Fast-5 Diet and Lifestyle: Re: [fast5] Burn the Fat!

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Re: [fast5] Burn the Fat!

Good points of course about not obsessing over the scale or short-term "noise" Phil. As to the detail of the math, I didn't feel it was the key to the piece, more the overall focus on muscle-sparing and steady fat - rather than weight - loss over the long term. Having said that, it's probably valid that over the whole span of a fat-reduction program - ignoring as you say short-term hydration ups and downs etc - one can pretty much leave water out of the equation, since it should average to a constant proportion over time, whereas the proportion of fat in the mix should be changing significantly. Anyway, what I liked about his approach was the emphasis on steady, sustainable improvement in body composition, as opposed to "instant weight-loss" magic or hype - to that degree, like FF of course.

All your practical observations are on the money, I think, and the math looks quite plausible! Particularly for the average "apple shaped" overweight male, steadily reducing waist size must be the single best indicator of improved body composition, and of course an honest look in the mirror is also a pretty good guide. But the path to goal is measured by "calories in, calories out", there's just no getting around it!

David

2010/1/26 Phil Voelker <mail4pvoelker@yahoo.com>

Hola, David -

I've read that article before, and honestly Venuto makes some good points (his core thoughts about speedy fat loss are well taken), but his math examples are really wrong.

The funny thing is he factors out one of the main things he mentions at the beginning of the article - "weight" is made up of fat, water, and other mass -- but then he completely ignores water in his equations.

I do feel that everyone who is trying to lose fat needs to pay attention to fat loss and not overall weight. Seriously, friends - would you care what the scale said if you had no visible "chub," and were strong and fit? You wouldn't care how much you weighed. :-)

As you move forward, here are a couple of things that help me out when the scale is discouraging:

- Any normal person is going to fluctuate 2+ pounds per day, depending on how much you've sweated, ate, gone to the bathroom (or not), how much undigested food is in your system, etc. So - don't sweat the daily numbers! Use them as a signpost, sure - but a weekly number makes a little more sense.

- go by how you feel and how you look first. The scale is second. I use "the pants method." Go find a pair of pants you'd like to fit into. Try them on once a week. Pants don't lie. :-)

- Water retention is always a big one. Fitness models are usually dehydrated, so don't compare yourself to them. Too much sodium can make you retain excess water, so can binge eating. If you weigh yourself after your workout and you're a pound or two lighter, trust me - it wasn't fat. :-)

- Even if you're not "really working out," do some pushups, situps, light exercises, something, anything! The more you tell your body that you need your muscles, the less it will look to them as an energy source.

- Keep control of your calories during your feeding window. An easy way to do this is to write down your desired body weight, multiply it by ten, and that should give you your daily intake. So, let's say you weigh 250 pounds, but you'd like to weigh 180. 180 x 10 is 1800 calories. That should be your daily target. Now, if you exercise more than an hour per week, increase your multiplier by 1 for every hour after the first one that you exercise. In other words, if you exercise two hours a week, multiply by 11 instead of 10. Three hours? Multiply by 12. It's basic, sure - but it's helpful and a pretty sound method in my opinion.

Have fun y'all!

Phil

--- On Tue, 1/26/10, David <david@davidnyman.com> wrote:

From: David <david@davidnyman.com>
Subject: [fast5] Burn the Fat!
To: fast5@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, January 26, 2010, 11:49 AM

Since there's been a certain amount of discussion about the difference between WEIGHT loss and FAT loss in the group recently, and also about what is an achievable and healthy goal for progress, I thought I'd post this excellent article by Tom Venuto on this very point. Although not himself an IF-er, he has a realistic take on both the exercise and diet components of muscle-sparing and fat loss during weight reduction. Very much "no BS".

http://www.thefacts aboutfitness. com/news/ noquickloss. htm

Enjoy!

David