

Hi,

In the last 2 posts you saw how most people in order to lose weight will go on a diet and start some kind of aerobics program.

We went into detail on how both of those ways was good at helping you lose weight.  As long as you never stop. 

But, they aren’t so good at helping your burn body fat.  In reality, the only thing that will happen if you lose weight is that you will be a smaller size of your original body shape. 

So how do you fix this?

Well, one way is to change the macronutrients in your diet.  Those are the proteins, fats and carbs. 

Just eating less food, whether it is less protein, less carbs or less fat will help you lose weight. 

But, it will do nothing to help keep your metabolism up.  And as you saw in the previous posts, eating less lowers your metabolism. 

One of the worst mistakes one can make is to reduce their calories too much. 

When you do that the body notices right away.  It does not like drastic changes.  It likes homeostasis or the “same old, same old”. 

A drastic change, like a drop in calories, will cause your body to reduce its need for calories to the level you dropped the calories.

So if you were eating 3000 calories a day and reduced it to 2000 calories a day, your body will reduce your energy needs so that it only needs 2000 calories a day. 

Now it takes some time for this to happen.  It depends upon your age, sex, stress in your life and how many times you have been on the yo-yo diet. 

If you haven’t lost as much weight as you would like and reduce your calories even more to 1500 a day, then your body will again reduce your metabolism so it only needs 1500 calories a day. 

This can continue until you die.  But, most people stop before then:-).

So what do you do?  You reduce your calories gradually and manipulate the macronutrients. 

You do this by cutting say 200-300 calories a day to start.  And you make sure you are getting food your body can use. 

That is good protein, good carbs and good fats.   Yes, you need all three. 

I think you already know that eating hot dogs and potato chips would not be considered good even if you only ate 1500 calories a day of them. 

Your body will need energy for the next part of the equation and that is your exercise program. 

Wouldn’t you like to know how to exercise less, burn more calories and keep a raised metabolism?

We will address that in part four of the lose weight or fat series.  Just know that you have to feed your body enough food and good quality food.

Thanks

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Lose Weight or Fat, Part 2

Hi,

The last post we saw that most people, in order to lose weight, stop eating as much and start some aerobics exercising.

We talked about the aerobics or low intensity exercising and saw that it was efficient at losing weight.  As long as you continue it.

Once you stop, for that session, the weight loss stops.  Once you stop exercising at all, the weight will come back quickly.

Even if you are on a reduced diet.  In fact, being on a reduced diet while doing aerobics is probably the worst way to keep weight or fat off for the rest of your life. 

Here is the problem with restricting your diet too much.   Once you reduce your calories, your body reacts. 

It reacts by first noticing that not as much food is coming in.  At first it is okay, but after a few days (time will vary depending upon the individual and how many diets they have gone on) your body says, hey I have to do something. 

I was planning on getting so many calories to function.  Now I am getting less.  I have to slow down.  So your body’s metabolism drops. 

One reason is because your body is concerned that it won’t survive.  So it slows down to match the caloric intake. 

The other reason is because your body recognizes that it doesn’t need as much energy for the smaller you. 

If you lose 30-50 pounds you are going to be smaller.  You don’t need as much energy so your body slows down. 

Now you might think that your low intensity aerobics will help keep your metabolism raised. 

Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way.  Aerobics will not help you with this and the first article in this series showed you how that worked.

The next post in the lose weight or fat series will talk more about macronutrients in your diet and how that works. 

Thanks

The Myth? of Counting Calories

Hi,

You might have noticed a trend in the diet world.  A lot of so called gurus are claiming that counting calories doesn’t matter. 

They say that micro nutrients are more important.

Are they right?

Let’s see.

The micro nutrients under consideration are protein, fats and carbs.

Some studies have shown that it takes more energy to digest protein as opposed to fats and carbs. 

The same number of calories eaten of proteins will burn more energy than the same number of calories in fats and carbs. 

That is all good and true, but it does not negate the fact that if you are eating more calories than you burn, then you will gain weight. 

Proving that protein burns more energy does not change the over all  equation of more calories eaten than burned will cause a weight gain.

The mistake these gurus make is to not really look at what eating more calories means.

If you eat more protein than you burn (even if protein burns more calories) you will gain weight.

If you eat more carbs than you burn (even if carbs burn less calories) you will still gain weight. 

You can not get around that no matter how much you try to micro manage the micro nutrients. 

So please don’t think you can overeat protein and not gain weight. 

If you are trying to lose body fat, you still need to reduce the amount of food coming in and/or increase the amount of body fat you are burning through exercise. 

Now this does not mean that you should not pay attention to your micro nutrients. 

