Plateaus

You work so hard daily, eat well, count calories, sleep well and yet are not losing any fat. Results have slowed to a crawl, if that. You are starting to get discouraged. What has changed?

Homeostasis has happened. This is also called a plateau, where you keep going and going and going but you see no better results. They are extremely frustrating. I have lost a fair amount of weight (30lbs) so the amount of calories below my maintenance number has changed from about 1000 to 700-800 and my metabolism has (probably) slowed a bit due to the lack of caloric intake. I myself had started to get onto that plane of existence which is a plateau.

Thankfully I realized quickly enough so I didn’t get (too) discouraged, and luckily enough I knew how to fix this, though it meant MORE hard work. I am not opposed to it though!

If you are stuck on a plateau, there are a couple things you can do. Well, many, but these are the easiest I think!

Zig-zag/Calorie-Cycling: The whole point of zig-zag dieting is to get your metabolism going again. When you are on a reduced calorie diet for a long time, your metabolism slows down – even with high intensity exercise, yes. Your body will realize it doesn’t need to have a ramped up digestion because it is getting fewer calories, so it will slow it down to conserve energy. We do not want this to happen! Zig-zag dieting is when you increase your daily caloric intake for 1 day to just below maintenance or maintenance then go back to your regular reduced calorie diet. This will trick your body into thinking “Oh crap! I’ve got tons of food coming in I better speed up my metabolism!” and when you drop your intake down for 3 days, your metabolism stays high. You go back up after 3 days so your body doesn’t have time to realize it has been fed less, and keeps you innards racing!

High Intensity Interval Training: HIIT is when you alternate between 30-240 seconds of 85-100% intensity drills then either rest for 30-60 seconds or do a recovery motion for 30-120 seconds. The difference between HIIT and regular aerobic exercise is that with regular exercise your metabolism only stays high for a short period of time after the workout whereas with HIIT your metabolism is increased for the entire DAY! It also signals your fat cells to start releasing more energy and therefore burning more fat!

Weight Training: This is fairly simple. If you have more lean muscle on your body you will burn more calories – while you sit, while you sleep, while you’re watching TV, while you’re at work… More calories burnt means it’s easier to create that deficit between calories in = calories out!

More Cardio: Depending on your body type (I, myself, am partially and endomorph) you may want to do cardio more than 6-7 times a week. I just doubled my cardio to twice a day at 2-2.5 hours per day. This is another easy one: you expend more energy doing more cardio and if you eat the same, you will have more of a deficit at the end of the day. Simple!

Morning Cardio: Doing cardio in the morning has TONS of benefits! You have very little glucose from fasting for 8 hours (hopefully!) while you sleep so because your brain can only use glucose as energy, it stops your muscles from using it pretty quick. Your body then starts to use glycogen stores in your muscles, but even these are tapped out quickly so your body then switches to fat for energy. You might feel more sluggish in the morning because of this, but keep your intensity high and you will see a definite difference!

So how am I trying to break through my plateau? I am doing all but weight training (there are only so many hours in the day). I am zig zagging my diet, doing HIIT (though I was doing this all along) but have recently doubled my cardio and started doing one round of it in the morning right when I wake up! I can see a difference in 1 week already, so it’s time to keep on keepin’ on until I get my desired results – or hit another plateau!

Insanity: Round 2 - COMPLETE!

I'm DONE! Not for my entire life of course, but just for today ;)

I finished my second round of Insanity (adding on top of it P90X resistance training, yoga and a hell of a lot more ab workouts than is probably useful) and am, still, in the best shape of my life. Not even when I was playing sports as a teenager have I been in this good of shape.

Insanity changed my life, and I am never going back! Going forward is the only way I can continue to live my life in the best way possible.

It started out as a journey to look better, but in the past 4 months I have reached that goal (and set new ones). I look better, FEEL better, eat healthier, have more confidence, more energy and an entirely different outlook on life.

The change was so simple that I don't know if I can explain it to anyone properly. Simple but hard, of course - as is anything that is worth having.

I can never go back to the way I was. It is not a choice, a habit I can break or a routine I have an option of denying. It is now a lifestyle!

