Lean and Hard

Inkfish - 1.15.13 by Elizabeth Preston

BluePrintCleanse claims that the energy you save on digestion by not eating any real food gets diverted to "other metabolic processes." But Swoap says this is false. Your whole metabolism will slow at once, not just the tasks attached to digesting food. This will make it harder to lose weight.

Before I learned that it costs $65 to $90 to starve yourself for a day, I considered trying one day's worth of "juice cleansing" to put myself into the proper cranky fog for writing this piece. But if I'm going to eat no calories, I prefer to spend no dollars.

What did I give up by fueling myself on solid foods instead of liquefied produce? Really, one day would have been merely dipping a toe into the celery water. If I were a serious client of a juice cleanse company, I would pay for anywhere from three to ten days' worth of bottled juices, delivered to my doorstep in a cooler every morning.

The first few days of deprivation would, in theory, "cleanse the blood" and release toxins from my tissues that have been slowing me down and making me sick. I'd give my colon a break while "sweeping" it out. The latter days would boost my immune system and "fight off degenerative diseases." After all that detoxifying and boosting, I would feel energized and restored. I might even have lost a few pounds—but it's about health, not weight.



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I'm always fascinated by pictures from the Depression era. You know, that time in the 1930s when the economy crashed and people had very little? If that sounds like today, think again. There was no safety net provided by the government then, and people literally went hungry. That's why in pictures from that time people look so thin. They didn't have enough to eat. And they didn't have cars and machines to do everything for them. They actually had to expend energy!

Fast forward to today, when you can easily afford far more calories than you need, and you can make a living and live your life almost without moving at all.

It's no wonder that we have an enormous problem with obesity and its many related diseases.


When I started my fitness lifestyle, I started thinking about calories and money. Let's say I have a limited supply of money so that I can only afford to eat 2000 calories a day. And let's say I'm smart, and want to get the most bang for my buck by making sure those limited calories have as much nutrient content as possible. What would I be eating? And how much would it cost?

I realized that all the excess food I ate over the years was still with me, stored as fat. I had thousands of dollars of calories saved up! I could spend less now by eating fewer calories than I was burning, and make use of all that stored energy! So that's what I did and my excess fat lasted about a year. Since then I've increased my intake, but it's still limited, and I'm still saving money.

The idea that I need to spend more to lose weight seems wrong to me. Why should I pay someone to give me less food? I can eat less food and spend less money all by myself.

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Either you've said it or heard it: "When I was younger I ate everything in sight and was thin as a rail. Now I eat a single donut and put on five pounds!"

I can tell you for certain that I gave not a moment's thought to my eating when I was 16, and I was a skinny guy.


I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. And look at me! But then a few decades passed and I weighed more than 300 pounds. What the hell happened?

This is what I think:

It's not that something mysterious changed and my metabolism suddenly slowed to a crawl. It's that I was always eating more than I was burning, but since I was still growing and developing, the extra calories went into producing that growth. I was getting heavier, but it wasn't fat. It was muscle, bone, blood, etc. Add to this the fact that I was very active: I was always on the move and playing sports in school.

But as I got older, I became less active and my body, no longer needing to build, started storing fat. I kept eating what I wanted, but burned and used less. So I put on a few pounds of fat every year. Maybe noticeable, but not alarming, really. With those extra pounds came increased difficulty in moving around, so I became even less active.


From 175 to 180. Then 180 to 185. No big deal. Then I hit 190 and decided to diet. I dieted and lost 20 pounds. Yay! But then I went back to the usual over-eating and under-exercising and started the process over again. This happened maybe 3 or 4 times until I gave up.

Finally, after all these years, I've found a way to limit my caloric intake and eat a nutrient dense diet as a way of life, and have also developed the habit of exercise. The cycle has been broken and I'm not looking back. Except for writing about it. :-)

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PACIFIC STANDARD - 12.27.12 by Elizabeth Weil

Almost three million people have watched “Sugar: The Bitter Truth.” Alec Baldwin publicly lost 30 pounds by following Lustig’s rules and giving up toxic foods...

