08.06.08
Review: Fat Loss Troubleshoot
Ever wonder why you “hardly eat” but can’t lose weight? Why you work out like a maniac but don’t lose weight? Why you follow Program X but see no results?
What secret forces are conspiring to prevent your weight loss? (Genes? Hormones? Aliens?)
The answers to those questions and more are in Leigh Peele’s e-book Fat Loss Troubleshoot. Leigh’s main goal is to get you in, get the weight (fat) off, and get you on with your life; dieting should not be a way of life but rather a brief phase. She looks at common misconceptions and “advice” and shows you why that isn’t right and what, instead, is. She also includes case studies from her clients that shows how she was able to find and fix what they were doing incorrectly.
A lot of the advice, you might be tempted to think, “Oh, I knew that already.” Oh, really? Then why aren’t you losing the fat? Sure, you might know a lot of this, but you haven’t quite put it all together. Leigh lays it all out; you get no more excuses by the time you finish reading.
The section that really hit me was on training & eating for your goals and getting enough recovery. If your goal is strength, you need to eat for strength and rest & sleep for strength. But if your goal is fat loss, you need to eat for fat loss (that is, in a deficit) and train for fat loss (that is, not so intense that you can’t function) and make sure your body is recovering. So sure, do the fat loss thing — and just the fat loss thing — until you’re at your goal, and then change goals.
FLTS is mostly a breakdown of the how’s and why’s and why not’s of fat loss. It includes calorie calculations for maintenance and deficits and an activity quiz to determine how much you’re really moving. In addition to FLTS, though, Leigh also offers “OPT for Fat Loss,” which is a workout and calorie deficit program based on everything you learn in FLTS so you don’t have to do it all yourself, and the “Metabolic Repair Manual.”
MRM is for people who have dieted for years and who may have created a slow metabolic response and/or other intestinal problems. (There’s a quiz in the manual to see if you qualify.) MRM takes you through a process of resting and slowly eating more until your metabolic response and digestion is normal. A plan that makes you eat more? Sounds crazy and like a recipe for massive weight gain, right? Except Leigh’s plan works and with little to no weight gain, and sometimes even weight loss! (See this thread in the JP Fitness Forums for one lady’s experience with MRM.) I’m only a Level 1 (little to no damage) mostly because I haven’t been able to stick to any “diet” for more than two weeks. =P
And, as if she hasn’t written enough yet, Leigh answers questions in the Fat Loss Troubleshoot forum at JP Fitness, and her blog has more info, articles, and comments. Subscribe to her podcast; sign up for the Subscribers’ section. Also, watch her Fat Loss Tips video. (Btw, the answer to the question “What secret forces are conspiring to prevent your weight loss?” is found in that video.)
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I really started following Leigh’s advice at the end of June (July 4th holiday not included!). With BJJ/MMA only 3 days/week and injured toes, I had the time to pay attention. And it made a huge difference. In the last month, my clothes have started to fall off as I’ve lost weight. I have progress pictures taken back in May and some taken last weekend, and the difference is amazing. In the last month I’ve started to get “You’ve lost a lot of weight!” comments. (And one hilarious addendum: “Did you do it on purpose?” Erm, yes.)
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Update 08/15/08: Skwigg has reviewed both FLTS and MRM. (As for the grammar issues, yes, they’re there (and I had to hide all my red pens), but Leigh explained that she hired an editor who did a bad job. She’s the Fat Loss Troubleshooter, not the Grammar Queen, after all.)
04.22.08
Post-Workout Nutrition
Post-workout, your muscles need glucose and protein. (No fat.) Glucose to replace the glucose/glycogen that you just used up, and protein (amino acids) as building blocks for new muscle proteins.
Glucose is the direct molecule that your cells use to get energy. Fructose, found mostly in fruit, has to be converted to glucose by your liver. Maltodextrin is a starch of glucose molecules, usually made from corn or wheat.
Either glucose/fructose or maltodextrin or a combination of the two is fine. Some people are adamant about one or the other; most said simply “carbohydrate.” The main point is to get some kind of a faster-absorbing carb in your post-workout nutrition so that your muscle and liver glycogen can be restored (and won’t steal amino acids from your muscle proteins to reverse-engineer glucose).
My PWO shake:
- 2 scoops Blue Ice Iso-Extreme (30 g protein)
- 0.5 scoop Xtinguisher (25 g dextrose (carb))
- 8 oz Fruit Punch Gatorade (14 g carbs (fructose & sucrose))
- 1 scoop Max Glutamine (5 g)
An hour or so after your post-workout shake, have a regular meal of protein, carbs, and fat.
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03.31.08
Women and Exercise
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| Photo by heavyweightgeek |
I’ve noticed that women usually hear the word “exercise” or “workout” and immediately jump to “losing weight.” We’ve been convinced that exercise is only good for changing the number on the scale.
