Are you going to wait until your time has run out?

The night before the game we went out to dinner in a small town here in Ontario to a local eatery that is known for their pizza. One of the people we went out to dinner with was abstaining from joining in eating the pizza with us. I asked why he wasn’t eating with us and it turns out that he has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Earlier this year he was up to 320lbs, and as of this past weekend he had already cut down to 270lbs. That is a 50lbs weight loss since March!

I asked him why he’s cutting down and he told me it was because of what his doctor said to him. So I asked, what his doctor said…and this is the exact quote:

“If you don’t start losing weight and change the way you eat you’ll have either a heart attack or stroke in the next 5 years”

Pretty powerful words to say the least.

Until he got this scare, he clearly didn’t care that he was gaining so much weight. But as soon as he realized his life might be on the line, then it was time to lose the weight. At this point he didn’t start debating the merits of low car vs low fat…or paleo vs vegetarianism vs the blood type diet etc…he just did what he knew he needed to do to save his life…EAT LESS FOOD!

The moral of this story is that we all know what it really takes to lose weight, but most of us don’t have a big enough incentive/scare/reason to do so…yet.

Think about it…if you were just told that you have diabetes and are at a high risk for a heart attack or stroke are you really going to mess around worrying about macro nutrient portions, the glycemic index of your ‘carbs’, or the specific fats and proteins you’re eating…OR are you gonna do your damnedest to eat less food?!

The answer to weight loss is simple (not necessarily easy)…but when there is the will to lose weight, the path becomes quite clear.

So whats it going to take for you to lose weight? (hint: until you have your answer for this question you’ll likely never lose weight)

John

Would combining the fruit salad with the muffin make it healthier?

So when I simply ordered a muffin and coffee she responded with this statement “Don’t you want to add a fruit salad to that to make it healthy?”

To which I replied “oh that’s not necessary, I’m just gonna rip the top off the muffin and eat it, and throw out the bottom”

After I said that I got a lecture about being wasteful and starving people etc…as if my overeating on muffins and fruit salad is somehow going to solve the worlds food problems.

The moral of the story is that the prevailing mentality is that you can add more food and thus more calories to a meal in order to somehow make it more ‘healthy’.

Lets just look at the two options.We’ll take her option first.

She was suggesting I have a coffee (approx 100 calories) + a full muffin (approx 400 calories) + fruit salad (approx 150 calories) for a grand total of 650 calories for my morning snack.

My suggestion was to have a coffee (100 calories) + half a muffin (approx 200 calories) for a grand total of 300 calories for a very satisfying morning coffee and snack.

This is a classic example of the gap in understanding between what really matters when it comes to health, weight loss, and looking and feeling your best.

We cannot simply add more ‘healthy’ items to a meal to offset the supposed ‘unhealthy’ ones.

The total calories will always matter more than what those calories are comprised of.

This is to say nothing about the fact that I was not intending to eat only muffins and coffee all day. For my preference on that particular day, a coffee and half a muffin is exactly what I wanted and it fits with my health/fitness goals. There was plenty of time and opportunity for me to get my fill of veggies, fruit, and other higher fiber and so called ‘healthy’ items later that day.

The point is there is no perfect foods to eat, or perfect meal combinations to have. If you want a muffin go ahead and have one. If maintaining a particular body shape/weight/size/look matters to you then perhaps you need to pay attention to how many muffins you  eat, or how big they are (in which case you can use the muffin top only technique) instead of either eliminating them all together or even worse, adding even more food to your muffin snack just to make it seem healthier.

In the end total calories and how much you exercise is going to affect your overall health to a far greater degree than a complicated and calculated mix of ‘the right foods’.

John

So the email went something like this:

“I just read your book and it says my RMR is approx 1250 calories. I want to lose 2lbs per week because that is supposed to be a realistic weight loss goal…but to do that you say you have to create a 1000 calorie deficit each day, that means I can only eat 250 calories per day…but I also heard that you should never eat below 1200 calories per day…so how is this possible?!”

What is a realistic weight loss goal?

Of course I’m paraphrasing and this is not the exact words, but this is a very typical email I get every week.

There are a few different flaws and fallacies in this statement…did you notice them? If not, I’ll show you.

Fallacy #1. There is no scientific proof that 2lbs per week of weight loss is a safe or realistic goal that all adults humans can or should expect to achieve. This is a claim based on FTC advertising standards. You only hear this number because marketers aren’t allowed to say any more by law. If they could the number would likely be 10lbs per week. That doesn’t make it any more or less correct, because neither number is based on scientific evidence.

A 6’5 260lbs man can easily expect to lose up to even 4lbs per week, however a 5’1 woman is hardly in the same position. Instead of setting a weight loss goal based on poundage (ie: 1lbs, 2lbs, 3lbs per week) you should be looking at it as a percentage of your bodyweight.

A 6’0 tall man who weights 220lbs with a RMR of approximately 2000 cals/day could easily create a 1000 calorie deficit each day by cutting his calories to 1500/day and burning an additional 500 calories in a good hard workout (mix of weights and cardio).

1500 is still plenty of calories to feel relatively satisfied while still creating a fair sized deficit to facilitate a significant weekly weight loss.

Also 2lbs of weight loss represents less than 1% of his total bodyweight.

Now change the person to a 5’1 woman with an RMR of 1250 calories. She would have to eat around 750 calories per day as well as burning off an additional 500 in the gym. This is starting to sound more like torture than a reasonable diet plan.

The fallacy is that 2lbs is a good target for all body sizes…it is not. Smaller people have smaller metabolisms and shouldn’t expect to lose as much total weight as a bigger person. It would be more realistic for her to shoot for 1lbs of weight loss which would only require a 500 calorie daily deficit…this could be achieved with a much more reasonably daily calorie intake around 1000 calories with a 250 calorie burn from a workout. Doesn’t that sound much more realistic?!

Fallacy #2: 1200 calories is the minimum you should eat in a day

I don’t know where this number comes from and I will be spending some time in the near future looking it up. However based on the RDI and RDA for nutrients the actual lower limit for calories (when you add up the individual recommendations for protein, carbs and fats) comes out to around 800 calories per day for women and 900 for men. So even according to the RDA you can easily eat well below 1200 and get your daily requirements of protein carbs and fats.

These two false assumptions are leading many people down a path of frustration and weight loss failure.

Setting realistic weight loss goals is the first step to success.

Letting go of your fear of eating less food is the second step.

Once you realize it’s ok to eat a bit less food then you will start to see things really change.

John

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

The reason I am asking is because of the concept of ‘set point theory’. This theory assumes that our adult bodyweight is genetically predetermined and that it’s ‘set’ at a certain size. The theory depends on the idea that we are weight stable for our adult life, otherwise what the heck is your set point if you’re not set and stable at it!?

Anyway, from what I can gather most people don’t stay at the same weight their whole life at all but rather they fluctuate quite a bit. I know I have and some preliminary info I have suggests the same for lots of people.

So I’d like to know what your body weight has been since you’ve been an adult. Did you gain weight, did you lose weight, if so how? Did you gain weight from emotional eating? Stress eating? Was it marriage weight gain, kids, a divorce, losing a job, getting a sedentary job, an injury, lack of exercise?

If you managed to lose weight  how did you  do it? Exercise? Diet? Both? Surgery? Drug? All of this stuff? None of this stuff?

If you don’t mind sharing I’d appreciate hearing how your weight has changed (or not) since you’ve been an adult.

You can put your story in the comment section, or if you feel comfortable emailing it instead you can email me at johnbarban (at) gmail (d0t) com

John