Is Your Diet Making You Fat!?
This weekend I was trading dieting war stories with my good friend Jason Phillips of www.jasonphillipsfitness.com. Both of us share the same principles as far as the dieting beast is concerned. "Eat more to WEIGH less". (Generally speaking)
This method of dieting isn't BREAKING NEWS. In fact, it might not ever be, until the tired and broken down competitors take a step back, and really looks at what they are doing on the inside to achieve the best looking 'out'.
Jason and I decided we want to get the word out and after some considerable chatting, we thought it would be best, to just break it down conversation style for this article.
Come be a fly on our wall:
CLP: What’s up J! So the more and more I get into this new way of life, the more I have read articles about girls having some serious metabolic damage and thyroid issues and are now no longer competing after just a few short years on a roll….It’s sad that this method we both use hasn't caught on faster. I truly believe the reason it hasn't is that people are brain washed to believe, that everyone must suffer and sacrifice to be fit and more so, we live in a society that is all or nothing 'I WANT IT RIGHT NOW' mentality. If only there was a way to convince everyone that this way will still help them reach their goals, yet in a much safer, and stable way with LESS risk of the 'crazy rebound weight'. I know you’re seeing a lot more of this now too, what’s your take on it?
JP: I think the word "diet" has definitely become bastardized in the fitness community. Things like fruit, nuts, and nut bu
tters are considered by some to be a CHEAT MEAL...seriously?!?! Some of the prep protocols I have seen over the past few years are downright ridiculous. The problem lies in the fact that they work....the first time. Our bodies are extremely smart and will only allow to be starved once. So the first year you diet on fish and asparagus, do 2 hours of cardio daily and you look great (emaciated but great). The next year you go back to that diet but all of a sudden the scale doesn’t move and the mirror doesn’t change....so “logically” (see sarcasm) you add more cardio and decrease your daily caloric intake....well at 1000 calories and 2 hours cardio already, I guess you better quit your job because you now work part time for the step mill, 15-20 hours a week. When does it stop? Don’t get stuck being the hamster on the wheel. The sad reality is that it usually "stops" with a massive rebound or metabolic damage. This could all be avoided by doing things properly from day 1, but unfortunately the right way seems to be the exception lately and not the rule.
CLP: I know right, it really all makes sense to me now why 'FAD' diets get SO MUCH money! I don’t even think this is just an issue in the fitness and bodybuilding industry alone, but AS WELL as the general population of people who are looking for that ‘magic pill’ to lose weight. They promise amazing results fast, but they never seem to explain how long those results last, and what to do once the person plateaus. This is why the "dieting industry" is the biggest money maker in the economy today. People (even though deep down they know better) are still looking for a get rich quick / lose weight fast scheme and never process what they're actually eating and whether or not it can be a maintainable for life. Let me break it down in more simple terms:
1. Dieter buys into super low calorie “fad” diet
2. Dieter disciplines themselves for a very short(3-4month) period of time on an incredibly restricted low calorie diet
3. Dieter becomes burned out and decides to quit the plan whether they reached their goal or not
4.No basic nutritional values were learned via EXTREME diet, therefore dieter returns to a normal (~2000cals/day) diet and gains a considerable amount of weight in a very short period of time.
5. Now depressed about the rapid weight gain; the dieter searches for the NEXT BIG THING in dieting and the cycle continues.
This five step plan...GREAT for weight loss companies, BAD for people.
JP:I think the problem is that everyone wants to believe there is a "one size fits all" diet template and we both know that nothing like that exists. Fad diets are designed for the masses, and unfortunately that means those looking for a quick fix. Scott Abel (and I believe Aceto has said something similar) is quoted as saying "Force the body and it reacts, coax the body and it responds."
People trying to lose weight must take a step back and realize that the weight they are carrying didn’t come on over night, so it’s not going to come off over night. Lifestyle changes are what must occur, not the latest diet trend.
CLP: TRUTH! Whenever a diet is created “specifically for you” (that you realize about 75% of the other clients are on) and it restricts and/or request you to eliminate ONE macronutrient (fat, carbs, protein) totally should be a warning sign to you that this is not a "lifestyle plan" and you’re heading on the path to metabolic destruction. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, even though I'm pretty sure there is crack laced in animal cookies and peanut butter because I can never turn that shit down...but the facts of this are there. I would say that of the portion of the population that is overweight: 50% comes from all the great tasting over processed crap food that is on the market today and 90% from being miss-taught the VERY basic nutrition skills to maintain a healthy life style. Losing weight shouldn't be a coveted secret that only a few people have learned to achieve, and isn't rocket science! It’s consistently following a sound balanced meal plan slightly below your maintenance calories adding in helpful amounts of cardio and other exercises to reach your goal weight. Bottom Line.
