Falling Into the Fat Trap

This week we saw some startling figures concerning obesity rates around the world.

Researchers found more than 2 billion people worldwide are now overweight or obese. The highest rates were in the Middle East and North Africa, where nearly 60 per cent of men and 65 per cent of women are heavy. The U.S. has about 13 per cent of the world's fat population, a greater percentage than any other country. China and India combined have about 15 per cent.

So, in other words, if you are feeling like a fatso, you are not alone; you are a member of the 2billion person club.

Given the incredible advances in science, how come we aren't able to help people maintain a healthy weight?

In a nutshell, for most of the last century, our understanding of the cause of obesity has been based on immutable physical law. Specifically, it’s the first law of thermodynamics, which dictates that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

When it comes to body weight, this means that calorie intake minus calorie expenditure equals calories stored. Surrounded by tempting foods, we overeat, consuming more calories than we can burn off, and the excess is deposited as fat. The simple solution is to exert willpower and eat less.

 

The problem is that this advice doesn’t work, at least not for most people over the long term.

 

According to Dr. Mark Hyman, the average person gains five pounds for every diet that they go on.  Even worse, when the lose weight, they lose muscle and fat.  When they regain the weight, they gain back all fat.  And since muscle burns seven times as many calories as fat, their metabolism is slower than when they started the diet.  The cruel fact is that they need even less calories to maintain their weight.

 

But what, as was pointed out in a recent NY Times article, we’ve confused cause and effect? What if it’s not overeating that causes us to get fat, but the process of getting fatter that causes us to overeat?

 

This is what I call the fat trap, a percentage of body fat that alters significantly a person's metabolism, rendering the person metabolically inefficient, a downward spiral in which the person gets fatter and fatter.

 

According to this alternative view, factors in the environment have triggered fat cells in our bodies to take in and store excessive amounts of glucose and other calorie-rich compounds.

 

Since fewer calories are available to fuel metabolism, the brain tells the body to increase calorie intake (we feel hungry) and save energy (our metabolism slows down).

 

Eating more solves this problem temporarily but also accelerates weight gain. Cutting calories reverses the weight gain for a short while, making us think we have control over our body weight, but predictably increases hunger and slows metabolism even more.

 

In other words, once you have fallen into the fat trap, it is extremely difficult to get out.  Quick fix solutions like diets only make things worse.  It's as if once your fat cells reach a critical mass, they take over, forcing you to feed them so they can multiply over and over again until you can no longer see your nether regions.

 

Alas, all hope is not lost, but if you are going to climb out of the fat trap, it is going to take a major transformation of your lifestyle.  Counting calories is not going to work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walking to Winnipeg: Welcome to Wawa

Half Way There!

For anyone who has driven across Ontario, the town of Wawa with its massive Canada Goose statue is often a welcome site because it is more or less half way.  As a result, there are probably more motel rooms per capita there than any other town in Canada.

Having received my 1000 kilometer badger from Fitbit today tells me that I've made it to Wawa.  Not bad for three months of walking.  Since the beginning of the year, I have averaged just a little over 10 kilometers a day. 

Now that I'm about half way to Winnipeg, I am pretty confident that I'll make it there in a few more months.  One thing that will slow my progress is that with Spring arriving, I'll be commuting to work on my bicycle, which will means less distance covered on foot.

At the moment, I'm looking at my options for tracking my distance by bike.  It would be nice to know at the end of the year how many kilometres I covered on two wheels and on two feet.

Just in case your wondering, I've dropped 8 pounds since I began my trek.  Hopefully, I can continue to shed more by the time I reach my goal of arriving in the Paris of the Prairies.

Is Walking Just as Good as Running?

I thought I would share this article that I came across in the US News, Health and Wellness section.

A May 2013 study by researchers in the Life Science Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory looked at data from 33,000 runners and nearly 16,000 walkers to compare the relative health benefits of each activity. From the outside it might seem like running – which is considered a vigorous intensity exercise – must be better for you than walking, a moderate form of exercise. But the results bore out differently, with walking taking a slight edge in the end. But there's a big if, so keep reading.

