I was talking to a buddy of mine who competes in bodybuilding the other day. We were discussing contest preparation and how he uses diet and exercise for weight loss.

He said he takes about 14-16 weeks to get ready for a show. He starts at around 2200 calories per day and finishes around 1600 calories per day in the final weeks (and just to let you know, this guy is well over 300lbs and 6’5)

By the end of his contest prep he cuts down to about 240lbs including a water depletion.

It takes dieting AND exercise to get this lean

Now this is where the interesting part comes in.

He cuts his calories down to about 1600 per day and does 1 weight training session and two ‘cardio’ sessions per day at the end of his preparation.

I did a bit of quick math and figured out that he likely burns all 1600 calories off during his 3 workouts each day. In other words, he is effectively burning off all his daily calories.

This is an example of the extreme measures bodybuilders (and fitness competitors) will go to in order to burn off every last ounce of visible bodyfat from their frame (including using some powerful stimulants to keep their appetite at bay)

3 workouts per day might sound like alot to you but it really isn’t. He will typically break it up into an hour morning walk (perhaps inclined on a treadmill for some added work) then an afternoon workout with weights, and finally another walk later in the evening.

That’s about 3 hours of working out (two of them for weight loss one of them for muscle building)

This extra exercise for weight loss can only provide a significant benefit if he keeps his calories in control.

In other words, if he wasn’t monitoring his calories he could easily replace all the energy he burned during each ‘cardio’ session by eating a bit more food at each meal.

The more you exercise the more likely you will get hungry and the more tempted you will be to overeat (or at least eat more than you were planning)

The treadmill can help if you're careful with your calorie intake

This is the catch 22 with exercise for weight loss. You’ll burn more calories and lost more weight faster if you add in extra exercise, BUT you’ll also be tempted to eat more food as you increase the amount of exercise you do.

So you’ve got to keep the calories you  eat in control if you want to see the full benefit from adding in extra ‘cardio’ sessions.

The point is exercise for weight loss can be effective IF and only IF you’ve got a handle on your calories.

John

In this episode Meatwad is trying to ‘exercise the fat away’ by power walking. What you don’t see in this clip is the pile of gummy bears he sets out for himself as his target to walk to. Once he arrives at the pile of gummy bears he eats them as a reward for his exercise. (Once again Carl is right on the money with his criticism of meatwads strategy)

As ridiculous as this sounds, this is exactly what many people do who start working out…they reward themselves with food after they complete a workout. This totally defeats the purpose of working out in the first place. (the other day I saw a large woman with a personal trainer, and she was eating a granola bar between her sets in the gym…I can only imagine how absurd the conversation between her and the trainer must have been that allowed a granola bar to become part of the workout)

Back to reality:

The so called ‘health benefits’ of physical activity and exercise are very similar to the health benefits of caloric restriction and the subsequent weight loss that follows.

If you think you can be ‘healthy’ without losing weight you’re missing half or most of the picture. The extra fat mass and added weight itself is a risk factor for many lifestyle diseases and therefore simply being active while eating more food (such that you don’t lose any weight) still does not address the issue of losing body fat (if you have excess bodyfat to lose).

There are many ‘meatwads’ out there who would rather tell themselves the lie that they can eat as much as they want and overcome any ill effects simply by exercising more, but those people will never get the body changing results they really want and likely wont be much ‘healthier’ either.

John

He's not going to lose too much weight this way!

Fat loss is just a matter of having a caloric deficit, this isn’t news (or at least it shouldn’t be news to you). You can create the caloric deficit 3 ways.

1. Caloric restriction

2. Increasing activity/exercise (without conscious attention to calories)

3. A combination of the previous points

Regardless how you create the deficit the fat loss with be the same. It’s probably easiest to focus primarily on restricting food intake and consider any extra exercise induced fat loss as a bonus.

Cutting 500-700 calories in a day is much easier than trying to do 500-700 calories worth of exercise.

So even though theoretically you could try to create a deficit with exercise alone, it is only as effective as your ability to maintain a consistent calorie intake close to BMR.

In other words, you can easily out eat a workout session, but you can never out workout an big eating session (but I think this is what so many people in the gym are trying to do)

The actual pattern of fat loss will be the same no matter what you do to get there, so it’s just up to you to find the best solution that fits with your life. I suggest Eat Stop eat and my soon to be coming out book (shameless plug!

John

Is this just 'cheating', or is it just a quicker way to get rid of fat?

I heard a story the other day about a bodybuilder who allegedly (I cannot confirm this) gets a bit of liposuction done before a bodybuilding show just to make sure he’s as ripped as possible. The other bodybuilders consider this ‘cheating’ because it’s ‘not fair’.

Now I don’t know if this is just a story or truth, but the reaction of it being considered ‘cheating’ certainly sounds reasonable, but totally hypocritical from bodybuilders who are using testosterone, GH, insulin, T3, clenbuterol, ephedrine and diuretics to get in shape.

Does this mean that bodybuilders consider drugs fair game to get big and ripped, but machines (lipo) not fair?

I’ve also been informed that playboy models get lipo done before a photoshoot just to ‘tighten up’, and that the same model will have the procedure done multiple times before each shoot.

I cannot confirm the bodybuilding story although it sounds feasible, I’ve got a pretty good source to know that the playboy story is true.

Regardless, I would guess most people would feel like liposuction is some form of ‘cheating’.

If it’s just another means to the same end what does it matter?

What do you think?

John

Manny and Anthony got this discussion going yesterday and I think it needs further exploration…and that is how much exercise should we be doing per week?

Exercise shouldn't be a sentence to pain and suffering

There are a few ways to approach the answer to this question.

The first thing to do is identify your goal.

Is it to do the least amount of exercise possible while getting into the best looking shape possible?

Is it the above mentioned goal as well as minimizing as many risks factors of disease as possible?

Is it some performance goal (like running a certain distance in a given time, or a strength goal etc?)

Is it some combination of the above?

In any case it seems that many people have come to believe that you can do far less work than you have to in order to get into your goal shape.

I think this is a symptom of the modern industrialized sedentary society. For many of us our daily routine barely requires us to even stand up let alone walk around.

If you spend the better part of your day sitting then there is a good case to be made for you to workout or at least go for a walk every day. At least move around a bit.

I think we’ve all become a bit too accustomed to a really sedentary lifestyle. And as Manny and Anthony pointed out even as little as 7-8 hours per WEEK sounds like alot of exercise…this seems a bit ridiculous…out of 168 available hours in a week does dedicating 8 of them to exercise and improving the look and health of your body sound like too much?

If it does sound like too much that is an artifact of the general busyness and sedentary nature of our societies and nothing to do with fundamental physiological principles.

We could all easily exercise for multiple hours per day if we had enough time. I totally understand that a 2 hour workout every day might not make much sense for everyone. But at least an hour of movement per day should be a bare minimum.

And then mixed within that could be 3-4 more intense and targeted training sessions to force muscle growth and adaptation.

The reality is that Anthony and Manny pointed out how far off our perception of what a realistic amount of exercise per week should be.

I think we’ve all become far too used to doing far too little.

If we learn to prioritize a mix of both targeted vigorous exercise (weight training/running etc) and general lifestyle movement (walking) as something that must be done every day then we’d be close to what our bodies were built for in the first place and many of our lifestyle disorders, issues with eating and dealing with stress would be much less of a problem.

John