Recently I was having a discussion with someone about weight loss, but the conversation quickly turned into nutritionism speak and the merits of various functional foods for ‘health’ and ‘metabolic’ effects. The person I was talking to kept asking about various ‘phytonutrients’ and the importance of items like blueberries for their ‘antioxidant’ effect and other items that have similar health claims associated with them.

This was becoming a somewhat difficult conversation for me to follow because I couldn’t understand what this person was really after. At first we were discussing weight loss and how much weight they could realistically lose over the next 6 weeks or so. Then the conversation ended up on things like phytonutrients, antioxidants, phytosterols, fiber, the glycemic index and on and on.

It became clear to me that they really had no clue where to even start as far as losing weight and tracking how the hell they were even going to go about doing it. Withing 10 mins of chatting both of our heads were spinning.

I had to stop them and refocus them on the topic at hand, which was supposed to be weight loss.

This story is typical of the type of questions and conversations I end up in with people who want to lose weight but don’t really know what is the driving force behind it (a caloric reduction).

Of course there are limitless ways you can choose to eat, and from a purely weight loss stand point I think it makes little difference. Many of our competitors in the Adonis and Venus contests have lost a great deal of weight doing all manner of diets (low carb, high carb, low and high protein, and all fat levels). There was no consistency to the type of diet, the only consistent thing across the board was a consistent caloric reduction.

There is a point when the type of food matters, but not for the reasons you've been told

Maybe…Maybe at the lower bodyfat levels (sub 10%) it might help to limit certain food choices that contain sugar and saturated fats to help the process. But this might be more of a water retention thing than a true fat burning thing. This isn’t to suggest that reducing the water you carry is irrelevant because it certainly matters. Being bloated with water could easily be the difference between a visible 6-pack or a smooth midsection. So even once the fat is low enough there is still an effect your food choices can have on your look…this is why bodybuilders are so meticulous about their diet and preparation in the final 4-5 days before a show.

For the most part almost everyone can get to a visible 6-pack without really worrying about the exact food choices as long as the total calories are less than you’re burning.

Getting a handle on your calories is the first and biggest hurdle…once you’ve got this taken care of then and only then can you start worrying about what specific foods to eat for their claimed benefit.

John

I just got back from Starbucks and I had one of the most revealing and shocking conversations with the Barista.

When I go to Starbucks I get a grande coffee misto with 1-pump of flavor shot.

Does this look more like a coffee or a milkshake

The flavor shot is approx 70 calories, and there is about 40-50 calories worth of milk, so overall my coffee is about 120 calories. That’s not bad and it’s a very satisfying morning creature comfort that I simply will no give up for any reason.

The interesting thing is that I have to specifically ask for 1-pump of flavor…the standard amount of flavor shots in a grande is 4-pumps…that means a grande with the ‘normal’ amount of flavor is approximately 300 calories (the venti usually has 5 shots for a total of 350 calories)

But that’s not the shocking part. I asked the Barista “what is the most flavor shot pumps you have put in a drink for someone?”…she told me that they have a regular customer who gets 10-pumps!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

That is 700 calories in one drink!

They also have other drinks that come with a standard 7-pumps of flavor, that’s approx 500 calories standard without asking for extra shots.

The flavor shot pumps we’re taking about deliver approximately 18 grams of sugar per pump.

Obviously the 10-pump drink person is an outlier, but the Barista told me it’s pretty normal for people to get the regular 4 or 5 pump drinks with whip cream and some chocolate or caramel topping, and they’ve got regulars who ask for their drinks ‘extra sweet’ which means an extra pump or two.

If you went to starbucks and got one of these drinks with a slice of banana bread or some other food item on the side you could easily be consuming 800-900 calories (and that is just a morning stop for a coffee and a treat!)

For most people that is almost half of their daily BMR right there, and I guarantee most starbuck goers don’t even consider their morning coffee stop as a ‘meal’.

