One thing that I have come to realize over the course of my nutrition studies and dealings with clients is that it is really hard (and usually it doesn’t work) to trick your body. It is better to work with the body’s biochemistry and use your diet to manipulation your system to do what you want (lose weight, build muscle, etc).

Now on to cheating and leptin. The concept of a ‘cheat day’ has been around forever. It was a cornerstone of the Body For Life program, cyclic ketogenic diets are based around carb ‘refeeds’ or ‘cheats’. I have previously written an article about this very topic. Here’s an excerpt:

Like with most things, there are several rumors, misuses, and down right false statements that have been floating around the fitness world about refeeds. Let’s look at two of my favorites.

1. Refeeds will improve thyroid function and return your metabolic rate to where it was prior to your dieting — This one’s been around forever. I was guilty of saying it to people also at one time. But honestly, if you take a little time and think about it, the above statement doesn’t make any sense.

The human body is incredibly smart. It’s spent thousands of years developing a set of genes that will allow for maximum conservation of fuel to aid in survival. One huge bolus of calories/carbohydrates isn’t going to convince your body that you aren’t starving anymore and it’s okay to signal the thyroid gland to crank up your metabolism again. While refeeds have benefits most of the time they won’t do anything for your thyroid function. (For the potential exception to this rule keep reading.)

2. You can severely restrict your calories for a period of 1-2 weeks, then stuff your face for an equal period of time, and end up with the same amount of fat mass but more lean mass — Many of you may be familiar with the situation I just described or its official name “Anabolic Burst Cycling of Diet and Exercise (ABCDE)”…. One of the problems with this approach is that people have a much greater ability to over consume than under consume. They’ll eat their faces off and stuff their adipocytes so full of triglycerides that they can’t possibly burn it all off in the following two week period.

I think the leptin angle fits under category one in that using 24 hour calorie bursts are not enough to trick your system into thinking that there is an abundance of food - especially because it is followed repeatedly by 6 days of calorie restriction.

“But what about the before and after pictures?”

If you go to the page where Joel’s system is available you’ll see a bunch of very convincing before and after photos. So I must be wrong and the stuff your face to re-boost leptin angle does work.

No.

If you look at Joel’s program it is a solid diet that is sold on the fact that it is okay to eat pizza and carbs once a week. The dieting guidlines for the remaining 6 days require to you restrict your calories and cycle your carbs using

1. Low Carb
2. Low Glycemic Load Carb
3. High Glycemic Load Carb days

on the cheat days you are not supposed to save all your meals up for one massive gorge fest nor are you supposed to “stuff yourself or eat until the point of discomfort”. You can monitor your calories by counting them or monitoring portions (you know I prefer monitoring portions). Joel offers a deluxe package that has 3 months of meal plans laid out for you (which I know a lot of people like).

So the bottom line is - The Cheat Your Way Thin Diet does not miraculously manipulate leptin using methods unknown to 1,000 of scientist.  But it is a solid carb cycling based diet that has built in the freedom to eat what ever you choose (preferable carbs) one day a week.

You can learn more  about it here -> Carb Cycling and Cheating Diet and if you like done for you programs make sure to check out the deluxe package.

Make sure to check out the 4th question I ask as Jay gives a great answer that we (myself included) all need to hear in regards to building muscle.

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I was able to grab a couple minutes of Men’s Fitness Expert Jason Ferruggia’s time and ask him some questions about building muscle. Here’s the interview below.

MR: Jason, your transformation was pretty incredible going from 147lbs to 231lbs. How much trial and error did you think you went through training wise until you found what really worked?

JF: Oh man, Mike, I can’t even begin to tell you. I tried so many different methods and systems it was unbelievable. I actually started out as a beginner on a six day a week high volume body part split. This was back in the 80’s so I think I was just looking in the magazines at whatever Shawn Ray or Aaron Baker or Gary Strydom were doing and just copy it exactly. Obviously that didn’t work out too well.

I entered high school weighing less than 100 pounds and after four years of training my ass off and growing almost a foot taller, I only weighed 147 pounds at graduation. So obviously, all my experimentation during high school didn’t work out to well either.

