how to get fat skinny

01/21/2010

how to get fat skinny

Many of my favorite bloggers are in the midst of new fitness and/or weight loss regimens (new year, new decade). Many, like Jonniker, are using Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. (Hi, Jonna! Don't worry, the nausea will pass and, also, you will be able to pick up your baby again at some point...) Some are running. Many are combining their workouts with nutritional changes; check out the challenge at MamaPop.

Since I've been at this fitness thing for over 25 years (fuck), I thought I'd share some of what I have learned about what works and what doesn't. Not that you asked, but blogging is better than bossing my friends around. Which is what I usually do.

First, there is a distinction between getting fit and losing weight. I'll stick to losing weight in this post since that's what most people think they want to do (I'll talk about fitness later):

1. Losing weight is ALL about diet.

2. I'm not kidding.

3. You can lose weight without exercising at all.

4. Really.

5. You can exercise like a mofo and not lose an ounce (or any size).

6. I am not shitting you.

7. You can do all the crunches you want; abs are made in the kitchen.

Heresy one: Exercise is not the most important thing in losing weight.

You are stuck with the calories in vs. calories out equation. Sorry. If you lower your fat intake to 5% of your diet but are still taking in more than you burn you will gain weight. If you drastically reduce carbs but are still eating too many calories (my personal favorite way to do this is with the excessive consumption of almond butter) you will gain weight. Yes you will. You can train for a marathon, run 50 mile weeks and not lose weight, if you eat what you burn. I've done it.

Heresy two: A reduction in calories is what matters for weight loss.

People will argue with the above statement and claim that low carb diets are more effective. Science doesn't back this up. To the extent that low carb diets are effective at all it is because they are low cal diets. The same can be said of weight watchers, south beach, zone. Every one of these diets reduces caloric intake. (Again, we are talking strictly weight loss, there are benefits to a carb controlled diet in managing some chronic diseases like diabetes and I am not even going to pay attention to extreme shit like going into ketosis, I'm sure there are sites that cater to supermodels that talk about that kind of insanity)

But! Some people find they are more comfortable slashing calories if they do it by lowering carbs. In other words, having a higher percentage of your calories come from protein and fat may control your appetite better that just cutting calories. This is true for me, if I am cutting calories, I have to cut carbs or I will chew off my arm.

Heresy three: The quality of your calories doesn't matter for weight loss.

No shit. You can eat only Snickers and lose weight (however, see above about chewing off arm). You may increase your chances of developing a disease, but we don't care about that! We just want to look hot! The best source of information I have found about this is Lyle MacDonald's site. Lyle has been working with athletes and bodybuilders for years and has been collecting scientific literature on fat loss, much of which is indexed on his site. Bodybuilders get leaner for competition than any other athletes and we can learn a lot from them (the only time I ever got below 10% body fat was following a bodybuilding diet and training program). You can learn a lot from them and from Lyle.

Personally, I find that eating whole, unprocessed foods makes me feel less deprived mentally because I can eat more volume and bulk than if I eat processed food.

Heresy four (the corollary to number three; I'm telling you this shit is hard): Just changing the quality of your food is likely not enough to put you in a calorie deficit.

Unless you had a pretty crappy diet to begin with or are a 15 year old boy with a ridiculous metabolism, you will probably have to keep track of what you eat, and this means weighing your food. This is definitely true for small framed women over 40 who have a desk job. Why?

Well, take me for example. I'm 5'4," old as fuck, have a desk job, and usually weigh between 135-140 lbs. (Shut up. I have a lot of muscle) If I want to lose 2 pounds a week and I'm not exercising, I need to limit my intake to 850 kcals day. (fuck, fuck, fuck) It would be very, very easy to blow this number and inadvertently add 200-500 kcal per day. Don't believe me? Watch Leigh Peele's video. In my case, that's adding over 20% to the my daily intake. How much does that suck? The only way to really know you are sticking to a low calorie diet is to weigh your food. Obviously, if you can eat 2500 kcal per day and lose weight, there is more room for error. However, you will need to reduce your intake by 3500 kcal per week for each pound you want to lose. Which is why it is difficult for smaller, older females to lose weight rapidly. More reasons it sucks to be me.

Heresy five: You need to cheat.

"What? You just got done telling me I need to weigh everything..." You do. If you are serious about losing weight you need to keep track of what you eat. But! This shit will make you crazy. No. Really crazy. When I was pre-contest dieting for bodybuilding, I had a dream one night that I sat down with a spoon and a box of nonfat dry milk powder and pigged out That was a good dream! I was beyond deprived. Do not go there. Trust me. You need a mental break. There are also some good arguments for why you need regular breaks physiologically (again, look at Lyle's site, his more extreme diets have structured re-feeds. Look up info about the hormone Leptin). I don't think you can separate the mental from the physiological here, allowing yourself a cheat meal or a cheat day will make it much easier to stick to a plan. Again, if you are me and can only eat a pittance to begin the fuck with, you have to be careful of your cheat. That sundae as big as your head can wipe out a week of dieting. Fuck.