I’m amazed that people can handle that much sweetness. I think my 1-pump is plenty sweet enough, I couldn’t imagine 4 (let alone 10!…10-pumps!…that’s approx 180grams of sugar in one drink…seriously WTF?!)

It seems that places like Startbucks are simply ice cream parlors masquerading as coffee shops.

They are essentially the socially acceptable place to mass consume cups of sugar, caramel, whip cream, and chocolate without feeling like you’re doing anything ‘wrong’.

Think about it, how many times per week does the average person stop at Dairy Queen for a milkshake or blizzard. If you did this every morning you’d be labeled unhealthy, a junk food/fast food addict etc…it just wouldn’t feel right.

BUT it’s perfectly normal to stop into a coffee shop every morning for a cup of sugar and fat that is essentially no different than a milkshake from DQ.

(the Barista even told me that they have a regular who comes in at 5am for a venti frappuccino…for anyone unfamiliar, a frappucino is essentially a milkshake with a shot of coffee added…about 550 calories)

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not at all ripping on Starbucks, in fact I love the coffee and choices they have. They’re not forcing anyone to order or drink anything they serve…that is purely a free choice of each customer…they’re just serving what people want, and apparently people want milkshakes (but without the social stigma of ordering a milkshake every day).

What I am doing is trying to show you how easy the calories can add up when it comes to drinks like coffee.

On one extreme you can get a plain black coffee which has zero calories. On the other end you’ve got these multi-flavored cappucino and latte offerings with multi-pump flavor shots, whip cream and syrup toppings etc.

The Social Perception of “Coffee”

Socially a plain black coffee and a frappucino or latte or cappucino are all considered ‘coffee’ to some degree, but when you break them down to their parts one of them has zero calories and the other can have as many calories as big mac from McDonalds!

So can you lose weight while drinking coffee?

Well that depends on what your definition of coffee is. If you’re the frappuccino/cappuccino quadruple pump whip cream drinker I’d guess that you’re going to have trouble losing weight.

On the other hand if you pay attention to the amount of calories you’re adding to your coffee then you can easily add these tasty drinks to an effective weight loss program.

The disturbing point is that a 4-pump 350 calorie drink is ‘normal’ and my 1-pump 100 calorie drink is the exception to the rule.

John

Last week we were talking about what causes overeating and it was pretty obvious that there is no single cause. We know it has something to do with your genetic make up as well as your social environment, your psychology and many other factors.

It seems that the social situational eating is a factor that many of us cannot avoid and is the demise of many weight loss systems.

This is definitely on my "Can't do without" list

On a daily and weekly basis you will be faced with multiple social situations that don’t fit with many of the popular weight loss dieting programs.

Most of the common dieting dogma is incompatible with the social structure of modern society.

I challenge you to take any 3 common weight loss ‘rules’ like:

eat breakfast every day

eat every 3 hours

have protein at every meal

do cardio in the morning before you eat

avoid sugar and ‘simple’ carbs…

…blah blah, pick whatever you like.

Now try to apply just 3 of them for two weeks in a row…Odds are you’ll likely have to break all of them at some point, OR you’ll have to skip out on social situations in order to stick to these rules.

You’re basically put in a position of choosing between following the ‘rules’ of weight loss or living a normal life. This is what leads many people to believe that weight loss isn’t possible because they simply cannot follow the ‘rules’ they’ve been told are necessary.

The truth is there aren’t as many rules as you think, and weight loss is entirely possible while still living a normal feeling social life. As soon as you learn how to fit weight loss into your life it becomes a much easier path to follow.

The first step is realizing that most of the ‘rules’ of weight loss that you’ve heard about are nothing more than marketing tactics designed to get you to buy a product or service.

Effective and lasting weight loss is entirely within your reach, the key is finding a way to fit the weight loss into your lifestyle instead of overhauling your life to lose some weight.

Yes you have to make some changes, no you don’t have to retool everything and carry around a tupperware container full of steam veggies and plain chicken breast everywhere you go.