During those four years I was still doing whatever I could find in the magazines and even ordered some courses like Cybergenics and some other stuff that was popular at the time. I think the first training books I had were the Arnold Encyclopedia and one of Dr. Hatfields. I tried everything I read in both of those.

My experimentation during college was quite extensive and quite varied. I finally stumbled upon the HIT movement and Mike Mentzer and Arthur Jones. It was like a beacon of light and I adopted that training philosophy immediately. And for the first time I started to really grow, which isn’t shocking since I was so grossly overtrained. But as anyone who has had a similar experience can tell you, those gains don’t last too long either.

I could be here all day telling you about all the crazy stuff I did but I think it’s pretty safe to say that I was in the game and wasted an inordinate amount of time and money for a good ten years before I really figured out what really worked.

MR: It is one thing to find something that works for you personally but you routinely pack 20lbs of muscle on the frames of your clients in spans of only 3 months. How do you get results like when other people seemingly struggle endlessly to get bigger?

JF: At this point I have been training people for 14 years. During ten of those years I worked with clients for an average of ten hours per day; and twelve hours per day every summer. Now since I was always a C math student I can’t tell you how many hours that is right off the top of my head but, take it from me, it’s a friggin lot.

When you have that much experience doing anything you are bound to become somewhat proficient at it and just develop a knack for it and for reading people and recognizing commonalities.

Most people are making the same mistakes in their training and nutrition and some even have a faulty belief system that is holding them back. I address each of these issues and we’re off and running.

Training is not rocket science not matter how many people try to turn it into that. But figuring it all out isn’t simple either.

MR: Everyone nowadays is always worried about getting fat when “bulking up” what are some strategies that you use to ensure that you put on more muscle than fat? Or do you even care?

JF: Well, first of all, a lot of people that worry about that have a fear that is completely unfounded. If you are an athlete, under twenty years old or both, this is not that great of a concern unless you are eating deep fried chocolate donuts and dipping them in butter six times a day.

I have worked with plenty of guys who could eat whatever they wanted to and could still stay lean. In that case you have no excuse for not being able to pack on twenty pounds in a couple months.

If you have trouble staying lean there are a few adjustments you need to make. First off, you need to make smarter food choices. Eat lean proteins like chicken, fish, eggs, lean red meat and cottage cheese instead of burgers, hot dogs and pork chops. Next, be sure to keep your carb sources clean as well. This means fruits and veggies are at the top of the list followed by oatmeal, brown rice, quinoa, and sweet potatoes. By now everyone knows the benefits of eating good fats like fish oil so I won’t bore people to death with that.

If just eating clean is not enough then we move onto more advanced strategies like carb cycling and calorie cycling. This takes some time to explain but to make it really simple for everyone, you should eat more calories and carbs on training days than you do on non training days. Bottom line. Training days are higher calorie days, off days are lower calorie days; pretty simple. Of course it’s more complicated than that but that’s the gist of it.

MR: What are the biggest mistakes you see people make when trying to pack on muscle? Is it usually related to nutrition or training?

JF: It’s hard to say if it’s one or the other because they do go hand in hand. But if I had to pick I would say it’s gotta be training. It doesn’t matter how great your diet is, if your training sucks, you’re not gonna make progress.

But, you know what, Mike? I’m not even going to cover the training mistakes that people make because looking at that is missing the bigger picture. You know what the biggest mistake people make really is? The one thing that everyone seems to do these days, especially with all of the conflicting information that is out there?

It is a lack of consistency and a lack of belief in what you are doing. There is so much information out there these days that people don’t know who or what to believe. And because of this they are confused. They are constantly reading something different and always in search of the next best thing. They do a workout for a week or two and then read so and so’s new article about changing your tempo every rep or some brand new way to fire up the CNS or some nonsense and they try that system. A week or two later they decide that is not working so they switch to something else. And so on and so on.

