Perspective Change #3 (Part 2) Strategies for eating more.

In my last blog post I talked about adjusting mindset towards food. It is time for a shift in thinking about "dieting". Here are several things that you must realize:

1) In order to lose body fat you MUST eat in a caloric deficit

2) The goal of your "diet" should be to eat as much as possible while maintaining a deficit

3) The QUALITY of your calories is just as important as how many calories you are eating.

4) It's time to stop listening to popular media and uneducated trainers who throw out arbitrary calorie counts.

Just a Review....

Read these words carefully: It is okay for you to EAT.  

This may take some getting used to, but feel good about eating!  EAT! 

 I remember when I first started with my coach, she increased my food significantly.  At first I thought “what is up with all this eating.  I’m going to get fat” but I hired her because I knew she got results.  That first cycle I lost 2 pounds.  As i told her in that first update, I knew that I was under eating but I needed someone to tell me that and to let me know it was okay to eat.

I was scared to eat too much because I worried I would get fat.  When I meet with some clients and tell them I need them to increase their food, they look at me as if I were nuts and then they look at me even crazier when I tell them that they don’t have to run to lose fat or they don't need to do endless amounts of cardio. When they follow that advice, appetites start raging, metabolism begins firing back up, inches are lost, and the scale begins to move.

About Calorie Counting....

I’m not a big fan of calorie counting because some studies state that calorie counts on some food labels are off by as much as 20%.  Besides that I think it sets people up to become obsessive and also leads to people not making good choices because we get the following scenario:

This banana has 140 calories but this package of Oreos has 100 calories….so because I want to stay under this amount of calories I’m going to go for the Oreos.  No thought to nutrient value...just calories.

Now we DO need to know how many calories we are ingesting on daily basis in order to make more efficient changes to nutritional programs so I recommend keeping a food journal in My Fitness Pal for about 3 days to see how many calories you are ingesting on a day to day basis.  I’ve had people complete this exercise and find they are eating 1000 calories per day.  No good.

Caloric Deficit

In order to lose body fat you MUST eat in a caloric deficit.  There is no way around it so you need to know how many calories you are currently ingesting, and then begin to make changes from there.

How Many Calories should you be eating?

This is a tricky question because everyone is SO different and reacts differently to foods so my action plan for clients is this:

1. Keep a Food Log for 3-5 days:  Note time, and how you feel afterwards, I also think it’s important to write down when you feel hungry so that you can begin to plan your meals more effectively.

2. Put the foods in my fitness pal: Look at your macro nutrient intake. What is your percentage of Fat, Protein, and Carbs? Your macro nutrient ratios will depend on your goals.

3. This is where the individuality of the programs come in.  When someone comes to me wanting to lose fat, I like to start with one meal at a time so they aren’t overwhelmed and learn that change is a process and not an event.

Most people are not ready to get to the point where they are able to follow a structured meal plan.  It's a big win if they begin to eat more fruits, vegetables, and stop drinking so much.

Application

1) Keep a Food Journal for 3-5 days

I recommend My Fitness Pal because they make life so much easier.  You can even use the bar code to scan foods.  From there, you can see how many calories you are currently taking in and then begin to make changes from there.

2) Change one meal at a time: 

Add foods in slowly - People who are chronically under eating should not increase food drastically because psychologically it will take time to get used to.  I always think it’s best to add food in one meal at a time.  

Most people need to improve breakfast and lunch. If those two meals are taken care of, then you are less likely to eat the whole cupboard when you get home.

Breakfast is a great meal to make over because it sets the tone for the rest of the day.  I’m an advocate of front loading the day with carbohydrates because it stabilizes blood sugar to prevent extreme highs and lows, gives you energy for your day, and studies have shown that people who eat a solid breakfast make better food choices for the rest of the day.

If you’re going to eat salad for lunch, then add some oomph to it.  Add some good fats like avocado or nuts.  If you’re not a vegetarian, then add in some protein.  Eating sad salads that hold you for 10 minutes is counterproductive.  

