4/26/2017 0 Comments Diet Plateau MythWhy you shouldn't exercise to lose weight, explained with 6. Welcome to Show Me the Evidence, where we go beyond the frenzy of daily headlines to take a deeper look at the state of science around the most pressing health questions of the day. I felt like I had worked really, really hard. And according to my bike, I had burned more than 7. Surely I had earned an extra margarita. The spinning instructor was echoing a message we've been getting for years: As long as you get on that bike or treadmill, you can keep indulging . It's been reinforced by fitness gurus, celebrities, food and beverage companies like Pepsi. Co and Coca- Cola, and even public- health officials, doctors, and the first lady of the United States. Countless gym memberships, fitness tracking devices, sports drinks, and workout videos have been sold on this promise. Muscle-Building Myth #3: High Protein Diets. Written by Shane Duquette on June 6, 2012. This article lists 20 common reasons why you're not losing weight. Many people stop losing before they reach a weight they are happy with. As Pontzer pondered his findings, he began to piece together an explanation. First, scientists have shown that energy expenditure There's just one problem: This message is not only wrong, it's leading us astray in our fight against obesity. To find out why, I read through more than 6. I also spoke to nine leading exercise, nutrition, and obesity researchers. Here's what I learned. An evolutionary clue to how our bodies burn calories. ![]() When anthropologist Herman Pontzer set off from Hunter College in New York to Tanzania to study one of the few remaining hunter- gatherer tribes on the planet, he expected to find a group of calorie burning machines. Unlike Westerners, whoincreasingly spend their waking hours glued to chairs, the Hadza are on the move most of the time. Men typically go off and hunt . Women forage for plants, dig up tubers, and comb bushes for berries. Many have argued that one of the reasons we've collectively put on so much weight over the past 5. Surely, Ponzer thought, the Hadza would be burning lots more calories on average than today's typical Westerner; surely they'd show how sluggish our bodies have become. On several trips in 2. Land Rover with camping supplies, computers, solar panels, liquid nitrogen to freeze urine samples, and respirometry units to measure respiration. One of the most curious diets that I Plagued by a large bottom or thick middle? Thanks to science, you can sculpt a slimmer silhouette with a shape-specific diet and exercise program. Zero carb is getting (relatively) popular. A handful of valued MDA forum members eat little-to-no-carb, and several others probably imagine it's ideal even. In the dry, open terrain, they found study subjects among several Hadza families. For 1. 1 days, they tracked the movements and energy burn of 1. While the hunter- gatherers were physically active and lean, they actually burned the same amount of calories every day as the average American or European, even after the researchers controlled for body size. Pontzer's study was preliminary and imperfect. Are you eating less calories and working out, but still not losing weight? Maybe you're in starvation mode. Find out of it's real or just another myth. It involved only 3. But it raised a tantalizing question: How could the hunting, foraging Hadza possibly burn the same amount of energy as indolent Westerners? Javier Zarracina/Vox. As Pontzer pondered his findings, he began to piece together an explanation. First, scientists have shown that energy expenditure . Maybe, Pontzer thought, the Hadza were using the same amount of energy as Westerners because their bodies were conserving energy on other tasks. Or maybe the Hadza were resting more when they weren't hunter- gathering to make up for all their physical labor, which would also lower their overall energy expenditure. This science is still evolving. But it has profound implications for how we think about how deeply hardwired energy expenditure is and the extent to which we can hack it with more exercise. If the . Exercise reduces the risk of Type 2 diabetes, stroke, and heart attack. A number of other studies have also shown that people who exercise are at a lower risk of developing cognitive impairment from Alzheimer's and dementia. They also score higher on cognitive ability tests . Exercise, in summary, is like a wonder drug for many, many health outcomes. Exercise alone is almost useless for weight loss. The benefits of exercise are real. And stories about people who have lost a tremendous amount of weight by hitting the treadmill abound. But the bulk of the evidence tells a less impressive story. Consider this review of exercise intervention studies, published in 2. It found that after 2. Most people in these studies typically only lost a few pounds at best, even under highly controlled scenarios where their diets were kept constant. Other meta- analyses, which looked at a bunch of exercise studies, have come to similarly lackluster conclusions about exercise for losing weight. This Cochrane Review of all the best- available evidence on exercise for weight loss