If you want to burn more body fat then eating less carbs – especially processed carbs – is a good place to start. 

Eating more protein while reducing the carbs for example will help you burn more body fat more quickly. 

So, in my opinion, these diet gurus should not try to fool anyone with their miracle programs that depend on eating more protein or trying to fool you into thinking that all you have to do is eat more protein and cut your carbs to burn body fat.

You still have to pay attention to your overall caloric intake. 

So forget the myths about counting calories.  Pay attention to how much you are taking in and how much your are burning. 

If your waist is getting smaller then you are on the right path.  If it is getting bigger, then change paths.

More on this and other myths in the future.

Thanks

Hi,

So you’ve been on a diet for awhile, but now the holidays are coming up and there is so much good food to enjoy. 

Maybe imagining you are eating the food before you actually eat it can help you eat less.

That is what some researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found.

They did a study where  1 group imagined eating different foods and another group didn’t. 

When the food was placed in front of the two groups, the group that imagined eating the food actually ate less than 1/2 of what the other group ate.

Now this wasn’t just a simple imagination.  They really imagined eating the food.  Smelling it, touching it, tasting it, feeling it in their mouth, swallowing it. 

They imagined it all and then did it again.  In total they went through the imagination process 30 times before they had a chance to actually eat the food.

Doing this actually released dopamine in the brain.  This release signaled the brain that they were already partially satiated.  So they didn’t have to eat as much to feel full.

This just goes to show you the power of the imagination.

So how can you use this?  Do you really have to do this 30 times in order to get your dopamine released?

Well, the study didn’t go into this, but I will keep up on this and post any new information I find.

In the meantime, in order to keep your cravings at bay during the holidays, try imagining eating certain foods a few minutes before actually eating.

Really spend some time – almost like meditating – on going through the process of eating your food –  in your mind.

While the study didn’t go into this, I would bet that it would also work with drinking, whether it is alcohol or sodas. 

At the least imagining your diet should help to curb your appetite somewhat.

Thanks, 

The Twinkie Diet

Hi,

Okay, so the guy ate mostly twinkies and junk food and he lost 27 pounds in 10 weeks.  See the original story here

Is this a good thing?

Well he did lose 27 pounds in 10 weeks which is a good thing and his body fat level dropped almost 9%.

He also countered this with a daily protein shake a multivitamin and vegetables every day.

So yes, you can lose weight and body fat on a junk food diet.  As I have said many times it has to do with how many calories you take in and how many you burn.

Burn more and it doesn’t matter if you eat pure lard, you will lose weight.

But, you will not be as healthy. 

Now this experiment actually showed an improvement in some health markers.

But, 10 weeks is not long enough to determine the healthiness of any kind of diet.

It can take many years for something bad to happen to you.

It is just like piling up a bunch of newspapers in the garage.  A few papers and nothing happens.  But, keep adding to the pile and you will have a heat build up and combustion will happen. 

The same thing happens in your body.  Keep eating junk food every day and over a period of time you will have a heat build up – called inflammation – and combustion will happen.

It might be cancer, it might be a heart attack, it might be a stroke, or it could just be diabetes.   Eventually, before you are ready, your body will react.

Fortunately, you have the ability to make good nutritious choices.  By no means do you have to give up your favorite junk foods.

Just taper them off a bit and replace them with some nutrient rich foods.

Keep exercising while doing this and you will be able to live a pretty healthy life.

If, you are a fitness competitor then you will have to limit the junk food much more so than the average person. 

Either way, eating more nutrient rich foods is better for your health than the twinkie diet.

Thanks

Paid for Getting Fat

Hi,

Did you see the story about the McDonald’s manager who sued and won for gaining 65 pounds on the job?

In essence he was paid for getting fat. 

He was the manager and felt it necessary to sample the food to make sure it met standards. 

He also received free lunches every day he worked. 

So over a 12 year period he gained 65 pounds.  Is this really a surprise?

Now, I will be the first one to say that McDonald’s is not the place to go to if you are living a healthy lifestyle. 

That said, the individual still has to take responsibility for their life. 

Now this guy started working there when he was 20 and he gained the weight at a rate of just over 5 pounds a year. 

There are a couple of points to be aware of.  The first is that gaining five to 6 pounds a year is pretty common. 

Most people don’t gain 20-30 pounds a year.  They gain a little and lose a little and then gain a little more back.

Keep doing this for several years and pretty soon you are 20-30 pounds overweight. 

So if you have gained weight this year, take it off now and keep it off.  Reading this blog should have given you some understanding of how to do this. 

But, here is the thing that really gets me.  At some point this guy should have realized he was gaining weight. 

That is the time to do something about it.  He could have started losing the weight when he only had a few pounds to lose.

