How come I am not seeing results?
Is this you? You starve yourself by just eating lettuce so that the rabbits are starting a petition. You run on that horrible treadmill for days and when all is said and done … the scale hasn’t budged.
What is your strategy for weight loss?
When trying to lose weight so often we either don’t have a strategy. We follow a nutrition plan that is going to work for a short time but then becomes unsustainable. Many of the “fad” diets out there are only short term solutions yet we seem to want to pay handsomely for them. Have you ever been on a diet? About 85 – 90 % of us have and just about the same number have quit.
We have to think of having a nutritional plan rather than a diet. A nutritional plan is something that will fit your lifestyle and you. There is no “one size fits all” plan. Each of us are unique. Yes, there are certain principles that are common to all plans. Each one of us manipulates the principles differently.
What are you using as measurements to see if the plan works?
There are many different things we can use to measure our progress. So many just use weight loss as the primary marker but that doesn’t even start to measure progress properly. Maybe you use the mirror to see the results and again, you may see your body slimming. Are you seeing what is happening inside your body? Clothes getting looser is another way of measuring the success of your plan.
Are you losing fat alone or is muscle also being lost?
Unless you are measuring your body composition; how much fat or muscle you are losing or gaining then you are not getting an accurate picture. Most diets restrict calories or maybe carbohydrates (which is another way of reducing calories) with your body going into a calorie deficit. And yes, you will lose weight. At the start you will also lose water. Each carbohydrate molecule uses around three molecules of water. Reducing your carbs means the water that was being stored will disappear. . When you do the measuring are you just losing fat or are you losing fat and muscle? Is your nutrition plan effective?
Measuring your body composition… the % of fat and the % of lean tissue (muscle, bone, connective tissue, etc) is the only effective way. Using calipers to measure skin folds and plugging the numbers into a formula, such as the Jackson/Pollard three skinfold site formula will give you a goof reading. You can even use a cloth tape measure and plugging those numbers into the Navy Method formula.
Your Body Needs Food!
When we starve ourselves on the above noted lettuce diet or any other diet we reduce our calories too much. Your body then starts eating your muscle for food! You need a certain amount of calories to maintain your basic metabolism. If you were in a coma, this is how many calories you would be fed. Your daily activities require you to use calories and if you are involved in an exercise program, you need add even more calories.
When you go on a calorie reduced diet the body thinks you are going to starve and it will do everything it can to protect itself. Your metabolism will slow down and the body will start to store what little food you are eating as fat! Yet, it still needs to survive so it will start to convert muscle into glucose. You cannibalized your muscle and then your metabolism slows down even further.
When you no longer can function on rabbit food, you break the unhealthy nutrition plan diet and start to eat. The trouble is you start eating like you did before the diet but your metabolism has slowed down. You now store the excess food as fat. The end result is that you end up fatter! This is the “yo-yo” effect of dieting.
You need a proper nutritional plan
Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist
After I left policing I took a personal trainer course and became a Certified Personal Trainer. I also took a couple of nutritional courses, one which was from a Registered Dietician which certified me as a Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist. I used the knowledge I gained to make healthy nutrition plans with my clients. When I left the personal training aspect due to a back injury I also disregarded the nutritional plan.
Exercise and Nutrition Works Inc
The plan, developed by Lucho Crisalle, called “Exercise and Nutrition Works Inc” develops an individual plan for each client based on their lean mass. Clients work with a specific meal plan. The % body fat is measured each week and the plan is tweeked resulting in the client losing between 2 -3 pounds a week. The important part is that muscle is not lost but the % body fat goes down.
I decided I would follow this plan while I try to lose weight this time. I have done the almost total fasting, or the high protein and low carbs and I have lost weight. The best diet was when I came down with Covid 19 and lost close to 20 lbs! Since I hadn’t been involved with the program for awhile my software was out of date. Therefore, I paid to get my subscription back up. I then did up a meal plan for myself.
The important thing on this plan is that you have to understand and follow it. For the first couple of week I didn’t have the software and was winging it. I was measuring my body composition and I was losing fat and gaining muscle … although both were negligible. My waist measurement stayed the same. It was then that I decided to contact Lucho and rejoin the program.
Basic Metabolic rate
When you take in my Basic Metabolic Rate, the calories needed for daily living and my exercise expenditure I need 3305 calories a day. That seems like an awful lot. After filling in the nutrition plan, following the recommendations of the program, I am told I need 2497 calories a day, which means I should lose approximately 1.62 lbs a week.
The thing I like though is that I will be getting the proper amounts of carbs, proteins and fats. As I work through this program I should go from 226 lbs to 205 lbs. In the process I will lose close to 22 lbs of fat and gain a pound of muscle and should be around 10% body fat. (six pack here I come!!)
Check out the Exercise and Nutrition Works website @ exerciseandnutritionworks.com. If you would like to work with a Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist then you can contact me through the contact page. I am able to work with you or if you want to find a CFNS in your area, I can get Lucho to recommend one
You can get results … you can develop a lifestyle of good nutrition … and you can be successful
Dave