Thank you Shaun T, Tony Horton, Tom Venuto, Beachbody.com and all the people who supported me along the way!

I'm Healthy!!!

I got some tests done at work today and it looks like I am doing pretty damn well for myself! Still need to get my bodyfat percentage down by about 2-4% but I'm on the way!! My blood pressure is low, yes, but that's genetic. The nurse actually told me to eat more salt and caffeine to raise it, weird eh?

Eating Non-Organic Meat More Dangerous Than HIV/AIDS

So, you might think this title is absolutely ridiculous, but it was meant to get your attention first and be explained second. Since I now (hopefully) have your attention I will get to the latter part!

How could eating non-organic meat be more dangerous than HIV/AIDS you must be asking yourself? Well, firstly, HIV/AIDS is preventable. Either abstain from having sex (hah!) or at least use protection and get screened with your partner for communicable diseases – it’s just the mature thing to do folks. But that still doesn’t tell me how eating non-organic meat is more dangerous than a horrible & well publicized illness, does it now? What if I told you that eating regular meat/dairy from your grocery store is daily making you more susceptible to diseases that kill more per year in the US than HIV/AIDS – and is very hard to prevent or let alone detect?

A single strain of antibiotic resistant called Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, kills more people in the US than HIV/AIDS. You can pick up this strain from anywhere or anyone and 20% of the population are actually long-term carriers of Staphylococcus aureus (though not all Staphylococcus aureus is methicillin-resistant/antibiotic resistant). The best defense you have against MRSA is to wash your hands often, scary eh?

That’s all well and good, but where does non-organic meat fall into the equation? It is a little known (yet increasing in common knowledge) fact that 70-80% of antibiotics are used on farm animals: cows, pigs, chickens, etc. Not to cure disease of course, but thanks to big business they use antibiotics to increase the size and growth rate of their livestock. What this does is creates a HUGE place for bacteria to mutate into penicillin-resistant variations. This bacteria ridden, steroid pumped food arrives at your supermarket and you ingest it at home, handle it while you’re preparing it and serve it to your kids.

Let me sum it up: You are serving yourself and your kids something more dangerous than HIV/AIDS every time you put a piece of non-organic chicken/pork/beef/etc. on their plate for supper.

Here are a couple random links, the one's that got me thinking today. Google it if you don't believe me ;)

Huffington Post

Huffington Post

Huffington Post

Wikipedia

Overtraining

My Abs Hurt.

I know this is usually a good thing, but my abs hurt so much that it was making me almost throw up while I was working out. This is never a good thing, especially when you are doing it for multiple hours a day haha!

For the past month I have been doing ab or core work every day whether it be specifically targeted ab work (5/7 days) or just passive core work (7/7 days) and it finally got to me. My lower abs were so fatigued and for some reason were flexing so hard that it was making me sick.

This is my first foray into the world of overtraining and I definitely do not like it.

After taking a couple days (read: three) specifically targeted ab work it seems to have improved. I have slowed my secondary ab workouts down to once every second day instead of every day minus my rest/recovery days so I am hoping this works better. It is the first time my body has let me down since January 6th when I started to better myself!

Getting deeper into the realm of fitness you and I are bound to hit walls, plateaus, and (mental) road blocks but you need to remember that tomorrow is another day and going forward is what REALLY matters, and not what is in the past. Did this really slow down my progress? Maybe a little, but for my overall goals it was just a hiccup along the way. Don't let these small problems knock you off the wagon, you've gotta keep on truckin!

Portion & Fiscal Control When Dining Out

I was out on a date last night and we decided we were going to have some appetizers and drinks at a nice restaurant. The date went great (and then some, but that's not what this blog is about =]), had a good time, and when I finished the app I was neither full nor hungry. A side note: you should never be full after you finish a meal, especially dinner (and especially if it is late) since you should be tapering your meals.

