Exercising for Fat Loss

We all know that if we want to get smaller, we need to eat less and move more.  It’s common knowledge and is embedded in our communal psyche.  We’re all fumbling through the nutritional aspect of things, trying to eat better, and we know that exercise is important.  But does it matter what kind of exercise we do?  If we have limited time, what is the best way to use that time?  What is the optimal choice for fat loss?

Thanks to Alwyn Cosgrove’s article, The Hierachy of Fat Loss , I have some answers.

The very most important exercise component is…

1)      Strength training.  Wait, not cardio?  No, we’ll come to that later.  Serious strength training, lifting heavy weights is a must for anyone looking to lose fat.  Strength training burns calories, increases (or maintains) muscle mass and elevates your metabolism.  Talk about bank for your buck!  But increasing muscle will increase your metabolism – it may only be a few calories a day, but it still will add up.  And strength training creates AFTERBURN – the ability of your body to continue to burn calories at an elevated rate after a workout – which lasts up to 24 hours afterwards. 

How to DO This:

                                                                        i.      LIFT HEAVY WEIGHTS.  Free weights.  Barbells, dumbbells.  Heavy stuff.  Sandbags.  Make it challenging.  Lift as much as you can without compromising your form. Track your progression as you get stronger.  It’ll be motivating and exciting.  No idea where to start?  Here are some workout plans that will fill this category:

1.       New Rules of Lifting (original, for Women, for Abs, etc.)

2.       Max Strength or Show & Go by Eric Cressey

3.       Fat Loss Detour or Beautiful Badass

4.       The NO Gym option:  Turbulence Training’s Body Weight Workout http://www.fitwatch.com/ebooks/Turbulence_Training_4-Week_BWW_FitWatch.pdf

2)      High Intensity Anaerobic Interval Training.  What is this?  It’s often called HIIT – or high intensity interval training.  We’re talking intensity here.  It burns more calories than cardio and elevates metabolism significantly more.  But it’s tough. We’re talking doing a circuit style workout with weights, at high intensity.    However, a great study from 1994 showed that an interval training group, when pitted against steady state endurance cardio, spent less than half the same amount of time training over a 15 week period, but they showed a nine times greater fat loss than the endurance group.  Nine times! 

How To Do This:              

                                                                        i.      Do Circuits. Use a weight of challenging intensity to do a circuit of exercises non-stop, rest for 2-3 minutes, then do it again.

1.       The Spartacus Workout: http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/high-intensity-circuit-routine/

2.       Spartacus 2.0 Workout: http://my.menshealth.com/workout/The-Spartacus-Workout-2.0

3.       Tough Mudder Training Workout: http://toughmudder.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/TrainingPrep.pdf

                                                                      ii.      Do BW Circuits.  Do challenging body weight exercises for 10-20 minutes (as long as you can do it) in a circuit-style workout.

1.       Bodyrock – great at-home stuff : www.bodyrock.tv/

2.       Design your own – you’ll be surprised at how easy it once you get the hang of it!

3)      High Intensity Aerobic Interval Training.  This is the kind of HIIT you can do on the treadmill or bike – periodized sessions 15/30 or Tabata style 10/20.   Studies show that even Aerobic HIIT will increase the capacity for fat loss for moderately active women.

How To Do This:

                                                                        i.      Do sprints. 

                                                                      ii.      30:60 or 30:90 Intervals. On any cardio equipment (treadmill, bike, ergometer):  Warm up for 5 minutes or so, then run at high intensity for 30 seconds, slow (rest) for 1 minute, then repeat the 30 seconds high intensity/ 60 or 90 seconds rest for 8-10 cycles (or until you’re exhausted.  It’ll happen fast if you’re pushing yourself during the high intensity part.)  Craig Ballyntine has a nice discussion of intervals in Turbulence Training, more complete than I’m providing here.

                                                                     iii.      Do Tabata-style HIIT.  I’ll talk separately about the near-impossibility of doing a true Tabata in another post, but a Tabata-style HIIT is great as a finisher to a workout and will turn you into a wobbly puddle in less than 5 minutes.  How to:

1.       Warm up first. (I like to do them at the end of a workout as a finisher.)

2.       Set your timer for 10 sec high-intensity/ 20 seconds rest.

3.       During the 10 seconds, go ALL-OUT, everything you’ve got, you put into that 10 seconds of work.

4.       During the 20 seconds, rest.  Full stop or a very slow pace.  Catch your breath.

5.       Repeat for a total of 8 rounds.

By the 3^rd round, you’ll be dying.  By the 5^th, I’m usually dripping in sweat and I can’t wait for that final round to be over.  But the entire thing will be finished in 4 minutes – 4 long minutes.  Tabata’s aren’t for everyone, but if you can do them, they’re awesome.

