Question: Does drinking diet beverages slow down body fat loss?
Answer: Here are some stats for you regarding the question:
• People who consume diet drinks on a regular basis have a 200% increased risk of weight gain, a 36% increased risk of pre-diabetes or metabolic syndrome and a 67% increased risk of diabetes[1].
• A study of over 400 people found those who drink two diet sodas a day had five times the increase in waist circumference as those who didn’t drink soda[1].
• Artificial sweeteners disrupt the normal hormonal and neurological signals that control hunger and satiety[1].
• According to Dr. Mark Hyman artificial sweeteners causes your palate to shift from being able to enjoy fruits, vegetables and whole foods to only liking foods that have sweeteners (Sugar), fat and salt[1].
• New research is finding there are taste buds in the stomach in addition to the tongue. When they are stimulated they send a signal to the brain to release insulin[2].
In conclusion, if you drink one diet soda during the week to keep you from going on a regular pop or sugar binge it may assist with weight loss as it will result in less sugar and calories consumed. However, if you are drinking 1-2 diet pops/day it may slow down weight loss not to mention the other negative issues it causes. Those causes will be listed in future posts.
References:
1. Hyman, M. 2012. The Blood Sugar Solution. New York, NY: Hatchet Book Group.
2. Schlaus, M. “BioSignature CE.” Poliquin Strength Center, Providence, RI. 12-13 March 2011.
On Saturday, January 26th I had a seminar for Endurance Athletes. There were over 35 Life Time Fitness/St. Louis Park members who attended. The topics included macro nutrients (Protein, Fat and Carbs), different nutrition plans for athletes, and supplements for endurance athletes.
If you were unable to attend, here are some of the takeaways from the seminar:
- Animal protein sources get a bad rap. However there is a big difference between Grass Fed or Cage Free versus hormone injected animals from feedlots.
- In most cases there are three types of nutrition plans that endurance athletes should follow. They are High Carb/Low Fat, Iso-Caloric (33% of calories come from protein, fat and carbs) and High Fat/Low Carb.
- The High Carb/Low Fat nutrition plans followed by most endurance athletes is a "Dying Breed of Nutrition Plans." This is because more and more people are becoming insulin resistant.
- A very lean endurance athlete will have around 1,600 calories from stored carbohydrate that they can use. This energy would be used up within hours of higher intensity heart rate training. However, the same athlete has over 80,000 calories of stored fat for usage. Wouldn't it make more sense to try to tap into the fat storage for energy?
- An important point regarding body fat most people forget is when people gain more body fat they produce more bad estrogen (Estrone). Increased Estrone can raise the chances of getting gender specific cancer (Prostate in men and Breast in women).
- In addition to increased cancer, increased body fat results in more mechanical drag (Slows the athlete down) as well as greater impact on the joints resulting in more wear and tear causing increased injury potential over time. This is why I am a stickler for getting people lean.
- If athletes get good at the basics of supplements and take a good Multi-Vitamin, Omega-3, Vitamin D and Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) they will have a stronger immune system resulting in less lost training time from illness.
- Lowering carb intake and increasing fat intake is a great way to increase the Aerobic Base resulting in faster run, bike or swim times as well as teaching your body how to rely more on using stored body fat for energy.
- By following #8 I personally raised my Aerobic Base 78 beats with minimal aerobic training.
- The Generation UCAN product may change the rules of sports nutrition. This is a carbohydrate that doesn't cause an insulin response. This results in fat being burned at all times compared to most carb drinks that turn fat burning off and sugar burning on. The results from athletes who have tried it have been excellent. Reports include increased energy during workouts/less hunger after workouts. In addition Lance Leo is finding he and athletes he has tested stay in an optimal fat burning state during many different workout durations.
There were lots of questions on the Low Carb/High Fat nutrition plan I recently did. If you missed it click here. Here were some of the more popular ones:
Question: So is this a good plan for people who travel for work?
Answer: Absolutely! In my experience those with work related travel have to eat out quite a bit because they are living out of their hotel and have a food stipend. It is easy to order low carb, high fat at restaurants. The key is to look for protein (i.e. steak, chicken or fish). From there ask the server what the vegetable options are. I will hold the fries or the potatoes and substitute a second order of vegies. Also, they will usually bring you oil if you ask as well. Finally ask for lemons and limes to squeeze on the vegetables or in your water. This has been shown to lower the blood sugar during the meal1. Finally, plans like this will greatly reduce a craving which is a good thing when you have to eat out or be in airports for extended time periods.
Question: What were some examples of fat you ate?
