At the urging of my friend Jeff, I am going to write out a broad overview of some of the ways that I've used to improve myself over the last 3 years. This will essentially be a review of methods and approaches to diet and exercise that I've tried, with success (or failure, which is sometimes more useful). I will include links to the original works and sources so you can read more about the topics that you want to research more deeply. If you're reading this, you know me, so you know my history of losing 60 lbs and maintaining the losses, and so forth, so I won't rehash that. Just know that the original reason I started researching these things was for fat loss, then my interest slowly evolved into sports performance.
The first rule is, be a skeptic. Don't trust what I say. Research it for yourself, and give something a try.
So I'll start off with the fat loss portion of the journey, since that's what Jeff asked about specifically. I'll lay this out in the logical progression I used to structure my diet. Where am I? Where do I want to be (goals)? How can I get there? How can I measure my improvements? How do I look/perform/feel? Then feedback to the beginning of this, and keep going through the cycle.
1) Where am I right now?
First, the only scientifically proven method for fat loss is caloric restriction. That is, eating fewer calories than you're using. You can get deep into trying to calculate your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) based on your activity level and job description. However, what I've found for myself is that I always tend to overestimate my energy output level on a given day, so I like to UNDERESTIMATE my base caloric needs so that when I do train, it's just bonus Calories burned. In order to do that, I use my basal metabolic rate to get an idea of how many Calories I'm using just to be alive.
So just for instance, let's say I'm a 6' tall 29 year old male (and I weigh 220 lbs) and my near-term weight goal is 190 lbs. I will use the BMR calculator and use my GOAL weight to calculate a BMR of 1680 Cal. So, if I'm able to eat at a daily average of 1680 Cal, I will tend to trend downward from my current 220 lbs towards my goal of 190. Easy, right? If you eat less than the amount required to maintain your current weight, then your body can't sustain its current form, and you will trend towards the body that you are eating for. And make no mistake, you can't out-exercise your fork. "Abs are made in the kitchen" is a truism.
2) Where do I want to be?
The single most important key to success in losing weight is to have a goal. Have a metric. Hold yourself accountable to your goal, or ask a friend to hold you accountable. You can make a bet between friends (who can lose 20 lbs the fastest?) This is one of those things that will depend almost completely on your current situation. If you're super inflamed, have a lot of visceral fat, and have trouble getting up the stairs, you are going to take a much different approach than an already reasonably active person who has 20 lbs to lose, or an athlete who is already at the top of the game. You need to make challenging, yet reasonable goals. Get out a piece of paper and write down what you want in the next month, 3 months, and over the next year. I do this ALL THE TIME, to the point of being obsessive, but it really helps me get what I'm after.
3) How can I get there?
This section is going to be a laundry list of arriving at your caloric deficit. All of the following will assume that you're not changing how you're eating at all. That is, you're still allowed to eat at McD's for lunch if that's what you usually do. I'm going to treat meal composition as a separate section. The meal composition is most important to performance, not to fat loss. You can lose as much fat as you want without having to do without your favorite junk foods. You'll just have to eat a lot less of them, overall.
Very few of these ideas are mine, but I'll lay them out and try to give credit where I can. Despite what method you use, there is no free lunch. You will be hungry at some point, you will be cranky, you might feel brain fog, you might fall off the wagon and eat a large pizza and box of hot wings. This is a reality, and we have to allow for this. If your diet plan doesn't allow for a little human-nature, you're setting yourself up for failure from the beginning.
A few tips, regardless of what method you use:
-Don't look at calories on a daily basis, instead use a weekly overview. This will allow you to realize that a night of beer and wings isn't the 'end of the world and I might as well give up'. Instead, you can make up for the excess of that day by eating less the next.
-Look at hunger as 'fat burn mode'. When you are truly hungry (and if you try intermittent fasting, you'll learn what actual hunger is) just view it as the times when you're truly scorching through that stored flab, and relish it.
-If you go out to eat, ask for a to-go box when your food comes out, and put 1/2 of your meal in the box right away. Then you can't overeat, and you'll have less to regret later.