Anyways, this morning when I was thinking back to the night I realized something: appetizers are more along the lines of the portion you SHOULD be eating. Plus they're cheaper - bonus! I have come to the conclusion that I am going to do this from now on when I eat out: only eat appetizers. Why would I order a full meal that is 5x the size of what I should be eating when I 1) won't finish it (or if I do finish it feel guilty that I did) and 2) an appetizer is more than enough to satisfy me for dinner. Just a little brainwave on a Wednesday morning ;)

Post Script: This by no means is supposed to come across that I am cheap - far from it. It just so happens that the healthy thing to do is the fiscally responsible thing to do as well!

Listening To Your Body

To preface this, this isn't a cop out or an explanation to people as to why I have quit fitness, so don't worry ;)

I recently took a 'step down' in intensity level of my workouts. Perhaps that is a bad way of putting it... I actually cut 3 hours a week of working out (down to about 10 now so ~10-12 workouts a week from 15). I had been feeling for a while that my physical endurance has been suffering due to lack of recovery time for my muscles but I kept pushing myself mentally to keep going - I was (and, well, still am) scared that I will plateau.

But this week the physical exhaustion spilled over to my psychological exhaustion and I began feeling tired when I would usually feel energized and, for the first time in months, began dreading working out. This change in my mentality surprised me (especially seeing as endorphins give you a high well after you stop exercising) but I was not willing to just all out stop. If you're interested in my workout schedule there is a picture of it below. Anyhow, I decided to just back off from my P90X workouts and still continue with my Insanity workouts (as the P90X workouts were just added to prevent plateauing anyways, though it wasn't likely that it was going to happen).

After two days I seriously cannot believe the change in my outlook! The sun is brighter, air more fresh and even the concrete in Toronto looks cleaner! It seems I had started to run into overtraining my body, and it is a good thing I was listening to my body telling me to slow down. Comparing my energy levels from last week to this week, it seems that they have doubled, even though I have the same caloric intake every day! I'm not sure if it had something with the increased amount of cortisol (a stress hormone) that I would produce during my second or third workout of the day, I can only guess, but I am glad that it has stopped for now =)

Moral of the story is: Listen to your body! Make sure you take rest when you need it, eat enough calories to reduce or eliminate muscle loss while training, sleep 7-8 hours a night and just remember that if you overtrain for a long period of time it can take MONTHS to recover!

Exercise & The Brain

So today I was having an off day after having to leave the wilderness - though it was only just east of Barrie I was still surrounded by trees, water and wildlife. I always have trouble coming back to the city after being in such a peaceful place it seems. Not to 'toot my own horn',as one of my grandparents would say, but I rarely have a day where I don't actually WANT to work out.

Today was one of those days, sadly. I did, however, push myself to work out and that's what this bloggg is about! I even had trouble getting motivated through my warm up which is even more rare, but I pushed through anyways. When I finished the workout I felt great: accomplished, happy, proud that I had worked so hard (and sweat so much), and just had an overall better feeling emanating from myself. I then wondered why this was? It didn't take me long to find out, it seems.

I usually read up, blog and research about physical benefits of nutrition and exercise so my foray into the psychological aspect of it was a new one. It also took me in a direction I didn't expect: depression. I am by no means a depressed person, but like I said earlier everyone has off days. Anxiety also comes into play, but though that was contributing factor today as well, the following works to improve both problems.

Key Components: Endorphins & Anandamide

Endorphins have long been known to be the body's natural pain reliever and antidepressant and are released as a result of exercise (and can actually be found days later in the body after you stop exercising). Anandamide is synthesized in the body from essential fatty acids (which I wont get into here) and being up at the cottage I of course didn't have my Omega 3-6-9's with me nor did I eat any fish while I was there, so this could be partly to blame for my bad mood. Endorphin production occurs during long, strenuous workouts and production is increased more when muscles use up their stored glycogen - which is after about an hour of high intensity training (care of Insanity ;]). This creates what is called the 'runners high' or the happy sensation once you finish.

Sooooo many people use the excuse that they are having a bad day, feel crummy or plain just don't feel like exercising. I guess now those excuses won't fly with me anymore - hah! One more excuse down you fat world of ours.

Nutritionist vs. Dietician

Far too many people use the words Nutritionist and Dietician interchangably and it drives me bananas. On on hand, it makes the Nutritionist sound pretty damn awesome, but on the other hand it makes the Dietician's years of school, credentials and accountability seem meeningless.