If you are always changing programs and training philosophies how can you ever make progress? You can’t; it’s that simple. If you don’t believe in what you are doing you will never, ever be successful. That is a universal principle that applies to everything in life. It has to apply to your training if you ever want to make real progress. You can use the crappiest training program in the world but if you are consistent, have the balls to train the way you really should and really and truly believe in what you are doing, you will get results.

Pick a training program, system or philosophy and stick with it; believe in what you are doing and train your ass off. You can’t fail if you do that.

MR: Okay so tell us a little about your new course on muscle building. What makes this stand out from other products?

JF: Well, first of all I tried to make it more of an entertaining read than a lot of the stuff out there so I included a lot of stories and personal anecdotes that people could relate to. The topics of sets and reps and proteins and carbs can be kind of boring so I try to spice it up a little bit.

Aside from that, I have tried to make it as simple to understand as possible while still including information that will help anyone from a raw beginner to an advanced lifter. I have had guys who have trained for over twenty years tell me that they learned quite a bit from reading Muscle Gaining Secrets, which makes me very happy to hear. If I can do that while not alienating beginners, then I know I achieved the goal I set out to accomplish.

I have included some unique methods of periodization which have rarely been covered. I detail every single mistake that people make in their training and show how these can be avoided. And of course, a book from me wouldn’t be complete without getting politically incorrect and calling bullshit where I see it. I definitely expose a lot of the gimmicks and nonsense that is out there and do my best to help people save time and money and avoid making all the same mistakes that I did.

MR: Jason, thanks for talking the time to sit down and talk with us. The information you gave out in this interview alone is enough to put 5-10lbs on somebody’s frame.

Note: Yesterday was the first day Muscle Gaining Secrets was available to the general public. Jason is running a celebratory promotion and giving away 14 Bonus ebooks until this Friday (June 29th)

Check it out at http://www.FerruggiasMuscleSecrets.com

I’m not convinced that the “Leptin Story” is a simple as Joel makes it out to be but what he does with people seems to work (really well) as shown by the Before and After pictures on his site - Check them Out here (surrounded by pictures of pizza and burgers!).

After you read the article and check out Joel’s site please post a comment as  I’m interested in hearing what you think.

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The Most Important Hormone You Never Heard Of
By Joel Marion, CISSN, NSCA-CPT

LEPTI-WHA??

It’s name is Leptin (derived from the Greek word leptos, meaning “thin”), and it’s without a doubt the most important hormone you probably never heard of.

You see, leptin was only first discovered just over 10 years ago, and as far as weight loss is concerned, that’s extremely recent.

Leptin’s function? To communicate your nutritional status to your body and brain.
Leptin levels are mediated by two things. One is your level of body fat. All else being equal, people with higher levels of body fat will have higher leptin levels than those with lower levels of body fat and vice versa.

Because leptin is secreted by fat cells, it makes sense that under normal conditions there is a direct correlation between leptin levels and the amount of fat you are carrying.

Unfortunately, when you’re attempting to lose fat and begin to restrict calories, conditions are anything but “normal” and the body responds accordingly by lowering leptin levels.

This is because the second mediator of blood leptin levels is your calorie intake. Lower your calorie intake and leptin will fall, independent of body fat.

So, yes, you can be overweight and still suffer from low leptin levels – just go on a diet.

So what happens when leptin levels fall and why the heck does it matter?

Again, under normal conditions leptin levels are normal and the brain gets the signal loud and clear that nutrition intake is adequate. Metabolism is high and the internal environment of the body is one very conducive to fat burning.

Until you start dieting.

Go on a diet and leptin levels quickly plummet (by 50% or more after only one week), sending a signal to the body that you’re semi-starved and not consuming enough calories.

This puts the breaks on metabolism and creates a hormonal environment extremely conducive to fat storage. Thyroid hormones (hormones extremely important to metabolism) respond by taking a dive and the abdominal fat-storing stress hormone cortisol skyrockets measurably.

HELLO belly fat.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, the appetite stimulating hormones ghrelin, neuropeptide-Y, and anandamide all hop on board to make your life even more miserable.