Eat less, exercise more. It’s the mantra we’ve been taught. I’m too fat. It’s what we tell ourselves every day. So when we see a program like New Rules of Lifting for Women, we jump on board and expect weight loss to follow quickly.
And then… Weeks pass, and we look the same. The scale has gone up instead of down. We compare our “before” and “current” pictures, and we look the same. Even when other people tell us that there’s more definition in our abs/legs/face or that our butt looks higher, we don’t believe them. “Those pants” still don’t fit–or are even tighter!
I’m exercising, we think. Why am I not losing weight? We worry that the program isn’t working, that it’s another gimmick and we’ve been had. Sure, we can lift heavier weights than we thought; we’re sore in muscles we didn’t know we had; we have more energy than ever before. But still we long for hours of cardio and high reps with pink dumbbells; at least the scale moved in the “right” direction back then.
This isn’t just a physical transformation we’re going through. It’s a mental and a physiological one, as well. We must retrain our minds to focus on the goal and not current obstacles; we must learn patience and trust. We must learn that the standards we’re using to judge our progress may not be accurate. We must teach our bodies to adjust to the new demands on them; we must fuel our bodies for the activities we put them through. This is a metamorphosis.
What are we becoming?
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03.26.08
What are you eating?
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| Photo by PPDIGITAL |
There’s a new show on TLC called I Can Make You Thin. The host, Paul McKenna, is a motivational & lifestyle coach (near as I can tell) who gives you a few changes to make at a time that keep you from overeating. (Here’s a funny: the banner on the TLC page says “This show is for entertainment purposes only.”)
I only caught bits of the program over the weekend, but one social experiment they did caught my attention. They wanted to test the effect of distraction (e.g., watching television) on eating. So they left out some popcorn until it got stale and then took it out on the street for people to taste-test; everyone said it was disgusting and stale. Then they took that same popcorn into a movie theater and gave it away as theater popcorn. (Didn’t say whether people paid for it.) At the end of the movie, they asked patrons about the popcorn. Most had eaten almost all of the stale popcorn and said it was fine!
So those people ate stale popcorn during a movie and didn’t notice that it tasted bad. What else might you be missing if you eat while trying to do something else?
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03.19.08
My Brother’s Chicken
(No, not “My Brother Is Chicken.” The chicken my brother makes. The only recipe he knows.)
Ingredients:
- unthawed chicken
- dijon mustard
- bread crumbs
Directions:
- Cut chicken into ~3 oz pieces. Put chicken pieces in a zippered plastic bag.
- Add dijon mustard to bag. Let sit in refrigerator for several hours to marinate.
- Preheat oven to 350ยบ C. Pour bread crumbs on a plate. Coat chicken in bread crumbs.
- Cook chicken for ~45 min.
Notes:
- I personally dislike the taste of dijon mustard, so I use honey mustard when I make this. Use whatever you like.
- Yield/etc. depends on how much chicken you use. My brother’s original recipe is “as much chicken as is on sale” and “a bottle of mustard.”
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03.12.08
Whole Meal Crockpot Chili
I made this a few months ago (yes, I’m slow) and munched on it for a few days. Very good.
Ingredients:
- onion, 1 med, diced
- garlic, 3 cloves
- celery, 1 cup, diced
- lean ground turkey, 2.6 lbs (2 packages)
- lean ground sirloin, 1 lb (1 package)
- diced tomatoes, 2 cans
- tomato paste, 0.5 can
- low-sodium chicken stock, 1 cup
- cinnamon, 2 tbsp
- nutmeg, 1 tbsp
- chili powder, 1 tbsp
- oregano, dried, 2 tbsp
- parsley, dried, 1 tbsp
- salt, 1 tsp
- pepper, 1 tsp
- garlic powder, 1 tsp
- extra virgin olive oil
Directions
- Add olive oil to bottom of crockpot. Add onion, garlic, and celery to crockpot, on high. (Note: I made this as a “hurry up” recipe at night; you could also put the crockpot on low and slow cook this chili.)
- Brown turkey and sirloin in another pan. Add cinnamon and nutmeg to meat.
- Add meat to crockpot. Add remaining ingredients to crockpot.
- Cook on high ~2 hours. (Times for lower temperatures may be 4-8 hours.)
Yield
Makes ~8 1-cup servings.
Calories: 404.2*
Fat: 20.4 g
Carbs: 14.0 g (4.8 g Fiber)
Protein: 45.3 g
*Nutritional estimates from Spark Recipes.
Notes
- I forgot to add beans! But you can do that yourself to boost the fiber (also a little extra fat, fiber, and protein).
- Change up the spices if you want. I went a little crazy. (But it tastes so good.)
- I have a cup of this with some canned corn for more carbs. There’s your meal.
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03.10.08
Too Many Variables
I did my undergrad in chemistry. I learned many things are coming in handy now as I try to monitor my food and exercise. But one of the most important things I learned is to change as few variables at one time as possible.
If you change more than one thing at a time, how do you know which change gave the result? Or if it’s only that combination that produces the result?
