THE MAY CHALLENGE!

My brudder, the Six Pack Doc, has issued a May Challenge that calls for a 10 lb fat loss in one month while getting stronger.
Is that even possible? I think you can either lose fat or gain muscle, but not do both at the same time.
Check it out yourself then!

COMPENSATING A BAD MEAL

Over at his blog, the Six Pack Doc talks about balancing caloric intake after you have had a bad nutritional day, pigging out on food and causing nutritional havoc.
If you want to share the gory details of his nutritional excesses, please go there, and spare me!

THE FAT LOSS PLATEAU AND BEYOND

Long post alert!

Many of you may not have realised (as I have not) that this blog has become one of the most Googled sources of fat loss info in the web.

Oh, sorry! I had initially set for this intro to the post to appear in 2025, so let us not move that far ahead. Restart (not you, moron)!

I am writing on fat loss because of the insistent demands of many of my wild-eyed fans like her. “Rambodoc”, they say in different accents, “When will you shine the light on my fat? When will I lose that handle around my waste waist so that I can start looking as young as you, you delishius hunk of meat, you..” And many, many words to that effect. No, Rads did not say any of this, but we can all expect her, as a mark of her eternal gratitude for this post, to send me one of her used 7-series BMWs or, if she feels cheap, the keys to a property in Manhattan (such low prices these days!) or somewhere. Anywhere, actually.

Okay, let us now get serious here. Restart.

Fat loss stops after the initial effort in a program of diet and/or exercise. This is common knowledge. Let us first see what are the reasons for the fat loss plateau:
1. You are not working out the right way.
2. You are working out the right way (maybe you even have a great coach) but you are not eating right.
3. You are eating less calories, working out long, but your metabolism is too slow, i.e., your body burns calories slowly. A common ‘note to self’ by women, men, older men and women, hypothyroid men and women, post-menopausal women, and some other groups we may have forgotten about.
In the next few thousand words (kidding!) I will give you the juice from the research of around 935 (again!) research articles without boring you to death with the sources.

(Fat people are easily seen everywhere even in India)

Let us simplify issues: if your body needs 2000 calories as its basic metabolic demand (known as BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate), and if you spend another, say, 400 calories in your activities, then you would need to eat less than 2400 calories a day consistently to run a calorie deficit. Right? Many of us know that you will lose a kilogram of fat if you run up a calorie deficit of around 7000 calories. So, a 500 calorie deficit a day should result in the loss of one kilo of fat in two weeks. A pound a week. Clear?
There are lots of compounding issues to this simple equation, but you still have to keep touching base with this simple reality to achieve fat loss:
Calories burnt must be greater than calories eaten.
The most important way to accelerate fat loss is to eat less calories. Not in working out. Trainers are fond of saying that “you can’t out-train a bad diet”. Very true. Unless you are Michael Phelps who, at last Census, was not known to have met a fat loss plateau.
“Oh, no! He is going to talk of diets? Not again?!” Was that you saying that? Can you see me nodding my head sympathetically, like a politician at election time?
Some more basic truisms:

All diets work. But only for some time.
Diets don’t work by themselves in the long run.

What do we do then? Studies show that only 5 percent of people on a supervised diet manage to sustain weight loss. The rest fail. That includes you and me. Let us, therefore, rephrase this:

Diets don’t work; lifestyles do.
If you do lifestyle, you never feel that you are doing something special or stressful. It comes naturally.
What is this stupid, airy, hair-splitting, you ask?

(a typical dinner of mine, and ALL mine!)

Many people (author included) follow a lifestyle where you mimic the lifestyle of primitive man (an animal who probably did not have obesity). Which means:
* Eat whole foods that are available in nature.
* Don’t eat processed foods (meaning colas, diet colas, bread, cake, pasta, noodles, biscuits, etcetera).
* Avoid grains (rice, wheat, corn, etc.) and artificial sugars.
* Don’t eat meals at a religious rhythm (like 3 meals a day or 6 meals a day).
* Mimic the movements of primitive man (imagine Caveman Rambo with a pointed object hunting a bore boar): sprinting, waiting, sprinting again, crawling, pulling, pushing (imagine wrestling the boar before killing it finally), lifting heavy weights (taking the hunt back to the cave) and then eating it. If he fails to kill it or find some other source, he starves till the next time.
How will you do this in your 9 to 5 life in the US, UK or India?
Easy. Try these:
1. Don’t jog or walk. Sprint (as if chased by a wild dog in heat) for a few short seconds (take 20-30). Rest for a while (as many seconds as you ran or even a minute). Repeat ten times, or six, depending on your ability. That, ladies and gentlemen, is called High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) or the Tabata workout (Tabata kept a work:rest ratio of 2:1).
In other words, stop wasting time on those cardio machines in your gym or at home. Four to twenty minutes of hard effort (including the rest periods) is enough cardio for you. A month into this, watch yourself improve your stamina and reduce the inches gradually (remember, you have to give your body time- think of one or two years, in many cases).