You don’t have to remember any of those names, just remember that when leptin drops, you get seriously hungry.

Despite having a pretty good reason for its reaction, it’s pretty ironic that our bodies are primed for fat loss at every other time except when we are trying to burn fat.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could maintain high leptin levels and a body primed for fat burning while dieting? It would seemingly solve all of our problems.

But in order to do this, we’d have to somehow keep leptin levels high as we attempt to lose those extra pounds.

“HOW ABOUT “SUPPLEMENTING” WITH LEPTIN?”

A couple of problems here: First, leptin is a protein based hormone, which means that it can not be taken orally (otherwise, it would simply be digested). So that rules out a leptin pill.

This leaves the method of “supplemental” leptin administration to injection. And leptin injections DO indeed work, reversing the metabolic adaptations to dieting and “starvation” even while continuing to restrict calories.

In 1996, Ahima et al. used leptin injections to reverse starvation-induced neuroendrocrine adaptations in mice.

“Well, that’s nice and all, but I’m human.” Point taken; research with rodents doesn’t always correlate to similar findings in humans, however…

In 1999, Heymsfield et al. performed a double-blind placebo controlled study analyzing weight loss over a 24-week period in 73 obese humans. Subjects either injected daily with leptin or a placebo (i.e. bogus alternative). At the end of the 24-week period, the leptin group lost significantly more weight than the placebo and a higher percentage of fat vs. muscle.

In 2002, Rosenbaum et al. administered low-dose leptin to subjects (male and female) who had dieted to a 10% decrease in body weight. During the diet period, thyroid hormone levels, 24-hr energy expenditure, and other metabolic markers substantially decreased. The result of the leptin replacement therapy?

“All of these endocrine changes were reversed…”Thyroid output and daily calorie burn increased back to pre-diet levels.

In 2003, Fogteloo et al. showed that leptin injections “tended to reduce the decline of energy expenditure associated with energy restriction, whereas the tendency of energy intake to increase back to baseline levels in placebo-treated subjects was largely prevented in subjects treated with leptin.”

Yeah, that’s a mouthful. Let me put in simple terms: not only did the leptin group experience less of a decline in metabolism, but they were also less hungry, allowing them to more easily stick to the prescribed diet.

In 2004, Welt et al. reported that leptin given to a group of women with thyroid disorder immediately raised circulating concentrations of the thyroid hormones T3 and T4.

In 2005, Rosenbaum and company were at it again, again showing that energy expenditure and circulating concentrations of T3 and T4 all returned to pre-weight-loss levels with regular leptin injections.

So, as theorized, keeping leptin levels high during a diet does indeed solve our dilemma by avoiding the negative metabolic (and perhaps behavioral) adaptations that calorie restriction perpetuates.

The problem?

Daily leptin injections are far too expensive, costing thousands and thousands of dollars per week. So, we can pretty much forget about supplemental leptin as a solution (which is probably moot anyway considering that not too many people are going to voluntarily plunge a needle into their skin daily).

A REAL Solution

Now that we know that leptin injections aren’t going to save us, let’s talk about the possibility of manipulating your body’s natural leptin production.

And I’ve got good news – this can indeed be done, and without involving needles or thousands of dollars. In fact, we’ll swap the injections and mounds of cash out for two things I can guarantee you’re absolutely going to love: more calories and more carbs.

We know that leptin levels decrease by about 50% after only one week of dieting, but fortunately, it doesn’t take nearly that long for leptin to bump back up with a substantial increase in caloric intake.

In fact, research has shown that it only takes about 12-24 hours.

So, the answer to the fat loss catch-22? Strategic high-calorie, high-carb CHEATING.

By strategically cheating with high calorie foods (and yes, even stuff like pizza, ice cream, wings, cookies, burgers, fries, etc), you can give leptin and metabolism a major boost mid-diet which sets you up for plenty of subsequent fat loss when you resume your reduced calorie eating regimen.

This means greater net fat loss week after week, and ultimately, a much more realistic, maintainable way to bring you to the body you truly want and deserve.

