Fat Loss

Q: Why do people always tell me I’m going to “gain it all back” when I’m on a diet?

Whenever someone mentions that they’re on a diet of any sort, there’s always one person who chimes in with “You’re just going to gain it all back when you stop your diet!” Do these claims actually hold any weight?

Why They’re Right

If you look for scholarly articles about diet adherence you get 181,000 results. These articles will tell you everything from people who go on Atkins to people who make small, noticeable changes to their diet and exercise. In a lot of these studies people failed to adhere to their diets for a long period of time, or they reached their goal weight and then packed on more weight than they had before.

So what gives?

There is no one right diet that fits everyone. If you’re embarking on a new diet and you pick a carb free one, yet you’re the type of person who is cranky and unmotivated without carbohydrates, you’re bound to fail. Likewise, people who enjoy high protein meals aren’t going to do well on a diet low in protein.Picking a style of eating that fits you is often the most important factor.

Second is that certain diets don’t really teach people how to pick what they eat. They give them a meal plan they must adhere to, but do little to educate the dieters on WHY they’re picking certain foods over others. These diets may be easy to adhere to if you never encounter social situations or eating outside of your house…but what happens when you go out to dinner with friends? Without properly educating people about HOW to pick ideal meals these people rarely LEARN anything, other than how to follow diets presented in a book.

Diets also often require sweeping changes for people. One day they’re eating whatever they want, then suddenly Monday (or the first of the month/year) comes around and they’ve eliminated soda, chocolate, bread, decided to exercise 5x a week and always have a clean house. These changes can get overwhelming very fast and can lead to feeling deprived or resentful.

Another huge issue with dieting involves the feelings of deprivation. How many times have you decided to go on a diet, so the night before you go to a buffet or order a giant pizza all to yourself. Some people describe this as a “last supper” type of situation where you’ll never, ever get to eat pizza ever again so you need to eat as much of it NOW. From then on pizza is a “bad” food. Creating this dichotomy leads to deprivation and resentment.

So, using these facts, it’s easy to see why someone would fail to adhere to a diet and then gain all their weight back afterwards. Without learning how to deal with food and exercise in a long-term fashion people often return to their old habits, which is why they were unhealthy in the first place.

Why They’re Wrong

The bulk of weight loss involves a simple calories in vs. calories out fashion. To lose weight, you must be in an energy deficit. To maintain weight, you break even. To gain, you have an energy surplus. So if you’ve met your weight loss goals you can increase the amount of food you eat as long as you’re at maintenance for your weight. People who follow this idea will not gain the weight back.

Additionally, the word “diet” is often vilified. A “diet” is just what you eat. When people learn that I eat high protein and carb-cycle, they immediately ask me if I’m on the Atkins diet. Just because I’m on a diet of high protein high fat foods, doesn’t mean I’m necessarily on a certain diet. Someone may have started their dieting journey with the Atkins diet, found that it worked fabulous for them and continued to eat high protein, high fat and low carb. Since this is a type of diet that is easy for them to maintain longterm they will stick with this type of eating and not gain their weight back.

Other diets teach people to make better food choices, such as Weight Watchers. These diets that focus on making healthier choices both inside and outside of the home teach long term habits. They also don’t involve “exclusion diets,” where the dieters feel like they’ll never eat pizza ever again. By encouraging people to plan their meals or even review their meals in terms of health, they’re learning where they picked up the extra pounds. It teaches people to get the dressing on the side of their salad, or to substitute fried chicken for grilled. These are long term habits.

What a lot of people don’t consider is their support system. Those who go onto a diet with friends or family members for support have long term success because they have personal cheerleaders. If their friends know they’re trying to lose weight and are actively trying to do the same they’re less likely to suggest diet sabotaging behaviors (like getting drunk food or excess study snacks).

If a diet is rewarding it’s more likely to be adhered to. People who see results, who are encouraged by friends and family, and who don’t feel deprived will begin to incorporate these habits into their life long term. They realize that health and weight loss are marathons, not sprints, and make the decision themselves to adhere to diets or changes in their eating patterns.

Weight Loss/Diets/Etc Are All About Your Mentality

Before you embark on any weight loss journey (or even a journey to a healthier state of mind), make sure you ask yourself some questions.

