Metabolism = Overrated

I’ve got some bad news from you.

Despite what all the OCE Diets tell you, at a given weight and muscle mass, your metabolism isn’t going to go up, (or down) a whole bunch.

If you are 170 pounds with 150 pounds of lean mass…your resting metabolism is not going to fluctuate more than the equivalent of 100 or 200 calories worth of calorie burning over a 24 hour period.

I’ll admit that it fluctuates throughout the day, depending on your workouts and eating habits and sleeping habits...but when added up over 24 hours the total effect of these fluctuations is VERY SMALL, and it is MINISCULE compared to the fluctuations in the amount of food you eat.
Consider this-

It is very easy to overeat by 2,000 calories during a given day.

It is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to raise your resting metabolic rate by even 1,000 calories above normal…Not with a high protein diet, not with ephedrine, not by adding ten pounds of muscle, not even by experimenting with drugs like Clenbuterol.

This begs the question -if the fluctuations that are possible with metabolic rate are minuscule compared to the fluctuations that occur with calorie intake, then why does ‘metabolism’ get all sorts of attention?

It’s because it sounds mystical, magical, and to a certain extend…down right sexy.

It is great media fodder.

It is a great buzz word.

Put “boost metabolism” in the headline of an article…and it will get read guaranteed.

What do you think would sell more copies of Cosmo -

“3 secrets to losing weight by boosting your metabolism”

or

“3 secrets to losing weight by eating less”

The truth is, our love affair with our metabolisms is a main cause of obsessive compulsive eating.

The belief that what you eat can DRASTICALLY change your metabolism is not only wrong, but it can derail your weight loss efforts.

The bottom line is if you are counting on the foods you eat to burn your body fat for you, you are going to be very disappointed with the results.

The most important thing you should learn about eating is not how foods affect your metabolism, it’s learning to appreciate the value of simply eating less.

BP

The Real Reason Diets Don't Work

It was back on March 12 of 2007 that I first wrote about the now famous A to Z weight loss trial (you can see my original blog post HERE ).

In this ground breaking study, 311 overweight women were recruited to follow one of the following popular diet programs: The Atkins Diet, The Zone Diet, the LEARN diet or the Ornish Diet.

To start the study, each woman was given a copy of the popular diet book that she was randomly assigned to follow.

Then, to make sure she was an “expert” on her program before she started dieting, each woman attended a series of 8 classes (each lasting an hour) explaining exactly how to follow her assigned diet.

(Side note- This just shows how OCE these diets are considering that it takes EIGHT classes for these women to know how to properly follow each diet!)

After the courses were completed the women then set off to follow their assigned diet plan for a total of 1 year.

The results were pretty much exactly what I expected – everybody lost a lot of weight in the first two months, after that the diets tended to even out and by the end of the trial the weight loss was far from impressive – none of the groups averaged more than 10 pounds of weight loss after an entire year of dieting.

And while many people used this study to ‘prove’ that diets simply didn’t work, or that the body somehow adapted to dieting, my take was much simpler – Firstly, this trial is in agreement with most research that shows it is very hard to accurately measure how many calories a person eats in a day, and secondly I thought that these results showed that the number one reason diets fail is compliance.

In other words, the more complicated and the more rigid the diet is (or the more OCE it is), the more likely it is going to fail in the long term. – People just can’t stick to these types of diets for long periods of time.

Apparently I wasn’t alone with my analysis.

In a study published in the International Journal of Obesity titled “Dietary adherence and weight loss success among overweight women: results from the A to Z weight loss study” researchers re-examined the A to Z weight loss trial to see if there was an association between the level of compliance and the amount of weight that was lost.

Guess what they found?

Astonishingly only ONE subject in the ENTIRE study followed the diet as directed for the whole 12 months. This means that every other subject was not following her assigned diet properly at some point during the research trial!

The researchers also found that adherence was significantly correlated with 12-month weight change for all three-diet groups. So the better a woman was at following her diet, the more weight she lost.