4)      Intense Cardio.   This is doing cardio for an extended period of time.  You’re burning lots of calories, and they do count. 

How to do this:

                                                                        i.      Go for a run.  If you’re not used to running, the Couch to 5K program is a great start.

                                                                      ii.      Go for a bike ride or take a spin class.

                                                                     iii.      Do a Zumba class. I hear these are fun, but I’m so mal-coordinated, I haven’t tried one yet.

                                                                    iv.      Go for swim.

The possibilities are endless.  This is the kind of exercise most people think of when they think about exercising, and it’s probably what you’re already doing.  (Or kicking yourself for not doing.  Whichever.)

5)      Move more.  Calories count.  You just don’t burn as many as you do with more intense Cardio.  But it’s better than nothing and won’t hurt to add in.

a.       How to do this:

                                                                        i.      Go for a walk.

                                                                      ii.      Wash the car.

                                                                     iii.      Park further away from the store entrance.

                                                                    iv.      Take the stairs instead of the elevator.

The possibilities are endless here too.  The good news is that as you do more of numbers 1-3, you’ll find that #5 starts to take care of itself.  You have more energy, so you move more anyway.  You take the stairs because you can.  You enjoy the walk.   And all of it is a good thing.

How did I learn all this?  I read a lot. But I have to give kudos to Alwyn Cosgrove, owner of Results Fitness in So.Cal for his article, the Hierachy of Fat Loss from which I have heavily borrowed here.  His article is my go-to source for information on this, and everything he says I have found supported elsewhere. 

Why Fat Matters & Weight Doesn’t

I’m careful in my use of the terms :”fat loss” and “weight loss.”  In my last post about diets, I discussed weight loss, but I would like to be clear about why it’s important to know the difference.

“Weight Loss” means the number on the scale got lower.  It doesn’t mean anything else.  It doesn’t mean my pant size went down or that my waist got smaller or that my body composition changed.  If I started at 33% body fat and lost 10 lbs, I might still be at 33% body fat, just a little lighter and probably a little smaller.  But I’m just as fat as I was at the start, and now I have less lean mass too.  Here’s a great blog post with pictures that demonstrates the difference body fat makes in the same person, both pictures taken at the same weight:  http://tinyurl.com/scaleaddict

“Fat Loss” is exactly that: losing body fat.  It can be measured by calipers, BodPod, DEXA or those bio-impedance devices with little metal plates that you hold in your hands or stand on with bare feet (my Tanita scale has one).  Most of us don’t have a handy-dandy body fat measuring device.  What we have is the mirror.  The mirror tells you the best story – you can see if you’re getting leaner or not.  Take your measurements and follow them: getting leaner usually includes getting smaller. 

If you want to look good naked, then you shouldn’t care about your weight.  You should care about your body fat.

If you want to look lean and fit, you shouldn’t care about weight loss.  You should care about fat loss (and, probably, fitness too.)

Here is the problem with thinking in terms of weight loss alone.  When your scale weight goes down, it is often composed of more than just fat.   Some of it may be water.  More importantly, some of what is lost may be lean mass.  Lean mass is everything that isn’t fat.  It’s the good stuff you want to keep.  It includes your bones (which you want to be dense, and therefore heavy), your organs and ligaments (which you want to be strong, healthy and well-hydrated), and your muscles.  You want to keep every ounce of muscle you can.

It’s a well known fact that your muscle mass affects your metabolism.  More muscle will speed up your metabolism, even if only by a few calories a day. You can’t afford to lose any!

When we lose weight, we lose both fat and lean mass.  My goal, as I expect yours would be too, is to lose fat while retaining as much lean mass as possible.  I don’t want to get lazy and start celebrating “weight loss,” because it may or may not actually be a step in the right direction. 

With all that said, it’s hard not to celebrate a loss on the scale.  We’re programmed to want to a lower number.  It makes us happy to see it get lower and lower.  There’s nothing wrong with being a little happy to see the scale go down five pounds, as long as we remember that the scale number won’t guarantee that we’ve gotten any closer to our true goal of looking sexy with our clothes off!