found that physical activity alone led to only modest reductions. Ditto for another review published in 1. University of Alabama obesity researcher David Allison sums up the research this way: Adding physical activity has a very modest effect on weight loss . In a much- cited 1. Max Wishnofsky outlined a rule that many organizations . Similarly, adding 5. Today, researchers view this rule as overly simplistic. They now think of human energy balance as . When you alter one component . Digesting food accounts for about 1. That leaves only 1. Another review of studies from 2. A single slice of pizza, for example, could undo the calories burned in an hour's workout. So could a cafe mocha or an ice cream cone. There's also evidence to suggest that some people simply slow down after a workout, using less energy on their non- gym activities. They might decide to lay down for a rest, fidget less because they're tired, or take the elevator instead of the stairs. These changes are usually called . In other words, our bodies may actively fight our efforts to lose weight. This effect has been well documented, though it may not be the same for everyone. For one fascinating study, published in the journal Obesity Research in 1. For two hours a day, nearly every day, they'd hit a stationary bike. The twins were also housed as in- patients in a research lab under 2. Despite going from being mostly sedentary to spending a couple of hours exercising almost every day, the participants only lost about 1. The participants also burned 2. By way of explanation, the researchers wrote that either subjects' basal metabolic rates slowed down or they were expending less energy outside of their two- hour daily exercise block. Dugas called this phenomenon . Again, researchers don't yet know why this happens, and how long the effects persist in people. We don't know how much compensation occurs, under which circumstances, and for whom. In another Pontzer paper, published in 2. Current Biology, he and his colleagues found evidence of an upper limit. They cast a wide geographic net, recruiting 3. Ghana, South Africa, Seychelles, Jamaica, and the United States. Tracking the study participants for eight days, they gathered data on physical activity and energy burned using accelerometers. They classified people into three types: the sedentary folks, the moderately active (who exercised two or three times per week), and the super active (who exercised about every day). Importantly, these were people who were already doing a certain amount of activity, not people who were randomized to working out at various levels. Here, physical activity accounted for only 7 to 9 percent of the variation in calories burned among the groups. Moderately active people burned more energy than people who were sedentary (about 2. In light of our evolutionary history . He and others will need to gather more evidence to validate it, and reconcile contradictory evidence showing that people can burn more energy as they add physical activity. So for now, it's a fascinating possibility, among all the others, that may help explain why joining a gym as a sole strategy to lose weight is often an exercise in futility. The government and the food industry are doling out unscientific advice. Since 1. 98. 0, the obesity prevalence has doubled worldwide with about 1. World Health Organization. In the United States, nearly 7. A lack of exercise and too many calories have been depicted as equal causes of the crisis. But as researchers put it in an article in BMJ, . This Public Health Reports paper outlines the dozens of government departments and organizations . But the exercise myth is still regularly deployed by the food and beverage industry . The company has been aligning itself with exercise since the 1. New York Times for funding obesity researchers who emphasize a lack of physical activity as the cause of the the epidemic. Physical activity and diet should never be given equal weight in the obesity debate. It's just one of many food companies that's encouraging us to get more exercise (and keep buying their products while while we're at it): Pepsi. Co, Cargill, and Mondelez have all emphasized physical activity as a cause of obesity. The exercise myth for weight loss also still appears in high- profile initiatives like the first lady's Let's Move! The White House's exercise focus to end childhood obesity, Nestle said, was . We need to cut back the food we're eating. The two things should never be given equal weight in the obesity debate. So what actually works for weight loss? At the individual level, some very good research on what works for weight loss comes from the National Weight Control Registry, a study that has parsed the traits, habits, and behaviors of adults who have lost at least 3. They currently have more than 1. The researchers behind the study found that people who have had success losing weight share a few things in common: They weigh themselves at least once a week. They restrict their calorie intake, stay away from high- fat foods, and watch their portion sizes. They also exercise regularly. But note: These folks use physical activity in addition to calorie counting and other