JP: In the most general sense, it boils down to calories in vs. calories out. Physique goals will certainly need to address macro content of these calories but to the average person out there, calorie control is what needs to be addressed (this is evident by the now famous”Twinkie Diet”). The notion that severe deprivation of any "good food" must occur is downright ridiculous. I think the reason a lot of people are afraid to embark on a weight loss journey is because the general view of "dieting" involves severe restriction.
CLP: Absolutely!!! This is my feeling on low calorie diets as I've been doing them the past 5-6 years and have recently decided to wake the hell up and stop the cycle; going to higher calorie diet with much more variety while still losing weight.
Let me break it down like this… Your body is no dumby, when you strip your body down on a VERY LOW calorie diet (diets STARTING on at least 1000cals below your maintenance rate) it learns to adapt. The body has ONE MAIN goal in life which is? TO SURVIVE!! It quickly adapts and has learned to slow down and live off of whatever amount of calories you give to it. It slows down each bodily function to meet whatever caloric deficit is created. Initially you'll lose weight very quickly due to the massive calorie deficit from your prior every day meal plan to your new diet.
Then it happens, in about a month or so you're already burned out and your weight isn't budging...so what do you do? You kick up your already strenuous workout routine and drop your daily caloric intake by 300-500calories even FURTHER, great.
AT FIRST your body responds quickly and you lose 5 more lbs and you think in your head "Awesome, that’s the trick!!!" but on the inside your body says ' Ok, less calories here, I better start to slow stuff down so I can make sure I don't die" so all of your normally functioning body operations which once were thriving, are now slowing down lowering your basal metabolic rate and slowing down your metabolism.
This is why MOST competitors / dieters are quickly having digestion issues. Have become lactose intolerant, have irritable bowel syndrome, are now forced on AND OFF season to use a fiber supplement. Why good bacteria in the gut is now being created by having to take a multiple of pro-biotics. Why some dieter’s hair begins to fall out, the nails become brittle, you bruise easier, and you generally feel like total garbage 95% of the time. Your immune system has shut down, and your body is 'surviving', but you're losing weight, you're hard core! Right? Wrong. You're uneducated, AND you're now malnourished.
But you don’t care, because you’re really going to do it this time…But you get stuck again and so thinking along the same lines as before "reduce calories increase cardio" you do the same thing and this time you're even more burned out than before, you can't remember to tie your shoe laces in the morning and it took you 2 months to lose 5lbs!!...but you did it so it must have worked right? WRONG!!!
At last, the torture is over and you've reached your goal, even though at this point you could care less about it and just want to get the stupid thing over with. You decide to eat normal again like we all do, and having no 'post show diet' mapped out. You instantly bump your caloric intake to the 'normal' rate which for some is anywhere between 2000-2800cals / day (females). 
Let's take a look on what went on inside your body during this "rapid weight loss." You’ve taught it be amazingly efficient, requiring less fuel, and perform more work. You’ve lived off of an extreme deficit at this point and not to mention the logged 2 hours of cardio / day 7 days / week you've been doing. Now it’s time to take a break and you resume your normal life style…and BAM you’re stealthy physique is miraculously transformed back into the ‘fat girl at the gym ‘and its only been about a month, and you really haven’t eaten THAT much food?
Inside your body has done four things:
1. Learned to reset your basal metabolic rate my slowing down ALL of your natural bodily functions
2.Set itself up for maintenance at this extremely low caloric rate. Your metabolism has slowed down considerably and mathematically to your body you're incredibly over feeding yourself, even though what you’re eating is perfectly normal amount of food.
3. Since the bodily functions have slowed down, it is not able to respond fast enough to process this dump in calories so immediately stores it as fat
4.The body has been living in 'survival' mode, now, any influx of food is going to trigger your body to store this excess energy supply immediately as its ‘storage resources’ are extremely low. It wants to be even MORE prepared than the last starvation, so it packs everything on. The rebound is typically even WORSE if its not the FIRST super low calorie diet you’ve been on. Each time you take it to a subnormal level at a very low calorie diet, you’re wrecking your internal fat burning methods even worse
Knowing all of this it’s not surprising to me anymore to see people gain an incredible amount of weight in an extremely short amount of time! Forever people would think this was 'normal'! The rebound and damaged metabolism were just 'acceptable' because that was the way it has been done. But people are waking up. This is NOT the norm, and things need to change, if a competitor/person wishes to have a long, healthy, successful career.
