Archive for May, 2008

Diets DO work, dieting down for life…doesn’t (Part 1)


30 May

Seriously guys, those new Weight Watchers commercials are brilliant, aren’t they?

I mean from a marketing perspective anyway. That soothing voice, the talk of having to read a long book, the women reading her short little weight watchers pamphlet with her 500 calories Starbucks muffin and 300 calories latte.

Brilliance.

The claim is that “Diets don’t work, Weight Watchers Does.”

The claim is to “Stop Dieting and Start Living.”

First off, the word Diet…

diet
1. food and drink considered in terms of its qualities, composition, and its effects on health: Milk is a wholesome article of diet.
2. a particular selection of food, esp. as designed or prescribed to improve a person’s physical condition or to prevent or treat a disease: a diet low in sugar.
3. such a selection or a limitation on the amount a person eats for reducing weight: No pie for me, I’m on a diet.
4. the foods eaten, as by a particular person or group: The native diet consists of fish and fruit.
5. food or feed habitually eaten or provided: The rabbits were fed a diet of carrots and lettuce.
6. anything that is habitually provided or partaken of: Television has given us a steady diet of game shows and soap operas.
verb (used with object)
7. to regulate the food of, esp. in order to improve the physical condition.
8. to feed.
verb (used without object)
9. to select or limit the food one eats to improve one’s physical condition or to lose weight: I’ve dieted all month and lost only one pound.
10. to eat or feed according to the requirements of a diet.
adjective
11. suitable for consumption with a weight-reduction diet; dietetic: diet soft drinks.

Well that is a mouth-full isn’t it. The first thing to note is that no matter how Weight Watchers wants to put it, their program is a diet, plain and simple. I hate to be so literal but manipulating people with a catch phrase brings out those aggravations of small details.

Still, let’s ignore the fact that no matter WHAT you eat you are on a diet (are you having the burger and fries diet?) and look at the real statement of “Stop Dieting, Start Living.”

Flaw in this Statement #1-All Weight Loss Programs Lead To The Same Destination, Even Weight Watchers.

All programs that promote weight loss need to achieve a deficit, period. It doesn’t matter what method they choose to achieve it, their method may or may not work for you, but all programs have to lead to a deficit because that is the only way to lose fat. That isn’t opinion, that is science.

Flaw in this Statement#2-That Weight Loss Should Be Easy.

Weight Loss is not easy and the more “easy” you try and make it for your life the longer you are going to be doing it. The less you feel like wanting to drill a hole into your thighs and Lipo out that fat yourself, the less you are likely to lose fat at all because for MOST people this process feels horrible, as it should be.

Questions though?

Would you rather have something suck for a short period of time in your life OR would you rather spend years of something sucking the life out of you?

If you really want to stop dieting and start living you have to get it done. What’s the best way to do that? CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE SOURCE

My Most Important Blog Post Ever!


29 May

No really it is.

All of you who have purchased either of my books will be getting an email with the links to not only re-edited versions but an added bonus called “The Maintenance Manual.” This manual is a really cool add-on that will now be coming with both of the books. There will also be some more stuff coming in the future as well.

This is the quick update edit because there were some things that are really important and needed to be changed immediately that went beyond little ”grammar” issues.

-In the OPT for Fat Loss-One of the carb ratios stats was off.

-In the Metarepair-In the increase section the carb stat is off.

Those are the two most important things to note in terms of changes and why you should look out for the downloads. The rest are small tweaks and obvious mistakes in spelling or grammar that I was made aware of. If you do not receive an email in 48 hours from now PLEASE send me an email, and I will personally attach the files to you . It will take about that long because I have to activate each one personally.

It’s been a month now since the release of the books, and I just want to thank you so much for all that you have shared with me and the kind words you have sent. I promise to take care of you, the readers, and never lose site of that. I am truly blessed and blown away.

Thank you.

Feature: Exploding Fat Loss Myths by Jamie Hale


28 May

I have talked with Jamie Hale in the past with a great interview that you can find here, but first a bit of an introduction for those who are new to the name.