So what’s so special about carbs?

Well, leptin, carbohydrate and insulin have been shown to have very strong ties.

Calories alone don’t get the job done, as research shows that overfeeding on protein and fat has little effect on leptin.

In order to get a strong leptin response from overfeeding, there needs to be plenty of carbs in the mix. In fact, the relationship is SO strong that research conducted by Boden et al. at the Temple University School of Medicine shows that leptin levels will not fall even in response to all-out fasting so long as insulin and blood sugar are maintained via IV drip. That’s CRAZY.

Because of this carbohydrate/insulin-leptin relationship, it makes sense that foods combining both carbs and fat (like pizza, burgers, cookies, ice cream, etc) work best for reversing the negative adaptations caused by dieting because of the BIG-TIME insulin response they produce.

THIS is why strategic cheating with your favorite foods is so powerful. THIS is why you truly can use your favorite foods to lose fat faster than you ever could with restrictive dieting. THIS is freedom.

Essentially, it’s everything “typical” dieting isn’t.

With regular dieting, come week two, you’re screwed.

With strategic cheating, you can literally use ANY food you want to *ensure* that you never go a single day without a body primed for fat loss.

The cheat or not to cheat? I think the choice is clear.

Click here to learn more about Joel’s Cheat Your Way Thin Program

What is the driving force behind weight gain?

That’s a no brainer right? Eating to many calories.

Maybe.

That’s right I said maybe.

Eating more calories is a reason that many people gain weight. A far bigger problem may be a person’s lack of activity. For example in Britain obesity rates have double since the 1980’s; however, according to a paper published in the British Journal of Medicine their energy intakes have acutally decreased. So they are eating less but getting fatter. How does that make sense?

Let’s examine this a little deeper.

The total amount of calories you burn each day can be broken down into the following components:

• Basal Metabolic Rate
  
• Thermic Effect of Food
  
• Activity Thermogenesis

Activity Thermogensis consists of exercise and NEAT (non exercise activity thermogenesis). NEAT is basically burning calories from moving around. Considering the average person expends less than 100 calories per day from exercise, increasing NEAT could have a huge impact. As one of my readers I would imagine that you are burning more than 100 calories per day from exercise. If that is the case, increasing your NEAT will help turbo charge your calorie burn.

Here are some interesting notes about NEAT:

• NEAT can vary up to 2000kcal/d between people.
• Your job is a key factor in how many calories you burn each day from NEAT.
• What you choose as leisure activities significantly impacts your level of NEAT. Think about the difference between coming home and sitting on the couch vs. painting, gardening, or removing walls in the basement (how I spent my weekend).
• In studies where people are forced to overeat NEAT increases. The more it increase the less fat you gain.
• One study showed that obese subjects sat for 2.5 hours more per day than lean subjects (the lean people has similar jobs and living environments). The difference in NEAT was estimated to be 350 calories per day.
• There are compounds in our brain that may increase/decrease NEAT. Orexin is such a compound. Obese rats have been shown to be resistant to orexin’s NEAT-activating effects.

Next week I’ll be posting a premium article in the Faster Fat Loss Zone showing you how we can set up our lives to increase NEAT and lead leaner lives. If you aren’t a member of the New Faster Fat Loss Zone check it out for free.

• Pick up produce. Have at least one fruit and veggie at every meal…. Fruits and veggies are high in fiber, which staves off hunger. Shoot for nine servings daily. It sounds like a lot, but if you don’t have to be a rabbit to reach that goal. Eat a salad at lunch or dinner, and you’re there.

• Snack smart. Add protein (such as a stick of lowfat string cheese or Parmesan) to your between-meal bites. Research suggests protein may enhance the effect of leptin, a hormone that reins in appetite.

• Sip more water. Dieters who swapped sugary drinks for water lose weight, but those who gulped the most H20 peeled off the most pounds, according to a study at the meeting of Obesity Society in Boston.

• Eat every meal. When you wait longer than five hours between bites, your body may release extra cortisol, a hormone that can increase appetite. I call it “hangry.” I get hungry and angry: My stomach starts to burn and my brain gets annoyed at every little thing.