Losing Weight for a Fee

Everywhere I look, I see ads for ways to lose fat, lose weight, shape up, slim down or otherwise make myself smaller.  I will never touch an acai berry or do a “cleanse,” especially not if I have to pay for it.  If your beverage contains a mystery, magical ingredient that is supposed to make me instantly look better but does not have FDA approval for its miracle properties, I will not allow it to pass my lips.  I’m conservative that way.

But there are some pay-for-use diet plans that have legitimized their claims with results, with FDA and Better Business Bureau approvals and are respected companies.  Not only have I tried these plans, but I have had success (to one degree or another) with them.  Here’s the skinny on each.

Jenny Craig
Pros	Cons
Food is quick & easy to prepare	Processed food – not the best thing for you.
Most food tastes pretty good	Eating the same foods gets really old after a while.
Desert is included in the meal plan.  Yum!	EXPENSIVE – I spent $100/wk on Jenny food alone, plus another $50+ in grocery store supplements (salad, fruit, cheese, yogurt, etc.)
Mindless – Check your menu, pull from freezer, heat. No more menu planning required	Does not teach you how to select your own foods and how to construct your own healthy menu.
Low Fat food plan.  Vegetarian option available.	Your freezer fills up with Jenny food that you didn’t eat because life (eating out or skipping meals) got in the way.
Supportive consultations at weekly weigh–ins.	You have to buy food from Jenny – it’s not available anywhere else.

At Jenny Craig, I started at 210 lbs (post-baby).  I ate Jenny Craig food on their breastfeeding mom’s plan, which meant that I got extra food that other people didn’t.  I ate processed everything.  The weight did come off – six months later I was down to 190 lbs – but I got very tired of eating the same dozen foods for six long months.  I quit the plan – and promptly gained back 10 lbs.

eDiets.com
Pros		Cons
original eDiets.com	Fast preparation - microwave and go	Processed food – not the best thing for you.
	You buy at the grocery store - no special stores	Limited selection of foods, but still wider than Jenny Craig.
	You select what meals you like - not dictated which to eat on which day.	No desert built into daily menu.
eDiet Delivery	Yummy foods	The menu is so standardized that it is easy to replicate on your own.  So why are you paying them for this?
	Home delivery in cool insulated packing.	Portions are good, but sometimes seem on the small side.
	Mindless – Check your menu, pull from fridge and heat. No additional menu planning required	Food is fresh and therefore expires if not eaten within a certain window of time; expensive to waste.
Low Fat food plan.  Vegetarian option available.		Very limited selection of prepared foods, must decide in advance.

I originally did eDiets.com when I was in college, and I picked their convenience option.  I only followed the paid plan for two or three weeks before I was confident I had their formula down and could replicate it on my own without paying them an ongoing subscription fee.  It was this:  Buy a Lean Cuisine and add a salad with a fat-free dressing.  Eat this combo, for lunch and dinner, everyday.  (Breakfast was something sensible, but I can’t remember it anymore.)  I lost a little weight, but not much.  And then my overconfidence about menu planning  quickly devolved into NO menu planning and the entire effort was forgotten about within a month or two.

Then, in 2010, about a year after quitting Jenny Craig, I decided to put my now 200lb body on a diet again.  I didn’t want to do Jenny again, so I tried eDiet’s new delivery service.  The food was great!  But it was expensive. When I had to throw food out I could hear the “cha-ching!” going off each time I tossed an expired meal into the garbage.  I only stayed on it for 2-3 weeks, due to the sheer cost of food.  But I did lose a couple of pounds .  They came right back on, however, after I stopped eating their food.

Weight Watchers (weekly meetings or online)
Pros	Cons
Plan is flexible - YOU pick what and how much to eat.	You track everything you eat, which can be a PITA.
You track everything you eat, building food awareness.	The proprietary POINTS system is mysterious and is hard to correlate to nutritional information; must use a calculator or book to find Point values.
The plan's focus is on health, not just weight.	Some people hate attending meetings or being weighed at them.
You do your shopping at your normal grocery store. No requirement to eat WW foods; they may actually be discouraged.	Some people are uncomfortable doing an online-only approach or in finding support in online forums.
It's fun to check off "Healthy Checks" little daily to-do's like drinking enough water, having healthy oils, taking a multivitamin, etc.	You have to plan your own meals and menus; no one does it for you.
Non-tracking option is available, which limits food selections.
You learn to eat healthfully, foods you selected and prepared yourself.

