QUESTION: Hello Tom, I've been doing BFL for the past year, and did well at first, losing 3 dress sizes and 5% body fat, but then I totally hit a plateau and have had no more results since December. I'm wondering if I've been strict enough with my eating
I bought your ebook, Burn The Fat, and I'm very excited about the information I've read so far, but I need some clarification about the eating part.
I've been eating according to the BFL philosophy with one "cheat" day per week. What I'm reading in your Burn The Fat program is instead, to allow myself a couple of "cheat" meals any time during the week or on the weekend, but not to take an entire day off the program.
However, in your list of foods that turn to fat, you mention that certain foods should only be eaten very rarely. Does that mean that they shouldn't even be eaten at a weekly cheat meal? I can live with that, but then, what constitutes a "cheat" meal, (for example, if my favorite hash browns aren't allowed? :)
I know you get a billion emails, but I would really appreciate it if you have time to answer.
Kind regards,
Kathleen
ANSWER: It's not productive in the long term to totally deprive yourself of foods you enjoy. What you have to do is find a sensible way to work even your most "sinful" favorite foods into your diet, but do it in an amount and frequency that doesn't set you back or sabotage your progress. This can be done by allowing yourself some "cheat meals" (some people call them "free meals" or "reward meals.")
One really good way to look at the "cheat meals" concept is in terms of "compliance," which means, what percentage of your meals are following the guidelines of the program and what percentage are off the program.
Too many meals or days off the program and your results are compromised. Too many days in a row eating nothing but "rabbit food" and you go crazy with cravings, right?
How much you need to comply (stick with) your program varies from person to person. It depends a lot on how ambitious your goals are and on how responsive your body is to nutrition and exercise.
When making your decision, keep in mind we all have different genetics and body types, which is something I discuss in great detail in chapter 5 of Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle (www.burnthefat.com).
Are you a carb-tolerant mesomorph who gains muscle easily and loses fat easily or are you a carb-sensitive endomorph who gains fat easily? Depending on the answer, your diet program may need to be more or less strict than others.
Don't compare yourself to others - you have to get to know your own body type. Some people can "Get away with" more cheat meals and still make progress (Yeah, I hate them too!)
Unless you're a competitor in physique sports like bodybuilding, fitness or figure, or you're getting ready for some type of transformation challenge or photo shoot, I suggest at least 90% compliance.
Whether you adjust your level of compliance above 90% (get more "strict") or below 90% (get more lenient), depends how far away or close you are from achieving your goals, and most importantly, on what kind of results you're getting each week.
If you're complying 90% of the time, and you are getting awesome results, you don't have to change a thing, and you may be able to loosen up your diet a little. I know some people who are definitely only "on the program" 80% or 85% of the time and they look great.
90% compliance means you are following healthy nutritious, fat burning eating guidelines 9 meals out of 10. If you're eating small frequent meals like the burn the fat program suggests, that's 5 small meals a day X 7 days a week = 35 meals. 90% compliance means about 31-32 of those meals are spot-on! The other 3 or 4 are for you to enjoy special occasions, reward yourself, and live a little.
If you're like most people, and you simply want to drop a few pounds, trim a few inches off your waistline and look better in shorts or in a swimsuit for summer, then 100% compliance is unrealistic AND unnecessary. 90% compliance is more realistic as a lifesytle, while being strict enough for most people to get results.
On the other hand, if you had a very ambitious goal like preparing for a figure or fitness competition and you thought you had to reach at least 12 or 13% body fat (which is very low for women), and you knew you would be onstage with judges looking at every inch of your body in a teeny bikini (paying very close attention to whether anything on your butt and thighs was "jiggling"), then you would want to be as strict as possible during the pre contest diet period (100% compliance or very close to it).
Keep in mind also, that this is a competitive situation and every time you "cheat" and your competitors don't cheat, you decrease your probability of placing high in the contests.
Unless you have a competitive physique goal like this, however, then total deprivation of pleasure foods or cheat meals (100% compliance), is not necessary because you always tend to crave what you cannot have. That's a binge waiting to happen.
I prefer this 90 or 95% compliance approach over the "entire day of cheating" approach, because I have seen people use the term "cheat day" pretty darn loosely (basically making it the equivalent of BINGE DAY), and they do a lot of damage in terms of setting their progress back.
They end up frantically playing "catch up" for the better half of the following week with punishing extra exercise and dietary deprivation. Slow and steady is better than binge and punish don't you agree?
Allow yourself some leeway. Enjoy food. Enjoy life. Have your pizza, or chocoloate or your hash browns or whatever makes your stomach happy. It will help, not hurt in the long run. Just be sure to be mindful of your calorie limits, and when you say you are going to comply 90% of the time, then keep your promise to yourself and comply!