These similar to those that I teach but sometimes it is better to hear them from someone else. Now go eat a high protein snack so you don’t get hanrgy!

Lose Weight Without Counting Calories [Yahoo Health]

I just read a terrible article at WebMD.com called “Why Can’t I lose Weight?” In the article to author laid out several different reasons why you can’t lose weight. I think this article was terrible  because while some of the reasons may have a smidgen of validity for the most part I believe that you are doing yourself a disservice if you buy into them.

The reality of the situation is if you really want to lose weight and refuse to give up, none of these reasons will come into play.

This article should be titled “Why it May Be Harder For You To Lose Weight”

Let’s look at the article (as always my commentary is in italics)

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1. You have a low resting metabolic rate, and high metabolic efficiency. If you have a lower resting metabolic rate, your body spends fewer calories maintaining your body at rest than someone your size with a higher rate. And, if your body is metabolically efficient, it burns fewer calories while in motion…

The number of people that are metabolically gifted is low. All this means is that the rest of us (myself included) just need to work harder at boosting our metabolism - metabolic resistance/high intensity circuit training, interval cardio, higher protein diets, more frequent meals…we need to pull out all the stops and not just accept that our resting metabolic rate is lower than the guy on the cover of Men’s Health.

2. You are female. First of all, men have more muscle mass, compared to women, and women have a higher percentage of body fat than men…men’s resting metabolic rate tends to be significantly higher than women’s….Further, because men tend to be larger than women, they tend to burn more calories doing the same exercise as women….

Apparently the person that wrote this article has not seen the last two seasons of the Biggest Loser as a FEMALE won both times. If you are a woman it may not be as easy for you to get lean (compared to your male counterpart), but that just means you need to work a little harder. Check out the picture of Rachel Cosgrove below and tell me that women can’t lose weight.

3. You experience hunger, satisfaction, and stress differently than others. Stevens [a scientist mentioned in the article] believes that differences in how people experience hunger and cope with stress are important in determining who becomes overweight and who doesn’t.

This is a real factor. But again it is not something that is going to prevent you from losing weight. It just is going to take a little more work - controlling stress, self-monitoring for situations when you have a tendency to over eat and/or emotionally eat, etc. If this is a problem for you, you still can do it.

4. You don’t like to exercise (it could be in your genes). According to Daniel Pomp, PhD, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, animal research suggests that 25%-50% of an individual’s propensity for voluntary exercise is under genetic control. Pomp studies mice that genetically prefer to exercise because they were bred for high levels of wheel running. Expect more research in the next few years on “exercise genes” and how they might also be at play in humans.

If you want to lose weight and you don’t like to exercise (as apparently you can be genetically predisposed to not liking exercise)…tough. It is a must. Remember number 1. We need exercise to keep our metabolism cranking so that we can lose weight. I didn’t like paying my taxes last Wednesday but I did. So even if you don’t like exercise…you need to do it.

5. Your mother ate a high-fat diet while pregnant. There is some preliminary research in primates that suggests eating a healthy, moderate-fat diet is important for the future weight and health status of the developing fetus, regardless of whether the pregnant mother was obese or lean.

This is a concept known as fetal programming and it is becoming an increasingly hot topic in the scientific literature. While this may be another thing you can blame on your mother why lying on the couch in your psychologist’s office, determining the fat content of your mother’s pregnancy diet isn’t going to help you in your weight loss endeavors. As with the other excuses reasons, this may just make it harder to you to lose weight but not impossible.

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We all blame external sources for our weight loss struggles but it in the end it really comes down to us bearing down, exercising with a high intensity, and  eating a clean and consistent diet.

You can do it.

Post a comment and let me know what you think of this article.

Why Can’t I Lose Weight? [WebMD.com]

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So much of what we look like is impacted by what we put in our mouths. The tricky thing is that food is connected to us as emotional beings so much more then exercise (I am setting up an interview with Dr. Kara Mohr to discuss this - I’ll let you know the details as soon as I know more). Yes, some people blow off stress by taking a run, but most of us would just rather reach for a donut, slice of pizza or scotch and soda.