behavioral changes. Every reliable expert I've ever spoken to on weight loss says the most important thing a person can do is to limit calories in a way they like and can sustain, and focus on eating healthfully. In general, diet with exercise can work better than calorie cutting alone, but with only marginal additional weight- loss benefits. Martin Berkhan - Scorch Through Your Fat Loss Plateau. I have never met anyone who stays as lean as Martin Berkhan does year round. In fact, most people think it is near impossible to stay below 6% body fat for more than a few days at a time. Martin has held at a steady 5- 6% body fat for three years straight! Many people will immediately think it is just do to great genetics or a naturally fast metabolism, but they would be wrong. He was a chubby kid growing up and simply figured out a methodology of staying lean without depriving himself of good food. He outlines these methods on his outstanding blog, Lean Gains. Here is an exclusive guest article he wrote for Fitness Black Book. I just couldn’t resist with the word “scorch” in the title. But it would be highly ironic if I, who regularly ate ice cream and cereal on my last cut to 5. Besides that, there are about one billion articles on what foods cause fat gain or stall fat loss. You’ve seen them and it’s usually the same tired stuff. Do you guys need another article telling you to avoid white bread, fast food and hot pockets? Nope. So I asked myself how to approach this topic and make it worth your while. There’s no food that, once you eat it, flips on a metabolic switch that completely shuts down fat burning and weight loss if you’re maintaining a daily caloric deficit. It’s a question of quantity, moderation and context. For example, most of my clients consume a fair amount of starchy carbohydrates following a workout. This isn’t a problem because it’s part of optimizing the plan. In this context, starchy carbs are great for restoring muscle glycogen. On rest days however, my clients might skip starches, eating fewer carbs and more satiating ones. This strategy optimizes satiety, fat loss, diet adherence and performance. That being said, there are some foods that should be ditched first from your diet if weight loss is stalling or if you want to speed things up. Same thing goes if you just want to make the diet as easy and painless as possible. Having reviewed and created hundreds of meal plans throughout the years, I know a little something about this topic. Your diet is where you fix things first and foremost. Adding more cardio when your diet is suboptimal is an inefficient and time- wasting strategy that will result in an increased risk of burnout and overtraining. In this article I’ll spotlight a few less- than- obvious staples that people tend to include in their diets. These are foods that people generally think of as “healthy” and diet friendly, when they can be diet killers in disguise. Nuts, protein bars and dried fruit. Nuts in all their various forms are the most overrated and overhyped foods in the “health conscious” community. Just because it’s a natural food doesn’t mean it’s all that diet friendly or even healthy for that matter. Packing a higher calorie density than chocolate, it’s no big mystery that people easily overdo it with nuts. Some people rationalize a high nut consumption by saying it’s a healthy and natural snack, but this is wrong. Nuts contain an incomplete amino acid profile and consist mostly of plant fats. The westernized diet is already highly unbalanced in the omega 3: omega 6- ratio—the polyunsaturated fats from nuts certainly won’t help. Optimize the fat composition of your diet by kicking nuts to the curb and add more fish, that’s my recommendation. You’ll be more satiated and healthier to boot. A protein bar is nothing more than a chocolate bar with slightly higher protein content and crappier taste. A whopping 3. 00 calories for a bar that you’ll gulf down in a few minutes is crazy. For most women that amount makes up about . Besides that, eating protein bars to up your protein intake isn’t a great strategy as a bar’s protein content makes up only about 3. You could down half a Snickers bar and a protein shake, and end up consuming fewer calories with a better nutritional breakdown than having your typical protein bar. Protein bars are nothing more than glamorized candy. And you don’t eat candy on a regular basis if you want to optimize fat loss and diet adherence. Unprocessed fruit is good, but dried fruit including dried apricots, dates and raisins are just sugar lumps with some extra fiber. These snacks have high calorie density and tend to stimulate hunger rather than quench it. Out of the three popular snacks discussed here, dried fruit may just be the worst of the lot. You don’t want or need them on a fat loss diet. Shakes. Shakes, liquids and anything else that resembles baby food shouldn’t stay on menu when it’s time to shave off calories or make your diet more manageable and painless. This includes “recovery shakes” with high- glycemic index carbs and protein shakes, fruit juices, milk and yogurt. Packing a good deal of calories in proportion to the little satiety they provide, liquid