  1. Is this diet going to make me feel deprived?
  2. Can I afford (financially and mentally) to make these changes?
  3. Is this something my friends will support? If not, are my friends really friends if they are sabotaging me?
  4. Do I have a support system when I’m feeling down?
  5. Is this something I can maintain long term?
  6. Do the benefits outweigh the downsides?

Educating yourself on what you’re eating, making small changes here and there, and surrounding yourself with supportive people are the most important aspects of a healthy life and a long term weight loss (and maintenance!) plan.

October 28, 2012 Fat Loss, Myths, Nutrition Read more >

Is a calorie really just a calorie?

I made a video about this a few months ago, but I wanted to make a post about it too. There are two schools of thought: that it doesn’t matter WHAT you eat, it’s HOW MUCH you eat. Then, there’s the WHAT you eat is more important than HOW MUCH you eat. It’s “a calorie is just a calorie” vs. “some calories are better than other calories.”

Who’s right? Who’s wrong?

Is a calorie just a calorie?

There are studies that look at diets long term that support this idea. Previously, studies had followed diets for 6 months and reported that diets like the Mediterranean diet were superior for weight loss than other diets. However, if you go about 2 years out the results are the same. That’s what we care about, right? Long term weight loss?

These studies showed  that it didn’t matter if you ate high fat low fat all protein no protein etc. people on a reduced calorie diet (that is, eating less calories than their maintenance) lost an average of the same amount of weight across the board. Meaning: it doesn’t matter what you were eating, so long as you weren’t eating a lot of it.

So I can cram Snickers down my throat and be chill?

Here’s where it gets tricky. Yes, you can eat absolute crap and lose weight.There was a professor that ate a low-calorie diet of Twinkies, Hohos, etc. and lost 27 pounds. His health parameters were all within normal limits at the end of the study too. This seems like a great case for eating a ton of junk food all the time, right? So these calorie is a calorie people are advocating for me to eat whatever I want?

You’re ignoring something important: your  health. Spoiler alert: weight loss doesn’t always equal health. There are overweight people who are healthy and thin people who are unhealthy. How does it FEEL to eat 600 calories of pure sugar? How do you feel after you eat an entire slice of cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory? Sometimes you feel great, other times you want to vomit.

Certain foods make people sick. Dairy makes some people bloated, simple carbs give others head aches, etc. Sure, you can eat these foods (as long as you stay under your calorie limit) and lose weight, but you don’t always feel great. Health is an important factor that exists INDEPENDENT of weight loss.

It’s a slippery slope

Finding the balance between eating “good” food and eating a lot of food can be tricky. To some, cutting out the occasional treat seems like torture. To others, eating “healthy” food is expensive and time consuming. As long as you’re creating a caloric deficit you will lose weight – period. It’s how that food makes you feel (mentally and physically) that should turn your focus toward one type of food versus another.

What about people on competition diets?

These people should not be considered for this discussion. Why? They are going on a short term diet to get to a level of leanness that isn’t healthy (or natural) long term. For the sake of this discussion I’m leaving out the slightly higher thermic effect of protein, the water retention property of carbs, etc. because for long term weight loss they’re not an important issue.

October 4, 2012 Fat Loss Read more >

Is it really 80% diet and 20% exercise? Or is it 70/30?

We hear it all the time – 20% exercise, 80% diet. Or, wait…is it 30% exercise and 70% diet? Aren’t abs made in the kitchen, but you won’t get definition without some heavy liftin’?

It’s not that these sayings are untrue so much as they’re misleading. No worries, I’m here to clear this up for you.

There is no mathematical way to break down whether exercise or diet is more important for your goals. If you want to run a marathon, changing your diet isn’t going to help you with endurance. Exercise, specifically running, will. This goes the same for any goal – gaining muscle isn’t achieved by just increasing protein consumption, it’s gained by exercise. Sure, the two go hand in hand, but is it really as simple as an 80/20 or 70/30 ratio?

So what are these numbers trying to tell us? If you’re falling short on your goals – fitness or weight loss – you need to look at your diet. If you don’t appropriately fuel your body you’re not going to get anything out of it. Additionally, if you’re trying to lose weight, falling into the “exercise your pizza away” trap will lead to a vicious cycle. Exercise should never be a compensatory tool for any meal you just ate.