Among the least likely viral megahits on YouTube is a 90-minute lecture by the food scold and pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig, entitled “Sugar: The Bitter Truth.” He delivers it in a windowless room at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. The talk is simultaneously boring and powerful, combining the gravitas of a national health crisis, the thrill of conspiracy theory, and the tedium of PowerPoint slides. Midway through the talk he scans the hall for approval. “Am I debunking?”

The UCSF extension students mutter “yeah”—most of them, at least. Lustig has a way of seeking validation and pissing off people at the same time. His combined love of showmanship and need for approval led to acting in 12 musical-theater performances during his three years as an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His greatest role yet may be as the loudest, most contrarian voice in the public-health debate over why we get fat and what we should do about it.

Read more>>

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I kinda think we knew this, but...

ScienceDaily - Dec. 15, 2012

Aerobic training is the best mode of exercise for burning fat, according to Duke researchers who compared aerobic training, resistance training, and a combination of the two.

The study, which appears Dec. 15, 2012, in the Journal of Applied Physiology, is the largest randomized trial to analyze changes in body composition from the three modes of exercise in overweight or obese adults without diabetes. Aerobic exercise -- including walking, running, and swimming -- has been proven to be an effective way to lose weight. However, recent guidelines have suggested that resistance training, which includes weight lifting to build and maintain muscle mass, may also help with weight loss by increasing a person's resting metabolic rate. Research has demonstrated health benefits for resistance training, such as improving glucose control, but studies on the effects of resistance training on fat mass have been inconclusive.


"Given that approximately two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight due to excess body fat, we want to offer clear, evidence-based exercise recommendations that will truly help people lose weight and body fat," said Leslie H. Willis, MS, an exercise physiologist at Duke Medicine and the study's lead author.

Researchers enrolled 234 overweight or obese adults in the study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three exercise training groups: resistance training (three days per week of weight lifting, three sets per day, 8-12 repetitions per set), aerobic training (approximately 12 miles per week), or aerobic plus resistance training (three days a week, three set per day, 8-12 repetitions per set for resistance training, plus approximately 12 miles per week of aerobic exercise).






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Anyone who's making progress on their fitness goals might well feel a bit of terror at the approaching pig-out holiday season. You may feel like a wildebeest swimming across a croc infested river, nostrils flared and eyes bulging. Here are a couple of simple tips to keep the 23-foot monsters away.

1. Don't go to parties or holiday meals hungry.

For some reason, who knows why, the turkey always takes longer to cook than we think. After years of experience you'd think we'd learn. We get invited to a holiday meal being told it will be served at 2. First, that means 4. Second, why does it have to be so late anyway?



The trick is to eat something healthy before you go so you aren't ready to strip the meat off the still-uncooked bird with your teeth and damn the consequences, when it's not ready as promised. You'll be immune to the teasing aroma that would otherwise have you drooling saliva for 2 hours. So when you're finally (finally!!) served, you'll be able to...

2. Eat what you like in moderation.

See how it works? The goal is to get through it without inhaling 2-weeks' worth of calories and gaining 5 pounds overnight. This is made much easier if you aren't that hungry to begin with when faced with those tempting-yet-unhealthy sides and sweet treats.

No need for snacking on the bad stuff circulating before the main course. No need for seconds and thirds. People will marvel at your self control when you say, no, thanks, not realizing that you just aren't that hungry!

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If you've followed my weight loss, my efforts to get and stay lean and hard (I won't call it a "journey;" nothing should be called a "journey" that isn't a literal "journey," OK?) and haven't just arrived at today's entry, you'll know that I started out at 303 and am trying to maintain 173, for a loss of 130 pounds. It took about a year, and now I'm learning how to keep my weight where I've decided it should be. So, what have I learned so far about maintaining?

First, I've learned that I am in control of my weight. I can weigh whatever I decide is right for me. Ever since I found out about switching to complex carbs, I've been able to control my eating and find the energy to exercise. I've been able to be in the driver's seat again. This is important for me to keep as a first principle in life. I've proven to myself that I'm not at the mercy of circumstances or other people. My weight is up to me.

