By Wayne A. McDonald
Losing weight is simple. There are two steps involved. First, know what to do, then do what you know. We tackle the first step by walking you through the common myths surrounding losing weight. This article will give you the know how. The second step, I’m afraid, is up to you.
Myth #1 You can lose fat fast.
Let’s distinguish between weight and fat, specifically, body weight and body fat. Body fat is stored energy, waiting to be used. Body weight consists of this fat, but also includes muscle, bone and blood. You can lose weight fast, but losing fat is a slower process.
You can not lose more than half a kilogram of body fat a week. If that does not sound impressive, losing half a kilo represents 16,500 kilojoules, or walking 80 kilometres! If you lose weight any faster, it will not be body fat. A good bodyfat level for female is 26% fat, and yet this represents half a million stored kilojoules or roughly 2,000 pancakes. So give yourself some time to make an impact.
People can falsely represent diets by working the idea; the faster you lose weight, the more effective the diet. Any recommendation that sounds like this, “I’ve lost 6 kilograms in only 4 weeks,” can be analysed using this following formula. At best, this person lost half a kilo of body fat each week, multiplied by four weeks, equals 2 kilograms. Therefore, they lost four healthy kilograms of muscle and fluid. Losing such a large amount of muscle and fluid is easy, but not desirable.
Myth #2 Eliminate carbohydrates like rice and pasta.
Rapid weight loss can occur on diets very low in carbohydrates. But don’t get excited, the weight loss is water and muscle, not fat. Carbohydrates are the body’s most readily available energy source. Limiting your intake of carbohydrate forces your body to dive into its stored glycogen deposits (carbohydrates are converted and stored as glycogen in the muscle). Stored glycogen holds four times its weight in fluid. As the stored glycogen is used, the attached fluid is released from the muscle and eliminated from the body. Instant, and for some, significant weight loss. Many athletes who compete in weight categories use this technique.
Moreover, once the body consumes the glycogen deposits, it strips away muscle tissue converting, through a complicated process, protein into glycogen. Muscle weighs four times that of fat and its loss dramatically lowers your body weight - not to mention a reduction in your metabolic rate, energy and strength. However, no reduction in fat.
This poor weight loss will only be temporary. You can not go without carbohydrates for long. Your brain uses carbohydrates exclusively and will make you crave something sweet to feed itself. Soon as you eat carbohydrates again, the muscle restocks and all the weight is put back. A yo-yo effect. Just like the temporary weight (fluid) loss achieved using a sauna. Twenty minutes after your next drink all fluid, and weight, is replaced.
A much better eating plan only restricts the amount of carbohydrate allowing you to gain all the energy you require and uses protein foods to control the insulin (hormonal response from eating carbohydrates) responsible to storing the carbohydrate as fat.
Myth #3 Eat less.
I know what you are thinking when you try to lose weight by eating very little. You think your body will use stored body fat if you deprive it of any other form of food or energy. But this is not what the body thinks or does. The most important thing to keep in your mind is change what you eat. To lose fat effectively you need a diet where you actually eat more food.
The body does not know the difference between a mars bar and a carrot - it assumes the same amount of food will supply the same amount of energy. Our body is an adaptation machine trying to always maintain status quo. This refers to our level of bodyfat also.
When you cut down the amount of food you eat, stretch receptors in the stomach lining send a message to the brain. The brain is told you have consumed less food and assumes less kilojoules. Wanting to maintain body fat at a constant level, the body adapts to the reduction in food. The brain, fearing body fat will drop, responds by releasing enzymes that promote the storage of energy into the fat cells and prohibit the release of fat from storage. Your metabolic rate is sensitive to the reduction in food. One published study reported that dropping food intake by only five percent can cause your metabolic rate - the number of calories you burn at rest - to drop as much as 18%. The body also reacts by slowing the transition time of food in the stomach, so you have more time to absorb kilojoules. Some believe the numbers of digestive enzymes increase so you absorb more kilojoules from less food.
Basically, if you eat less, you are fighting your body. But do the opposite; eat more by changing your diet to one that includes more voluminous food, such as salad, vegetables and rice-cakes, your body will work with you. Now your body will speed your metabolism to burn more calories, store less fat, push fat from storage into the blood stream and increase the transition time of food through the stomach so you absorb less kilojoules.
Myth #4 Diet is the key to losing fat.
Body fat is stored energy, a fuel source for the body, waiting to be used. While diet controls how many kilojoules enter the body, exercise is the most effective way of using the stored fat. Fat loss through diet alone usually amounts to 50% of total weight lost, the rest is muscle and fluid. Fat loss through exercise accounts for virtually 100 % of any weight lost.
LSD is the best way to lose fat. LSD meaning long, slow distance. Body fat can only be used as a fuel source in the presence of oxygen, but requires twice the amount of oxygen compared with carbohydrates and protein. Sitting down reading this article you are burning pure body fat. You are breathing enough oxygen. Do any activity that causes you to breathe heavily and you will stop burning body fat. As a rule, exercise at an intensity that you could still carry on a conversation. You can now see that to use body fat, running hard for ten minutes is not as good as walking for 30 minutes. Remember LSD.