To be sure, both walking and running had positive effects. When the researchers checked in with participants six years after the start of the study, they found that running significantly reduced the risk of high blood pressure (by 4.2 percent), high cholesterol (4.3 percent), diabetes (12.1 percent) and cardiovascular heart disease (4.5 percent), for every MET h/d, which is a standard measure of metabolic energy expenditure. Great news, right? Well, it gets even better.

Participants who walked regularly saw even better results. Walking decreased risk by 7.2 percent for high blood pressure, 7 percent for high cholesterol, 12.3 percent for diabetes and 9.3 percent for cardiovascular heart disease. The more someone walked or ran, the greater the benefit.











  

Breaking Through A Weight Loss Plateau

Eventually, it happens.  After a great start, where the pounds are shed easily, our bodies react and the weight loss tails off or stalls altogether.

In my case, after losing about 25 pound in about 12 weeks, I hit a plateau,  I've been stuck there for about 4 weeks.  In short, my weight, taken once a week, would fluctuate between 258 and 262 pounds, in what seemed to be a random fashion.  It wasn't as if I was periodically binging out and that some bad food choices were causing me to gain weight during one week or another.  My exercise regime was the same and I stuck to my new way of eating.

Was this my dreaded body set weight that would doom me to remain at an unsatisfactory weight?  If so, it would have been a major defeat.

Fortunately, I took a close look at what has worked previously and what had changed since then.  Most probably, I had let enough calories sneak back into my diet thereby negating my daily calorie deficit.  The culprits?  Too many mixed nuts and my power oatmeal breakfast supplemented with coconut oil and whey protein powder.

To remedy the situation, I decided to change my snack from mixed nuts to natural, unsalted almonds and to go back to eating Greek yogurt with berries and a few walnuts for breakfast.  At the same time, I continued to walk about 70-80 kilometres a week and to do one strength training session and one metabolic training session per week.  This way, I would know whether it was the change to my diet that affected any change in weight.

Sure enough, I started to drop more weight, falling from 258 to 255.  Although this might not seem like a lot, after four weeks of being stuck on a plateau, it brought welcome relief and definitely picked up my spirits.

Now that spring has finally arrived, I plan on sticking with my recent changes to my diet and adding a cycling regime to my exercise habits.  In the past, I have been able to control my weight by commuting to work on my bike.  Yet, I have never combined being very physically active with a slow carb approach to eating.  Previously, I always used exercise to give me a carte blanche with regard to my food choices.

As you could probably imagine, I'm looking forward to getting back on the saddle to see where this new combination can take me.

Walking to Winnipeg

Depending on who you talk to, people will tell you that it is important to set goals, especially when it comes to fitness: how much weight, how much time, how often, how far, etc.  I tend not to do this because, for the most part, it isn't that big of a deal for me to get to the gym, hop on my bike, or go for a walk.  For me, the challenge is much more about what type of food and how much I eat.

Nevertheless, now that I am monitoring the distance that I walk each day with my Fitbit and look at the bar graphs detailing my data concerning steps taken, distance covered, calories burned, and active minutes, I have a very good idea on what would be a challenging but achievable goal.

At the end of March, it will have been three months that I have tracked how far I walk each day.  Last week, I passed the 500 mile mark, which means that by the end of the month, I will have walked about 1000 kilometres -- not too shabby at all.

Doing the math, if I maintain this rate, by the end of the year I will have walked approximately 4000 kilometres, which is the equivalent of walking from where I live, on the Quebec/Ontario border, crossing the entire province of Ontario, to arrive in my hometown of Winnipeg and back again.

Last summer, we drove from Gatineau to Winnipeg to attend my niece's wedding -- two very long days of driving just to get there.  As a result, no one in the family ever wants to do that it again.  Next time we'll fly.