2. Push or pull your body weight in major, compound exercises like pull-ups (most women I see are unable to do this unless they are well advanced in fitness), push-ups (keep doing ten more than yesterday), squats, and burpees (the best of them all, I think).

3. Stop doing machine-bound training. In other words, don’t waste time in isolation exercises like biceps curls, preacher curls, pectoral decks, ab trainers, etc. You are not going into a bodybuilding competition, are you? If you want maximum bang for your buck, do the bodyweight exercises above, and also do weight training (squats, deadlifts, or anything that involves pulling or pushing a free weight against gravity).

4. Don’t waste time on ab exercises. Do a couple of planks, holding on till you die. You will have done more than enough for your abs and core stability.

5. Didn’t I say ‘crawl‘?! Yes, I did.
You can do mountain climbers, which is not really crawling, or you can actually go on your hands and feet and climb the stairs, first straight up (head first) or reverse (feet first). This would double as a great cardio workout as well.

Anything else about these exercises? Lots, but suffice it to say that you should train harder than you think possible, and not merely go through the motions. Only then can you see results! Each workout should have a decent volume, which means you could do, for instance, three sets of ten reps for each exercise, with 30-60 seconds rest in between sets. Be strict with the rest periods, avoiding chatting and vacantly meditating.

Let us now move on to nutrition, the cornerstone of fat loss management.

Most people are eating way too much to see results. They are also not eating enough proteins, which reduces their muscle building abilities.
One way to address a fat-loss diet is to cut down on carbs (carbohydrates). This is one of the most tried and tested ways of achieving fat loss. Most of the benefits of a low-carb diet accrue from a total caloric deficit. If you are given the liberty of eating loads of fats and proteins (as in the Atkins diet), you won’t be able to eat all that much for too long. Result: lack of variety in foods leading to weight loss. Someone even lost weight on one month’s continual fast food (McDonald’s, etc.) diet!

Low carb diets are often difficult for many people to follow, for cultural and habit reasons. In such a scenario, losing weight is more difficult, but a caloric deficit needs to be created.

Eating six meals a day (a popular advice for most people) is largely impractical in the long term, not least because designing a diet with such low calories is difficult. Imagine a meal with only 300 calories, for example (if you need to eat six meals within a caloric budget of 1800)! In this regard, a more doable lifestyle is IF: Intermittent Fasting.
In IF, you fast through the day, and then eat within a four hour window. You can choose to fast once a week, or every day, for 15 hours, or 24 hours. Your choice. One of the big things going for IF is that celebrities (like myself) endorse it. I fast for 24 hours once a week, and 15 to 18 hours one or two more days in the week. IF is a lot of posts on its own merit, and check my resources at the end of this chapter post, if you want to learn more. Suffice it to say that it reduces blood insulin levels, is a great way to eat ‘normally’ and yet maintain a caloric deficit. I have found that on the days I fast and then eat in the four hour window, I can’t exceed 1400 calories (I don’t pig out with junk food)!

Does when you eat matter in your fat loss plateau?

Is fasted cardio better than cardio in fed state?

Is breakfast the best meal?!

Dinner is the best meal, and you should avoid breakfast like the plague!

Controversies, controversies! Forget all this, and stick to the basics:
eat clean, work out hard, and be happy. Get enough sleep. Drink less. Be active physically. Read fitness articles and blogs. Enough!

So, if we can sum up, how does one overcome the fat loss plateau?
Reassess your diet (definitely keep an online food journal like FitDay), start IF, train harder than you ever have, change the way you are training, avoid long duration aerobic cardio in lieu of High Intensity Interval Training. Take adequate rest and get enough sleep.

Blogs on Fitness/ Primal Living I silently follow (in no particular order at all):
1. Turbulence Training
2. Fitness Black Book
3. Brian Devlin
4. Health Habits
5. Tom Venuto
6. Caleb Lee
7. Straight To The Bar
8. Mark Sisson’s The Daily Apple
9. Muscle Hack
10. Go Healthy Go Fit
11. Alwyn Cosgrove
12. Son Of Grok
13. Robertson Training Systems
14. The Nate Green Experience
15. Gym Junkies

IF Resources:
1. Brad Pilon
2. The IF Life
3. Leangains

Science-based Nutrition/Fitness sites (heavier stuff):
1. Lyle Macdonald’s Bodyrecomposition
2. Alan Aragon
3. Dr. Michael Eades

I heartily recommend any and all of the above, and I think they contribute hugely to the needs of the public seeking help over the internet. I am also very grateful to them for their advice and availability for people like me and you. I am quite sure I am missing out on some of the others I read, but I hope I can include them later.