Answer: Lots of Coconut Butter (I like the flavor of this better than Coconut Oil), usually 2-3 TBSP Olive Oil on vegetables, sometimes 2-3 TBSP of Organic Butter on vegetables, high fat (85% lean) Grass Feed Beef, heavy whipping cream in coffee (about ¼ cup), lots of higher quality cheese (Aged or Goats cheese), lots of almonds (Most other nut variations can work). Finally if I was on the low end of fat at the end of the day I would have a block of Baked Goat Cheese (This gave me 50+ grams of protein and 50+ grams of Fat in one serving).
Question: I appreciate drinking booze to try to be more like a normal person during this process. Would Red Wine work if you don’t want to drink hard booze?
Answer: For this program, no. Believe it or not the hard booze will actually assist your fat burning because it is a toxin and your body has to raise the metabolism to get rid of it2. People I know who have been on Ketogenic diets (Very low carb) report that hard booze will actually drive them into deeper ketosis.
Question: Could you eat a whole Avocado on this plan?
Answer: Yes, 1-cup of Avocado has 22 grams of fat and 3 Net Grams of carbohydrates so that should work.
Question: What are net carbs?
Answer: Use a bag of Broccoli for example. It has 16 grams of carbs and 8 grams of fiber. Net carbs are the total grams (16) subtract the fiber (8). That number is 8 net grams (16-8 = 8).
Question: Can you give us some sample eating plans?
Answer: Yes, I will send you an example of a typical day for the 20, 30 and 40-net grams of carbs days (For two weeks I did 20, 30 and 40 net grams/day respectively).
Question: What kind of Pedometer did you use for counting steps?
Answer: I have a Motoactv Watch/Heart Rate Monitor that includes a pedometer. If you don’t want a fancy watch like that, Life Time Fitness sells the Fit Bit Zip or Ultra at the clubs (They are very inexpensive and easy to use).
Question: Now that you did this, what is next in nutrition for you?
Answer: For the next 4-weeks I will be experimenting with carb cycling programs. For example for 2-weeks I will eat low carb/high fat for 6-days and 1-day high carbs/low fat. After that I will go low carb/high fat for 5-days and high carb/low fat for 2-days. I am doing this because while going low carb/high fat works for fat loss it is a hard plan to maintain long term as people don’t like the idea of never eating/having very little carbs for life. I will experiment with ways to add carbs in (i.e. for social events) without screwing your progress. I will keep you posted on how it goes.
Most people gain weight over the holidays. This post will cover the last 40-days where I was on a low carb/high fat nutrition plan over the holidays. I did this to show you IT IS POSSIBLE to lose weight over the holidays and still enjoy your social functions.
The 40-Day Low Carb/High Fat Plan: From November 26, 2012-January 4, 2013 I ate less than 50 total grams (20-30 Net grams) of carbs, between 150-175 grams of protein and 200-250 grams of fat each day. The total calories were between 2,600-3,250 daily with about 70% of the calories coming from fat. The hardest part was actually getting in enough fat (I used about ¼ cup of heavy whipping cream with each coffee I drank for additional fat). During holiday social functions (4-5 of them) I drank 1-2 drinks from high-quality hard liquor (i.e. Kettle One, Grey Goose or Absolute Vodka with club soda). I don’t drink but did during this period so I could be like a “Normal Person” so I would get more realistic results. As far as exercise I lifted 2-3 days/week and walked on the treadmill at 4.0 mph 4-5 days/week. The main goal was to get 10,000 steps in/day from the treadmill and walking around during the day.
The Results: I did a myHealthscore and CardioPoint assessments before and after the time period. In 40-days (over the holiday season where most people gain weight) this is what happened:
- I lost 7-pounds and 3% body fat based off the In-Body BIA Analyzer.
- Blood Glucose went from 92 mg/dL to 84 mg/dL
- Triglycerides went from 66 mg/dL to less than 45 mg/dL
- HDL Cholesterol went from 85 mg/dL to 100 mg/dL (You usually want this to increase)
- LDL Cholesterol went from 68 mg/dL to 123 mg/dL (Before every freaks out that LDL went up, “Ideal” LDL should be between 100-129 mg/dL for many reasons. I can reference why in future posts)
- Triglyceride/HDL Ratio went from .78 to .44
- *Aerobic Base went from 98 BPM to 177 BPM (Not a typo!)