I remember being in a Venice Beach Supermarket the morning after the Mr. Olympia contest. There were several professional bodybuilders walking around with carts filled with Twinkies, fruit pies, donuts and other crap. Extreme deprivation will seriously mess you up. The urge to binge can become uncontrollable. Do not fuck with extreme deprivation.

Ok. Here's the thing. Nothing that I said above is about good health. Nothing that I have said above has anything to do with performance. Nothing I said above has anything to do with fat loss vs. loss of lean body mass. To cut calories without regard for the quality of your food, your macro-nutrient ratio, or attention to your activity level is straight dumb. You might as well also smoke and take amphetamines if all that really matters is losing weight. Save your flames; I AM NOT RECOMMENDING THIS APPROACH. But you must know the basic facts to design an effective program and this is part of the equation.

Posted at 09:42 PM in Fitness | Permalink

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It's interesting. I find most of this to be sort of true for me, but my genetics (ha!) dictate that working out does a LOT more for me than I expected. (I am only speaking for me, obvs)

When I work out, I lose weight pretty fast -- for example, I really made only the tiniest of changes in my diet while adding the Wii Fit workouts, and dropped eight pounds in three weeks-ish. However! I also think that it is true that when I'm working out, I make better food choices SUBCONSCIOUSLY, because I am vaguely aware in some pocket of my mind that it would be tomfoolery to ruin all that hard work by eating six cupcakes.

The OTHER however is that my diet is super-healthy to begin with, and always has been. I'm the girl who craves carrot pickles when she wants something salty, and never, ever reaches for potato chips or empty snacks. I had nothing to do with this, except it's what I crave.

What I'm dealing with now is baby weight, because pregnancy and nursing fundamentally changed what I wanted to eat. I'd never had a Little Debbie before I got pregnant, and due to nausea, there was an entire MONTH where that was all I could eat. And suddenly there I was CRAVING THEM and HOO BOY, bad scene.

Finally, finally, I am back to my old eating habits, which is a blessing in many ways. But it is also true that my goals are realistic -- I want to be a comfortable, reasonable weight. I do NOT want to be superskinny with washboard abs and I'm never going to be an ectomorph. And the dietary tradeoffs wouldn't be worth it if I tried, I guess.

I'm rambling. Did I have a point? Sorry!

Posted by: jonniker | 01/22/2010 at 08:25 AM

Working out does matter, and I'll talk about it in my next post. Again, take me as an example, if I want to lose two pounds per week without exercise I can only eat 850 calories a day. That's ridiculous and very hard. If I work out, I can eat 1200-1500, which is doable. My point was though that diet is more important because it is very easy to have 500 calories of slop in your diet in a day but actually takes real effort o burn that much.

If you are losing, your are in a calorie deficit. If adding workouts and making better choices got that done for you, yay! SInce my diet is already very clean, and I am already a big exerciser, losing weight is all about tracking for me.

Posted by: leigh | 01/22/2010 at 08:50 AM

I get and agree with your point completely! I cannot BELIEVE, however, that you weigh your food. I am in awe. I cannot do it. Holeeee SHIT. That is an incredible level of dedication that I am fairly certain I'll never reach.

Posted by: jonniker | 01/22/2010 at 10:32 AM

Yup, me no like AT ALL. But also, I am about 100 years older than you AND I work at a desk all day. I will talk eventually about the effect of NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogensis), just moving around during the day as opposed to "workouts" on your daily burn. It is HUGE. So, someone 100 years younger than me who is running around after an active baby will burn way more calories than me. Bottom line: just watching your portions will probably work fine for you! If it stops working, weighing is just one way to be more strict.

Posted by: Leigh | 01/22/2010 at 11:41 AM

ohlord, I'm in the same fucking boat! As in, working out and dieting for 25 years (fuck) and realizing all that you're saying is total fact.

"Just changing the quality of your food is likely not enough to put you in a calorie deficit."

I gained weight going to clean eating because HAHA it is YUMMY. And thus I ate more! And YUMMY! Less guilt! Exclamation points!

But working out, while it helps the muscle tone and physical changes, is not the end-all of dieting. I think you shared so many great points here. Of to stumble and bookmark and generally pass on the "fucking awesomeness!" of this post.

Posted by: Mrs. Flinger | 01/24/2010 at 10:33 AM

Yep. Old (well, post-menopausal), small framed and short. To maintain weight I can eat 1600-1800 calories. To lose weight, I'm down to 1200-1300 a day.

And I work out about an hour a day. (cardio and heavy lifting. I may be old, but I am an old woman of steel).

It's about calories in/calories out. To me, it's about quality protein and good fats, and carbs mainly made up of veggies and fruit.

And it's about my planned cheats. Because life without an occasional Guinness is not worth contemplating.

Love Lyle MacDonald and Leigh Peele...

Posted by: deb roby | 01/24/2010 at 12:00 PM

That's funny, I've been trying to stop the fat skinny.

Everything you say is so true. Loving your writing, Leigh.

Posted by: Kristin | 01/27/2010 at 07:08 AM

I liked your post about the difference between weight loss and fitness ... and the emphasis with respect to weight loss and that most people are what you want ... thanks

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