Second, I've learned that I can't stay at an exact weight on a daily basis. It would be virtually impossible to wake up each morning and weigh exactly 173 pounds. Instead of attempting the impossible, I have to allow myself to fluctuate above and below that weight by a margin of a few pounds. It's sort of like the vibrato a vocalist uses to maintain pitch, or a violinist uses to convey emotion from his instrument. There are times when I'll eat a bit more than I need to maintain my weight, and times when, in order to get back where I need to be, eat a bit less. The key is that I'll average the right number of calories over time, keeping an eye on my weight regularly in order to stay on top of it.

Third, I've learned that food and exercise aren't my life's ultimate focus in and of themselves. They are only the means to a much more important and fulfilling end, that being to be my best in order to love and serve others in caring relationships and productive work.

Do these lessons resonate? If so feel free to add your thoughts by commenting!

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If you know your Greek mythology, you're familiar with the story of Sisyphus, who was a king consigned as punishment to the futile business of pushing a boulder to the top of a hill, only to watch it roll back down to the bottom again, over and over again forever. This was his fate. He could do nothing to change it. Or could he?

Many of us see it as our immutable fate to be overweight, unhealthy, uncomfortable in our own skin, tired and unattractive, huffing and puffing our way through life. Like Sisyphus, we've tried rolling the boulder up the hill many times, only to watch dejectedly as it always rolled back down again. We've dieted, lost a few pounds, and gained it all back and more. So we've given up.

That was exactly my situation. As it turns out, it wasn't my fate to be fat and unhealthy. There's no question there's some comfort in giving up. It's easier to accept the way things are than it is to fight against our circumstances. But if you don't like the way things are, you can do something about it. I'm a bit rebellious by nature, don't like feeling hemmed in by circumstances. I can be realistic about things I can't change, but there's a lot we can change if we're prepared to defy what seems to be our fate.



Another story that relates to this point is the description I once heard about how animal trainers control elephants. They use a strong chain that's firmly anchored at one end into the ground and attached to a manacle on the animal's leg at the other. The elephant learns that he can only go so far before the chain pulls him up short. After this lesson sinks in, the trainer can use a much weaker chain that's only barely stuck into the ground, a constraint that the powerful animal could easily break free of. But the elephant has learned that he cannot break free and has long since given up trying.

So instead of giving up, or trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, perhaps it's time to find a better way. A way that works, that breaks us free from our addiction to simple carbs and the hunger they cause. A way that understands that fad diets are a waste of time and money, that gets back to sound fitness principles. A way that lets us transform our bodies and defy fate. It's time to set the boulder aside and make a change!

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I'm going to go out on a limb and say, unequivocally, that you cannot - repeat, cannot - lose weight and get lean and hard, or stay lean and hard, without taking control of what goes in your mouth. Exercise alone won't do it. Fad diets won't do it. The necessary ingredient in the fitness recipe is policing what you allow into your mouth and down your gullet.

The reason for this is simple: It's far easier to say no to calories you ingest than it is to burn calories through exercise. How long do you have to spend on a treadmill to burn off the calories you took in in the seconds it took to inhale that brownie? Food for thought, eh?

Many of us act as if other people control what we eat. We behave as if we have no choices! How so? Anyone who works for a company or is a member of a club, for example, will often face the challenge of unhealthy foods being on offer at meetings or special events. With the holidays coming up the trickle will become a flood... cookies, pies, pizzas. cakes, they will be offered to you over and over. But here's the question: Do you have to partake?

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What about family gatherings? Keeping in mind that there are things that will be available that are no problem from a health and nutrition perspective, do you have to eat the bad stuff? Do you have a choice?

Look at it this way. If you had an allergy to nuts that would cause you to swell up and be unable to breathe, would you be able to say, no, thanks to the peanut butter cookies? You betcha. So would it be so terrible to say no thanks to the sugary treats and fat-laden indulgences? I don't think so.

Some of us have this self-imposed rule that we live by: If it's free, you have to eat it! I prefer to live by this rule: I'll eat what I choose to eat, not what others choose for me.

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Halloween is history, but Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming up, so let's consider how we've done so far. Don't want to think about it? Alright, here are some neat Halloween facts to entertain you...


Read more from Livestrong>>



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