Disclaimer: I am not a Fitness or Nutrition guru. I use my medical knowledge and apply it to my personal quest for health and fitness. If you feel the need to heed my advice, you are welcome to, at your own discretion and risk. If you suffer from any physical or mental disease or infirmity, please consult your doctor and get properly (mis)guided!

IS THE NEJM A LEFTIST MAG?

The New England Journal of Medicine has published, today, a few leading articles on the subject of child obesity, especially its implications for heart disease and the costs thereof to society. For more on childhood obesity, see my previous post.
The Journal pontificates on the subject and calls for action:

Unfortunately, the U.S. government has thus far invested only a fraction of a cent in research for every dollar that obesity costs society. And although broad consensus exists regarding the dietary and lifestyle habits needed to prevent and treat childhood obesity, we lack anything resembling a comprehensive strategy for encouraging children to eat a healthful diet and engage in physical activity. Such a strategy would include legislation that regulates junk-food advertising, provides adequate funding for decent lunches and regular physical activities at school, restructures the farm-subsidies program to favor nutrient-dense rather than calorie-dense produce, and mandates insurance coverage for preventing and treating pediatric obesity.

In other words, what it is saying is that the responsibility for some kids becoming fat should be shared by all of society, and that no kid should be exposed freely to a Macdonald’s burger or French fries. Not even an ad of the same.

It is, therefore, suggesting that tax money be spent on providing nutritious lunches in schools, and providing gyms and playgrounds for the kids. In addition, it is advocating insurance for all kids. The question I have for the learned journal is: Who is going to pay for it? And why?
Can one dare ask the high-and-mighty Journal, “What gives you the right to assume that State-funded care is all that is possible to tackle healthcare issues? As far as the issue of taxing people for these services, may I ask: By what right?”
What gives an obese kid (or anyone else, for that matter) the right to be a recipient of a part of my hard-earned money, unless I choose to do so?

The Journal assumes a Socialist position on healthcare rather casually.

Elsewhere in the same issue, it thunders on the cough preparations for children (that have been scientifically proven to be useless) and calls for banning them or, at the least, banning the ads. In other words, if your child has a persistent cough, and you want him or her to just take a bit of cough syrup and sleep it off, you don’t have the right. They have the right to stop you. You, the user, can do nothing. You see, you don’t have the brains to know which is good for your kid, or which ad to believe and which one to dismiss as crap. The Government will do this thinking for you.

To get back to the issue of child obesity, the most important things are for each of us to choose consciously what we need to do: watch less television, avoid junk food, and play or work out every day, for example. I accept that all this is easily said, but not done. The responsibility and the outcome squarely rests on the individual, his parent and his doctor.

The NEJM would have none of this. It would want everyone to be deprived of their choices (ads and junk food) just so that some of society would benefit. It is a moot point if any of these interventions will ever work on a large scale in society.
It gets shrill as it raises its political voice:

But why should Mr. and Ms. G.’s efforts to protect their children from life-threatening illness be undermined by massive marketing campaigns from the manufacturers of junk food? Why are their children subjected to the temptation of such food in the school cafeteria and vending machines? Why don’t they have the opportunity to exercise their bodies during the school day? And why must Mr. and Ms. G. fight with their insurance company for reimbursement to cover the costs of their children’s care at the OWL clinic?

Hello, did we hear right? We are all subjected to temptation. I want to be subjected to temptation: do I have a right or not? The NEJM says no, because temptation is bad for kids, at least some kids.

Isn’t a defence against rape to the effect that “she tempted me, it wasn’t my fault!”? So where is the concept of free will here? Where is the parental or school responsibility for the health of the children? Who, gentlemen, are going to pay for those ‘opportunities’ that you demand?

Every modern health problem seems to inspire Statist solutions, irrespective of the fact that State control in anything has not worked anywhere as well as capitalist solutions. Unfortunately, people living in First World countries and occupying prestigious chairs in the NEJM have not (possibly) seen the ground reality of Socialism in healthcare. They need look no further than India.

I wish to ask one final question to the Editors of the NEJM: Is the NEJM a leftist journal mag?