The fact that adherence was so low is very interesting considering that these women spent eight class sessions reviewing their assigned diets with a registered dietitian before they even started the diet…you can imagine what adherence must be like for someone who simply bought one of those books, read it cover to cover and then gave it a try!

The findings from this follow-up analysis also suggest that the difference in dietary macronutrients had only negligible effects on the participants weight loss success.
The bottom line is that you can generally figure out how successful a diet will be by looking at how complicated it is.

More rules = more complicated = low chance of success

Less rules = less complicated = high chance of success

In my opinion weight loss can be incredibly simple if you let it.

Find the easiest, most comfortable way to reduce the total amount of calories that you eat. The less intrusive a diet is on your lifestyle the greater chance you have of sticking to it long term.

For me, this is flexible intermittent fasting. After all if you can fast for 24 hours once, you know you will always be able to do it. Some fasts maybe harder or easier than others, but you know you can do it!

Obsessive Compulsive Eating habits that make diets complicated and difficult spell doom for long-term weight loss.

BP

Food makes me feel bad

I always hate hearing people say things like this. Truthfully, I even find it a little scary.

One of the hallmarks of obsessive compulsive eating is letting food (and especially specific types of food) affect your mood.

It's one thing to be a little upset because you know you ate A LOT more than you needed to at a meal, it's another thing to be downright depressed becuase you ate a piece of garlic toast at lunch.

It doesn't matter if you are a bodybuilder or someone who is trying to get back into shape - Food is there to be enjoyed.

In fact, most of us would do incredibly well just by following the credo of "Eat a LITTLE less and ENJOY the foods you eat".

That would probably be the 'healthiest' thing we could do for ourselves.

Even traditional junk foods can be enjoyed - As long as you eat them in moderation.

If you are constantly letting food effect your moods, I think 0ne of the best things you can do for yourself is to learn to enjoy food again.

( A perfect example of enjoying food - and don't worry she didn't' eat the whole cone by herself, I had some of it, and the rest went onto her dress!)

BP

More on Obsessive Compulsive Eating

I was sent a link to a blog this morning that is written by a woman who, for lack of better terms, has self-diagnosed herself as an Obsessive Compulsive Eater.

I clicked the link to find a very well written, very captivating account of a person realizing that all the typical dieting nonsense was actually psychologically damaging her relationship with food.

A very informative and interesting read:

http://layla-gets-lean.blogspot.com/

BP

The Origins of Obsessive Compusive Eating

I'm snowed in today (gotta love Canadian winters).

In all honesty this couldn't have come at a better time. I have a major speaking engagement tomorrow I have to prepare for, and I have a number of emails I need to get written.

Naturally, since I have a crazy amount of work to do, I started the day off with the perfect procrastination tool - I decided to clean out my in-box.

This quickly became an eye opening expose into the origins of our Obsessive Compulsive Eating craze.

Ever wonder why so many people are so confused about what is good for them and what is bad for them? Well I think I may have found part of the answer. Take a look at the following e-mail subject lines I found in my In-box about caffeine, coffee and tea:

'Coffee linked to lower ovarian cancer risk', 'Caffeine linked to risk of miscarriage', 'Black tea shows blood sugar benefits', 'Caffeine linked to higher blood glucose levels'.

Or, how about Carbs:

'The carb rotation diet', 'eat all the carbs you want', 'carbs kill', 'whole grains may reduce pancreatic cancer risk', 'Good and bad carb definitions misleading says review', 'Carbs linked to obesity', 'Eat all the carbs you want and still lose weight'.

and sugar:

'High Fructose drinks no different to sucrose, milk for satiety', 'mechanism proposed for fructose syrup-obesity link', 'Soft drinks not responsible for obesity – study', 'Fructose linked to fatty artery deposits, study says', 'Study finds no link between sugar drinks and kiddie obesity', 'Should you really avoid fruit juice?'

And these were all just from January!

By constantly reporting on small little snip-its of research, writers can definitely create great headlines, but they do it at the risk of confusing their readers.