For more information about dieting for fat loss, visit: www.burnthefat.com
About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer (CPT), certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best-selling e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle.” Tom has written more than 200 articles and has been featured in print magazines such as IRONMAN, Australian IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Exercise for Men and Men’s Exercise, as well as on hundreds of websites worldwide. For information on Tom's Fat Loss program, visit: www.burnthefat.com
Labels: bingeing, cheat days, cheat meals, Cheating, cheating on diet, cheating on your diet, Diet, diet compliance, Dieting, Diets, free days, reward meals, strict diet
¶ 21:24 0 Comments Links to this post
Here is the link to the whole article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/health/07nutr.html
Do we (any of us) really need some sort of study to tell us that drinking lots of sugar filled drinks will make us fat....
C'mon...
I'm thinkin maybe a slow news day. Whats that all about? They actually did a study...
"The researchers, led by Cara B. Ebbeling of Children's Hospital Boston, found that the teenagers' consumption of the high-calorie drinks went down by about 80 percent during the study and that the teenagers who had been the most overweight had significant reductions in their body mass indexes at the end of the 25 weeks."
No really... Go figure no more sugary drinks and people lose weight... I'm suprised
C'mon folks this isn't news, we've always known this.
Labels: Diet, GI, GI diet, glycemic index diet, glycemix index
¶ 07:18 0 Comments Links to this post
I think its my mission to get more people to look at sugar as it truly is... A Drug.
Yes..... I said it... it is a drug.
Sugar does more then just sweeten our foods, its used as a pick me up to make us feel better and when we burn it all up... we head right back to the kitchen or the corner convenience store to get another fix.
Feeling depressed eat some chocolate, a candy bar, some hard candy any sugary food will work.
It actually works for most things..... hunger, feeling sleepy, feeling drained etc.
Sugar is not about nutrition its about getting a fix. Think about it...........
So whats up with corn syrup..... Let me rephrase that... High Fructose Corn Syrup....
That stuff is like high octane sugar. Now go to your pantry or your cupboard and read the labels on some of you favorite soups, canned goods or drinks.
You bet....
Corn syrup.
The thing that really gets me is how hard it is to find canned corn that doesn't have corn syrup added to it. Whats up with that????????????
High Fructose corn syrup is made through a complicated process of breaking down corn starch into glucose and then the glucose is broken down into fructose using a system primarily composed of three different genetically altered enzymes. The process involved in refining and distributing corn syrup is cheaper and more efficient then sugars refined from cane or beets. High fructose corn syrup is extremely soluble and mixes well in many foods. It is cheap to produce, sweet and easy to store. It’s used in everything from bread to pasta sauces to bacon to beer as well as in health products like protein bars and natural sodas. This brings to point my issue with corn syrup in all the foods we eat, in every can around every corner.
Every cell in our bodies has the ability to break down glucose but fructose is handled solely by the liver. In research involving rats as the primary subjects... the rats were feed diets high in corn syrup.
"The researchers wanted to know whether it was the fructose or the glucose moiety that was causing the problems. So they repeated their studies with two groups of rats, one given high amounts of glucose and one given high amounts of fructose. The glucose group was unaffected but the fructose group had disastrous results. The male rats did not reach adulthood. They had anemia, high cholesterol and heart hypertrophy—that means that their hearts enlarged until they exploded. They also had delayed testicular development. Dr. Field explains that fructose in combination with copper deficiency in the growing animal interferes with collagen production." (1)
Other research on sugars indicates that excess sugar depresses immunity, sours behavior, attention and learning.
Any sugars (glucose, fructose or sucrose) should be taken in moderation and anyone living a healthy life style should consider every morsel they put in their mouths.
Okay.....I'm done ranting now.
(1)Weston A. Price Foundation Board Member Linda Forristal is the author of Ode to Sucanat (1993) and Bulgarian Rhapsody (1998). Visit her website at www.motherlindas.com.
Labels: Diet, GI, GI diet, glycemic index diet, glycemix index
¶ 02:14 0 Comments Links to this post
Ohhhhhhh my. I remember reading about the G.I. when I was in grade school. Now all of a sudden its like... Poof out of no where we have something new to consider.
I remember being in an antique shop several months ago... On one of the tables was a book printed around the 1940 outlining the evils of sugar. Hmm what's that all about?
Did I mention that roman athletes often ate diets high in protein and low in sugars and carbs?
Just one piece of advice. Read the labels on everything you eat. Even if the label contains the words healthy or low fat.
From Wikipedia
Glycemic Index
The Glycemic Index (also glycemic index, GI) is a ranking system for carbohydrates based on their immediate effect on blood glucose levels. It compares carbohydrates gram for gram in individual foods, providing a numerical, evidence-based index of postprandial (post-meal) glycemia. The concept was invented by Dr. David J. Jenkins and colleagues in 1981 at the University of Toronto.
The glycemic index of a food is defined by the area under the 2 hour blood glucose response curve (AUC) following the ingestion of a fixed portion of carbohydrate (usually 50 g). The AUC of the test food is divided by the AUC of the standard (either glucose or white bread) and multiplied by 100. The average GI value is calculated from data collected in 10 human subjects. Both the standard and test food must contain an equal amount of available carbohydrate. The result gives a relative ranking for each tested food (Brouns et al, 2005).
