Weight Loss – Sprint or Marathon?
Most people gain weight gradually over time and don’t even notice because it happens so slowly. But almost anyone I’ve ever seen who has lost weight does it rapidly over the course of weeks and months. It almost never takes as long to lose weight as it does to gain it.
This goes against conventional ‘fitness’ industry talk. But have a look around at fitness competitors, bodybuilders, and any average person who has lost weight doing a transformation challenge or any other weight loss program…
The one thing you’ll notice is they lose weight quickly. By quick I mean they will lose some serious weight over the course of a few months and even over a few weeks. In reality the time it takes them to lose weight is a sprint compared to the time it took to put the weight on.
Even if the weight that took them years to put on the way to take it off is fast.
When it comes to things like losing weight you don’t want to be told that it’s going to take you years to do it. That is simply not good enough and not acceptable and it isn’t even realistic.
The reward is too far away if you expect to lose the weight over the course of 12 months. But if you shorten the time frame to 12 weeks, or even 12 days, now you’re talking. Why not just try to lose as much as you can in 12 days. Then take a break and do it again in a few weeks. This seems much more doable psychologically and in fact it is really how people lose weight.
It’s almost like interval training for weight loss dieting.
Hack off a bunch of weight in a couple weeks or a month. Then take a break for a month, then hack some more off.
This seems to be the way most people really do lose weight.
Kinda ironic that people spend years trying to lose weight, and when they finally do it, it all happens in a few months.
Brad Howard and I just had a discussion about this very topic during a recent phone call. You can listen in on it here.
In this audio I talk about one of the landmark research trials that studied human starvation.
Whenever you hear a fitness or nutrition ‘expert’ talk about “starvation mode” the following picture is an example of what true starvation mode is.
I think you would agree that you and I will never experience starvation mode if this is the state we need to be in.
When you hear any fitness or nutrition person nowadays refer to ‘starvation mode’ you know right away they don’t know what they’re talking about and misinterpreting the scientific research to mean something that it does not. (unless of course they actually believe you are in danger of looking like the guys in the above picture)
If you want to lose weight fast, then you gotta drop your calories ALOT. Do this in intervals and get it over with. I’ll bet you get more results this way than trying to add in a series of rules to follow for the rest of your life for “sustained’ slow weight loss.
John
8 Responses to “Weight Loss – Sprint or Marathon?”
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August 27th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Great post John. The picture of that Minnesota guy makes me REALLY hungry though…lol. Couldn’t the same hold true for people who wanna gain weight fast? I’m referring to the likes of collegiate wrestlers or football players who load up on carbs and fat for a meet, game or a simple weight check.
August 28th, 2009 at 12:43 am
@Rahim
Rahim,
Yes you can also gain weight fast if you try. But you gotta pound back tonnes of food, and virtually all of the weight gain will be fat. But yes you can do that as well. <– this is in fact harder than you would think. Eating more food once you’re already full is really tough to do.
JB
August 28th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
[...] This post was Twitted by BradHoward [...]
August 28th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
A great audio John. Could the same hold for the middle-aged [45-65 year olds] – or would the process take longer?
August 28th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
@John
John,
Same deal no matter how old you are. Less calories is still less calories. Changes in metabolic rate with age are minor and wouldn’t make this effect that much different.
JB
August 29th, 2009 at 10:58 am
I learn so much from your posts. This makes total sense, as it seems the body thrives in temporary bouts of hardship to try and overcome that particular obstacle. I had a question that somewhat falls in line with this post, what are your thoughts (if any) on introducing bouts of low protein days in your diet? The more I read up on this it seems the body becomes more efficient at utilizing the protein you already have in your system for maintaining/gaining muscle during workouts.
August 29th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
@Javier
From what I have seen in the research there doesn’t seem to be any great advantage to restricting protein intake in the hopes of some sort of muscle building/efficiency/overcompensation after adding protein back.
You gotta look at the human system based on efficiency of energy usage and balance (basically homeostasis)
There are upper and lower limits to what the system can withstand until something have to give.
under feeding protein might cause a temporary increase in protein utilization efficiency, but as soon as you feed more protein the body will also have a balancing effect with the excess protein.
In other words there is really no ‘tricking’ your body. It will work to the most efficient state no matter what you do to it.
The best you can do for muscle building is train hard, heavy and consistently, while avoiding injuries…the gains will come, but be patient.
This topic might need a podcast.
JB
October 12th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Hey there John,
I need your helpppp…
Really interesting post by the way, and sorry for my late comment, I just started checking out your blog through Brad’s last email.
Now, I have a question about the fact that you’re saying that we should try to loose the excess weight as quickly as possible.. love the idea, and I actually NEED to hear something like that to keep me going, other than thinking I’m doing too much and that I will just end up feeling overwhelmed and deprived.. which happens every time I start a ”diet”..
Now for someone who’s being binging on and off for (too) many years now, do you think that ”getting it over with” would be the answer? Even though I try to do it as quick as possible, I just find myself stopping after a fiew weeks, sometimes even a fiew days! I’m getting so desperate now with the weight-loss that I don’t even know what to do anymore… please give me some tips, and I’d really appreciate a good quote or something that I can read that’s going to make me believe that whichever plan I follow, it will work and I will be able to move on with the more important things in life…
Thank you for reading through this email.. you can’t even imagine how your input is appreciated..
JB (we have the same initials lol)