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Cooper wrote this comment yesterday that has been ringing in my head ever since: “I had to train myself that nothing bad was going to happen to me if I just ate less!”

What Are You Afraid of Anyway?

This is a telling line about the bang up job the diet and fitness marketers have done spreading lies about the ‘dangers’ of eating less. This is nothing more than pure fear mongering, it’s socially irresponsible, it’s deceitful and it really does ruin people’s lives.

This problem is so systemic that even well intentioned health care practitioners are also promoting this sort of unfounded ‘danger’ (as we discussed in this previous post ->Does Your Doctor Know Best)

In fact it’s not a stretch to suggest that the entire supplement and modern healthy food movement is entirely based and dependent upon this fear. And as we’ve discussed this fear even gets in the way of personal and family relationships precisely at the moment when someone overcomes this fear (but the others haven’t).

If the mass population accepted the fact that their weight loss issues (and most if not all of their lifestyle health risk factors) would be solved by eating less food (and doing some…any exercise) what value would a ‘healthy food’ or supplement be?

Would anyone ever buy a supplement to help with their weight loss or general health? Would anyone actually seek out and pay a premium for organic, or low fat options, or whole grain or high fiber or vitamin enriched options or whatever other BS is being peddled in the name of health?

Not likely.

Most of the ‘nutrition’ industry is dependent on a mass fear of eating less. Unfortunately this completely destroys most people’s ability to enjoy food at all…instead eating becomes an event wrapped in waves of guilt and personal shame.

You’ve got to hand it to them…they’ve done a masterful job of bending our minds in the effort to sell more useless products…They’ve managed to take one of the most pleasurable and fun things in life (FOOD) and make you feel completely crappy about it…and then of course they are standing there with the solution to make you feel better (insert healthy food item, supplement etc…)

However. Once you remove the fear of eating less (as many of you have experienced) food becomes fun again and we can eat what we like and still be satisfied and proud of our bodies too.

John

Yesterday we talked about the reaction other people will have when you successfully lose weight. In many cases the reaction is negative!  Here are some pics of me at my lightest weight in the past 15 years, I”m about 176lbs in these pics and my buddies rip on me for being “Skinny” or “tiny” now…Do I really look “skinny”?

A quick browse of yesterdays comments make’s it apparent that the reaction other people have to seeing someone lose weight is rather bizarre. I believe that it is rooted in the insecurities of the person who is seeing you lose weight (in many cases they would also like to lose weight but haven’t managed to so far).

This can become and sinister situation when friends, nurses, doctors, health care providers and even family members can ex-communicate you or lecture you about the dangers of weight loss. This is an unfortunate side effect of their own cognitive dissonance, lack of understanding and in many cases disappointment/shame in themselves for not achieving the same results you have.

It’s a tricky road to go down when you start making real positive changes in your life while others around you do not. They may feel as though you are surpassing them and leaving them behind. Of course this is not your intention at all, you are simply doing something for you. And if you’re anything like me you want to bring them along with you.

Heck I want to bring EVERYONE with me (hence the blog, the Adonis Index, Venus index and what I do for a living)

Unfortunately it’s not possible to bring everyone. In fact it’s hard to reach even some of the them (even if it’s those people you know who desperately want to change)

As someone whose made a real change your best effort can only be to lead/guide others who are willing to follow, and then gracefully accept that the majority are not yet ready and are simply scared.

Once you accept this fact, it’s much easier to deal with their criticism as you will realize it’s not about you at all and only a projection of their own fears.

John

P.S. Ladies, I’ll be doing a teleseminar in the near future about the Venus Index to explain what we’re up to. I’ll post about it when we’re getting ready, prolly in the next 3-4 weeks.

A friend of mine just had her annual check up and everything came back A-ok. She is actually about 1 inch away from having a perfect Venus Index score as well! In other words, girl is in great shape with a great body.

With that said she wants to lose about 3-4 pounds for her ideal Venus Index shape. She can run 10 kms in less than 50 minutes, she’s got great muscle development and is stronger than almost any girl I’ve ever seen in the gym.

Her check up numbers were great across the board and her cardiovascular fitness is at the elite athlete level.

So far this isn’t much of a story, now here is where it gets interesting. She told the nurse that she was interested in losing a bit more weight…at which point the nurse proceeded to tell her: you don’t look like you need to lose any more weight”…and “you’re in a healthy weight range for your height”…and then pointed out that “exercise can be addictive” and handed her body image pamphlets assuming she had some sort of psychological problem.

Of course all of this information is coming from a middle aged female nurse with about 40-50 extra pounds of fat to lose.

My friend just responded with a polite smile with no intention of heeding any of the nurses advice and warnings.

This is good example of how the established medical profession misses the point on issues of exercise and fitness.

First of all its difficult to take weight loss advice from someone who is overweight.

Second, doctors and nurses understand the relative range of what is generally considered a healthy body weight. But this is just a range and estimate for the mass population. Each individual will have a specific body weight that he or she will look their best at, and no doctors chart will necessarily show this. (incidentally that is what the Adonis Index and Venus Index are for…an indication of what we think is your best look for your height)

It’s unfortunate that even a nurse and doctor would discourage someone from trying to lose a couple pounds in an effort to look better and be happier with their body.