JP: I honestly couldn’t say it any better. Of course a long term diet will lead to the down regulation of metabolic hormones (leptin, ghrelin, etc.) But through proper programming both DURING the diet and AFTER the diet phase, the drastic negative effects can be avoided and the person dieting will not be forced to endure endless hours of cardio or a massive rebound.
CLP: Exactly. So Jason, I’ve talked enough, I’ll let you hit up this next part, what can the ‘victim dieter’ do at this point? How are they going to fix their metabolism? Are they doomed to be in the cycle for life? Or is it possible to really ‘fix’ the metabolism and be able to diet down again in a healthy way?
JP: Unfortunately I don’t think there is one answer to this but I’ll do my best to give a general approach. The first thing I try to create is a healthy relationship with food. What I tend to most commonly see is someone stuck in “deprive, binge, deprive” cycle which is the furthest thing being healthy and living a normal balanced life. We need to find foods that the client actually enjoys eating on a daily basis and set up a diet at an appropriate caloric level. To quote Chris Aceto “there are no rooles” so this level will vary depending on the severity of the situation. At this point bringing the calories up is tricky and requires a close eye on the situation.
Typically refeeds and SLOW caloric increases are what are needed until daily calories are at an acceptable level. I guess at that point you could say the person (specifically their metabolism) is normal.
Ok so I know what everyone is still wondering – what about cardio? This will again be situation specific based on how much cardio was done during the “diet phase.” Obviously as we have talked about, significant amounts of cardio should not be needed for a weight loss diet so the goal would be to start diminishing the amount of cardio being done.
What I have found to be most successful with my clients is to make sure the person is doing a mix of higher intensity work and 1-2 lower intensity sessions per week, with the goal to slowly phase the lower intensity sessions out. Research by Poliquin and Kiefer shows that moderate intensity cardio (running specifically) causes lots of oxidative stress to the body (especially in females) and will actually DECREASE the rate of fat burning (Scott Abel also addresses this in the aerobic myth). Examples of metabolic and conditioning work would be: prowler pushes, battle ropes, or kettle ball work outs.
The last thing I want to touch on is that these “metabolic repair programs” should not just be about a diet and workout – they require close watch and COACHING (again a reference to Abel). Anyone claiming to have a program guaranteed to fix these situations is full of shit and wants your money. What is truly required is a coach that will be with you through the process in an effort to help you recover physically and emotionally (yes this is just as much an emotional situation as it is physical).
CLP: I agree, 75% of the battle after the rebound, is fixing things ‘MENTALLY’…especially if you don’t understand the basics of what REALLY happened inside your body. Personally I've been using this method and feel great! The best thing is that it’s easy to make it into a lifestyle! With the larger amount of calories you will have more freedom to eat a variety of foods. It’s not going to be fixed over night, and you're not going to drop 50lbs in a month. You'll need to be patient, but if you truly want to lose weight forever, this is the method you should look into.
JP: This isn’t the biggest loser and you aren’t going to get a quarter million dollars for dropping a bunch of fat over night. We all have things we enjoy doing, and to eliminate them for the sake of a "diet" is not conducive to LIVING. I laugh at the number of people I see that become hermits because they are "trying to lose weight." WAKE THE EFF UP and realize you are doing more harm than good. Knowledge is power - and in this case knowledge is health. I truly hope people will be receptive to some new ideas and will realize there is no more need to suffer.
CLP: Well, we’re working on it Jason, one person at a time! In the long run, there are many ways to skin a cat, but usually the easiest, less painful, and healthy way would be the best bet. I hope if anything this will have helped a few people understand what happened to them post show, and maybe a few others to caution themselves before they start out on their weight loss journey.
Jason and I could go on and on about this topic but we’ll cut it off here for now. If anyone is interested in getting more informed you can always hit Jason or I up via:
Jason Phillips at: [email protected]
Christy Lauren Poole at: [email protected]
Have a great day and remember, “Knowledge is power - and in this case knowledge is health.”
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