In my last post, I cited a study done by Dr. Layne Norton who is an expert on metabolic adaptation where they concluded that protein intake and resistance training are imperative to fat loss for athletes, but I believe those principles hold true for general population clients as well.

3) Stop reading magazines and listening to trainers who give out arbitrary numbers for caloric intake

Such and such actress eats this per day and that's how she manages to stay a size 2. Listen, most of that Hollywood stuff is FAKE. People are either genetically designed to be that small or they do things that people should NOT do in order to maintain that type of weight. Remember it is their JOB to look that way and we don't REALLY know what they are doing to achieve that look.

As someone who was training for a competition, I will tell you that diet was not sustainable long term. After my competition was over, I would have had my calories increased slowly with what is termed a reverse diet.

Run far away from any trainer who tells you that in order to lose weight you need to eat 1000-1200 calories a day. This is the number I hear most often from those who give this advice. 1200 calories a day is not some magic number for fat loss.  Will you lose weight if you go down to 1200 calories per day?  Yes, but you most likely will not just lose body fat, you will also lose muscle mass which leads to the skinny fat look.

Certified does not mean qualified.

Did the trainer ask you about your past dieting history? Did they ask about hormonal levels? Do they know how you react to certain foods? My guess is no. They are just throwing out numbers that sound good and most trainers are not qualified to discuss nutrition with clients. Certified does NOT mean qualified.

Remember your body loves ADAPTATION so you’re doing more harm than good by going down to such a low caloric intake.  Once you get tired of this “diet” you will inevitably increase calories and gain weight back plus some (rebound) because your body has adapted to existing on 1200 calories and the excess calories will be stored as fat.

The goal is to “diet” on as many as calories as possible.  The goal is to eat as much as possible and still lose body fat. Dr. Norton's study concluded that fat loss happens with small incremental changes.

If you don’t believe me, then think about all of the people you know who have gone on these diets and how successful they have been long term.

4) No more Guilt and No More Shame:  Get used to eating and enjoying your food

We should eat and enjoy it.  There shouldn’t be shame for enjoying food and feeling that if we do, then we’re going to get fat.  This whole restricting and martyrdom attitude towards food (example:  Fit people don’t eat those foods and I’m so hardcore!) leads to the secret eaters and binge club.  

Oh yes binge and eating in secret is a huge problem for women.  As I said in the beginning I know in public we like to act as though we eat like birds, but when we get home it’s open season on anything in the cupboard.

No more guilt.  No more shame.  You need to eat to live and you have the right to enjoy it!

5) Quit Listening to others and begin to listen to your instincts. Eat intuitively

Stop listening to people who want to make you feel guilty for eating

Examples:

You’re eating that! 
 You’re eating all of that!  
Oh no!  You’re going to fat!

I have heard stories where someone was criticizing another woman because she was eating almonds and they were too high in fat.  Meanwhile the critic was busy munching on her chips and caramel frappauchino 

Please do not let others criticism or two cents steer you off track.  In my experience many of the nutrition experts and critics aren’t speaking from knowledge or experience but from feeling convicted for what they are NOT doing.

If you really struggle with anxiety when it comes to food, STOP and then listen to your gut. What do you want to eat? Why is this such an issue? I have found when I eat intuitively my body leads me naturally towards fresh fruit, vegetables, fish, and lean meats. I eat when I'm hungry and take the focus off of restriction and denial.

Hopefully this helps and begins to break down those ingrained ideas about food that we've heard all of our lives.

Perspective Change #3 (Part 1)- Learn to Eat as much as possible and be comfortable with it.

You need to learn to eat as much as possible in order to optimize your metabolism.

This means that yes, Ladies you need to EAT.

This is a post primarily geared at women but I think that everyone can find some useful information. We need to change the perspective on what it means to “diet”.  Diet doesn’t mean you are starving and it doesn't mean eating only cucumbers and white fish all day.

Will you be hungry in a fat loss phase?  Yes, hunger is a physiological response to fat loss BUT you should not be starving and eating 500 calories a day.

