Thursday, February 24, 2011

Refeeding Leptin, Cheat Meals , & Protein Sparing Fat Loss Diet

First of all, this post is for a very select few of my dieters who are in the low bodyfat% range looking to get leaner (while training) and those that are truly eating a low carbohydrate diet for fat loss and health.  If you're not in this category, the information below is too advance for you. (unless you really want to learn something about the hormone leptin/metaoblism and fat loss stalling issues.)

In the bodybuilding community, we don't call it "cheat days".  we call it "refeeds" and it literally means just that.

This is where it came from... 

For any caloric deficit diet to work, we have to restrict some foods. The more, the quicker the fat loss.

The less miserable/hunger inducing the diet is, the better.  As long as it provide all the essential nutrients the body needs for optimal hormonal functions, enough fuel to support activity & recovery, the rest should be eliminated to create the greatest caloric deficit possible for leaning out.


1. First thing we cut is carbs because it's not essential to the human body.  Period. Unless you're training and only on training days, you may increase it.

2. Second is all the non-essential fats from plants/industrialized products.  If you eat plenty fatty fish 4-5 servings a week, that's enough on the EFA.  If not from fish sources or grassfed meat (which i suspect most of you don't get it cuz heb/walmart is just right around the corner), taking 10g of fish oil (3g of epa/dha)/day is sufficient to meet the requirement while keeping all other protein products lean. 

3g (1g of epa/dha) on non-dieting days for the rest of your life if you continue to live in america and don't eat fish.

3. Third is getting the minimal protein to support lean muscle mass, this is no mystery.  For general weight loss, 1 g/lb of LMM is plenty.  If you get hungry, this is the variable you want to play with more or less to ensure you don't take in more calories than needed from sugar sources.  This means female @ around 80-100g, men 120-160g depending on your body comp. and training/resting days.  The more unnecessary carbs you take in the less protein you need, gram to gram.  Carbs will spare protein metabolism. 

My general recommendation is just to eat a pound of meat a day and if fat loss is too slow (esp. for females and sedentary ppl), drop down to .7lbs a day.  If fat loss is too rapid and you're afraid to lose lean mass (performance suffers), or hunger is an issue, eat up to 1.5lbs of meat a day.

The three rules above for dieting down body fat fast is basically a "Protein Sparing Fat Loss Diet".  For those who are obese, diabetic, or not completely sedentary, ketogenic diet might be more useful (and less miserable) and it's basically a low to moderate protein, high fat, low to zero carbs regime (cyclical).

Lyle McDonald from body recomposition wrote about PSFLD in his book.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/the-rapid-fat-loss-handbook

Leptin

Both chronic low carbing and low calorie diets lower your hormone leptin.  The fatter you are the less this concerns you.  Assuming you're not metabolically defected or anything (leptin/insulin resistant).

Leptin is a lipo-stat regulator (one of many) produced from your fat cells that signals hunger when it's running low. It's registered by your hypothamus through the blood/brain barrier.  Leptin helps keep some body fat on you and make sure you get hungry when you chronically drop body fat or increasing activity (basically, when you're chronically at a negative energy balance).

When you're going under 12% BF (for men) or 17% for women or lowered food intake for weeks, your leptin can drop drastically.  This is the body's defense mechanism to make sure you don't starve to death and induce hunger to ensure you eat more and save your body fat. 

When people give in the hunger, they typically eat more calories than the total deficit they originally created (overall during the leptin drop) due to body's need to over-compensate in case this periodic starvation occurs again. 

This is why some misinformed dieters would drop calories drastically for days, fit into their dress for photoshoots, then put all the weight back in the next few days, sometimes more than their original/pre-dieting weight.

Sidenote: I'm also not talking about "starvation mode" like most trainers refers to when you don't snack more than 5x a day or when ppl going on a 24-36hr fast.  That's not starvation. That's fasting and it's perfectly natural.  Periodic fasting is part of our human evolutionary past and we are perfectly adpated to deal with these semi-starvation/intermittent fasting conditions.

Anyways, typically after a contest or simply a mental break down from hardcore dieting, ppl can bounce back and eat 6,000kcal/day easy for weeks.
One of the main side effects of chronically lowered leptin production on most fad/crash diets is unsatisfiable hunger.  The greater the deficit, the more you will feel it.  Unless you have some insane lean genes, on a really good stim (caffeine/ephedrine), or just really, really, really mentally determined to lose body fat, your low leptin level will break you down eventually.