CHILDHOOD OBESITY: THE COMING OF AN EPIDEMIC

Children are getting fatter. Seriously fatter. To the extent that they are getting all sorts of major, adult-type ailments like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, acid reflux, orthopedic problems, psychiatric problems, sleep apnea, etc. These kids are not a tiny minority. In the West, they are around a third of all kids.

In Indian society, 70% of kids are too thin to be called normal. Amongst Indian children obesity affects, almost exclusively, urban kids. In several studies, the incidence of weight problems (mild to severe) in urban Indian kids has been as high as 30 percent. In the West, a third of the children are already obese, and around 80% of these are likely to grow up into fat adults. The incidence is expected to grow (more in minorities and the poor), and the obesity epidemic has three phases.

Quote from the New England Journal of Medicine:

Phase 1 began in the early 1970s and is ongoing: average weight is progressively increasing among children from all socioeconomic levels, racial and ethnic groups, and regions of the country.
Though it has attracted much attention from the medical profession and the public, childhood obesity during this phase has actually had little effect on public health, because an obese child may remain relatively healthy for years.

Phase 2, which we are now entering, is characterized by the emergence of serious weight-related problems. The diabetes, the bone problems, the psychiatric problems I mentioned initially are all part of this phase.

It may take many years to reach phase 3 of the epidemic, in which the medical complications of obesity lead to life-threatening disease.
By 2035, the prevalence of CHD (Coronary Heart Disease) will have increased by 5 to 16%, with more than 100,000 excess cases attributable to increased obesity among today’s adolescents. Preliminary data from Canada suggest that adolescents with type 2 diabetes will be at high risk for limb amputation, kidney failure requiring dialysis, and premature death.
Shockingly, the risk of dying by middle age is already two to three times as high among obese adolescent girls as it is among those of normal weight.

In Phase 4 permanent, possibly genetic changes in the body will occur and result in a cohort of hungry, fat people of all ages.

The NEJM likens this epidemic to the global warming theory, but with easier solutions.

For more on adolescent and child obesity, click here (old post of mine).

EAT MORE, LOSE WEIGHT: OH, MY GOD!

“The incredible shrinking couple”, says CNN, has lost a total of 580 pounds. No, they did not go in for bariatric surgery. They prayed to God. As did many other people. Faith-based weight loss is now a hot topic in obesity, and in the world’s obesity capital, the USA.

In August 2002, the couple was married and they soon made a decision that would forever change their lives.
Before getting married, a friend introduced Maggie to The Weigh Down Workshop, a faith-based weight loss program, which teaches people to conquer their addiction to food, as well as other substances and vices, by turning to God.

Maggie says she was never consistent or committed enough to stick with the program. But shortly after their wedding, the couple started packing on the pounds and while Andy tried another diet, Maggie gave Weigh Down another try.

“At the end of 2002 and the beginning of 2003, I called Weigh Down and started taking the classes,” says Maggie. “My whole life, I had always wanted somebody to [lose weight] with me. But I knew if I wanted it bad enough, I would have to do it alone.”

She began to lose weight.

“I ate whatever I craved, but only when I was truly hungry and then I ate a lot more slowly, so I could tell when to stop,” Maggie says.

In February 2003, after seeing his wife’s results, Andy stopped counting calories, gave up the low-fat foods and reduced his portion sizes. Fifteen months later, he had lost 257 pounds.

“Once I started this program, it changed my outlook on my entire life. I realized that being happy is a choice. I can either be filled with hate and despair or I can be happy,” says Andy, who realized he no longer needed the anti-depressants.

I went into Weigh Down, the website that is selling this program where you eat all you can and still lose weight like the featured couple.
Truly, the success stories are impressive. So, does piousness melt fat in a magical way?
Before I address that, let me underline that obesity is often the result of an eating disorder, where the victim is obsessed with eating even in the absence of hunger. In the absence of a way of addressing this mental disease, nothing will help the obese patient.
Faith-based weight loss works at this level. The participants of this program are trained to focus on God. Classes help them read the Bible, and communicate with God, all ways of taking the mental bandwidth away from food.
Babies are fed on demand. The same feeding model is used by these people: they eat when they are hungry, otherwise not. At mealtime, they eat whatever they want, irrespective of the calories.
While Gwen Shamblin of Weigh Down would have us believe that this is a divine deliverance for which she is a vehicle, the real reason why she is successful is because she has found a way whereby people can shift their attention to something they can relate to (God) and feel good at the same time. This is a form of behavioral therapy.
As a rational and objective human being, my atheism scoffs at the premise of Shamblin. However, if by turning to religion, people can increase their life-spans and stay slim, why should I complain?