I think the food puzzle needs to be unraveled simply and slowly so that our approach is simple but realistic to our lives.

1. Drink only water, with the exception of your beloved coffee in the morning. According to studies, this would eliminate 20% of our caloric intake and help all of our body functions run more smoothly. (Good advice - that’s why it is one of the 6 Pillars of Nutrition)

2. Cut down your portions
I’m not even going to say what to eat and not eat. I’m just saying if you are having that sub at lunch cut it in half. We all overeat, so just eat until you are full. I’ts difficult to do, so halve the food and get it away from you. If it’s sitting there you will want to eat it. (This can be hard - I would rather have you switch what you are eating to a more vegetable based diet so you can keep your portion sizes up)

3. Don’t skip breakfast
You will have a 70% chance of overeating throughout your day if you skip breakfast.

4. Keep a food journal
This will help you see exactly what you are eating and when. You will even be able to see patterns of grabbing food at stressful moments, etc. Journaling just makes you aware and in charge of your food–not the other way around. (Journaling is good but having a plan for hte week is even better as it is more proactive)

5. If you can avoid it, don’t eat after 7 p.m.
On business dinners or birthday gatherings don’t worry about it. But when you can, try to finish eating earlier in the day.

See, that’s not hard to do. Now as you progress in this area, I have some other rules to help you improve your relationship with food.

* Don’t eat fast food (unless you have no other choice).
* Avoid microwaving your meals. Cook it yourself.
* Limit tons of sugar and wheat-based products (in anything).
* No diet, or fat-free, food. They contain a lot of ingredients that no one can pronounce.
* Fill your plate during the day with foods of all colors.
* Eat slowly and chew your food well. (I’m not convinced this has EVER worked for anyone)
* Eat when you are hungry and not because you are sad, mad, or stressed out.
* Limit your red meat intake.
* Foods that have a 10-year shelf life should not be eaten. Go for the real stuff.
* Don’t snack yourself to weight gain. Eat real meals that are satisfying, not snacky foods that will kill your waistline and make you feel blah.

5 Easy ways to Start a Diet [Yahoo Health]

Dr. Atkins pasted away in 2003. Since then the use of VLCKD and carbohydrate restriction for weight loss and the prevention of cardiovascular disease has continued to increase in use and popularity. Much of this continued growth in low carb popularity can be attributed to the work of several (so called) renegade scientists that have chosen to follow what the scientific data says even if that means questioning long standing and accepted nutritional dogma.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Remember there are many different ways you can ‘cut carbs’.

Last week, I was fortunate enough to spend a good deal of time with one of these scientists, Dr. Jeff Volek, as he was brought in by the Nutrition Department at Penn State to share his findings on carbohydrate restriction and metabolic syndrome. Here are some take ways points from Dr. Volek’s talk.

-You lose more weight and gain more muscle when you combine a low carb diet and resistance training compared to just a low carb diet or just resistance training - there seems to be some additive effect.

-People on low carb diets can eat 3x the saturated fat compared to people on a low fat diet and still have lower levels of saturated fat in their blood.

-Calorie restriction has been touted as a way to slow/stop aging. You can impact the same biological markers by restricting carbohydrates (while NOT restricting calories).

-Often times when people in Dr. Volek’s studies go on low carbohydrate diets they end up increasing their vegetable consumption (this is sad but I’m sure reflective of the American population’s lack of vegetable consumption).

-Metabolic Syndrome is becoming a huge problem in the U.S. and worldwide; carbohydrate restriction attacks all the problem areas of metabolic syndrome more comprehensively than any drug or treatment available.

-The obesity problem in the U.S. is driven by uncontrolled insulin levels. The best way to control insulin is to control its most powerful stimulator - carbohydrates.

-Carbohydrates have traditionally been considered a macronutrient but in reality they are not essential for human function.