To put it bluntly, my 16 year old cousin working at GNC could be called a Nutritionist. Oftentimes they have no damn idea what they are talking about, and most of the time they should not be giving advice to people - especially when those people think they have some accreditation.

Dieticians: Have a Bachelor in something related to health & nutrition coupled with practical training in a supervised University or Hospital setting, are registered professionals (aka can have a designation after their name such as R.D.) and are accountable to provincial regulatory bodies for their professional conduct and the care they provide - just like doctors, pharmacists, lawyers...

Nutritionists: May have some - or all - of the credentials a dietician has. A dietician is a nutritionist but a nutritionist may not always be a dietician (a square is rectangle but a rectangle may not always be a square) . The picture at the top is of Connie Diekman (President of the American Dietetic Association) and her dog Eddie. The cirtificate in front of Eddie is a certificate making him a nutritionist from the American Association of Nutritional Consultants.

Would you take nutrition advice from a dog?

Guess What This Is?

So can you guess what this is? Ice cream? Frozen Yogurt? Some type of industrial foam? Nope, it's chicken.

Huffington Post

This is the meat that is left over on the bones after it is cut off. Why not put it through a high pressure sleeve to get a bit more of chicken, turkey, pork or beef out of your animal, right? In the US beef can no longer be eaten like this, but the other three still are. Oh, and it is treated with ammonia because of the ridiculous amount of bacteria. And artificially sweetened. And artificially coloured. Awesome!

Obesity Epidemic

This 'epidemic', as they call it, drives me bonkers. I put the word epidemic in quotes because I believe that no epidemic should be self-inflicted. What brought this on was a link in the news today:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2011/04/26/obesity-legislate.html

The Canadian Medical Association Journal has some great points on how to curb the obesity problem, but I have a couple of my own. You may think that these are fiscally irresponsible, but bare with me for a minute.

-Firstly, I agree with the CMAJ to tax junk food (plus fast food) to the point where healthy food is less than this crap. -Second, every time tax season rolls around everyone gets their bodyfat percentage taken (NOT BMI as it is antiquated and useless in my opinion) and if you are obese, you get taxed 10% your annual income. If you are overweight, you get taxed 5% your annual income. Obviously people with legitimate health problems NOT caused by their obesity would not be included (ie. thyroid problems)-Lastly, ban genetically modified foodsAnyone reading this must think I am insane, especially with point #2 thinking it isn't fiscally feasible.

-If everyone at healthy food (organic/local fruits & veggies and mostly lean meat), there would be muuuccchhh less digestive, cholesterol, heart disease and diabetes problems. How you say? Antacids are one of the fastest growing over the counter medicines and are so popular because our acidity levels in the crap we eat are through the roof! This is just one example of how it would fix digestive problems, though there are many others. Consuming more 'good' cholesterol (HDL) that is naturally present in many healthy foods and decreasing the amount of 'bad' cholesterol (LDL) that are present in tons of junk crap is a pretty easy cure, and heart disease goes hand in hand with this as well. By having fibre in most (read: all) of our daily meals we will regulate our blood sugar better, leading to less cravings for more food (continual daily eating leading to obesity) as well as helping prevent us from becoming insulin resistant. This is all just off the top of my head, by the way.

-Hitting people in their wallets is how you will get this obesity epidemic to stop. If you tax people a large amount (as proposed above) they will for damn sure try and fix it. If you are wondering how much these bodyfat calculators will cost the foot to hand machines (which are the best of the electronic ones) are relatively cheap and measure most of the fat in the body (whereas the scales you stand on only measure the bottom 1/2 of your body and the hand held ones measure only the top half). The taxes would more than pay for these in the first year alone and could be reused. Even if you were to hydrostatically weigh people in dunk tanks all over the country it would still be fiscally feasible. This isn't even taking into account the healthcare savings!

