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.)
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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02.05.08
Less is Bad
Over on SparkPeople, most people aim to keep their calories between 1200 and 1400. I read people’s posts/blogs, where they say they’re always tired, are injured, or aren’t losing weight, and then I check out their food & exercise tracker. 1200 calories and glued to a treadmill… Most nutrition studies/information I’ve seen say “starvation mode” is anything under 1200 calories.
My estimated Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is just over 1200 calories. I’m 5′2″, female, 132 lbs. That means if I only slept all day, my body would still use 1200 calories. Heart, lungs, brain, kidneys, liver–you know, those slightly important organs–they need gas to keep going. A person who’s larger than me will have a higher BMR. Makes sense: there’s more of them to keep going.
But if I wake up, go to work, and do the normal things I do every day, my body needs more energy. Heart, lungs, brain, et al–they’re doing more work now. They need more gas. This “activity coefficient” also depends on your personality: Mr. Rogers or Robin Williams? Mr. Rogers is calm, collected, and efficient; Robin Williams is fidgety and spastic. To stay fidgety and spastic, a Robin Williams personality would have a greater daily energy need than a Mr. Rogers type.
According to my first calculation in NROLFW, my non-workout daily need is 1900 calories. (NROLFW chooses a single activity coefficient, but does caution that the final calculated value 1) is an estimate and 2) can be adjusted because everyone is different. It’s also a Maintenance level, i.e., not losing or gaining.)
Now if I add a workout to my day, I’ve not only used more energy than a normal day, I’ve also started my body’s repair mechanisms, which will fix and strengthen the areas I worked out. Next time, I’ll be able to lift a little more or run a little further. According to the same calculation, my workout daily need is 2200 calories.
So, the amount my body needs to stay where it is is 1900-2200 calories, 700-1000 more than my BMR. And yet most people eat at their BMR, cutting out a huge number of important calories. (Seriously, do you want to think about your brain not having enough calories? Not that it would, but that’s almost how low these people go, to an unhealthy range. You do want your body to keep functioning properly, don’t you?)
To lose weight safely, I can cut down on my non-workout and workout day calories by 100-300 calories. I’ll still be eating at least 1600 calories, which means I can eat more than celery.
It sounds contradictory, crazy, and dumb to tell people to eat more. News stories always tell you that Americans eat too much already, but really, it’s more that we eat the wrong things. And dieting, we’ve now been told, also makes us fat. The truth must be somewhere in the middle.
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I did some Wikipedia searching as I was writing parts of this, and I finally noticed something that I hadn’t really seen before: the RDA is 2,000 calories (and they always show the “2,500 calories” breakdown, too). Ha! It’s actually close the right, for most people. The problems start when you go too high or too low, which we all too often do…
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