Politically Incorrect Weight Loss

W A R N I N G !

If you are easily offended or are looking for someone to blow sunshine up your you-know-what, do not read this article.

The following was an email I recently received from a friend:

The following is the winning entry in an annual contest at Texas A&M University calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term: This year’s term was Political Correctness.

The winner wrote, “Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”

I figured, what’s the point, so hence the title of this article.

Okay, so I need to call it like I see it. Americans are getting fatter by the day, even though more money (we’re talking billions!) is constantly being spent on weight loss. We are so delusional about weight loss that in spite of the economic disaster, people continue to throw their money away on things that simply don’t work. Even our views of proper weight are screwed up. A 2008 study by CalorieLab, Inc., which ranked the states from “fattest to fittest,” determined that Mississippi is the fattest state in America, with 32.6% of the adult population obese; Michigan ranks 10th, with 28.2% obese (Detroit ranks as the 13th fattest city according to the 2008 Men’s Fitness poll).

Here’s the kicker: Colorado is the “leanest” state, even though 19.3% of adults are obese! Congratulations that almost 1 out of every 5 adults walking around your state is obese (obese, not just overweight or a little chunky) – you’re the best!

Everyone seems to be willing to pay a lot for someone to take away all accountability, make it completely brainless, and allow you to put absolutely no effort into it at all. Of all the billions being spent on weight loss, looking for that “magic pill” that will solve all problems, most people just need to get their heads out of their butts, start moving, and stop eating like crap.

Now I know some people are thinking about all the people they know who never work out and do eat junk constantly and stay thin – if you aren’t one of those people, deal with it, you’re not going to get away with it like they

do (here’s a little eye opener, most of those other people will only get away with it for so long anyways).

Don’t get me wrong, there are people who are lucky, they are usually genetically gifted with higher metabolisms. However, just because people look thin, does not mean that they are in shape. Also, don’t believe the hype from some of these fitness professionals, actors, models, or others who make bold statements about how they used to be huge, and now, due to all the hard work they put forth, have “rediscovered a thinner, happier, more successful version of themselves”!

I personally know of local people who make a lot of money in the fitness and/or weight loss industry who made the above claims, but the real hard work they put in was a visit to the local “Dr. 90210.”

Others never were as large as they claimed, but make it seem like the 10 pounds they lost had an extra zero on the end. Again, don’t get me wrong, a lot of people have worked hard to lose a lot of weight and are an inspiration to many, but just because someone says it, doesn’t make it true. I can tell you that there was a time in my life when I suddenly gained some weight. It was called the “Freshman 15,” and came during my first year at Michigan State. Was the weight loss I achieved between my freshman and sophomore years the result of hard work? No, it was the fact that I stopped making beer, pizza, and dorm food my regular diet, and stopped acting like a sloth. Did I have some epiphany that made me do it? No again, my mother walked in and told me to get off the girl I was dating because I was going to crush her!

So let’s cover the two big areas regarding weight loss: nutrition and exercise. Realize these are vast subjects, and I will not cover everything, but this should give everyone some ideas.

NUTRITION

You don’t need a Master’s degree in Nutrition to know that 6 packs of beer, pizza, burgers, and Kentucky Fried Chicken should not be a staple of your diet. Supplementing three “gorge yourself” meals with a constant supply of cookies, potato chips, and other junk that gets shoveled mindlessly into your mouth by the handful throughout the day is also generally bad. Let’s go over some things to know:

1. Different people will respond differently to different diets. Just because one diet works well for one person does not mean it will work well for you. Most of the well-known diet plans do work for many people if done correctly. A lot of people claim to follow diets correctly, but they like to make their own modifications – generally the diets were created by people with more nutrition knowledge and experience than the people following the plans, so stop trying to act like you know better. And, if one diet doesn’t work for you (after you’ve given it a legitimate chance), try another one.

2. “Fake food” is bad. This includes anything processed, “preserved,” chemically laden, artificially colored/flavored/sweetened/etc., or anything else you haven’t heard of or don’t know what it is.

3. Small (meaning don’t stuff yourself), regularly spaced (5-6 per day) meals (not snacking all day long) per day increases metabolism. Metabolism is defined as “how many calories your body burns during rest and activity.”

4. You need a relative balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fat to live and to maintain proper body weight/composition. Everyone’s needs are slightly different, but most have too much sugar/carbohydrates, as well as the wrong kind of protein and/or fat (see #2 above).

The other skewed belief is what people consider to be balanced. Having a bowl of cereal and considering the milk to be your protein is not balanced – it’s excess carbs.

Half of a chicken breast mixed in with a bowl of pasta and a salad is also not balanced. Next time you’re at the grocery store, check out the nutrition labels on various foods and see how many grams of protein vs. carbohydrates are in things – it’s a lot easier to get carbs than the protein.