- *Anaerobic Threshold went from 117 BPM to NA (We got the heart rate to the low 180s and couldn’t reach threshold)
- *The crazy thing about these results is I did EASY cardio, let’s just call it “Grandma’s Walking Program”
Conclusion: Most people gain 8-11 pounds over the holidays and I lost 7-pounds. I never thought my blood chemistries would improve like they did eating over 200 grams of fat/day. I also never thought I would be running at 9.2 mph on a treadmill with my heart rate over 180 BPM and not feeling like I was going to die – especially with no cardio training. I have done well over thirty metabolic tests since 2000 and NEVER have had numbers like that. I will go as far to say I if I trained for a half or full marathon I could give over half the LTF Running Club veterans a run for their money my first time out – NO JOKE. It actually felt good to run that fast and have my heart rate that high.
Lessons Learned: If I had to do it again I would do the following:
- If I did this in the future I would have eliminated dairy. I thought my fasting glucose and body fat would have been lower but I am sensitive to most poor quality dairy products so that might have had affect. However, including dairy allowed more variety in eating and helped increase the daily fat intake.
- With resistance training I would have cut the volume back so the workouts would be less than 30-minutes long. Sets/Reps would have been in the 4 Sets X 6-8 Rep range. Higher volume workouts were brutal because of the initial lack of energy. After 4-6 weeks the higher volume should be fine based off results of studies done on athletes.
- I would have done the CardioPoint at the beginning and after 2-3 weeks on the nutrition program. By doing this I would have had more efficient training zones that no doubt would have resulted in more fat lost and better cardio numbers after 40-days. I am certain I would have dropped 2-3 more percentage points of my body fat by doing that.
I hope this opened your eyes. Feel free to ask questions so I can answer them all at once in future posts.
Thank you!
Question: How much body fat percentage points can people lose in a month if they are trying to lose fat?
Answer: In most cases 2-3%/month can be lost if the person's initial body fat percent is in the normal levels (15-20% for men or 25-30% for women). However, if a person has a higher starting percent (Over 20% for men or 30% for women) 4-5% can be lost in a month. Finally there are cases where a person can lose 1-2%/week if they are on a specific training/nutrition/supplementation program and really dialed in.
In a previous post there was lots of feedback on the topics of writing goals down with a deadline. Because of that this post is titled Seven Simple Steps to Achieving a Fitness Goal. This is inspired from Brian Tracy’s book No Excuses and he says, “There are more complex and detailed methodologies, but this seven step method will enable you to accomplish ten times more than you were able to before and you will do so far faster than you can currently imagine.” The seven steps and how you can apply it to your fitness goals are listed below.
1. Decide exactly what you want to accomplish (Be specific and measurable): Often people want to lose weight but they are not specific enough about what they really want. Most people say, “I want to lose weight.” However, by saying “I want to lose 15 lbs of body fat” makes the goal specific and measurable. By restating the goal you now have a target instead of a thought.
2. Write the goal down: A survey done by USA Today on New Year’s Resolutions found that participants with unwritten goals had a 4% success rate. Subjects who wrote their goals down were 44% successful. By simply taking 10-15 minutes to write goals down, success can be greatly enhanced.
3. Set a deadline: Doing this will create a sense of urgency. People who have done events like marathons, triathlons, or physique competitions usually go above and beyond what they expected (Especially when they do it for the first time). A big reason for this is all the events listed have a competition date. Even though people who do these may not have a written goal, they usually achieve it because of the deadline.
4. Make a list of everything you can think of that you can possibly do to achieve the goal: Tracy calls this “Mind Storming.” Create a list of twenty behavior changes that you need to do to accomplish your goal. Examples can be “I will perform Base Building cardio 3X/week for 45-minutes” or “I will eat a Caveman/Cavewoman breakfast” or even “I will not eat within 2-hours of bedtime.”
5. Organize the list by sequence and priority: Take the list of twenty behavior changes from #4 and put it in order from least to most difficult. When people figure out their obstacles from the beginning, prioritize them and check them off when completed (Or make them a habit) they usually achieve their goals in a much easier fashion. This is because it isn’t as overwhelming as trying to do everything at once. A great book to learn more about this process is The Power of Less by Leo Babauta.
6. Take action immediately on the first step: Once you have prioritized your list of twenty changes divide them by the number of weeks from your deadline to start dates. For example if you have 10-weeks to your deadline, focus on one goal every two weeks. This tip is from the work of Nutritionist John Berardi, PhD creator of the Precision Nutrition program.
7. Do something that moves you at least one step closer to your goal each day: People should start with the easiest change. It usually isn’t very overwhelming and they can be successful right away. As you become successful, momentum is built, confidence rises and the goal becomes more realistic each day.
In conclusion the months of October-December can be the time where most Americans fall behind on their fitness goals. If this happened to you use the above steps to make your New Year’s Resolution goal a reality in 2013.