He could have started exercising and building some muscle instead of just gaining body fat.

But, to not do anything at all and then sue the company is not priceless.

It is absurd.

You and only you control your life.  McDonald’s does not. 

Even though this incident happened in Brazil, it is pretty typical in many countries. 

It seems that it is easy to just blame others for your problems.  Blame your boss, blame your parents, blame your spouse, blame your kids.  Blame everyone but yourself.

That is the path to total irresponsibility.  It isn’t just in health areas that this is a problem. 

But, sticking with the health issue, I repeat that it is you and only you that has to make the decision on what to eat, when to eat and how much to eat.

It is you and only you that has to make the decision on whether to exercise, how much to exercise and how often to exercise.

It is you and only you that has total control over your life.  Once you realize that you will start taking responsibility for yourself.

And your life will be much better for it. 

Don’t be like this guy and expect to get paid for getting fat.  His life is much worse because of his decisions over that 12 year period.

Now he is obese, he has tons of health issues and he is only 32 years old.  And the few thousand dollars he was rewarded in court won’t come close to the costs in his health and life.

Fortunately, he has plenty of time to change his path.

But, unless he changes his decisions, change is impossible.

Thanks for reading my rant.

Hi,

Hope you have been enjoying this series on you are what you eat.  I just saw where this will be post 101 for this blog. 

Anyhow, back to the second reason why diets are doomed to fail.

Anytime you reduce your calories your metabolism slows.  You already saw the reasons why in the series.

But, here is the thing you have to ask yourself.   If you go on any diet, will you stay on it for the rest of your life?

Whoa, you might be thinking.  I only want to lose 10-20-50-100 pounds. 

A diet is a deprivation.  You are depriving yourself of calories and energy. 

And, especially in the US, everything is wanted now.  So your diet promises you instant weight loss.  Your diet pills promise you instant fat loss.  Your fitness program promises you instant fat burning and muscle building.

Well you already know what happens when you make changes.  And when you make drastic changes your body reacts accordingly.

So you go on your diet and your body reacts.  It takes a while and you will lose some weight, but those weight losses slow down and eventually stop. 

You reach your weight loss goals, yet your metabolism hasn’t caught up yet.  Or slowed down enough to get back to homeostasis. 

This means when you reach your weight loss goal your body’s metabolism is still a little higher.  Even if you maintain the same level of calories coming in, your metabolism is still going to slow a little more which means weight gain for you.

So to maintain you need to diet some more and you already know that no matter how much you diet, the diet will fail you eventually.

And the diet pills will fail you eventually.

What about exercise?  Again I ask is this something you will be willing to do forever?

If not, then you will regain the weight.

Because exercise has the same problem as dieting.  When you exercise you raise your body’s metabolism. 

But, it won’t stay raised forever unless you do it forever.  Once you stop your metabolism slows down again. 

Are you doomed to gain weight or stay overweight forever?

Fortunately the answer is no.

You just have to learn how to lose weight the correct way.  A way that does not include going on some crazy diet.  Or that includes hours of cardio or other fat burning exercise programs. 

Here is the idea.  You have to decide what weight you want to be and make a commitment to get there and stay there for a lifetime. 

This has to be something that is easy and permanent.  Diets and crazy exercise programs are neither easy nor permanent.

The program I am developing will be something that you can easily incorporate into your lifestyle. 

It will be something so easy and natural, like brushing your teeth, that it will become a permanent part of your lifestyle.

That way you can have the body you want and keep it throughout your life.

Okay that ends this series on you are what you eat. 

And I have an announcement.  I will only be posting once or twice per week for awhile. 

I need to finish up this project and I don’t have enough time to keep up posting 4-5 times a week and working on the project. 

I also need to do a lot more with tweeter, facebook, videos and more as your comments have suggested. 

So thank you for your comments and stay tuned for more exciting developments coming your way. 

Hi,

In the last post on you are what you eat, you found out that the body does not like change.

So if you have been feeding it too much food and then go on a diet, it will react.

It reacts by reducing your metabolism.  It does not matter what kind of diet you go on. 

The grapefruit diet, the cabbage soup diet, the caveman diet, the Atkins diet, the latest celebrity diet – it doesn’t matter.

Your body will react.  And the more ridiculous the diet reduction is, the more strongly your body will react.

So reduce you calories by 1000 a day and your body will react swiftly.

Even if you use diet pills to keep your metabolism artificially high.  Eventually their effectiveness wears off and you come crashing down.

And eventually the weight loss stops. 

That is because you can only reduce your calories so much or you will die. 

Your body will reduce its metabolism to keep pace with your reduction in calories or energy coming in. 