-Banning GM or GE foods, even though evil big business says they're 'reasonably safe', will save us a ton of money down the line in health care costs. The studies that have been undertaken have shown some frightening results (google it if you don't believe me). Cancer, decreased testicle size, loss of hair in labs rats, etc. are some of the 'reasonably safe' outcomes of GE food. The KEY thing in here is that I am going by bodyfat percentages and not BMI. You would be surprised how many thin people are overweight when it comes to bodyfat percentages, the 'skinny-fat' population if you will. Usually these are people who eat very little and never exercise. These people will not be exempt from the taxes! If you are wondering what the percentages are for normal/overweight/obese here they are:

I do realize that these are obviously never going to come into play - there are too many fat voters - but one can dream can't he?

The thing that got me on this entire rant were the some of the comments saying that it wasn't their fault they were overweight/obese. This is just ridiculous. Your health is in your own hands and I am tired for paying for your health care costs already! I did it and so can you.

/rant

Don't Trust Advertising. Ever.

An interesting link I picked up from the Fooducate Blog:

http://www.fooducate.com/blog/2011/04/21/campbell-soup-has-a-math-problem/

Pretty much showing how screwed up marketing is. The above picture are two different 'types' of campbells soup. Or are they really? One says 25% less sodium as you can see... what what does that mean?

Absolutely dick it seems. Shame on Campbells! If you read through the whole comsumerists blog article (linked via the fooducate blog link) the can goes to say in fine print that the sodium is 25% less than other regular tomato soups. Craziness!

The best foods to eat are always the ones with little or no information (aka fresh fruits and veggies!)

Exercising on an Empty Stomach

I am one of the lucky ones who was able to score Monday off (yay!) so I woke up at around noon and decided to workout then. I think it was the combination of the lack of glycogen stored in my muscles and the fact that Insanity Max Interval Plyometrics was voted the hardest workout of the series that made me sweat puddles onto my floor. Literally. I had to mop the floor after Insanity mopped the floor with me! What I am getting at is that there are plenty of pro's and very few con's to working out in the morning before you've had anything to eat

Con's - Time
This is the killer for me. I already wake up at 5:30AM to get to work for 6:30-6:45 so waking up at 4:00AM every day just isn't realistic. Sadly, this is the reason I usually don't do it in the morning

Pro's - Increased Ketosis, Less Blood Glucose, Speeds Up Metabolism
Ton's of pro's for working out in the morning. Due to low blood glucose (as you have just fasted for - hopefully - at least 8 hours) and lower glycogen stores in your muscles your body will turn to Ketosis earlier for energy. You may find that you 'bonk' quite quickly in morning workouts, but if you push through it will be worth it! Your body will turn to fat to make energy for your muscles to use while it conserves most of your blood glucose to fuel your brain. Faster ketosis = more adipose tissue lost during a workout (and afterwards) which is what everyone wants, right? It also has the effect of jump starting your metabolism for the rest of the day which is nothing to scoff at.

Fastest way to get a 6 pack is to work out on an empty stomach!

Drinking Sucks.

After just sluggishly finishing Insanity Max Cardio Conditioning at 10:15PM and hating every second of it I am determined to NOT go through that again. This isn't me saying 'I'm never drinking again' but just that I am not going to drink as much. I got absolutely demolished and wasted most of my day away in bed recovering from ridiculousness.

But even a wicked hangover cannot stop me from working out, so I finished one of them and will be doing another in an hour (at about midnight). It sucks working out hungover. Your body is still trying to recover from the poison you put into it. Alcohol also stops your body from burning fat: it turns into acetate and your body uses that as fuel instead of turning adipose tissue into energy.

Why, why did I do this to myself?!?!

Fitness While Travelling

Well here I am and over a week has passed since I last blogggggged. Not very bloggerish. Anyways, I just returned from a trip in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia and without getting too much into it it was amazing. Hospitality in the south is second to none! But that is neither here nor there, now is it? Anyways, it was douchealicious to try to workout while traveling, but I still managed to fit in 15 or so workouts!

Waking up early is key. Daily I woke up before the rest of my family (as it was a family trip) pulled out my portable DVD player and speakers (a lifesaver!) and pressed play. Not only does getting up in the morning and working out burn more fat (as your body needs to turn to your adipose tissue earlier than if you had been eating all day) but when you're away this is probably the only time you are going to get it done. My goal this week was to try to finish 80% of my workouts and since I only missed one, I think I surpassed that!