Jamie Hale is one smart guy, sometimes he will say something and I think “man, when am I going to be able to think like that?” He recently gave me an article called “Exploding Fat Loss Myths” in which Jamie hits on some various fat loss topics. Well, you know me and how I love my fat loss, so what we are going to do is focus on one myth at a time and discuss some of the genius or, for some, downright decipher that is Hale. This might be a bit “heavy” for some, but I am going to lay it out in the following discussion. It should be fun!

(If you get lost just hang on till the end. It will all be explained.)

Exploding Fat Loss Myth #1

Jamie Hale-Claim: To remove body fat you need to use it as fuel. The muscle fibers that are fueled by fat (’slow twitch’ fibers) are the ones that produce easy movements.

Jamie Hale-Status: You don’t have to learn how to use fuel. Are you aware that you’re burning fuel 24 hours per day? When you’re sitting doing absolutely nothing you are burning fuel. Many tissues can use free fatty acids for fuel, not just slow twitch muscle fibers. Losing body fat relies on way more than just the activity of the slow twitch muscle fibers (how about cal deficit).

Using slow twitch muscle fibers nervous stimulation is required (CNS requires cals although not fat calories). High-intensity exercise often results in a lower RQ (indicating higher proportion of fat) than a low intensity exercise post-workout. Below is a brief description of what occurs during mobilization of stored fat and oxidation of fatty acids via an excerpt from Fat Burning How it Works by Jamie Hale. I also added a few additional comments to make the information more precise.

- Bodies have two major stores of fat that provide energy. Those are 1) adipose tissue 2) intramuscular triglyceride (IMTG).

- Adipose tissue stores fat in the form of triglyceride (triacylglycerols). TG is composed of a glycerol backbone with three FFA attached to it.

- IMTG are droplets of fat stored within the muscle fiber.

- IMTG are contained within the muscle and can be used directly, FFA from adipose tissue must be carried through the bloodstream to the muscles to be used for energy.

- Fats are broken down to fatty acids and glycerol. Glycerol enters the glycolytic/glucogenic pathway via glyceraldehyde 3 phosphate (can be used to from TAG in liver as well). The free fatty acids move through the cell membrane of adipocyte, and bind to albumin in plasma. They are then transported to tissue where they enter cells. Keep in mind regardless of FFA blood levels the brain (although the brain can use ketone bodies) and erythocytes cannot use free fatty acids for energy. Breakdown of TG is initiated by HSL (hormone sensitive lipase), which is primarily influenced by insulin, and the catecholamines. HSL removes a fatty acid from carbon 1 and or 3 of TAG. Additional lipases including Diacyclglycerol and Monoacylglycerol remove the remaining fatty acids (Harvey & Champe 2005).

Adrenaline and nor adrenaline bind to beta-adrenergic receptors in fat cells stimulating HSL causing FFA release

FFA is burned in the mitochondria to produce ATP and acetyl-CoA

Okay don’t freak out! He does this; it’s part of his charm.

What is the above explaining, what is it saying?

First the claim…

The claim says that it’s best to burn fat by usage of slow twitch muscle fibers. So the best way to understand why this is said is to look at the difference in muscle fibers.

Muscle fiber types are in two main types: slow twitch (Type I) and fast twitch (Type II). Fast twitch fibers can be further separated into Type II (a) and Type II(b). Each body is set up with certain amount of each of these fibers.

 

Each kind of muscle fiber has a preferred fuel system. Short-twitch fibers are more oxygen-based and endurance-driven. The lower level of intensity, the more you are using your slow-twitch muscle fibers. Slow-twitch provides more energy per unit of fuel and allows the use of multiple types of fuel (fats, lactate,glucose). Mostly though, free fatty acids are the energy source for slow-twitch muscle fibers.

In the fast-twitch fibers the reverse is true with little to no oxygen and glycogen (stored carbohydrates) being the main source of fuel.

So in short, walking uses fat as fuel, fast running uses more glycogen (stored carbs) as fuel. Makes sense?

Now the claim is since this is the case, doesn’t this mean that we should only worry about training in a slow-twitch zone if fat loss is the goal?

This is the common myth that Jamie is, very technically, debunking. And let’s be clear, this is science, this isn’t Jamie’s opinion. He has explained it in the technically scientific way, and I am just translating the technical.