And along the way you will feel pretty miserable.  Why?

Because you will have no energy. 

About this time you say the diet sucks and you go off of your diet. 

Well guess what you go off of your diet and start pounding the food just as your metabolism is at its lowest point. 

Guess what happens now?  You gain back all of the weight really fast.  And by the time your metabolism and your eating get back to its homeostasis levels you have gained everything back and usually added a few extra pounds.

You have just been through the yo-yo effect of dieting.

This will happen with every diet you ever go on.  This will happen whether no matter what kind of micronutrients you are eating. 

Now eating a healthy diet will be better for you than a junk food diet, but the bottom line is you can gain weight on any eating plan if you are taking in more calories than you can burn.

While it is great that science is providing us with more information, you can’t just forget about – like many new age diet and fitness gurus do – the basics.

So trying to eat more protein and fat and less carbs can not overcome the basics of calories in versus calories out. 

We’ll address the second aspect of why diets don’t work in the next post of you are what you eat.

Thanks

Hi,

In part one of you are what you eat we left off with why did the Atkins diet proponents gain weight back.

They gained weight back because they went on the diet in the first place. 

Here is the thing about dieting.  First of all any diet is pretty much a scam.

This is because no one is telling you that full truth about dieting. 

And if you are like most people you are not going to stay on a diet your whole life. 

Those two points make it almost 100% probable that you will regain all of the weight you have lost.  And in many cases you will actually gain more. 

So let’s look at these two statements.

When you diet or deprive yourself of calories you body reacts to this.  Your body will react even if you have been giving it too many calories for a very long time. 

Your body has become adjusted to a level of caloric intake.  Changing this level will cause your body to react.  This reaction will be against the change. 

So if you reduce your calories coming in which is in essence reducing the amount of energy coming in you body will react by reducing the amount of energy it expends.

It does this by slowing down your metabolism.  Why does it do this?

Because of something called homeostasis.  Your body wants to keep things sailing along smoothly.  So it likes things to stay the same.  Even if staying the same is unhealthy for you.

So a reduction in energy coming in upsets homeostasis.  Your body reduces your metabolism.  This way everything goes back to the same old way. 

It does take your body awhile to recognize this change and react to it.  So you will lose weight for awhile until your body catches us to the reduction in energy coming in. 

That is why you can lose weight pretty easily at first, but the weight loss slows down and eventually stops.

So what do you do next.  You reduce the calories even more.  And again, your body reacts and slows your metabolsim down even more.

Ever wonder why so many diet pills make you hyper.  That is because they are trying to stimulate your metabolism in an unnatural way. 

They are designed to keep your metabolsim ratcheted way up while you are on your diet.

Problem is that they only work for awhile also.  And when their effectiveness wears off you come crashing down. 

And then the weight loss stops and the weight gain restarts.

More in the next post.

Thanks

Hi,

The saying “you are what you eat” has been around a long time.  But, is it really true when we are talking about weight gain?

This brings up the question of is it what you eat or how much you eat that is more important?

I just read a post by a well known fitness guru who said that “No one, and I repeat, NO ONE is fat because they eat too much fruit”.

Well maybe that is true and maybe not.  He has fallen into the same trap that many diet and fitness gurus fall into. 

They think that if you eat healthy foods all the time you can’t get fat.  That is a nice myth. 

You get fat by how much you eat.  If you eat too much – or more calories in than you burn each day – then you will gain weight.

If all your calories come from fruit and those calories add up to more than you burn you will gain weight and could get fat.

Now you will have to eat a lot of fruit to do this.  And most people do not just eat fruit and nothing else all day. 

The same is true of vegetables.  And yes there are some overweight and even obese vegetarians. 

This used to be pretty easy to figure out.  However, as science has provided us with more information it has become easy to add this information and speculate about it without thinking.

So science has provided us with the concept of micronutrients.  Yes, everyone has heard of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. 

But, it has only been within the last ten years or so that everyone has jumped on the micronutrient bandwagon.

The perfect example is the Atkins diet.  Or more correctly the bastardization of the Atkins diet. 

Eat as much protein and fat as you want, just cut out the carbs and you will drop weight and body fat like instantly.  This was the Atkins battlecry. 

Unfortunately it wasn’t entirely true.

Yes, if you cut out carbs from your diet, you will lose weight.  And if you cut out fat from your diet you will lose weight.  And if you cut out protein from your diet you will lose weight.

Cut out anything from your diet and you will lose weight.  However, this weight loss is not sustainable. 

Even the Atkins diet advocates found this out as they too gained the weight back after a period of time. 

What to know why?  Stay tuned for the next post of you are what you eat.

Thanks