JohnBarban.com

The Claim: Certain foods cause you to burn more calories digesting them than others

Answer: FACT

Protein actually has a slightly higher thermic effect than carbs or fat. In other words it takes a bit more energy to digest and metabolize protein. But this effect is minimal and will never help you actually lose body fat.

The thermic effect of protein might add up to at most 10% of the food eaten. In other words, it would be eating 1000 calories in order to burn 100. This is a pointless road to travel if your goal is fat loss.

Just eat less total calories to burn fat, and don’t bother concerning yourself with the composition of those calories.

John

The health/fitness and diet industry is based almost completely on factoids and half truths. Today I’m issuing you a test to see if you can tell fact from fiction. But first we have to define what a ‘factoid’ is.

A factoid is a questionable or spurious—unverified, incorrect, or fabricated—statement formed and asserted as a fact, but with no veracity. The word appears in the Oxford English Dictionary as “something which becomes accepted as fact, although it may not be true.” However, the word can sometimes mean, instead, an insignificant but true piece of information. (wikipedia)

Most of the claims you hear or read about in the health/fitness/diet industry are simply factoids.

In many cases they started with a misinterpretation of a scientific theory or fact and quickly turn into something completely untrue and in some cases the opposite of what the science tells us.

Finding out if a claim is a fact or a factoid takes time and effort to research where it came from and how it became popular.

Many claims in the health and fitness industry are difficult to prove in your daily life (if you gain 1 pound this week, was it muscle or fat?!)…so factoids can persist and many people get taken to the cleaners spending money on products based solely on factoids.

So here is the challenge. I want you to guess which of the following claims are facts or factoids…(re-read the definition of factoid above if you have to while you’re doing this exercise)

1. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and kickstarts your metabolism. If you skip breakfast you’ll overeat at the end of the day and you won’t perform as well at work/school.

2. Eating late at night causes you to gain fat

3. Your metabolic rate is determined by your fat free mass (all the parts of your body that aren’t fat)

4. Adding an extra pound of muscle to your body causes you to burn about 50 more calories per day

5. High Intensity Interval Training causes you to burn more calories than steady state cardio (given the same amount of work)

6. Cardio on an empty stomach in the morning causes you to burn more fat than glycogen

7. Low insulin levels are correlated with a shift to a high percentage of fat burning

8.  Working out your abs will give you a flat stomach

9.  Certain foods cause you to burn more calories digesting them than others

10. The only scientifically repeatable and proven way to lose body fat is to eat less calories than you burn

Put your answers in the comment section. If you think it’s a fact just put “F” and if you think it’s a factoid put “FT”

I’ll be taking up the answers with 10 video posts throughout the rest of this week.

And let the game begin.

John

On yesterdays post James mentioned that he might want to go to college to study nutrition because he enjoys learning about it.

No need to go back to school to learn how to lose weight

The important thing James said was that he “enjoys learning about it”. This is probably the only reason to ever study nutrition.

As of 2010 north american (and most industrialized countries) are experiencing the highest rates of overweight and obesity in recorded history…and yet we’ve never ‘known’ more about nutrition and metabolism than we currently do. In other words researching and learning more about nutrition isn’t doing us any good at all with our ability to lose weight. If anything an overall increase in knowledge about nutrition can only be correlated to weight GAIN.

On the other hand studying nutrition isn’t going to help you lose weight if that is your goal. I’ve had many professors in nutrition who were overweight. Knowing about biology and food doesn’t make it any easier to apply even the most basic concept of calories in vs out. In fact a degree in nutrition might actually confuse you more than anything.

Weight loss is just a matter of calories and some degree of self discipline, planning and personal responsibility…none of this is taught in a nutrition degree.