Carbohydrates that break down rapidly during digestion have the highest glycemic indices. An increased blood glucose response occurs very quickly. Carbohydrates that break down slowly, releasing glucose gradually into the blood stream, have a low glycemic index. A lower glycemic index suggests slower rates of digestion and absorption of the sugars and starches in the foods and may also indicate greater extraction from the liver and periphery of the products of carbohydrate digestion. Additionally, a lower glycemic response equates to a lower insulin demand, better long-term blood glucose control and a reduction in blood lipids.
Glycemic index values for different foods are calculated by comparing measurements of their effect on blood glucose with an equal carbohydrate portion of a reference food. The current scientific validated methods use glucose as the reference food. Glucose has a glycemic index value of 100. This has the advantages in that it is universal and it results in maximum GI values of approximately 100.
Glycemic Index of Foods
GI values can be interpreted intuitively as percentages on an absolute scale and are commonly interpreted as follows:
* Low GI - less than 55
* Intermediate GI - between 56 and 69
* High GI - higher than 70
A low GI food will release energy slowly and steadily and is appropriate for diabetics, dieters and endurance athletes. A high GI food will provide a rapid rise in blood sugar levels and is suitable for post-endurance exercise energy recovery. Previously, white bread was sometimes used as a reference food (if white bread = 100, then glucose = 140). For people whose staple carbohydrate source is white bread, this had the advantage of conveying directly whether replacement of the dietary staple with a different food would result in faster or slower blood glucose response. The disadvantages with this system were that the reference food was not well-defined, and the GI scale was culture dependent.
The glycemic effect of foods depends on a number of factors such as the type of starch (amylose vs amylopectin), physical entrapment of the starch molecules within the food, fat content of the food and increased acidity of the meal - adding vinegar for example, will lower the GI. The presence of fat or dietary fibre can inhibit carbohydrate absorption, thus lowering the GI. Unrefined breads with higher amounts of fibre generally have a lower GI value than white breads but, while adding butter or oil will lower the GI of bread, the GI ranking does not change. That is, with or without additions, there is still a higher blood glucose curve after white bread than after a low GI bread such as pumpernickel.
The glycemic index can only be applied to foods with a reasonable carbohydrate content, as the test relies on subjects consuming enough of the test food to yield about 50 g of available carbohydrate. High fat or high protein foods such as meat, eggs, nuts and cheese have a negligible GI. Furthermore, because many fruits and vegetables (but not potatoes) contain very little carbohydrate per serving, they have very low GI values and are regarded as "free" foods. This also applies to carrots, which were originally and incorrectly reported as having a high GI (Brand-Miller et al, 2005). Alcoholic beverages have been reported to have low GI values, however it should be noted that beer has a moderate GI. Recent studies have shown that the consumption of an alcoholic drink prior to a meal reduces the GI of the meal by approximately 15% (Brand-Miller, in press).
Disease Prevention
Several lines of recent scientific evidence have shown that individuals who followed a low GI diet over many years were at a significantly lower risk for developing both type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease. High blood glucose levels or repeated glycemic "spikes" following a meal may promote these diseases by increasing oxidative damage to the vasculature and also by the direct increase in insulin levels (Temelkova-Kurktschiev et al, 2000). In the past, postmeal hyperglycemia has been a risk factor mainly associated with diabetes, however more recent evidence shows that postprandial hyperglycemia presents an increased risk for atherosclerosis in the non-diabetic population (Balkau et al, 1998).
Weight Control
Recent animal research provides compelling evidence that high GI carbohydrate is associated with increased risk of obesity. In human trials, it is typically difficult to separate the effects from GI and from other potentially confounding factors such as fibre content, palatability, and compliance. In the study (Pawlak et al, 2004), male rats were split into a high and low GI group over 18 weeks while mean bodyweight was maintained. Rats fed the high GI diet were 71% fatter and 8% less lean than the low GI group. Postmeal glycemia and insulin levels were significantly higher and plasma triglycerides were three-fold greater in the high GI fed rats. Furthermore, pancreatic islet cells suffered Âseverely disorganised architecture and extensive fibrosisÂ. The evidence in this study showed that continued consumption of high glycemic index carbohydrates would likely have led to the development of severe metabolic abnormalities.
Criticism
The glycemic index has been criticised for the following reasons:
* the GI of a food varies depending on the kind of food, its ripeness, the length of time it was stored, how it was cooked, its variety (potatoes from Australia, for example, have a much higher GI than potatoes from the United States), and how it was processed or manufactured.
* the GI of a food varies from person to person and even in a single individual from day to day, depending on blood glucose levels, insulin resistance, and other factors.
* the GI of a mixed meal is difficult to predict.
* the GI value is based on a portion that contains 50 grams of carbohydrate only.
* a limited range of data and daily fluctuations in an individualÂs glycemic response.
Some of these criticisms can be addressed by taking the Glycemic load into account. This combined approach is, however, somewhat more complicated, and therefore harder to use in giving dietary advice.
Wikipedia information about glycemic index on Answers.com. Wikipedia Copyright © 2005 by Wikipedia. Published by Wikipedia.
Dictionary definition of glycemic index on Answers.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Labels: Diet, GI, GI diet, glycemic index diet, glycemix index
¶ 20:38 0 Comments Links to this post