Indoctrinated from an early age

Growing up I’m sure many of us heard our mothers and grandmothers discussing diets.  Dieting for our mothers and grandmothers included the grapefruit diet, cabbage soup diet, or eat 1 meal a day to lose weight.  Sadly they would do these fad diets and lose weight but in most cases gain back even MORE weight (rebound) when they went back to eating normally.

As women we have had it ingrained into us that if we want to lose weight then we need to eat 500 calories a day and starve.  We will be martyrs to fit into those pants!

This is all wrong.

The goal should be to be to eat as much possible when you’re in a fat loss phase.  Most women that I work with are undereating. Before I began working with my coach, I too was under-eating and I know Better

Throw out Mom and Grandma's Ideas about Dieting and Eating

“Women should eat like birds”

Get over this one with a quickness.  I eat about 5-6 times per day and I have gotten comments from people such as:

“You’re eating again!  

You just ate!  

You ate all that!”

People pride themselves on eating such small amounts of food...but they forget that I already know how that really story goes.

People pride themselves on eating that small amount in public and then when they go home at night they GO IN on the cupboards because they are starving.

The truth is we need to throw out that garbage about women needing to eat like birds and  exist on lettuce and carrot sticks all day.

Let me ask this question: For all the eating like birds didn’t most of our mothers and grandmothers STILL complain about gaining weight ?  Why?  

It Doesn't Work

Noted expert Dr. Layne Norton has extensively researched and talked about metabolic adaptation. In his paper Metabolic Adaptation to weight loss and the athlete: Implications for the athlete Dr Norton and his colleagues came to this conclusion

To accomplish these goals, it is recommended to approach weight 

loss in a stepwise, incremental fashion, utilizing small energy 

deficits to ensure a slow rate of weight loss. Participation in a 

structured resistance training program and adequate protein 

intake are also imperative.

Meaning:  In order to lose body fat in a safe, effective, and 

sustainable manner it is important to have small and incremental 

calorie deficits to ensure a slow rate of weight loss.  In the actual 

paper, Dr. Norton and his colleagues that the goal needs to be to 

eat as much as possible while still maintaining a deficit.

You can read the actual paper here

Dr. Norton's research is in the context of athletes  but I have wondered how many women in the general public are unable to lose weight because of metabolic adaptation.  I see countless women eating next to nothing all day but salad or Special K chips and then bouncing on the elliptical for an hour. These women consume very little protein and do next to no resistance training. Over the long term many do not look any different and some have gained weight.  

Dr. Norton is sought out by women who have dieted for fitness competitions on severely low calorie diets and high exercise volume and now find themselves facing a weight gain rebound. 

No matter what they do they cannot lose fat. Dr. Norton has this to say about why people who continually drop calories and up exercise reach a point where they no longer lose fat and begin to go in the opposite direction.

The reason they can’t drop body fat is because their body adapts to the low calorie intake and the high calorie output so much to where they don’t get any caloric burn from exercise. They also have very little thermogenic effect from foods and low basal metabolic rates. Their metabolism is blunted, so they don’t have any type of metabolic cushion to work with and thus they can’t lose adipose tissue.” says Layne Norton.

Your body loves adaptation so when people tell me that they are going on ridiciulously low calorie diets or a “trainer” told them to eat 1100 calories a day, my face looks like this little boy in the picture  

Read these next words carefully: It is okay for you to EAT.  This may take some getting used to, but feel good about eating!  EAT!  I remember when I first started with my coach, she increased my food significantly.  At first I thought “what is up with all this eating.  I’m going to get fat” but I hired her because I knew she got results.  That first cycle I lost 2 pounds.  As i told her in that first update, I knew that I was under eating but I needed someone to tell me that and to let me know it was okay.

I was scared to eat too much because I worried I would get fat.  When I meet with some clients and tell them I need them to increase their food, they look at me as if I were nuts and then they look at me even crazier when I tell them that they don’t have to run to lose fat or cardio doesn’t need to be over 30 minutes per day. 