-The level of ketoisis achieved from carbohydrate restriction is completely different from the ketoacidosis that a diabetic may experience (ketosis from carbohydrate restriction is much much lower and within safe ranges).

The set point theory is basically the idea that your body likes to be at a certain body weight and it will work to keep you there. Chances are you have experienced this in your own life. I’m talking about situations where you will gain or lose weight but inevitably after a couple weeks or months of trying to change you end up around the same body weight (I know for me 175lbs was a set point, in my own system for quite some time).

In order to break these body weight set points, it is important to understand the forces that you are working against (know thy enemy, right?). I’m talking about adaptive thermogenesis.  Adaptive thermogenesis is the seemingly automatic reduction in energy expenditure that occurs when you diet. Many think that this is the driving force behind people’s body weight set point.

This is important so I want to make sure I’m explaining it clear enough so here’s an oversimplified example.

You are currently eating 2000 kcal per day. Your body is currently burning 2000 kcal per day. You decided that you need to lose weight so you cut 500 kcal from your diet. So in theory your body should now have to dig up another 500 kcal from body fat to fuel the calorie difference.

It doesn’t work that way. Studies show that your body adjusts its energy output so that it can now function on only 1500 kcal per day. This is adaptive thermogenesis. It has been demonstrated that adaptive thermogenesis occurs with both severe and modest calorie cutting.

What is the driving force behind this? Here are some candidates are:

• Changes in body weight
• Changes in Leptin
• Changes in Insulin
• Changes in Thyroid Hormones
• Depletion of Fat Stores

Fortunately you can beat all of these, prevent adaptive thermogenesis, and keep the weight loss coming.

The answer?

Exercise combined with diet.

This seems to help - but not in all cases. We know from research and anecdotal evidence that not  all exercise prescriptions work. What does work is intense metabolic resistance training (insert shameless plug for Warp Speed Fat Loss as Alwyn Cosgrove is the master at making the adaptive thermogenic response essential zero).

If you are currently stuck at a weight loss plateau, you need to break your body’s set point. To do this it is necessary to undergo a rigorous change in diet and training so that you can in essence shock your system (this is technique #2 in the How to Break a Weight Loss Plateau article).

This is exactly what Angela Webb from Ontario did when she decided to use Warp Speed Fat Loss. Here’s the email she sent me:

“I just wanted to let you know that I lost 11 lbs. with your program in 28 days. I was really impressed to see that my body was letting go of some of the stubborn weight I haven’t been able to get off for about 1.5 years now. Even having a cold for the last week of the program, I still pushed through.”

That’s cool stuff.

Here’s what to do next. Once you break though your sticking weight using Warp Speed Fat Loss (or which ever method you choose), maintenance is very important. Get 5-15lbs below your old body weight set point and maintain that weight. Many people lose their fire and drive after they have lost the weight but you need to stay focused so that you can reset your body’s set point.

Maintain your new weight for 4 weeks (this is ideal - if you can’t go that long at least do 2 weeks) before you start losing weight again. This step wise approach will help reset your system to your new body weight and help fight its urge to return to the old set point. The key is keeping your body weight long enough so that your body ‘thinks’ that is the new normal.

A: There are a couple commercially available premixed workout shakes that you can use. Prograde Workout (Jayson Hunter formulated this - good stuff), Surge (Dr. John Berardi formulated this - also good stuff and my personal favorite as I’m addicted to the taste), and Relentless (haven’t used this in a long time - but was good when I did).

You don’t have the go the pre-formulated route. I have/had plenty of clients that mix when protein powder and gatorade - cheap, effective, easy.

Q: What is a good Whey/Casein protein ratio in a supplement? Do you have a good brand to recommend?

A: You can’t tell the ratio in most supplements. A ‘trick’ is to make sure that casein is listed before whey on the ingredients so at least then you know that you are getting more casein than whey (NitroTech used to be the worst at this they charge a ton for it and casein is like the third protein listed!). I like Metabolic Drive by Biotest. I used to use and have clients that use EvoPro (it is basically the protein blend found in MuscleMilk) and they like that a lot.