EXERCISE

Just like diet, everyone responds differently to different exercise regimes. Effective exercise ranges from just getting out of bed for some people, to needing extremely intense regular bouts. As with people’s false claims about their own weight loss, don’t always believe what you hear about exercise either.

I had an experience with a well-known person in the weight loss industry who adamantly told me that “walking is the only exercise people need, and that everyone will lose weight by walking.” She then proceeded to tell me about all the weight she lost just by walking. I found it interesting that later in the conversation she told me about all the machines and circuits her personal trainer had her doing, and I wanted to ask her what happened to just walking? Let’s address some exercise principles that people need to know:

1. Intensity. Regarding the walking example above – I don’t have a problem with people walking for exercise. In fact, many people do lose weight this way. On the other hand, many people don’t. The problem with walking, as well as any activity performed regularly, is that your body becomes more efficient at it (as it should). The problem is that efficiency is often the enemy of effectiveness when it comes to weight loss. When your body moves more efficiently, it uses less muscles and less energy to perform the task. Using less muscles and energy translates into fewer calories burned. People think that calorie-burning exercise must last a long time, often at a low to moderate heart rate range. If this works for you, great! If not, this may be why: more total calories are burned at a high intensity range, and metabolism is increased with high intensity exercise greater than low or medium intensity.

2. Strength training. Muscle mass dictates metabolism, therefore strength training is beneficial for weight loss. As with other forms of exercise, strength training should also be high intensity to maximally promote increased muscle growth.

3. Flexibility. Besides the more obvious benefits of stretching, proper flexibility allows the correct muscles to work during exercise. For example, tightness in the hip flexors (in front of the hips) is one of the most common flexibility issues due to peoples’ tendency to sit most of the time. Tightness in the hip flexors may not allow the gluteals (butt muscles) to work during any lower body activity/exercise. Since the gluteals are relatively larger muscles, if they are not working right, fewer muscles are activated and fewer calories burned. Not to mention the increased potential for injury.

4. Frequency. One work out per week won’t cut it. Aim for at least four days per week, with strength, cardiovascular, and flexibility training all included.

5. Poor movement mechanics. It’s easy to go through the motions of exercise, but doing them correctly are a different story. An example that I have seen all too often is the walking lunge exercise. This is a popular exercise among trainers at various gyms because in theory, it is a good exercise. However, when you watch people do walking lunges, you see legs and knees going all over the place, torsos falling over, and arms flailing. Executing a good exercise poorly is not going to give anyone the results they are looking for.

6. Lack of proper recovery. Recovery does not just mean taking days off of working out – everyone does that (too often). Proper recovery means getting the right amount of sleep at night as well (see March 2008 Health and Leisure).

All of this can be done without spending excessive amounts of money, it just takes using your head, making some effort, and planning – a difficult task for some, but give it a try.

Fitness: Gut Check Time

So here we are, the end of beach season. Many people are sorry to see it end, others say, “Thank goodness I don’t have to wear a swim suit for another 9 months!” Most people’s New Years or Memorial Day resolutions to get in shape did not turn out the way they wanted. Oh well, better luck next year, right? It doesn’t have to be that way.

Before deciding which of the thousand new fad diets or exercise programs you may look into in the next 12 months, first look inside and do a “gut check” as to why things have not worked out thus far. As you read this article, be true to yourself about how much any of this applies to you. If you are happy with your physical self, then great! If not, stop doing the same thing you have been doing, but hoping for different results, and make the change.

DIET

Before addressing what my clients SHOULD eat, I always first look at what they ARE eating. There are a number of diets out there, and most of them do work for some people, but none of them work for everyone. We are not going to compare and contrast the differences, let’s point out why many people cannot succeed with their diets.

1. Right idea, but missing the point. “I don’t know why I’m overweight, I pretty much just eat salad all the time”, or “my diet is healthy, I eat high protein which is low in fat”. Let’s examine a typical salad – iceberg lettuce (almost no nutritional value), cheese (take your pick which kind, they are generally processed with lots of chemicals and fat), bacon bits (not a good source of protein, but plenty of fat and sodium), croutons (sodium and fat), maybe a little bit of cucumbers and a tomato (the only redeeming value of the salad), and plenty of dressing (even most of the low fat alternatives are not exactly healthy). Or the protein eater – what was it cooked in (butter, oil, etc?), what did you eat with it (that wonderful salad, or maybe a good creamy sauce). Don’t get me wrong, I like salad and protein, and they can be extremely healthy, but just because you eat salad and chicken does not automatically make you a healthy eater.

2. The old standard: “just don’t eat anything.” Super-low calorie diets have been a staple for people looking to lose weight forever. Fortunately some very smart people have figured out that eating a cracker and a diet coke all day is not the healthy alternative. Starving your body will cause it to feed on areas you do not want to lose, like muscle tissue; and affect overall functioning throughout your body. Furthermore, these types of diets basically destroy a person’s metabolism, causing your body to burn very few calories on its own.