When they follow that advice, appetites start raging, metabolism begins firing back up, inches are lost, and the scale begins to move.

Remember your goal is to eat as much as possible while still maintaining a caloric deficit to optimize your metabolism.

Here are 3 easy ways to make these small changes

1) Cut down on Alcohol Consumption and/or Limit it to the Weekends

As I teach clients they don't call it beer belly for nothing! Alcohol contains empty calories and cutting down alcohol consumption can easily cut out 1000 surplus calories per week.

2) Increase Protein Consumption

6 Chicken Breasts or 6 pieces of Bread? Which is harder to finish? Chicken Breasts no doubt and think about it. Protein helps you to feel full and doesn't cause as much of a blood sugar crash.

3) Eat at Regular Intervals

There's no magic to eating every 3 hours but eating at regular intervals helps with blood sugar stabilization and also helps you to get more food in without feeling overwhelmed.

In Part 2 we will discuss additional strategies for eating more.

Progress Journal: Would you please get off the scale

That moment where it's you, the scale, and some prayers that today you will receive a favorable outcome.

Readjusting to Real Life

Last Saturday I stepped on the scale and saw a  number that didn't make me leap for joy.  Since abandoning my fitness competition goal for this year I have tried to readjust to normalcy for me.  You know about GDay and over Labor Day Weekend I went to Chipotle and had some Coldstone with friends.  I even went out for dinner over Labor Day weekend and shared an entree and dessert.

After so many months of structured eating, I wanted to take a break and try to feel like I did before starting the competition training.  I liked healthy foods and would have a free meal (or sometimes two) during the week.

I'm happy to say that slowly but surely I'm getting there.  I've reincorporated a lot of the foods I was eating prior to starting competition training and it is all on plan.  

I have had a few slip ups with trail mix and Quest Bars, but I mean REALLY!!!!! WHy can't I slip up with Burgers, Fries, and Cheesecake?????

Needless to say I am up a few pounds.  I'm up 8 lbs to be exact from my lowest and frankly that 8 lbs has returned to places that I don't mind carrying extra.  

But anyway as  I saw that number I had a few moments of Insanity:

• You should just give up!  See you won't be able to compete if you gain this weight back.  You can't do it.
• Today 8 pounds up and next month you will have gained 20 pounds back
• FORGET IT!  Bring on the Brownies.
• I quit

After I put the scale away,  I proceeded to make my food for the next week and go about my business.  I just had a momentary lapse, but what if I had kept going like I know many people do.

At this point I am satisfied with how things are going.  I like how I look and how I feel.  I can see muscle definition in my arms and shoulders.  My workouts have been fantabulous and I'm really pushing myself harder.  Food hasn't been perfect but it has been about 80% to compliance which isn't horrible.

So what gives?

The scale has been hailed as the barometer of successful weight loss for so long that it's hard to abandon this mode of thinking.  

As my coach Roxie says, the scale is useful for determining caloric needs but beyond that it's your gravitational pull on the earth that day.  

Weight can fluctuate depending on so many factors so it really is a waste of time to let scale weight get you down.  It's much more important to focus on how you're feeling and to enjoy the process.

Weight is a number....it's not my life

Weight is a pretty tough subject for me and I have constantly to remind myself that it's just a number and not my label or my life.  

Besides as I learned earlier this year it really doesn't matter either way.  Whether I weigh 135 pounds or 160 pounds, some  are still here for it because I AM FABULOUS!  

Yeah that's right and I dare you to tell me otherwise.  

It's only a number.

Your weight is just a number.  It does not define who you are as an individual.  It does not make you more worthy of love and affection, and it should NOT rule your day.

Upper Body Workout!

Here in the Bay Area, it is just starting to warm-up so that means lots of sleeveless wear.

Please check out this workout that I put together and was featured on my company's website!  It's gets the job done utilizing supersets to overload the muscle and save time!

Upper Body Strength Workout!

Article of the Week: Low Carb beats Low Fat for Fat Loss

Flashback to the 1990's: Fat Free foods were all the rage.  Fat free cookies and desserts lined the shelves.  Food Marketers and health experts preached that our intake of fat is what was leading to cardiovascular disease and the obesity epidemic.