So to trick and raise your leptin back to normal level (reboot metabolism and reduce hunger) without offsetting the overall deficits you've generated for fat loss, you can refeed your body with carbs for a day/meal to replenish what you may lack from the diet.  Simply eat at energy balance/maintenance amount of calories on training days is sufficient and there's no need to binge.

Also, make sure you cut fat down on this day. Fat doesn't play an immediate role in leptin restoration so keep it low even if you're doing low carbs/paleo.

For anyone who's actually keeping carbs under 20-40g a day and possibly eating 600-1,000 kcal deficit overall, a refeed of +200g/carbs once (maybe twice) a week is a good start, then tweak it from there depending on, fitness/energy level, hunger, and fat loss stalls.

Read this to understand what are some safe carbs for refeeds.

A bonus of refeed later in the day is that it increases seratonin which help you get a good night sleep.  This is why I always eat my starchy carbs and fruits before bed. 

Sidenote: If you think about it, 200g on carbs is basically how most Americans are eating now.  200g = 800kcal.  On a 2000kcal/day intake for maintenance (for a female, higher for men and training), that's about 40% of carbs... USDA actually encourage us to eat up to 60%!!   They literally want us to refeed our fat cells daily!    Now you know why USDA's guideline does not work  for general health or weight loss.

So to keep your refeeds simpler, just eat like a Standard American Diet and you're set. 

Learn more about Cyclical Ketosis for ketogenic dieting while training.

Martin Berkhan from Leangains.com suggest that overfeeding with carbs may offset the leptin drop but only temporarily.  As soon as you get back to dieting again, leptin is lowered. He preach the idea of more frequent refeeds (post workout, perhaps 3x/wk) while still very high in carbs is not as high as once-a-week (ketogentic type) refeeds. On his refeed days/training days, fat is kept low while protein and carbs is still pretty high.  On rest days, carbs is low while protein is high and fat should be moderate to low depending on perference/deadlines.

When Cheat Meals Gone Bad
The reason people implement cheat meal after a workout is because the incoming nutrients and energy supply the muscle where it's most depleted/needed.   Also, it helps with long term adherance to dieting. 

On the other hand, cheats are completely useless for the overweight folks on the physiological level. Overweight Dieters simply don't defend starvation (or slowed metabolism) as strongly as those who are lean.  They still have plenty of "fuel" (body fat) to go around for replenishing the muscle.  Overweight dieters tend to lose less lean muscle mass when they start cutting calories or non at all if they eat enough protein and train with resistance.

What also makes a cheat meals seriously counter-productive is the fact that 80% of the time, dieting trainees over-estimate their energy expenditure from exercise, thinking just because they lost 6lb from their 2 hours bootcamp workout, they believe they burned 3 lb of fat (which is equivalent to10,500kcal) or something stupid like that.  So they felt safe eating a 800kcal sandwich followed by a 800kcal milk shake or hit the buffet and put down 3,000kcals in a single meal, even though they probably only burn around 600kcal (if lucky).

Cheat meals are completely different from refeeds.   A cheat meal can be anything, (size/macronutrient-ratio) unlike refeed where its focus is getting enough carbs and calories to normalize leptin sensitivity and production.  Fat people generally produce plenty leptin.

A cheat meal is mentally rewarding from hardcore dieting but serve very little physiological purpose unless it's after a workout  at a sensible portion with the right macronutrient.

Refeeds... what it is and what it's not.

1. Refeeds are appropriate for bodybuilding and athletes eating low carbs/calories before  a contest/leaning out phase 1-2x a week. (cycling)
2.  Serve to reboot leptin (overall sympathetic nervous system output) to normalize metabolism and hunger.  The fatter you are, the less you need it.  Men above 12-14% bf, female above 20% don't need to do this.  Know your bf%.

3. Portion and frequency of refeeds depend on how long and hard you've been dieting.   200-250g of carbs once a week on LC or ketosis diets for leaning out or 100-150g 2-3x/week post workout for strength training. 