Simple Caloric Restriction: This is the classic method of calorie counting. This WORKS. Make no mistake. It requires loads of attention to detail (which some people love and crave) which I personally find tiring. Folks are also prone to yo-yo-ing since people feel enslaved to their daily diet. If they mess up a day, or over eat one day, it's very easy to fall off the wagon. You will also feel a low level hunger almost all the time (Depending on how restricted you're going). One phenomena of prolonged caloric restriction is stalling in weight loss, despite people eating below their maintenance. Here's the LeanGains guy's article about that. There seems to be benefit from cyclically (once a week or so) refeeds off a calorically restricted diet. This is most needed when the bodyfat is sub 10%, which is already for a very small population. This gives a cheat meal (or day) good merit beyond just helping you keep your sanity. I know I've read lots of theories on why, I just can't seem to find the sources right now.
Intermittent Fasting: This is a catch-all term for the method of using periods of fasting (no eating) to hack out large portions of the day when you traditionally would have been eating. There are many ways to structure this time. If you're first coming to this from a traditional dieting perspective, READ THIS before discounting this method of caloric restriction. I'll outline some of the popular methods and discuss my favorite.
Eat/Stop/Eat -
This is a great method. This method is a 2-3 day a week 24 hour fasts. For instance, eat lunch on a tuesday, and don't eat again until lunch on a wednesday. Go about your life as usual. Train, sleep, work, drink plenty of water, and enjoy your weight loss. Brad Pilon's book is fantastic at laying down the groundwork and the research regarding fasting and it's benefits. Benefits from the caloric restriction angle, as well as some of the purported hormonal and mental benefits that come from fasting. It's for the working man (and lady) who just wants to shed some extra pounds without having to severely alter their meal compositions (only the meal frequency). I love this method, and it's the one I currently use to maintain at my current weight. The trickiest part with this IF method is to eat your fast-breaking meal as if you had eaten the previous meals. That is, don't gorge because you didn't eat breakfast or lunch. That is the hardest part for me. I love the feeling of being really full after a big meal. To realize the most loss with ESE, I have to consciously control that urge to stuff myself. Do this for about 3 months, and you'll notice a change. It will be hard for the first month or so. You'll be learning what real true 'body hunger' feels like. Remember, that's just fat burn mode. It might also mess with your bowel movement timing. So what. poop later. You might get sort of grumpy. Apologize later and hope the people in your life are willing to deal with your mood now so that they can enjoy your healthier body later. You might feel a bit loopy if you're insulin insensitive or a bit obese. As long as you don't get wildly low blood sugar, ride it out, and keep going. As you lose the visceral fat, you'll become MORE insulin sensitive (a good thing), your blood sugar levels will be more stable, and you'll be less affected by the fasts.
LeanGains:
This is a 18h fast/6h fed IF regiment that also has a carb cycling aspect and pays pretty close attention to macro-nutrient timing and composition. It also requires you to do heavy weight training at least 3x a week. To stick to LG very strictly is an exercise in weighing food and calorie counting. It's really for a person who is sub 12% bodyfat, trying to break the 10% barrier.
Alternate Day Fasting:
Eat one day, don't eat the next. Simple enough.
The Warrior Diet
This is a 20 hour fasted, 4 hour eating window method of IF. Get your day's calories in one big epic meal, once a day. It's for the dudes who love stuffing their face. I need to read this book. I only have read summaries online, and want to be able to speak more intelligently about this method.
Measuring Improvements:
A weekly weigh in. Monthly photographs. and a tape measure on the areas you're interested in monitoring (thighs, hips, around belly at navel, around chest at nipple height, and the limbs are all good places). Write it down in a book. Set yourself a google calendar reminder, and monitor yourself.
Maintaining:
It seems that it's easier to maintain than it is to lose. Once the difficult work is done, it logically follows that holding your ground is easier. You can probably throttle back to 1x a week IF or whatever your method. Just have your line in the sand. If you're maintenance method fails you, and you creep above your threshold, batten down the hatches and go back into loseit mode. Don't let your line in the sand creep, or eventually you'll lose all of the ground you fought for.
How I'm doing it:
This is really the least important thing, but I'll list how I'm currently finding success. I'm maintaining at 190-195#, and currently in a strength building phase. I'm allowing myself a little bit of excess calories so I make sure to max out my strength gains. I have my mind made up that I'll not go over 200#. If I do, I'll diet back down to 185 using ESE protocol and by making my portions smaller. For now, to maintain, I'm using 2 a week 24 hour fasts a la Eat/Stop/Eat. My diet is primarily a paleo (no dairy/grains/legumes) diet.
That sums up the first part of diet stuff. Next I'll outline the foods that I've been eating in order to perform at the highest level that I've ever been able to. I'll also write about the method I use to cycle through my performance goals and manage an infinite list of goals to a finite amount of time.
Thanks for reading,
Mark