What happened? Americans became fatter than ever so that wasn't the answer.

In the 2000's everyone began to preach the evils of carbohydrates and enter the low carb phenomenon.  People then decided to cut out all carbohydrates in favor of eggs, bacon, steaks, and other high fat protein sources.

What happened? People lost weight and also regained much of it once they went back to eating carbohydrates.

Low Fat or Low Carb 

A recent study suggest that cutting down on carbs is a more effective strategy than limiting fat intake.

You can read the article in its entirety here

Participants in the study were given diets with similar caloric intake and after 1 year (take note of this) the individuals on the low carb diet lost 11.7 lbs while those on the low fat diet lost 3.9 lbs

One problem I have with studies is that many times they are done on a single type of population. There is no diversity in subjects which is not helpful to the general population.  This study was conducted on a diverse population with an average age of 47, 50% were women, and half were Black.  The participants checked in at 3, 6, and 12 months.

Results

As previously stated, the low carb group lost more weight (11.7 lbs vs. 3.9 lbs) but that wasn't the only positive:  Triglyceride levels fell in both groups but more so in the low carbohydrate diet.  

LDL Cholesterol (The "bad" cholesterol) also fell in both groups.

The researchers concluded that "Restricting carbohydrates may be an option for persons who are seeking to lose weight and reduce cardiovascular risk factors and should be studied further," they concluded.

I would like to point out that the study was conducted over a 12 month period.  As I have said on this blog and as I teach my clients, it takes at least 1 year to see substantial LASTING fat loss because progress isn't linear and it takes that amount of time to really change your lifestyle and habits.

In his book Good Calories, Bad Calories Gary Taubes makes the argument that it isn't meats and fats that are causing heart disease and obesity, but a high sugar diet of refined cabrohydrates. This study supports Taubes findings and is another blow to the hypothesis of eating a low fat diet to prevent cardiovascular disease.

Real Life Tips for maximizing Carbohydrate intake

I do not advocate dropping all carbohydrates or going on an extreme diet such as Atkins.  But I do coach clients to begin to think about their carbohydrate intake.  

3 Ways to Maximize your Carbohydrate Intake

1.  Avoid Processed Snack Foods 

If a client begins to avoid processed foods, then that will substantially cut down on refined carbohyrates which are filled with sugars and other unnecessary products.  

I also coach clients to throw out those diet friendly snack foods that food marketers tout as diet friendly. This would also include those terrible Special K chips and other "diet" foods that are marketed for weight control.  

First, you don't feel like you've eaten anything and you INEVITABLY end up snacking even more. FORGET IT!  You're better off with some real food.  Get rid of those low calorie processed snack items.

2. Front Load the day with Carbohydrates

Eat carbohydrate rich meals for your first and second meals of the day.  I find that this will stabilize blood sugar and prevent those crashes that cause you to seek out the candy drawer at 3 p.m. You're also a lot more likely to be active during the day than you are at night.

Ideas for Carbohydrate rich first 2 meals:  Oatmeal, Grits, Ezekiel Toast, Whole Grain Cereals with lots of of fiber, Cream of Wheat, Whole Grain wraps, Brown Rice, Sandwiches on whole grain bread.

3.  Make sure to eat enough protein and fat

I find that the reason most clients overdo the carbohydrates is because they are hungry! One way to combat this is to eat more protein and fat with each meal.

I often ask clients theoretically which would be easier to eat? 3 donuts or 3 chicken breasts.

Think about it:  Why is it easier to eat 3 donuts rather than 3 chicken breasts?  Chicken breasts have more protein and protein helps us to feel satisfied longer.  Ask most people who eat these sad salads for lunch.  They are hungry in 20 minutes! 

The truth is in the middle

As I always like to remind clients, the truth is in the middle. Extreme diets on either side of the spectrum do not produce long term results.  The key is to design a nutrition plan that you enjoy and is sustainable.