The key is eating less total calories but in a way that fits your lifestyle. The simpler the program the higher chance of success.

I suggest starting with the things you can’t do without and work back from there.

This list can include foods you like to eat and you don’t want to give up, social events you don’t want to give up and daily comfort items (like a morning coffee) that you don’t want to give up.

The items that don’t end up on this list are the things you can work on changing to get your weight loss on track.

For now the first step is the ‘can’t do without list’.

We’ll talk about the “can do without list next’.

John

Forget the "Rules" You've heard, make up your own.

The diet and fitness industry is hardly at a loss for words. Browsing the interwebs (or is it the world wide net…) will bring up thousands of pages of information, tips, and endless ‘must do’ and ‘never do’ lists.

Within 5 minutes of searching you could easily come up with dozens of ‘rules‘ of fitness and ways to live a ‘healthy’ lifestyle.

Almost all of them revolve around some sort of dietary intervention like changing the timing of a meal, or the composition of that meal.

After that you’ll get extensive lists of good and bad foods, supplements you should be taking, specific ways to workout, and specific times of day to workout etc…

At no point is the practicality of these recommendations considered, the story you hear is preached like a gospel and you may start feeling lousy about yourself if you can’t follow every recommendation you’ve heard.

The stress and guilt you might start feeling for not following these ‘rules’ could easily erase any health benefits you’re getting from doing what you can.

This is hardly a way to approach health and fitness.

Every little bit counts, and whatever you can do and whatever fits with your current lifestyle is just fine.

If you’ve heard that ‘cardio’ in the morning is best, but you can only do it in the evening, that’s just fine. Don’t let some magazine or website steal the positive emotional boost you get from exercising by telling you that you’re doing it at the wrong time of day.

If you lift weights but you don’t have the money or time for a post workout protein shake then don’t worry about it, you’re still going to build muscle and strength no matter what the web-o-sphere of self proclaimed experts say.

Protect what gets into your brain, because it's going to be hard to get it out.

The moral of today’s post is to be careful what you read and what you let get into your brain.

If you’re reading this blog you probably already do lots of healthy and positive things for your body on a daily basis, but if you read too much ‘info’ out there you might just end up forgetting what you’ve done that was good and stress about all the ‘rules’ of fitness you’re still not following.

Instead of following everyone else’s rules try making up a few things for yourself.

Try  to do one exercise ‘thing’ per day for your fitness, and one ‘nutrition/food’ thing per day.

Make it up just for you and it’s gotta fit your life.

I’d like to hear what you’re planning on doing if you don’t mind putting it in the comments section.

John

The devil is in the dose.

If you browse around the cyber-inter-web-o-sphere and look around for ‘healthy nutrition’ information you’ll likely find a big list of  “items to avoid”.

Here are some of the common ones I can think of off the top of my head:

Saturated Fat

Trans Fat

Sugar

Artificial Sweeteners

Genetically Modified Anything (which is ridiculous considering about 80% of the modern food supply has some level of modification…these people are living in a fantasy world)

High Fructose Corn Syrup

Non Local Foods (the 100 mile diet people think it’s possible to eat just from their local area…with no conception of how impossible this is from an economic standpoint)

Red Meat

Butter

Refined White Flour (or anything that is made with white flour)

I’m guessing you recognize most of the items on this list and have heard or read somewhere why each one is “bad for you”.

So whats left to eat?

Some veggies, maybe a bit of fruit…perhaps an egg white…

But even too many of one type of veggie could cause a problem if nothing more than some serious gastro intestinal discomfort.

The point is that none of these things are bad at a manageable dose.

The issue with most foods is never the food itself, it’s always the dose.

A teaspoon of sugar in your coffee just makes it a really tasty coffee.

Consuming pounds of sugar on a weekly basis in the form of sweet snacks, dressings, baked goods etc…now you’re asking for diabetes.

Just remember that the devil is always in the dose never in the food itself.

John