Moving on…

Question? If you are in a deficit and have nothing but stores to go to period, wouldn’t almost any training you do be a fat burning zone? If you said “yes,” you would be right. A deficit is the ultimate decider or fuel burning fate, or more so quantity of that fuel. Ideally, fast- and slow-twitch muscle work off of a preferred fuel source but, in the end, the body is going to take what it needs from where it can get it.

Doesn’t this by the way bring up a great scientific point of why it’s pretty dumb to continuously do high interval training on very low carb diets? Just wanted to throw that out there.

 

The last part of Jamie’s Input is simply him explaining how stored fat gets from point storage to point burn. If you want to look up the long words go right ahead, but I can make it really simple for you.

-When you stop using what is running through your system in food just eaten, when you have to go into storage, this process begins.

-Depending on what you are doing and how aggressive it is what gets “first dibs” as far as fuel usage goes.

-Glycogen (stored carbs) will deplete much faster than Fat (stored fat).

-At some point if training long enough or in enough of a deficit you will be burning into stored fat. The funny thing is, with no stored glycogen going on your intensity is going to be pretty low anyway. So keep that in mind.

-In the end it doesn’t matter what kind of training you are doing when it comes to fat loss, you have to hit negative to get to the fat. It doesn’t matter if that negative is in sleep or while walking your dog, the process of utilizing fuel from stored fat has to happen to use fat and it doesn’t require any type of muscle usage or zone to burn it if you’re in deficit.

To find out more information and to pick up the latest book by Coach Hale go here.

If you need someone to help you explain all this craziness and take out the bull swing by here! I think they’ll look good together.

 

 

 

 

Food, scale weight, and “clean” eating


26 May

Question: I have increased my calories and am going up in weight, should I stop? How much weight is too much, when do you know? Please help, I am freaking out here!

Answer: I am going to let you and the readers in on a little secret. FOOD has weight. Now, I know, this is crazy talk. Food doesn’t only have weight itself, it attracts more weight to it. If you increase your food intake by just 500 calories from your previous level and you are doing so with veggies, protein, and general healthy heavy volume food choices, you are going to REALLY feel the effects of this. Sometimes going volume-crazy isn’t the best option if you’re scale-neurotic. If you are, you need to realize this problem, understand it, and move on from it.

Water intake, gives you weight.

Food intake, gives you weight.

Carbs draw water.

Sodium makes you retain more of it.

You eat more, you weigh more.

The Joy and Sorrow of Deficit Weight Re-Gain

At any given moment you are carrying a good amount of expendable weight. When you go into a deficit most of that weight goes away. You lose water, food volume, and glycogen. It does not matter if you are low carbing or not, these things happen. If you low carb/low starch it you will lose even more water and more glycogen.

What happens when the diet is done?

IT ALL COMES BACK, AS IT SHOULD.

This is where you, the dieter, get stuff wrong and consequently freak out.

You can’t take actual weight and not realize it isn’t fat. You also don’t like the soft pudge look you have back to your body.

Fix?

There are a few fixes.

1-Check yo head.

You may have issues with body image and this is a head thing. You may need to learn to understand you can only stay so lean before “lean” become anorexic.

2-Never eat carbs again.

We know how I feel about that option…

3-Don’t do gimmick diets AND lose enough fat to like yourself bloated.

This is really the most logical and sane option.

Most, because they do gimmick diets, don’t realize that they didn’t lose as much fat as they thought they did and are just living a life of water regain avoidance.

WRA-Water Regain Avoidance. It’s an epidemic sweeping the diet nation!

I still get amazed at the fact that someone eats some bread and gains back 4 pounds and goes “See, I told you those carbs make you fat”. Wow, that is amazing to know that low carbers define the laws of energy.

You don’t, sorry. You lost water and are keeping it off, end of story.

Guess what is the beauty of my programs and the information laid out in The Fat Loss Troubleshoot? Little to no mysterious weight loss, therefore little to no weight regain. As long as you eat for the energy you are expending, you will never re-gain the weight. Period.

Still what is the weight you lose and the weight you regain?