It’s as if the nurse had been trained to tell everyone to be happy looking painfully average and that it’s somehow pathological to want to look better than average.

Interestingly, the overweight nurse was much more worried about my friends intention to lose a bit more weight…whereas the physician who was in good shape himself thought nothing of it.

Perhaps a little personal envy and bias even crept into the nurses cautions and warnings to her.

Regardless of the source of the warning, this is still a good example of how mainstream medical professions are not a place to go looking for advice on achieving your best looking shape. It’s just not what they’re trained in.

Don’t let other people talk you out of shooting for your best look, because your best look is going to be a healthy look.

John

I”m sure the headline of this post will have a number of groups of people up in arms. But I don’t care what anyone else thinks, because it’s true.

100 out of 100 people will say the statue on the left looks better

The fact is most if not all humans find excess bodyfat repulsive, and or disgusting. I’m not referring to these words in the pop culture definition, but I’m referring to them with regards to their dictionary meaning.

Whether the fat is on YOUR body or someone else, you will most likely have some sort of aversion response to it. You’ll eventually hate yourself for the extra fat if it’s on you, or you’ll start to find ways to avoid, discriminate against and steer clear of fat people.

I think there are a number of reasonable and plausible reasons why we have this kind of response to fat, and it’s quite a taboo to talk about it (which is total BS) The first step to fixing any problem is talking openly and frankly about it so here goes…

Why we find fat disgusting and repulsive:

1. It’s a signal of death (or the opposite of health): In other words as you watch some one gain excessive amounts of weight you can easily make the argument that you are literally watching them commit and slow suicide.

2. It’s a signal of unfairness (and ultimately your death because of the fat person): In other words the fat person next to you will consume more than their fair share of food and will literally be taking the food out of your mouth and putting into theirs. In other words, while they are overeating themselves to death, they are starving you to death!

3. It’s a sign of a lack of control (of ones emotions, body, and life in general): This may lead others not to trust a fat person…hence the reason there is a weight bias when employers are interviewing for jobs. All things being equal, if you are hiring a new person at your company, would you pick the fat candidate or the candidate who is in shape (if their credentials were equal)

People who put on increasing amounts of weight had to get the food from somewhere. Since food is scare that means there is less of it to go around for you if the fatties are eating up more than they need. (of course this is exactly what is happening globally, but that is a much more complicated issue)

So they are stockpiling food on their bodies in the form of fat which they don’t need, and leaving you with less food.  From an evolutionary stand point it doesn’t seem fair that one person would eat more than their fair share of food while others are left with less.

Of course I’m not suggesting that a fat person actually takes food right off of your plate. Indeed there is more than enough to go around (at least in modern industrialized countries) but I think this is where our repulsion and disgust response to body fat is rooted…it’s unfair, and its unhealthy.

Ironically having more doesn’t do them any good, it actually makes them worse off.

So that is my theory. I’ve yet to talk to anyone who actually likes the look of excess fat, and considering the intense desire people have for weight loss it’s not a far stretch to suggest the desire for it is deep rooted in our primal emotional responses like disgust and repulsion.

So, there you go, I’ve put it on the table…what do you think?

John

I hinted at this a little bit yesterday. I’m in the middle of a 5 day weight loss experiment. As I”m writing this I’m in hour 88 of 120.

Here are the coles notes so far.

Lost 9 lbs: started at 186lbs – currently at 177lbs

Waist measurement has decreased almost half an inch.

Shoulder measurement is steady.

Strength is consistent (going to they gym in a few mins and I’ll report in on how it went)

So I’ve got about 32 hours left on this experiment.

I’m not using any supplements or drugs, not eating any special foods, not doing any cardio or any extra exercise at all.

My guess is that I can get to 175 within the next 32 hours.

Either way I’ll post my progress and where I end up tomorrow.

I’ll be doing a live teleseminar in a couple weeks to discuss the whole thing and you can ask questions about it too, so I’ll post that link when we’ve got the event set up.

John

In order to lose weight you will have to be in a caloric deficit, this shouldn’t be news to you.

Eating at BMR will maintain your weight

Once you’ve lost the weight you wanted, you can start eating at your daily caloric maintenance level. This is a big difference from going back to eating the way you used to eat that caused you to gain the weight that you just try to lose.

In other words, if you’ve just gone through a dramatic weight loss you have learned two things:

1) You’ve learned how little food you need to eat to lose weight

2) You know how much food you used to eat that caused you to gain weight

BUT you have one more step to go and that is:

Learning how much food you can eat to MAINTAIN your new weight

This last point is the final step for lasting weight loss. Obviously you can’t go back to eating the way you used to, otherwise you’ll just gain weight again.

On the other hand you don’t want to be on your weight loss diet either otherwise you’ll continue to lose weight. What you need to do is increase your calories to your estimated BMR. From there any extra exercise you do might allow you to eat a bit more food.