Weight Watchers is hands-down my favorite of the paid plans, which is probably why I’m still a Weight Watchers member, though I do not exclusively follow their plan any longer.  I began WW within two weeks of quitting eDiets Delivery, at a weight of 200 lbs.  At my best success when eating following the Points system alone, I was down to 160.  I love that the plan teaches you how to eat better – it helped me make significantly better food choices and raised my understanding of what I was putting into my mouth.  I never attended a meeting (years ago I did, so I remember what they’re like), but I used the online option instead, which fit my single-mother-of-a-small-child schedule best.  The amazing thing was that I met a great group of women on the discussion boards, whom I now consider personal friends and my very own virtual support group, though they live all over the country.  That connection with others, which is a powerful component of WW, has made the single greatest impact on my health and wellness.

There are plenty of paid plans out there.  I haven’t tried everything.  My vanpool-mate was having tremendous success (50 lbs, I think) on NutriSystem, which I’ve never tried.  (He said the food was good too, if you’re wondering.)  But if I were considering going on a paid plan, I would ask myself these questions:

·         Does the plan teach me to make better food choices or does it just help get the weight off?

·         Does it provide me with emotional/educational support?

·         Does it help me find healthy alternatives when I cannot bring along prepared foods?

·         Does it give me a framework to help keep the weight off when I’ve reached my goal?

·         Is it affordable to do this plan on a long-term basis?

No one has to pay anyone to lose weight; you can do it all by yourself.  But sometimes a paid plan sounds easier and provides more supportive than going it alone.  Most of us will pay for weight loss at one time or another.  Let’s just hope we get our money’s worth!

Food Tracking: One simple step to improve results.

When it comes to weight loss and what you eat, there is one simple change that everyone can make and immediately improve their results.  It’s simple: track what you eat.  A 2008 study by Kaiser Permanente in Oregon found that merely writing down what you eat doubles your likeliness of losing weight.  The study included over 1700 subjects and found that the average food-tracker lost 13 lbs during the 30 month period. 

I’m a big fan of food tracking.  It forces you to be honest with yourself about what you’re eating – no more mindless tortilla chips or handfuls of stuff.  It makes you start thinking about quantity before you consume something.  How much is this?  Is this one portion or two?   I even went so far as to pull out the measuring cups for a while, and it really taught me about portions.  

One great aspect of tracking is that it makes you curious to learn more.  Once you have written down what you’ve eaten, your first question becomes, “So how many calories is that?”   (Many food log aps and websites have that info built in too, a great shortcut.)   Not everyone counts calories, but it is just as easy to track your carbs, your sugars, or your fat intake just as easily – one you have started keeping track of what you eat. 

The greatest thing gained from keeping a food log is AWARENESS.  It’s just amazing how much we can eat and not realize that we’re doing it.  I’m not talking about a bag of Doritos in front of the telly.   So often, we don’t realize that our lunch is really a lunch and a half.  We don’t comprehend that an extra slab of butter just doubled the calories on our roll.  We much on nuts and then discover that we have consumed fat and carbs that total significantly more than we imagined we were eating.  And once we start becoming aware of what we’re putting into ourselves, we adjust it.  We start eating a little better, a little more in line with how we thought we were eating in the first place.  All in all, it helps us to make better food choices.

There are dozens of different food trackers out there.  Besides the purse-sized food logs that you can pick up at Barnes & Noble and write out longhand, there are smartphone apps (I like MyFitnessPal), and websites (SparkPeople, FitDay, etc.)  Or you could be totally DIY like I was in college, when I kept my food journal on an Excel spreadsheet so I could cut and paste my most frequent meals – but with modern technology, I wouldn’t recommend it (it’s just too much unnecessary work.)  And with a camera in every cell phone, I have even heard recommendations to take a picture of everything you eat before you eat it.  No forgetting what you had or how much it was with a picture! 

I also believe that food tracking is one of the keys to Weight Watcher’s success.  Unlike Jenny Craig, NutraSystems or eDiets, all of which instruct you as to what you’re going to eat, Weight Watchers lets its clients eat whatever normal food they want, but they have to track it.  All food is logged and an awareness about what is being eaten is built. 

One easy change – but are you ready to do it?  Food tracking is useless if you aren’t honest about what you’re eating.  If you “leave something off” because you don’t like how it looks written down (usually with the promise to yourself that you’ll do better next time), then you are shorting yourself and you won’t experience the benefits of honestly tracking.   Try tracking for a week, and see for yourself.  Did it wake you up a little?