Just to be  clear, here is a list of all the things you DON’T need to know about to successfully lose weight:

You don’t need to know:

what insulin is or what it does

anything about blood glucose

what the glycemic index is or the “gi’ of any food

what a carbohydrate is

what a protein is

what fat is

what paleolithic people ate

what your blood type is

the difference between vegetarian and vegan

where the egg whites are in the grocery store

the ratio of fat/carbs/protein in any food

anything at all about your ‘metabolism’

any superfoods you’ve might have heard of

what anyone else eats

…and I’m sure there are dozens of other useless pieces of information that just get in the way of your weight loss success…

As of 2010 north american (and most industrialized countries) are experiencing the highest rates of overweight and obesity in recorded history…and yet we’ve never ‘known’ more about nutrition and metabolism than we currently do. In other words researching and learning more about nutrition isn’t doing us any good at all with our desire to lose weight. If anything an overall increase in knowledge about nutrition can only be correlated to weight GAIN.

All you need to know is how many calories you’re eating and how it makes you look. If you’re not losing weight then you need to eat less total calories…that’s it.

If your stalled in your weight loss progress I suggest you unsubscribe from any email newsletter lists that preach about the importance anything in the above list.

Get a handle on your total calories and you’ll be on your way.

John

Food is one thing all people have in common…let me re-phrase that…EATING food is one thing we all have in common…and the similarities seem to end right there.

What Are You Eating Over There?

It’s very hard to find two people who eat exactly the same diet. These are all the factors that make up your diet:

1. # of Meal per day (meals, snacks…feedings whatever)

2. Beverages

3. Alcohol or not

4. Cooking style and habits

5. Food selection (limitless combinations of food)

6. Time of each feeding

7. Location (country, city, region)

8. Social events

9. The company you choose to eat with

10. How Much Food You Eat

As you can see there are many factors that go into your daily eating pattern and it’s impossible for a nutrition ‘expert’ to tell you how to structure all of this.

One of the major shortcomings in most popular diets is a set of unrealistic rules that usually ask you to control all of these variables (and probably more that I haven’t listed)

It is simply impossible for most people to change all of these things, and you shouldn’t have to. It is entirely possible for you to lose weight and reach your body shaping goals without radically changing this entire list, except for item #10.

In fact, #10 is the only one you’ll ever have to pay attention to for weight loss. And for muscle building you don’t have to pay attention to any of them.

This is why I find it odd that people are so curious as to what other people are eating. I’ve had many people ask me what I eat. And the answer is pretty boring. There just isn’t any magic to food…it’s just food. It tastes great, it’s great to share with friends and family at social events…but after that, there isn’t much it can ‘do’ for you.

Just remember it’s not what everyone else is eating that matters, it only matters what you are eating and if you’re happy with it.

In the spirit of the title of this post I will throw it out there….”What are you eating?” Please answer in the comment section, and be honest.

I’ll start:

Last night I had 12 chicken wings with half bbq/half suicide sauce, after that a friend of mine brought over some home made pizza (awesome) and I had a few slices of that (mini slices)…I had a hot chocolate and italian wedding soup as well (for lunch)…this morning I’ve had a coffee with milk and sugar and 4 sprinkled timebits (so effin’ good)

John

I was standing in line at the grocery store the other day scanning the magazines at the check out counter and I kept seeing headlines with the words ‘nutrition rules’ or ‘rules of nutrition’.

Follow the Rules or Else!

This is disturbing because people tend to believe things that are written in magazines (I have no idea why)…and when something is presented as a ‘rule’ some people will blindly believe it. I guess some people think that if it’s printed it must be true!?

Fitness and lifestyle magazines use the word ‘rule’ in headlines because it’s powerful and people are always curious to see if they know about the rules or if they can follow them. It just goes to show you how well trained we all are at following instructions and not thinking for ourselves.

It seems that most people however will not investigate the validity of the claimed rule and whether or not it’s worth following at all.

If you go to your local newsstand you can find hundreds of ‘rules’ of nutrition. But are any of them valid or worth following?

Here are a few questions you should ask yourself the next time you see a list of nutrition rules:

1. Who is telling you about these rules and are they a credible source?

2. Are the rules backed by science?

3. What is the consequence if you don’t follow the rule?

4. What is the supposed benefit if you do follow the rule?

5. What is the proof that following the rule will actually produce a benefit?

6. Is it possible to get the benefit without following the rule?

Unless you have a graduate degree in nutrition you will not be capable of answering question #2 but the rest of them are pretty easy to follow up on.