The truth of the matter is that diet is very important, and much easier to tailor than exercise for weight loss. If you want to lose weight, you must create a caloric deficit (you can read about this here). Creating a calorific deficit by switching out high calorie foods with low nutrient density for low calorie foods with high nutrient density (see: trading pizza for chicken breast) is much easier and takes all of 1 minute. If you wanted to burn those calories off, you’re committing yourself to miles of running or hours at the gym. It’s easier to rein in your diet and make small changes here and there than to spend surplus time at the gym to “make up” for a bad diet.

Additionally, people tend to underestimate what they eat and overestimate what they burn. The science behind burning calories is not exact. The science behind the caloric content of your food an estimate. Watching your portions is easier, and more effective, then plugging away on the treadmill for 4 hours every morning.

Diet is important because your body requires fuel to function. It also takes less time to swap out high calorie for low calorie than exercising “off” excess calories.

Exercise is important because without challenging your body, you’ll never see results. Lifting weights, running, swimming, etc. is how you increase muscle mass, strength, endurance or cardiovascular healthy. Diet alone cannot do that.

It’s not x% vs. x% – it’s a good balance between fueling your body and making it work hard.

August 15, 2012 Exercise, Fat Loss, Myths Read more >

People tend to overestimate the amount of calories they burn

People tend to overestimate the amount of calories they burn. Period.

Ever been to a spin/zumba/fitness class and overheard this: “I just burned 600 calories on the elliptical and now I’m going to burn another 600 in this class!” I have. These same people in my life tend to complain about their inability to lose weight, barely break a sweat during these exercises and/or become frustrated that despite their hours at the gym nothing is budging. I was one of these girls once. I would hop on the elliptical and plug away for an hour then subtract 600 calories from my daily intake, and eat that 600 calories back.

Problem? Machines lie. Yep. I did this exercise above wearing a heart rate monitor and I clocked 21 calories. 21! That’s a far cry from 100 calories. This lies the same way that an elliptical says that the girl reading Cosmo without breaking a sweat burns the same amount of calories as the girl going HAM on the machine next to her. There has to be a conspiracy here.

These machines do not know how hard these exercises are for you. They’re also automatically set for a 150 pound female. They also can’t judge your heart rate. They can’t tell that you’re a marathon runner and you’re cross training on the elliptical, or that you’ve never so much as run a mile in your entire life. Without knowing your heart rate these machines are, at best, a guestimate.

This is a very common theme. It may not seem like a big deal to overestimate how many calories you burn going to a spin class or just running around the block, but over time it can be. Take me for example: I burn about 342 calories during my spin class, according to my HRM. I’ve heard an instructor claim, “How was that for a 600 calorie burn!” after a class. What? First of all, there is no way everyone was at the same level of fitness. Second of all, no. And I know for a fact that some people take these words as law and go home and subtract 600 calories from their intake for the day then eat it back. That’s almost 300 calories overestimating. 300 calories 3 times a week = 900 calories a week. That’s detrimental to weight loss and maintenance.

Machines, websites and people always will overestimate how many calories they burn. Invest in a heart rate monitor or pay attention to how you feel when you exercise if you’re tracking calories. If you’re not sweating during cardio, if your heart rate is not up, chances are you’re not working as hard as the machine thinks you are.

July 4, 2012 Exercise, Fat Loss, , Read more >

What is lean body mass?

Lean body mass is the total weight of your organs, muscles and bones – essentially the weight of everything in your body MINUS fat.

How do you figure out lean body mass?

Simple. Body weight – (body weight x fat %). If you know your body fat percentage then you can subtract the amount of fat you have off of your body weight and figure out how much lean body mass you have.

Example: I am 134 pounds and have 22% body fat. 134 – (134 x .22) = 104.6 or so. I have 104.6 pounds of lean body mass.

Why is this important?

There are a lot of reasons that lean body mass is tracked. First of all, if you’re trying to build muscle you want to make sure that your weight gain is due to an increase in muscle and not fat. Vice versa, if you’re trying to lose fat you can use it to ensure that you’re losing fat and not muscle.

You’ve also heard the adage that muscle burns more calories than fat. Recently science has proven that a pound of muscle burns 6 calories a day vs. fat burning 2 calories per day. Knowing your lean body mass and tracking it can be beneficial to understanding the metabolic needs of your body.

So is this my ideal weight?

Nope. If your lean body mass was your ideal weight, you’d *theoretically* be aiming for 0% body fat. 0% body fat is an unlivable condition. Lean body mass is simply another indicator of weight, much like body fat percentage, weight, measurements, etc.

July 4, 2012 Fat Loss, Read more >