In academics, you constantly have to make sure you are aware of the total body of research. Which is just a fancy way of saying you need to know all the research on a certain topic, and how all this research fits together, before you should comment on that issue.

I feel comfortable talking to you about fasting, because I have spent years studying it. However, if I started reporting on one single paper that I read on Cardiovascular disease, then I would be doing you a major disservice as I do not know the total body of research on that topic.

It is this quick "snip-it" approach to reporting on nutrition and health that I think plays a role in people's obsessive compulsive eating. We only hear little tiny pieces of the story and very rarely do we hear about the nutrition "big picture".

Always remember when you read anything about nutrition that you must consider how this one little article fits into the total big picture.

BP

Obsessive Compulsive Eating vs. Eating Responsibly

Obsessive Compulsive Eating vs. Eating Responsibly

It probably comes as no surprise that I don't get along to well with many other health and nutrition experts.

For the most part, I blame a lot of them for today's rampant outbreak of obsessive compulsive eating (OCE).

In my opinion people are worrying way too much about how to eat, when to eat, what to eat and why they should eat.

Eating is supposed to be healthy. And, it is supposed to be just as psychologically healthy as it is physically healthy.

Getting super stressed over the fact that you want to eat 9 times today, cycling your carbohydrates, making sure to only eat fat with your protein, to make sure there's no carrots in you salad, and that your post workout shake contained exactly 45.445476% protein makes no sense to me at all. I'd go so far as to say that the psychological damage that extreme OCE can do to you mentally far out weighs the damage an extra diner roll with supper can do to you physically.

While many health and nutrition professionals like to complicate matters as much as possible, every once in a while I get an email that makes a lot of sense, because its simple, logical and effective.

The most recent one came from Craig Ballantyne.

One of the most common questions I get regarding Eat Stop Eat is people asking how to eat during the days they aren't fasting. My answer is always to try and eat responsibly. If you want a good definition of what 'eating responsibly' should look like, see Craig's 5 steps in his email below.

Even step 5, (which may sound a little OCE) is definitely not an example of OCE. Sure, if you think of it like a bodybuilder freezing 49 individually weighed meals in his freezer then its probably OCE. But, if you think about someone who shops for their family, this is a very important piece of the healthy eating puzzle.

Simply put, if you run out of healthy foods on Thursday, and you have a family to feed, Thursday night will quickly become 'pizza night'. Have this happen 5 or 6 weeks in a row, and you are looking at recipe of an entire family overeating and putting on the pounds. Being prepared is different than being obsessed.

Here's a copy of Craig's e-mail in case you missed it...

I truly believe that nutrition is the biggest, by far, component of a good fat loss program.


There's a saying in the fitness industry, "you can't out-train a bad diet", and that hold's true almost 100% of the time (and especially as you get older).


Fortunately, I also believe that good nutrition for fat loss is very simple. And here are my 5 steps to building a fast fat burning diet.


1) Find out how much you are eating now. Use fitday.com.


2) If you are not losing weight, eat less.


3) Eat fruits, vegetables, nuts, and good protein sources. Don't eat junk from a bag or a box.


4) Give yourself one treat meal per week to look forward to - not a treat day, just a treat meal.


5) Plan ahead. Prepare your meals (spend 1-2 hours on the weekend getting your meals and meal plan ready for the week). Identify
obstacles and come up with solutions to avoid them.


That is it.


Very simple. Most people do pretty well on 1-3 and even 5, but mess up on number 4. I often hear how well someone did all day long, but then while making dinner they snack on upwards of 500 calories of their kid's treats, or other processed carbohydrates they have lying around the house.


The little things can add up to big time problems. So take a good long look at everything you eat.


And all of this can be avoided if you follow rule #5.


Combine my five simple nutrition rules with three short workouts per week of resistance training and interval training, and you have a very manageable fat loss plan that can fit any busy lifestyle.


Get started with the fast Turbulence Training fat burning workouts:
==> http://www.turbulencetraining.com


There are NO negative calorie foods,


Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training

Couldn't have said it better myself,

BP