A good example would be any, and I mean ANY weight loss ‘rule’ of nutrition that is any more complicated than calories in vs calories out.

The simplest way to test this rule would be the answer to questions #6 from above.

For example: Can you lose weight without following any of these weight loss nutrition rules:

low carb

low fat

glycemic index control

meal timing

nutrient ratio mixing

raw foods

carb cycling

calorie cycling

blood type dieting

…and on and on…(I think you get the picture)

If you can get the desired result ie: weight loss, without following the rules ie: any of the garbage rules I just wrote above…then you know the rule is bogus.

Apply these simple questions to any ‘rule of nutrition’ and you’ll quickly find out if it’s bogus or worth a second look.

John

A comment I received from Kenneth in an earlier post brought up a very good point about calorie counting.

Don't Kid Yourself, There are More Calories In Your Food Than You Think!

Kenneth brought to my attention a new study done at tufts university that analyzed some commercially available foods (from restaurants and grocery stores) and compared how many calories that were stated on the label vs how many calories were actually in the food.

At this point I haven’t had a chance to pull the full article and analyze their methods but if this study is a well done piece of research (which I have no reason to believe otherwise) then this is an eye opening tidbit of information.

I always tell people to overestimate the amount of calories they’re consuming because most of the time you’ll be forgetting about something you ate or drank throughout the day. Most people can’t even remember all the items they’ve eaten within the past 24 hours (let alone how many calories were in them). So it’s pretty clear that keeping an accurate record of calories consumed is very difficult if you flat out forget entire meals and snacks that you’ve consumed.

As far as food labels go, you have to keep in mind that they are an ESTIMATION of total calories and not exact numbers. Commercially available items and restaurant serving sizes aren’t standardized right down to the exact calorie. There will always be some margin of error.

If they always err’d on the lighter side we wouldn’t have much to worry about, but unfortunately that’s not how it works. If anything they are an estimation and an average. Some items might be lower and some might be higher. And as this study is indicating some of them are WAY higher.

Take the calorie count on your labels as an estimation only.

I actually did a little experiment like this with Brad Pilon a while ago. We went to our local grocery store bakery and bought a 6 pack of muffins. The label on the package gave a complete calorie and nutrient break down per muffin. But when we opened the package and weighed the muffins we found a 25% degree of variance in their weight.

In other words, some of the muffins were almost 25% bigger than the others. This would also mean some of them had 25% more calories.

The point is labels are a guideline and are never 100% accurate. Without measuring all of the ingredients in every thing you eat and preparing it yourself you can never be 100% sure of the calories in it.

The best you can do is follow the labels as a guideline or estimate of how many calories are probably in that food.

And just to be safe, always assume there is MORE calories in everything you eat. This way even if the labels are underestimating you will be compensating for it with an overestimation.

John

I get lots of questions about my diet and what I eat. And my honest answer is that I eat whatever I want and whenever I want.

Unless you actually hang out with me on a daily basis you really can only take my word for it, but I figured I’d try to make it a bit more real by adding in a photo of my typical morning coffee and munchies.

Victoria takes care of my morning coffee!

This is a pic of me and my main coffeetime girl Victoria. She takes care of my morning coffee and chooses my timebits for me.

This is really how I eat, and if you’ve been following my progress since Aug you already know I’ve lost over 30 lbs this way. This is just what I do in the mornings.

I’ll eat other things throughout the rest of the day, but there isn’t much of  a pattern or template that I am following.

The only thing I pay attention to is total calories.

John

I just had the first of my holiday dinners…or let me re-phrase that…holiday “eat-a-thons”

A friend of mine invited me over for a traditional christmas turkey dinner…we had copious amounts of all the follow foods:

Turkey

Stuffing

Squash

Roasted Potatoes

Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Green Beans

peanuts

m&m’s

Apple caramel score bar dip (translation, a diabetic coma)

Sweet Chili pepper and cream cheese triscuit dip

Apple pie

Cherry pie

Pumpkin pie

And I ate all of it…I actually had all three pieces of pie together as one sorta neapolitan pie slice.