You don’t, because you’ve changed too many things.
The same principle holds in diet and exercise. Let’s say you start a new exercise program with an accompanying sound diet program (or at least a way to calculate suggested calories), but you decide that you don’t want to do the diet program because it looks like a lot of work. You’re tracking your food now and regularly eating about 1400 calories, and that seems like a good idea to you.
Let’s say that, in four weeks, you lose 4 lbs of fat. How do you know if the weight loss is from the new exercise program, your old diet, or a combination of the two? Or let’s say that you gained 4 lbs of fat. Again: new exercise plan, old diet, or both?
I started The New Rules of Lifting back in January. I hang around the book forum and watch for references to the program on SparkPeople. I notice a lot of questions that ask, “Can I change X? What about Y? Can I eat less than recommended?” Some of the questioners have legitimate reasons for asking (injury, limited equipment, moral/religious reasons), but some think they know a shortcut or a secret that will boost the workout or diet advice to rocket their fat loss.
Maybe their solution will work. Maybe it won’t. Which will they blame, the workout/nutrition advice or their “fix”? Probably not what they did. What will they do? Probably change something else, always assuming that they can fix it on their own. And soon, they’ll be doing something that doesn’t get them results and that doesn’t resemble the program they started on at all.
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03.07.08
Start: Week 2
- Slowly replace soft drinks and fruit juice with water.
- Continue writing down your food. Add: weigh out and measure your food, and write this down, too. (Again, no limits on what it is, so write it all down.)
- Continue spreading food over 5-6 meals.
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03.05.08
Short-term Mentalities
Some of us doing NROLFW and posting on the jpfitness forums have noted that we have seen weight/size gain in our hips and thighs. And since we’re women, this is not where we’d like to see gains.
One of the women who’s about to start NROLFW also read another book by one of the NROLFW authors which recommended that pear-shaped women not do heavy lower-body weights. NROLFW, on the other hand, tells us to use weights as heavy as we can all the time. The author herself chimed in on that thread.
It came down to time and audience. NROLFW is a 6-month program. The other book, 8 weeks. You can and will see results and changes in 8 weeks on NROLFW. But they may not all be yippee-skippy, jump-around-all-day changes. (For example, gaining mass in your butt = not a happy camper.) On the other program, the other book company wanted an 8-week program, so she gave them an 8-week program. That is, a program that will produce positive results in an 8-week timeframe.
Then there’s the audience. NROLFW seems targeted at women who want better results but are afraid of strength training. But after reading the book, we understand that this process of reorganizing our body takes time and hard work, and so we grunt at weight gains, check our diets, and add more plates. The other program is targeted to a different group of women, who want fast results and who will probably give up on a plan that allows temporary weight gains.
Yes, I’ve gained weight and size in my hips since starting NROLFW. Water weight, muscle gains, resetting my metabolism–there are many explanations why this may happen. I seriously considered panicking at first. But I know that, in the end, lifting heavy and eating enough will get me the results I want. And NROLFW is a 6-month program. So I stick with it.
That’s not to say I ignore these things. However, I assume that the problem is with me first, not with the program. I’ve decided to trust that Lou, Cassandra, and Alwyn know what they’re talking about. So, first, I make sure that I’m following the program. I can’t blame a program for not working if I’m not following it. Second, I check my diet. Am I really eating enough? Am I eating the right macro ratios? Third, I check my rest. Am I sleeping enough? Am I taking enough time to recover between lifting sessions?
Do I want immediate but short-term results, or do I want slower but permanent results? When you put it that way, I don’t think there’s any more question.
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03.03.08
Getting fat in a low-fat world
The more I read, the more I’m becoming convinced that it isn’t eating fat that makes us fat.
Everything on our shelves is marketed as “low-fat” or “non-fat”, and yet they tell us that more Americans are fatter than ever. Possibly we’re just eating too much, thinking that if the food is “low/no fat” then we can’t get fat from eating it. But if we’re eating too much “no fat” food and getting fat, then the problem can’t just be from fat.
Besides, fats are actually important in our bodies. Vitamins A, D, E, and K can only be absorbed in the presence of fats. Fats are also used to keep our hair and skin healthy. The essential fatty acids (EFAs) are very important to processes in our bodies and cannot be manufactured by our bodies; we must eat these.
But if we’re not eating fat, how do we get so many pounds of fat in our bodies? Our bodies interconvert amino acids (from protein), glucose (from carbs), and fatty acids (from fat). That is, if you have a shortage of glucose but aren’t eating carbs, your body will create glucose from amino acids or fatty acids.
On the other hand, if you have an abundance of any of those three, your body packrats it away as fat. “Just in case,” your body says. “I’ll use it someday. It’s too good to just throw away.” (This is a slight tangent and fodder for another post, but check out Skwigg’s latest post about clutter and fat.)
Eating fat doesn’t make you fat. Eating protein doesn’t make you fat. Eating carbs doesn’t make you fat. Eating more than your body needs makes you fat.
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