If you get plenty carbs post workout and you're not eating less than 100g of carbs on non-training days. you don't need refeeds.
4. Ketosis/Low Carbs is generally not great for endurance athletes (esp. during training season) but if you're chunky and only train recreationally, you can be on ketosis (assuming at a negative energy balance) and not worry so much about refeeds or performance drop as long as you get a nice portion of carbs post workout.  
5. Cheat Meals are  great for the overweight population eating low carbs/calories long-term for psychological reasons but if you're super committed to lose fat or just super obese/diseased, you don't need cheats. 

Seeing your weight loss  and improved blood tests periodically should be mentally rewarding enough and the fuel that's still around your body will "refeed" you.  No major leptin problem there. 

6. If you're not on VLC, ketogenic diet, or a protein-sparing fat loss diet, refeeds are unnecessary. (pointed out in #3)

7. Don't let either cheat meals or refeeds to become a binge.  Eat just enough to do what it's suppose to do... fix cravings, curve hunger, reset metabolism, deal with social events & fuel workouts.



To read all there is to learn about bodyweight regulation, stubborn fat, and the hormone leptin, read lyle's articles here.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/index.php?s=leptin


Read my published articles on Examiner.com on weight loss and sports nutrition.
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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Marathon Running & Dieting

 The time-to-completion for your half marathon is going to drastically reduce at a body weight 10-15lbs lighter than you are now (assuming you're chunky and can afford to lose some fat).

Just go run with a 15 lbs vast for a couple miles, see how you feel, drop it, then run again, then you'll know exactly what I mean.

BODY WEIGHT TO LEG-POWER RATIO IS CRITICAL FOR ENDURANCE RUNNING.

If you've been training for a couple years at around the same weight, 3 more months of training til contest time is not going to help you that much.

Your priority should be losing body fat within the next 2 months period with a rapid fat loss program.  Reduce training volume to prevent hunger pangs (being in a deficit that is) but keep intensity high so you don't risk losing  muscle mass and keep protein intake high as well.

Once you shed the fat, you'll have plenty time to retrained the little lost in mitochondria/capillary from dieting.
  

   To sum up...  You should work your training around your diet when you're trying to lose body fat.  That's your priority right now because it's the most beneficial variable you can play with.

Like I said, if you've been training for a while, 2 month of detraining or reduced volume is not going to make a big difference.  As long as you perform some resistance training, you'll preserve the muscle.  You'll get your endurance back when you start eating at maintenance again.


While volume may stay the same or reduce slightly, up the intensity by running faster, longer, further, while reduce training frequency to optimize post-workout recovery.  Try sprinting 2x a week. 10sets per session. 30-40yards each.  that'd sufficient enough to keep your muscle on a diet.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Artificial Sweeteners equal Fat Loss, Rat vs. Clinical Studies

A friend of mine was skeptic about using artificial sweeteners (non-nutritive sweeteners) as a replacement for her usual table sugar for coffee, cakes, or what not.  She did some digging and send me this link.


Since I've read enough articles like this in the past, just by looking at the title, I knew it was another scare tactic to encourage "real sugar" consumption by the "alternative/detox" industry and does more harm for ppl's weight loss effort than good.  
The articles referenced in this article are all "reports", "cohort", and rat studies" in regards to aspartame that has very litttle applicability to the way we consume them today.  (on top of that, every link I tried to open wants me to subscribe to his newsletter and buy his crap)

Using zero calorie artificial sweeteners to reduce sugar intake is crucial to dieter's success and adherence in a calorie reduction diet (and I'll explain why in a min).

The relevancy of these rats studies simply doesn't apply to us.   The dosage on rats were proportionally far greater in comparison to average human consumption and feeding them far more frequently then a person would. on top of that, rodent physiology is very different from ours.
Every single cells in our body are always cleansing, detoxing, reaching homeostasis. When we're exposed to small and infrequent toxic agents, it will be either oxidated or pass through.  that is assuming these sweeteners are toxic in the first place... they're not, and i'll get to that.
from leagains.com
"Aspartame was found to cause brain cancer in rodents, but no human trial has ever shown a link to cancer, or any other serious disease, for that matter. This has been examined extensively; for example, see this study with almost half a million subjects -http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/full/15/9/1654?ijkey=ac6c97b1ce31ada1c45888d3101fd0b9d5901fe7

And here's another one -http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/18/1/40
the consenus is that aspartame is very safe for human consumption.

Also, I should note that the rodent studies used such extreme dosages that it would be impossible for any human to ingest that amount save from walking around with an IV-drip of pure aspartame 24/7."