This happened on dec 18th and I know for sure it’s going to happen again on dec 24th (seafood and pasta eat-a-thon)

and again on the 25th. (and most likely on new years eve as well)

so how in the hell am I supposed to get through the next two weeks without gaining weight, and in fact continuing to lose weight?

Easy…Eat Stop Eat (or at least some form of intermittent fasting and/or low calorie compensation days)

Weight loss or weight gain is pretty simple, and the rules don’t change over the holidays. If you know you’re going to have a few big eating days like me then you gotta offset them with lower calorie eating days.

I only ate about 1000 calories the day after the above mentioned eating fest.

I’ve estimated my BMR at around 1920 cals/day…So even if I went 1000 calories over during the big dinner I already offset that by going almost 1000 calories under the very next day.

I’ll do the same thing leading up to the two big back to back dinners on the 24th and 25th.

From mon dec 21st to wed dec 23rd I’ll keep things light (between 1200-1500 calories per day)

The day of the 23rd I’ll start an Eat Stop Eat style fast mid afternoon/early evening and then resume eating on the 24th at the seafood eat-a-thon.

With this kind of eating pattern throughout the week I’ll be in a good position to eat all the food I can handle on the 24th and 25th without really gaining any weight  at all.

Just to be sure I’ll also add in an Eat Stop Eat style fast on the 26th (god knows I’ll be so stuffed i won’t even feel like eating until the 27th anyway)

I’ll keep you posted on my bodyweight throughout the next week.

Incidentally, this pattern is how I managed to lose weight over thanksgiving.

John

Tomorrow morning (tues) Brad Pilon and I are heading to Vancouver to attend the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP for short) annual conference.

Brad is actually going to be speaking at this conference (thats pretty cool)

We’ll be spending the 3 days learning the latest information from the world of exercise science. Anything and everything that is going on in exercise physiology will be here.

Conferences like this are a good way to stay ahead of the curve on new scientific information because much of what we’ll see here is not published yet.

You may or may not be aware of this, but it takes anywhere from 12-18 months to get a piece of scientific research published.

So if you and I conducted an experiment today. It’s highly likely that it wouldn’t be published until sometime in 2011!

BUT we could present our findings at a conference like csep this week far ahead of it becoming published.

This peek into what is coming is why conferences like this can be a goldmine of new info that nobody else really knows about!

If I find anything cool, I’ll post about it here in the coming days and weeks.

John

P.S. If you subscribe to any other fitness/nutrition blogs or newsletters, just ask yourself the last time those so called “experts’ attended a conference like this and reported back to you with anything useful…kinda makes you wonder where they are getting their info from.

So a friend of mine that was on campus at the university here today sent me a text message that perfectly sum’s up how screwed up and hypocritical our society is when it comes to nutrition  ’education’ vs ‘application’

This is the message she sent me:

“The student nutrition awareness program is giving away candy treat bags for correctly answering nutrition trivia questions…Oh the irony”

This is a perfect example of the big problem with ‘nutrition’ and ‘nutritionism’ information/education.

You and I can read all we want about nutrition, but putting it into practice is a whole different ball of wax. Most people don’t even follow their own advice when it comes to nutrition.

As if the “Student Nutrition Awareness Program” was giving away bags of candy to reward students for knowing something about nutrition. Am I the only person that finds this wholly ironic and completely hypocritical?

As far as I can tell they are missing the whole point of their purpose by doing this.

The only lesson they are teaching here is that an indulgent overly processed lump of sugar and fat is a great tool for a reward mechanism.

This also reminds me of how backwards it is when parents use dessert as a reward mechanism to force their children to eat their whole dinner plate of food first. In this case the parent is reinforcing overeating with overeating.

In other words, the parent is telling the kid to eat more of the food they don’t like and then they will be rewarded with even more food that tastes better…no wonder there is a childhood obesity epidemic.

[I swear some people should need to pass a licensing exam to raise children...but that's for another post...or dozen]

Anyway, this is your friendly and ironic pre-halloween reminder about our messed up societal relationship with food is. If you’re gonna eat Halloween candy, go for it and enjoy it. Then get back to sensible eating on Monday.

Enjoy Halloween, and I’ll be back on Monday.

John