3. Think before you stuff: the people who do actually eat healthy, and then some. It is amazing to me how generous people can be. As a physical therapist, I am often blessed with thank you gifts from my patients. I cannot accept money or other similar gifts, and people know this. So what do they give: food. This is the case in most office settings, the thank you gift, or it could be leftovers from someone’s party – brought in for the office to share. While it usually tastes good, the food is rarely good for you, but instead some sort of “sugary” treat. When sweets appear, or maybe it is a bag of chips lying around, people often will shovel it in without thinking. So while someone may eat healthy meals, it is the unhealthy snacking that gets them.

I have found that the best first step towards eating right is to keep a food journal – a pain in the butt, but effective. There are only a few requirements, write down everything you put in your mouth (and I mean everything), how much of it, and what time you did it. Try to be as specific as possible – don’t just write “salad” or “sandwich”; write down everything in it. If you have water, write down “1 glass (8 oz.) of water at 9:17 a.m.”.

This task helps in multiple ways. First it makes you actually think before you eat, and decide if putting that cookie in your mouth is worth having to write it down. Second, it makes you aware of your current eating habits and what needs to change. Third, if someone else is helping you with your eating (a personal trainer, dietician, etc.) they can have the facts vs. what you tell them (which is often less than accurate).

EXERCISE

1. “I belong to a gym”, or “I have a great gym in my house.” This may be true, but indicates being in shape about as much as a person who owns a lot of books claiming to be an intellectual. Many of the big, expensive gyms are losing members to the cheaper, more basic gyms. People’s philosophy, why waste $100 per month on a membership I don’t use, when I can just waste $20 per month – can’t argue with that logic.

2. “I am at the gym 3 hours a day.” I actually had a woman say this to me once in an attempt to brag about what great shape she was in. After taking one look at her, I thought, “then you are wasting 2 1/2 hours per day.”

I estimate (and this comes from observing many people) that for every hour the average person “works out,” they get about 20-30 minutes of work done. The rest of the time is spent chatting, taking unnecessary breaks, or just standing around not having a clue.

The other end of the spectrum is the person who actually does spend hours working out. Unless someone is training for a specific endurance event, these people usually are sacrificing quality for quantity, and are risking overworking their bodies, which can be a serious condition.

3. “The lazy exerciser”: the person who does quality exercise on a regular basis, but is lazy the rest of the time. These are the people who drive around a parking lot for 10 minutes looking for the closest spot to the door so they don’t have to walk too far, the first in line to take the elevator to the second floor, or the person who comes home and plops down on the couch, because they are tired from sitting all day at work. Let’s get real, 60 minutes of exercise does not compete with 1380 minutes of laziness.

4. “My job is physical enough.” The truth is, most of the time, no it isn’t.

5. “I don’t have time.” It’s understandable – people need to spend time at work, driving, sleeping, eating, watching TV for four hours, “working” on the computer for two hours, etc. It’s not my place to tell people how to prioritize their lives, but everyone needs to prioritize their own life.

6. “I got off schedule when I went on vacation.” People like to claim that they have specific days that they work out, and specific things they work on those days. For example, Saturdays they work chest and shoulders, Tuesdays are legs (men usually skip that day), Thursdays are back and arms. While all of this probably sounded good in the Muscle and Fitness article where it came from, it gives people the excuse that since they missed the Saturday workout, their schedule was off and that’s why a month has gone by without being able to “get back on.”

There is a simple solution. Schedules will be thrown off; unless you are competing for Mr. Olympia in the next week, start back today. You don’t need to wait for New Years, Christmas, or Rosh Hashanah – be like Nike, “just do it.”

7. “I don’t know what I am supposed to do, or how to do it.” So, instead they do nothing. Here’s the deal: LEARN, or if you don’t want to learn, find someone to tell you what to do. If none of that works, use common sense – you know you should not just be sitting around all the time, start walking every day (and don’t say you walk all day at work).

8. My favorite: “I workout with a personal trainer 3 days per week.” Refer back to number 1 – talking to your trainer for an hour about what they did over the weekend, how their week is going, and what their weekend plans are, does not constitute working out. Obviously, as a trainer myself, I think having a personal trainer is a great way to go, but only if you are doing it for what it is meant.

As I said, this article is meant for everyone’s personal use. It may seem harsh at times, but reality often is. I don’t want to make light of legitimate reasons for not being in the kind of shape you want, because there are many. The point is to examine if you are in the kind of shape you want to be in, look at what may be contributing to it, and make necessary changes. If you try something and it doesn’t work, make another change and keep trying until you find what works for you. Remember, “the only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary” – unknown.

Bob can be reached by email at bob@functional-strength-training.com or visit his website at www.functional-strength-training.com