Food is another story though. Ohhhh southern food.......Ohhhh American sized portions... buffets are also the devil! I always at well during breakfast, usually ate ok during lunch and it was hit or miss during dinner. I only had red meat once (yay me) but I did definitely eat double my caloric intake for the day during one buffet meal. The buffet was literally a sailboat. Actually, three of them. I didn't see much of a physical change this week as I have been seeing in the past. This is where the 80/20 rule comes in!

80/20 Rule: 80% of weight/bodyfat loss will come from following a meal plan consistently, while 20% will come from tweaks to this. 80% of your results will come from nutrition whereas 20% will come from actual exercise. The last one people may have a hard time believing but you can exercise all you want and unless you have ectomorph genes (aka superfast metabolism) you will never get results. You NEED to eat well, often, and with a daily calorie deficit or it just wont happen! This is the reason my results were so so this week, sadly. Usually people who fall off the fitness wagon are struggling to shed the fat because they are still following (or not following rather) their old eating habits. Calories in = calories out and you need to have less on the 'in' side if you want to go down a waist size! I didn't this week, but now I can for myself just how important it is =)

Sugar = Death?

Ok, so now that I have your attention, I would love to draw your attention to two horrible inventions of the 20th century: sucrose (simple table sugar) and high fructose corn syrup (H.F.C.S.) as well as one of the best thing mother nature has given us: fruit! Today the New York Times published an article today saying that Sugar is Poison. It goes on to say that because H.F.C.S. and sucrose, which both break down into glucose and fructose in our bodies, are metabolized the same way that our bodies react to them the same way, with glucose feeding your cells and fructose going to your liver to be metabolized into either glycogen replenishment or sometimes into the Palmtic fatty acid which in turn can become adipose tissue. This is, I guess, where the whole ‘sugar is toxic’ argument comes from as it passes through our liver and turns into fat. The article actually barely gets into this:

'But marketing aside, the two sweeteners are effectively identical in their biological effects. “High-fructose corn syrup, sugar — no difference,” is how Lustig put it in a lecture that I attended in San Francisco last December. “The point is they’re each bad — equally bad, equally poisonous.”

Refined sugar (that is, sucrose) is made up of a molecule of the carbohydrate glucose, bonded to a molecule of the carbohydrate fructose — a 50-50 mixture of the two. The fructose, which is almost twice as sweet as glucose, is what distinguishes sugar from other carbohydrate-rich foods like bread or potatoes that break down upon digestion to glucose alone. The more fructose in a substance, the sweeter it will be. High-fructose corn syrup, as it is most commonly consumed, is 55 percent fructose, and the remaining 45 percent is nearly all glucose. It was first marketed in the late 1970s and was created to be indistinguishable from refined sugar when used in soft drinks. Because each of these sugars ends up as glucose and fructose in our guts, our bodies react the same way to both, and the physiological effects are identical. In a 2010 review of the relevant science, Luc Tappy, a researcher at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland who is considered by biochemists who study fructose to be the world’s foremost authority on the subject, said there was “not the single hint” that H.F.C.S. was more deleterious than other sources of sugar.'

This is where I have a problem with the article. Do I think that table sugar and high fructose corn syrup are bad for us? Yes. Mostly because we may become addicted to the effects it has on our body (spike in sugar is called a sugar ‘high’ for a reason – some say it mimics the high we get on illicit drugs) and because we eat way too much of it. Nowhere in the article does it explain WHY either of these sugars are poisonous, it just says they are with no data to back it up. The even BIGGER problem I have with this article is that it doesn’t differentiate from the fructose in High Fructose Corn Syrup and the fructose found in fruit. The sugar in fruit is also fructose so my biggest fear is that this article, along with the whole ‘low-carb’ revolution, will demonize fruit. They say one thing about fruit in the articles, which neither supports nor rejects eating them or that the fructose in fruit is ok to eat. Fruit differs from High Fructose Corn Syrup because H.F.C.S. are empty calories – it doesn’t come with any vitamins, minerals, fibre or water yet all of the aforementioned things are present in fruit (though bananas have a low amount of fibre). Fibre just doesn’t keep you regular (which is what insoluble fibre does) but soluble fibre slows down sugar absorption in the blood stream not only stopping you from getting that ‘sugar high’. This also keeps you more full for longer (which the water helps with as well) because when your blood sugar spikes it is always followed with a crash, leaving you craving something else. This is why eating anything with sucrose or H.F.C.S. has a cyclic effect on the body by having your blood sugar spike, then crash, then you eat something horrible again having it spike, crash… you get the picture. Thank you New York Times for telling the general public that crap food is crap, scaring them even. I just wish you would have put a disclaimer somewhere saying that fruit is still awesome as a possum!! FIBRE IS KING!