Myth #5 Supplements are unnecessary.
Dietary “authorities” often tell us health supplementation is unnecessary for the maintenance of good health. Maintenance of good health only means not falling sick. Yes, if you do not take supplements you will not become sick. However, I like to live in optimum health – not minimal health – and specific supplementation can help our bodies’ function at an optimal level. In reference to losing fat, the best supplementation to assist us is Durathon, a fat metaboliser consisting of a powerful, adaptogenic Chinese herb, at a potency which transfers your body from carbohydrate metabolism to fat metabolism. Taking Durathon can increase the number of fat calories burnt from 3.5% to a massive 46.7% when exercising. Significant fat loss is the only side effect of using Durathon. Further, the “carbohydrate sparing” action by increasing fat usage with Durathon will also slow lactic acid build up - decreasing muscle soreness and physical fatigue.
Durathon is not a stimulant, contains no ephedra or caffeine so you lose fat, not sleep. Durathon does not interfere with any other supplement or medication. Additionally Durathon has many health-giving properties for uses and is a significant adaptogenic agent. This means Durathon has increased benefits for anyone suffering stress, physical fatigue or using a diet low in carbohydrates or calories. For optimal fat metabolism, take two 600-mg capsules of Durathon first thing each morning or one-hour before exercising. The majority of users feel the difference within days and measure improvement within weeks.
Myth #6 Spot Reduction.
You can not work any area specifically to lose fat. Performing hundreds of sit-ups does not use fat selectively from the stomach. To demonstrate this, professional tennis players show great differences in muscular strength between the playing arm and the other arm, but the amount of fat is the same on both.
Exercising draws from all fat stores in the body. However, women differ where they store their body fat. Some women have little storage on their torso and greater amounts on their arms and legs. Others may hold the fat on their lower body and have skinny upper bodies. Unfortunately no matter how much fat you lose, the fat pattern you start with, never changes.
Myth #7 Skip Breakfast
I know. You’re not hungry in the morning, or you’d rather sleep than eat, or you're always in a rush and besides it means you can eat more later when you have time. Wrong. Even your mother knows, and she’s right this time, that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. A study of 7,000 people over ten years revealed that those who skipped breakfast were 30 % over weight. Another study compared two groups who ate the same amount of food each day. One group ate the food in the morning, the other at night. The night group gained weight, the morning group lost weight, meaning the energy absorbed early in the day is utilised by the body and not stored as fat.
Myth #8 Follow a calorie controlled diet.
While you can count calories, your body can not. Counting calories applies a logic your body does not use. Your body measures the amount of food eaten via stretch receptors in the stomach lining; it can not count the kilojoules in food. Reducing the volume of food you consume to a set daily intake allows your body’s adaptive mechanism to work. The body can adapt in as little as four days slowing metabolic energy expenditure, so your dieting has no effect on losing fat.
Moreover, the type of kilojoules you eat is more important than the number. The body uses energy to digest and absorb food. The amount of energy required to ingest fat is only 10% that of carbohydrate or protein. On a 4,000 kilojoule diet consisting entirely of fat your body would burn 120 kilojoules in the digestive process. If those 4,000 kilojoules were carbohydrates and protein, your body would burn a whopping 1,200 kilojoules! A good reason to maintain a low fat diet.
Myth #9 Alcohol doesn’t count.
Many people change what they eat and increase the amount they exercise but never change their drinking habits. Look at alcohol as you do fat - it contains almost as many kilojoules. Worse, alcohol does not need to be digested; it is absorbed straight from the stomach into the blood stream and easily stored as body fat. Furthermore, alcohol is a depressant; it slows your metabolism.
Myth #10 Become a Diet Martyr.
Something is wrong if you are suffering on a diet. Are you dieting to punish yourself? Have you looked in the mirror and hated what you saw, so you deny yourself food as punishment. While you’re on a diet do you think, “I’m losing weight, but I’m still fat.” If this is what you do, you have planned to fail. Dieting should be pleasurable, it is producing the desired result of changing what you hated about yourself. Associate the pain where it belongs, with overeating.
Also change the “go without forever” philosophy to planned days off the diet. I never have any of my clients’ diet for longer than three days in a row before having a day off the diet. The day off the diet is a mental relief. Let’s face it, you only desire what you can not have. If I have a client with no will power, I’ll have them alternate one day on the diet and the next day off. It is very effective. After a year, they have dieted for six months and these are people who in the past would not last on a diet for three consecutive days. You see, will power does not work in the long run because denial is painful and your brain will not let you suffer for long.
What works in the long run is Yin and Yang or the power of positive/negative. Once you become healthy your body will crave positive foods - sugar and fats will not taste good. But regularly trying these foods will reinforce that you are not missing out on the “good” things in life!
To be successful on a diet, it is important to set short-term goals, such as losing your first kilo. Give yourself an immediate reward, but never with food, go to the movies instead. A constant reward as you achieve each goal connects pleasure to dieting. The power of this reinforcement will ensure your long-term success.
Wayne McDonald B.A.Sc. is an Australian health & fitness authority, published author in female body composition and exercise prescription.