So, when I tell my family that I'm walking to Winnipeg, they think I've flipped.  That's a hell of a long way.  Then, I tell them that I am going to walk, over the course of the year, the equivalent of walking the round trip one step at a time, day in day out, wherever I find myself.

They get it.  They can make the connection between the total distance covered on foot over 12 months and the hellish experience of driving across Ontario, the land of what seems to be endless rocks and trees and bogs and lakes.

I also tell them that along the way, I am not going to be stopping at Tim Hortons, MacDonalds, or anywhere for pizza.  No way.  Yogurt and berries for breakfast, salad for lunch, and either lean meat or fish with vegetables for supper.  No bread, rice, potatoes, or pasta.  Nothing with added sugar or refined flour.  Plenty of fruit, nuts, coffee, some dairy, and the occasional bar of dark chocolate and a glass of red wine.

Along the way, I am going to stop at a gym to work out twice a week, one workout lifting heavy weights, another doing high intensity intervals.

Finally, now that I am middle-aged, I'll be taking vitamin D, fish oil, and alpha lipoic acid to combat inflammation.

I like to imagine my efforts to reach my destination of being physically fit sets me out on a return voyage back to my home town -- back to a place and time where in fact I was slim and fit before leaving to seek my fortune.

I hope I can recapture that part of my past.

Keeping Track Makes A Big Difference

In an earlier post, I encouraged people to get themselves a Fitbit.  Having just received my weekly progress report via email, I can see that wearing a pedometer can bring about very positive results.

For example, in 2007, Stanford researchers took the bird's-eye view, gathered up 26 different studies and summarized the results in a paper published in The Journal of the American Medical Association. Their synopsis showed that, at least in studies, pedometer users walk more than 2,000 additional steps each day than nonusers, and their overall physical activity levels
increase by 27%.

Related Post

Get Yourself a Fitbit and Don't Leave Home Without It 

In my case, I just had my best week ever: 108,000 steps, 51 miles (80 km), and 25,000 calories burned over just one week.  In addition, I went to the gym for workout with weights three times.

I really feel that I am on track to lose the fat that I have accumulated over the years.  The challenge is to keep up this level of effort.  Certainly, receiving a weekly progress report lets me know how I am doing.

Push, Pull, Squat

I spend quite a bit of time reading articles on health and fitness.  From time to time, I run across something that strikes me to be such a great idea or suggestion that it makes its way into my exercise regime.

With all the contradictory information out there, I particularly care for something that simplifies what can otherwise be complicated into the basic fundamentals.

When it comes to resistance training, the notion of building your workout around three types of exercises: a push, a pull, and a squat is an extremely simple idea that is extremely effective.

Regardless if you are doing a body weight routine, using a suspension training device like a TRX, or working out with bar, dumb, and/or kettle bells, making sure that you include one exercise of each type cannot lead you wrong.

Just look at the hugely successful programs, Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe and the 5-3-1 program by Jim Wendler.  Both programs break things down to the basics, a bench press (push), a dead lift (pull), and a back squat (squat).

Over the last two years, I have followed both programs and I definitely got stronger and gained muscle mass.  Unfortunately, I also became fatter, which was largely a result of my diet, so I decided that it was time to go on a fat loss program.

I decided to purchase, Eric Cressey's, High Performance Handbook, and followed the fat loss program.  In about 12 weeks, I lost 28 pounds.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about the High Performance workouts is that there is a lot of variation of these three basic exercises.  As I discovered, there are many pushes, pulls, and squats to choose from.  Over the four stages of the program, Cressey varies the exercises, thereby increasing a lifter's weight training repertoire.  Moreover, he includes and extensive video library of the various exercises that instructs the viewer upon how to use the proper technique when performing each exercise.  It's almost like having a personal trainer there to coach you.