Numero Uno

Today is fitting that it should be my first post about health/fitness/wellness all that rainbows and daisies shit. I finally saw some results I was looking for - the line through from the top of my abs to the bottom of my abs. You might think: "well that isn't such an amazing feat!" but less than 4 months ago I was overweight with a nice gut. I was responsible for the crappy state my body was in and did something about it. You're responsible for the state your body is in and only you can change it!

Anyways, onto more pressing matters! Two thing in this blog post: Something that drives me nuts and something that I learned today (and was wrong about, hey, it happens). First, the thing that drives me nuts:

SCALES!
These items are in many houses and soooo many people are obsessed with that little, tiny, (mostly) useless number that is there. Your weight does not matter, at all. You shouldn't go around telling people: "Hey girls! I am now 143! I dropped 2 pounds in 2 weeks!" because I can lose 15 lbs (and so can you) in a weekend, but I won't tell you how because it's unhealthy. Weight can fluctuate a huge amount! The problem with weight is that it doesn't show you the whole picture. Tons of guys but more so girls (models included) are thin, but they are weak and have an insanely high percentage of bodyfat for their weight. These are people I call 'skinny fat'. You idolize them, yet they are very unhealthy.
The thing you want to lose is bodyfat, which will take much longer to lose than weight alone. When you lose weight quickly, you are losing some fat but mostly muscle mass. This is usually a vicious cycle because when (not if) you gain that weight back on, it will almost all be bodyfat/adipose tissue again, so even though you are back to your 'same' weight you have much more body fat than when you started. This is even more problematic because your muslces are what consume calories even while sitting/sleeping so even if you were to eat the same amount of food you could before without gaining weight, now you will because your maintenance level of calories has dropped.
If you still want to praise the all mighty scale, you should lose weight slowly and progressively by eating healthy and exercising. Doing it the 'slow' way you are much more likely to keep the FAT off and you won't lose muscle mass in the process. Losing weight is simple, but not easy.

The 'new' thing I learned today was that I was wrong about Zig Zag dieting. At first I thought that Zig Zag dieting was just used to figure out what amount of calories below your maintenance calories you could live on while still feeling energized during a workout. This is true, you can do that, but it can be used for something much better!
Zig-Zag dieting is to stave off your body's natural starvation response. The starvation response is when your body thinks it is getting 'too few' calories to support itself and it (your body) slows down your metabolism to preserve your fat stores. Obviously if you are trying to lose weight, this is a bad thing. You want to keep your metabolism high so you can burn off as many calories as you can while not working out (though exercise will keep your metabolism higher as well so keep doing that too of course!). To do this you trick your body into thinking it has a high amount of calories incoming when it usually doesn't: In comes the zig zag.
The first three days are lower calorie days - at least 500 but no greater than 1000 calories lower than your maintenance level. On the 4th day you eat your maintenance level worth of calories. Doing this makes your body think it is getting the required amount of calories to sustain itself, so it keeps your metabolism high. You then go back to 3 low calorie days, and back up again to 1 maintenance calorie day. Get it? Zig zag! Thanks to Tom Venuto and 'Burn the fat, feed the muscle' for setting me straight =)
You have to realize your body is always trying to get back to homeostasis meaning that it wants to keep it's adipose tissue & muscle tissues constant! This is why you have to change your exercises up as well, but that's for another day ;)