Pretty simple stuff. If you stick with a good BMR estimate as your maintenance calorie level you should be fine with maintaining your new lower bodyweight.

John

A weird thing keeps happening to me and my friend (who also happens to pay attention to calories in vs out) at some of the local coffee shops that we frequent. I routinely get served MORE food than I order.

Love these things, about 60-80 calories each! Effin' awesome

As many of you know my only rule for weight loss is calories in vs calories out, and the way I lost all of my weight was to stick to this one rule (37 pounds lost so far).

Half of this rule requires me to have at least an educated guess at my calories in. So when I order a coffee with a milk and sugar I have a pretty good idea how many calories are in that coffee. And I like to have something sweet with coffee so I order 3-4 timbits to go with it (which are about 60-80 calories each). And this is where it gets weird.

Even though I’ll only order 3-4 timbits, the person at the counter will give me 4-5 and sometimes even 6. This doesn’t sound like a big deal and they probably think they’re doing me a favor, but in reality their effing up my weight loss progress (because I can’t resist eating them all…which is why I only order 3-4 in the first place)

Each one of these little balls of heaven are between 60-80 calories so I pay close attention to how many I have with a morning coffee so I know how many more calories I can consume at lunch/dinner or whenever I eat again.

Every time the server gives me an extra 2-3 timbits I end up eating an extra 100-150 calories I wasn’t planning on.

This brings up an interesting thought experiment about what is socially acceptable when it comes to eating and food.

So far you and I and most people would agree that it’s perfectly fine to serve someone MORE food than they’ve ordered or paid for (getting stuff for free is almost never a bad thing)…But imagine if someone did the reverse.

Picture this:

You walk up to the counter and place the following order: “I’ll have a large coffee with 2 creams and 2 sugars, and 5 timbits”

and the server looks at you and says: “how bout I give you a small coffee with no cream and a sweetener and 1 timbit”

This obviously would be completely unacceptable (even tho it might actually help you lose weight)

Ironically we live in a society where it is perfectly acceptable to help overfeed people who are overweight or trying to lose weight (and thus make their weight gain worse and crippling their chance to ever lose weight), but it would be completely unacceptable to deny serving food to people who clearly could afford to drop a few pounds.

Messed up.

John

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

Answer: FACT

Eating less calories than you burn is the only proven way to lose bodyfat. It does not matter when you eat those calories, or what kind of calories they are, as long as you’re in a deficit you will lose body fat and bodyweight.

This is consistent with all of the known scientific literature in this field and with the laws of physics and thermodynamics.

There is absolutely no other way this can work. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying to you on purpose, or clueless enough that they don’t realize they are lying to you. In either case you should avoid listening to them because they’re out to lunch.

To review, here is a brief list of all the things that absolutely DON’T matter for weight loss:

1. Meal timing
2. # of meals per day
3. Nutrient ratios in each meal (protein, carb, fat ratios)
4. Blood type (probably the most ridiculous of all, if you believe this one you need to get your head checked to be sure your brain hasn’t fallen out)
5. Raw food, veggie, vegan whatever (cook your food or don’t cook it, eat meat or don’t eat meat, none of it matters for weight loss)
6. Saturated fat, trans fats, omega 6 fats or whatever fat you like to hate
7. Eating for the supposed purpose of manipulating hormone levels

I’m sure there are other strategies that I’ve missed, so please feel free to enlighten me on the magic weight loss bullets that I don’t have loaded in my fat blasting revolver! (if you can’t tell…I’m being sarcastic here and poking fun at typical weight loss marketing speak)

So if you’ve ever lost a significant amount of bodyfat and bodyweight you already know that none of this stuff matters, if you’ve never managed to lose weight you’ve got no grounds for making any argument…because, well you just don’t know.

If you want to lose weight, the only way to do it is to keep it simple. I suggest Eat Stop Eat as the best way to do this, but don’t take my word for it, test it out for yourself.

John

The Claim: Eating late at night causes you to gain fat.

Answer: FACTOID

Gaining weight is simply a matter of eating excess calories. WHEN you eat those calories is irrelevant. But there is a persistent myth that eating late at night somehow causes you to store more fat that eating earlier in the day. There is no scientific evidence to support this idea.

If you just eat the amount of calories you burn off, then it doesn’t matter at all if you eat all of those calories at night, or in the morning or spread throughout the day.

Total calories is all that matters. So if your BMR is 1600 calories, that means you could eat all 1600 of them at midnight and not gain an ounce of fat.

John

The Claim: 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.

Answer: FACTOID

Eating breakfast has no special effect on your metabolism or metabolic rate as it were. If you like to eat breakfast then by all means go ahead, but don’t expect it to help with your ability to burn calories.

There is some persistent claim that breakfast can also help with cognitive function but this research was only shown to have an effect in children. It may very well be that growing children might do better in school if they get something to eat in the morning simply because it keeps them happy and more attentive in class. Whatever the case may be it is clear that there is no effect of breakfast on adults.

So, eat breakfast if you like, but be aware that it’s not going to have a special effect on your ability to burn fat or get work done.

John