As a result, I have now started a new workout regime in which I vary the three main exercises over the course of three workouts per week.  For example, on Monday, I did 3x5 reps of a close grip bench press, a Sumo dead lift, and a back squat.  Today, I will do 3x5 reps of wide grip pull up and an overhead squat, and 3x8 reps of a landmine press.  Before the workout, I do about 10-15 minutes of dynamic stretching and afterwards, I finish with about 10-15 minutes on the rowing machine, interspersed with 4x 30 second sprints.

Not very complicated.  Warm up, do some pushes, pulls and, squats and end with a finisher that gets the heart rate up.

Now, I am on the lookout for new exercises that I can integrate into my routine while hanging onto the tried and true exercises that I know that I can count on.  As well, I know can add even more variety by simply varying whether the exercises are unilateral or bilateral, for example, choosing to a bench press with two dumbbells instead of a single barbell.

Not only am I excited by creating my own personal program as I go, I also think that I am in the process of reducing my risk of injury that arises when you do the same exercise and continue to increase the load.  Eventually, something has to give.  In my case, it was my rotator cuff from doing too many push presses.

But now, having picked up some pre-hab shoulder and thoracic movements from Cressey's program, I am pain free and looking forward to do a much wider range of exercises that are waiting for me to discover. 

Get Yourself a Fitbit and Don't Leave Home Without It

When I think back to the periods of my life when I was slimmer, I remember that those were the periods when I didn't have a car.  Without the luxury of being simply able to hop in my car and drive where ever I wanted to go, I of course walked a lot more, which means that my daily activity level, the number of calories I burn while going about my daily business, was much higher.

Once you make the decision to live in suburbs and raise a family, however, you are pretty much forced into buying a car since public transportation is just too time consuming in order to do all the things you have to do in a day: get to work, pick up the kids, grocery shopping, etc.

Even though you may have a membership to a gym, the loss of the walking habit may mean that despite your best intentions, watching what you eat and burning calories during a workout, the calories burnt at the gym might not be enough to put you into a calorie deficit.  Worse yet, the workouts might actually stimulate your appetite so that you eat more, over and above the what you worked off.  So, much to your dismay, you continue to pack on the pounds despite your best efforts.  I know this was certainly my situation.

To really reap the benefits of working out, you need to make sure that your workouts are indeed going to cause a calorie deficit, but in order to make this happen, you need to know how many calories you are burning throughout the day and then, for most people, increase your daily activity to ensure that your workouts are not simply burning off the excess brought about by eating within the norms, which turns out to be a calorie surplus due to your lack of movement on the job and at home.

The easiest way to do this is to simply count the steps you take over the course of each day, and the best way to do this and track your results is to get yourself a Fitbit.  This simple device straps to your wrist and syncs to a smart phone or tablet by way of an application so that you can visualize the number of steps, distance covered, and calories burned during a day, week, month, and year.  Moreover, the people at Fitbit will send you a weekly summary of your results.

If you so desire, it will also monitor your sleep patterns.  Even better, it is water resistant.  You won't need to take it off before taking a shower.

As it turns out, last week was my best week with regard to the total steps (100,901), distance covered (47.59 miles), and calories burned (24,455 cal.).  This breaks down to a daily average of 14,414 steps, 6.8 miles, and 3,494 cal.

What I found extremely interesting is that when I decided to take a day off, my results dropped off considerably, only 3985 steps, 1.88 miles, and 2,645 calories.

From the perspective of fat loss, deciding not to go for a walk meant that I burned approximately 850 calories less than my daily average.  That's a lot.  For most people that would be more than they would burn off at the gym during a workout.  Extend that sedentary lifestyle for a week and it adds up to about the equivalent of 1.5 lbs of fat.

As well, it appears that I could maintain a weight loss program simply by continuing my walking regime: 15 min in the morning and afternoon, 40 min at lunch, and the easy extras I get by parking my car the furthest I can at work and by taking the stairs to get my workspace on the third floor.

Doing so, however, without resistance training would probably mean that I would lose muscle mass along with the fat loss.  As a result, I still go to the gym to lift weights two or three times a week,  In the next post, I 'll share with you the program that I have adopted.

Ciao.