Any diet, no matter how high in carbs, will rob you of some water, food volume, and glycogen, if a deficit is hit. At any given time during a deficit program you can be off of your actual weight in the negative by 3 to 10 pounds (woman/man, some gender difference usually). So whatever you lose quickly in that first week, don’t count most of that, or count on that coming back. It’s the weight you lose the weeks following that you should jump up and down for joy for, no matter what program you are doing.

THAT is the real weight, the 14th day weight.

My end and longwinded answer to the question is…

If you are working on upping your calories again after never doing that for a while, you will gain SOME physical weight due to sheer volume and weight of carbs, water, and food. You HAVE to be logical about this, if you can’t, then the next book should be one on how to trust yourself, it IS that important.

If you can try to think back to your intial first loss of big weight in the beginning (for some of you that may be awhile) this is what you will gain back. Usually for women it is 2 to 4 pounds and for men 3 to 6. The more lean body mass you have though, the more this varies. This is usually the case for me.

Basically, if you stay below 5 pounds for a female or 8 pounds for a male you should be fine. Anything above that, if it is fast then give it a week to see if it calms back down, and it usually does. If not, then you honestly need the food anyway.

For the record, when TRACKING EVERYTHING PROPERLY, I have never seen any problems of landing re-feed numbers almost on the dot of where I thought they should be. So if something is off you should be checking that you are watching all areas first before getting too scared.

Healthy Food? Definition of the Week.


21 May

Healthy

healthy – adjective, healthier, healthiest.

1. possessing or enjoying good health or a sound and vigorous mentality: a healthy body; a healthy mind.
2. pertaining to or characteristic of good health, or a sound and vigorous mind: a healthy appearance; healthy attitudes.
3. conducive to good health; healthful: healthy recreations.
4. prosperous or sound: a healthy business.
5. Informal. fairly large: I bought a healthy number of books.

So what in reality constitutes healthy food?

I think our best focus here would be definition option #3: “conducive to good health.”: Good eating habits are conducive to good health. That is what dictionary.com says anyways, but who decides what is healthy and what is not? What does an item of food have to have in order to be deemed a “healthy food?”

It would seem by the current standards it’s a bit objective. You could come up with a food rating system based on what is conducive to good health based upon each food item. Since our bodies are made up of things that need vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates it seems like making a list of foods that are healthy isn’t really that much of a challenge.

The reverse, “unhealthy,” would mean a detriment to good health. : Bad eating habits are detrimental to good health.

What goes into determining when a food is detrimental to your health? What really are unhealthy foods?

Common sense would tell us that unhealthy foods are foods that provide little to no nutrients, vitamins, or minerals.

Sugar Free Jello Pudding
Low Carb ice cream
100 calories snack packs

Obviously, you can have a little of this stuff here and there but if your entire day’s meals were made up of this stuff you might not feel so well after a while. There is no real food there. A loaf of whole grain bread though is full of…wait, that has nutrients and all those good things.

Well a hearty granola and organic cereal full of all those vitamins and minerals is…wait that isn’t bad for you either?

A hamburger! There you go a lean ground beef hamburger on a whole grain sesame seed bun is….well full of protein, grains, iron…!

Potatoes
Carrots
Beans
Oats

Wait….!

How come all these foods are starting to get blacklisted? How come all these foods are in a category that is detrimental for your health?

Is it possible that what is detrimental to your health is the continuing misunderstanding of the difference between what is healthy QUANTITY and what is excessive QUANTITY?

Is it possible that the government and our society of cutting corners in all aspect of life movement and activity is the problem?

It isn’t carbohydrates, it never has been. It is society’s continuous movements towards laziness and technology. The only fix is in education in the aspect of energy need and usage for one’s body.

Instead of trying to worry about remaking a food pyramid and giving a call to carbophobic arms, we need to come up with a solution to save our society from evolving into a couch cushion.

News: Over the hedge cartoon has secret to fat loss


20 May

Hidden inside of this video is more truth, more targeted information, and a more in-depth look at your problems with fat loss then perhaps ever painted before.

[wp_youtube]BHrKubdEYbM[/wp_youtube]

Enjoy.

The Fat Loss Troubleshooter – Leigh Peele

Common Sense Meets Advanced Knowledge