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Breakfast... Worst Meal of The Day. Intro to Intermittent Fasting and Meal Frequency


"Doesn't breakfast set your body metabolism for the day?"

Your metabolism gets a 10% boost from food intake, that means if you eat a 800kcal meal, about 80kcal of that goes digesting the food (more or less, protein and fiber cost more). It's called the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF), or thermogenesis.

What you have left is 720kcal.  Compare eating breakfast with skipping breakfast (0 kcal intake), you will get a net gain of 720 kcal with breakfast eating in this scenario.

Food metabolism is different from body-fat metabolism. 1

Carbs in the morning (or anytime) affects your blood sugar.  Our body has many metabolic pathways to regulate sugar/glucose (without food) just fine, Even during exercise. (LIPASE/GLUCOGON). 

In fact, Fatty acid metabolism is highly up-regulated, but muscle catabolism doesn’t occur in short-term fasting for up to 24 hours.

This means if you enjoy burning body fat, skip breakfast and lunch, your metabolism actually INCREASES!
One of the main hormones that stops fat metabolism (and increase fat storage) is insulin (there are plenty more but I won't go there).

When you have insulin in your system, nutrients flows into your fat cells, not out (that's its job).  So in the context of losing body fat, you would want to encourage low insulin level "most time" of the day.

My Favorite Things to Say & General Tips

I don't know where I get these from or how I came up with it but I use it a lot these days.  they are mostly directed at my weight loss clients.

1. Ketone is your super food. 

2. The Lipid Hypothesis is Dead.
3. You lift too light & you lift too often.


4. Coffee is the best cardio.

5. Stop putting crap in your mouth.  You'll never burn calories faster than the food you ingested.

6. No, you're not 10% yet (bodyfat).

7. The reason brown rice is better than white rice for your waistline is because brown rice taste like cardboard which ensure that you won't take more than 2 bites before you throw up everything else... portion control!

8. Enjoy your salt and diet coke.

9. You fail because you got hungry. 
You got hungry because you're not using body fat to fuel you.
You're not burning body fat because you're not reading up on how to turn on fat burning hormones. 
If you read more, maybe then you won't get so hungry.


10. Fat doesn't turn into muscle when you exercise.  Foods turn into fat even if you do.

11. Eat REAL food and drink water, how hard is that? (Paleo)

12. Supplements are not drugs.  Not supplementing in an imperfect world is not natural.  If you want to live naturally in America, you need to supplement!

13. Carbs is not essential, so are crunches and set-ups for getting a six-packs.


14. You lost water, not fat. It'll come back.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Does fiber count as Carbs? What are safe carbs and when to eat them

Will high fiber plant foods help you burn more body fat??

My friend has embarked on a low carbs, low kcal diet for fat loss.  He found an article online that suggest that we should subtract the fiber content from the total carbs content since some fibers can't be digested, therefore does not release calories.... or the hypothesis that it takes the body more energy to digest them, therefore, eating fiber burns more calories

here's the article.
http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/1999/11/01/1700/do-i-subtract-fiber-from-carbohydrates/

The notion that fiber doesn't count as carbs is false.  Almost anything edible we put in our mouth that comes out the other end looking different releases some kinda energy/calories for the body.

Here's my reply to him (with more elaboration)...

high fiber food is great for hunger and sugar/insulin control.  I'd mentioned that any vegetables (other than the starchy ones like corn/beans/carrots/potatoes) shouldn't be counted as carbs on your diet. 

However, it still gives you energy. it's not true that diabetics or the obese should just forget about calories from veggies/high fiber food.  (the best scenario for them is to eat a hypocaloric diet high in fat, moderate protein, and low to zero carbs diet.) 

The reason I recommend you eat veggies at your liberty because i know how inconvenient a complete zero or very low carbs diet can be (in terms of meal texture/variety preparation) and it's probably hard to eat too much of veggies to offset the kcal deficit of the diet overall.  (Unless you're a 5 foot , 120 lb, overweight female who only needs around 700-800kcal a day to meet your essential needs, then eating too much veggie may offset your low kcal/fat loss diet.)

Disclaimer:

Reading any posts or information on/linking from this site means you automatically agree to this disclaimer. I am not a dietitian or doctor, nor claim any cure, treatment, or solution to health or illness problems.