calories have no place in your diet other than for convenience. Think you need a “recovery shake” post- workout? Unless you’re an elite athlete training twice a day and need to refill muscle glycogen as fast as possible for your next training session, “fast carbs” are a complete waste of calories. Your time (and money) is better spent with whole food carbohydrates that offer chewing resistance. Are you drinking whey protein shakes throughout the day because you’re too lazy to cook or eat real food? Well, if you’re too lazy to step into the kitchen or chew your food, you’re probably not going to reach your fat loss goals anyway. I’d rather have you learn to savour a good steak with veggies rather than rapidly chugging insulin- spiking and appetite- triggering whey protein shakes. Liquid calories should be replaced with whole foods, including your protein choices. But if you must supplement your diet with protein shakes, I recommend casein or milk protein isolate over whey. What about those vitamin drinks, smoothies and fruit juices people are drinking to make sure they’re getting enough antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals? Another complete waste of calories Do you think you risk missing vital nutrients if you cut these “health drinks” out from your diet? It’s actually the other way around: strong evidence suggests that overdoing intake of antioxidants and vitamins can negatively affect your health and your training results. A balanced diet with wholesome foods such as meat, eggs, berries, veggies and some starches, doesn’t need vitamin or antioxidant support. It has everything in abundance. If you’re still paranoid, take a multivitamin with your first meal. Breakfast. I apologize in advance to readers who were expecting a third group of food items that I think should be ditched from your diet. This is in part tongue- in- cheek. There is nothing inherently bad about breakfast. Nor is there anything inherently good about it either. But for me, skipping breakfast was the single greatest diet fix I ever made and the one that allowed me to really take it to the next level in terms of lowering my body fat. There’s a lesson in here, so keep reading even if you don’t think you can live without breakfast. I was never a breakfast person in the sense that I wasn’t hungry in the morning and preferred to eat later in the day and evening. Yet I forced myself to eat breakfast on every diet attempt I made until a few years ago. I believed breakfast was absolutely crucial for a few different reasons. First, sleeping supposedly leaves your muscles without a steady supply of amino acids for several hours, making breakfast crucial to keep your muscles from falling off. Second, my poor fragile metabolism apparently couldn’t handle a few hours without food before completely shutting down. And third, breakfast- eaters were on average healthier and weighed less than breakfast- skippers so there had to be something good about it, right? One day I looked into all of this—the actual studies that is, and not what I had learned through fitness magazines and supplement ads. All of those claims about the healthiness of breakfast, muscle catabolism and metabolic rate were wrong. I’ve written a lot about this topic on my blog, but let me provide the main points. Your metabolism doesn’t scavenge amino acids from your muscles after an overnight fast. Fatty acid metabolism is highly up- regulated, but muscle catabolism doesn’t occur in short- term fasting for up to 2. If you’re still paranoid about this (I am), make sure to eat some slowly absorbed protein before bed, such as cottage cheese, egg white protein or meat with veggies (the extra fiber will slow absorption as meat is generally considered a “fast” protein). Another thing to keep in mind is the very slow absorption rate of whole food proteins. We’re talking a few grams per hour, which means that a mixed meal with 4. The belief that a few hours without food will cause muscle catabolism is absurd. Metabolic rate does not slow down during short- term fasting. It actually increases slightly. That’s probably the complete opposite from what you’ve heard, but this is an undisputed fact. It takes more than three days without food before metabolic rate is negatively affected via down- regulation of thyroid activity. That skipping breakfast or missing a meal affects metabolic rate, a myth still propagated in the fitness and health community, is ludicrous. What about those studies showing breakfast is healthy and people that eat breakfast weigh less than breakfast- skippers? Those are all correlational studies. Skipping breakfast is connected to a certain dysregulated eating behavior that predisposes people to weigh more. The Average Joe or Jane breakfast- skipper is the personality type to grab a donut on the way to work, eat junk food for lunch and finish the day off with a big dinner and snack in front of the TV. Those studies have no relevance to the conscious dieter that skips breakfast as a fat loss strategy. Summary. Did you see the red line with regards to what foods should be ditched from your fat loss diet in order to optimize it?
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