Stuff You Should Know

LIES, LIES, LIES....Stop The Nonsense...."DIETS" Don't Work!

You should know that "DIETS" do not work...period.

Please take a moment to read this. If you read nothing else, this "stuff you should know" could quite possibly be THE MOST important thing you read when it comes to understanding diets, weight loss, and your overall health.

Have you ever heard of the concept, "eat more, not less?"

As a NJ Personal Trainer, I know it probably sounds whacked to you, but there is some important scientific information you need to know before you start shaking your head in disbelief.

If you are tired of being LIED to Read On... If you are the least bit curious about what the Weight Loss and Supplement industry DON'T want you to know, Read On...

There is a common MISCONCEPTION in today's culture that in order to shed unwanted pounds you need to "diet" or "reduce" your caloric intake by severely restricting meals or skipping meals altogether. (Need some proof?? Just look at the cover of a few women's magazazines!)

The TRUTH is... that skipping or severely restricting meals does more harm than good in the attempt to lose weight.

The TRUTH is... in the United States alone, the Weight Loss and Supplement industry raked in over $55 Billion dollars in 2007 of your hard earned money while telling you LIES so they could brainwash you to believe you need their products.

Don't believe that you've been lied to? I invite you to check it out, just like I did.

First, ask yourself ONE question... Did the last weight loss product or service you bought DELIVER the RESULTS you were after?

I already know the answer, but that's ok, because I'm going to shed some more Truth's your way so you can get off the roller coaster of lies, stop wasting your money, stop all the nonsense and finally get the results you crave.

Allow me to help you along with your research...

Supplement companies actually give out false information on purpose! Yes, that's right, you read right. Check this out...

Every major fitness magazine is owned and operated by a supplement company. The bulk of their income doesn't come from magazine subscriptions or newsstand sales, but from the pills and powders they use to pump cash out of your pocket!

Let me be more specific...

The majority of the weight loss information written by "the so-called experts" is complete and total nonsense designed to make you fail, so that you'll continue to rely on their products for results!

RESULTS THAT NEVER COME...

We need to get off the pills, powders, potions, products, magazines, books and just pure crap the weight loss industry is selling us and rely more on what our bodies actually need.

The TRUTH is... If we spent more time doing due dilligence on how our bodies truly function, people would actually get results. You can BANK on that people.

Like for instance, eating more of the things our bodies actually need to sustain itself, let alone lose weight, and less of the foods that cause unwanted weight gain.

When you eat, your body's furnace, the metabolism, turns "ON". If you skip meals, the metabolism slows down tremendously (turns "OFF"), effectively shutting down your body's ability to run effeciently and COMPLETELY shutting down your body's ability to burn fat.

The main concern with skipping meals or 'crash dieting' is that the human body has spent hundreds of thousands of years evolving from the caveman days where often there was not enough to eat. Back in the caveman's days their bodies developed a pretty neat mechanism to deal with these periods of involuntary starvation.

When the body goes into "starvation" mode, it responds as follows:

First our metabolism slows down, which means we use less energy...

Second, the body tries to conserve as much of its energy stores (body fat) as possible. This leads to the body cannibalizing muscle tissue as much as (if not more than) fat reserves in order to provide for its energy requirements, further lowering our metabolic rate.

Lastly, when the starving body finally does get some nutrient & energy intake, it tries to save as much energy as possible for later use, as body fat.

All of these responses were really useful to the caveman trying to survive the period of starvation which occurred as part of the natural cycle of their life, but unfortunately these natural body responses now pose a HUGE problem to the people of today's abundant and affluent western societies attempting weight loss.

Thus, this self-defense presevation mechanism that evolved so many years ago, is still a part of how our body functions today...the BIG difference is, in today's society, there is NO need to go into "starvation" mode, yet so many people are led to believe that in order to lose weight, they need to take a supplement, buy some lame product, go on a "D.I.E.T.", and skip or restrict meals. LIES.

The TRUTH is... when we attempt to manipulate the energy in vs. energy out concept (calories in/calories out) by severely restricting the body's energy intake this causes our natural starvation defense mechanism to kick in, shutting down our bodies natural furnace (metabolism) and cannibalizing lean muscle so our body can continue to get some type of energy to function. When our bodies defense mechanism does this, it makes us "fatter" because muscle tissue is 5x denser than fat tissue, and once our body uses our muscle tissue to function it opens the door for more fat, which slows down the metabolism even further. That my friends is what is known as a "vicious cycle", one you don't need to be on.

Want to INCREASE your metabolism? Build more lean muscle tissue. The only way to do that is exercise and eat regular meals, not starving your body sending it into a tailspin starvation mode.

Let me repeat this...

By severely reducing energy intake we also reduce energy output... for this reason the energy in vs. energy out process CAN NOT be successfully applied for weight loss through DIETING.

And the "kicker" to all this is, when you finally do eat something, your body will greedily store as much energy as it can as fat to get your ready for the next period of 'starvation'. Is this the cycle you want to be on?

The bottom line is that a D.I.E.T.- based weight loss attempt ultimately leaves you fatter than you were before you started!

So what happens then... you buy into the $55 million dollar weight loss and supplement industry for another "solution", and end up disappointed again. You end up spinning your wheels yet again. What are we? Hamsters or people? Get off the wheel of lies and do some research and get the TRUTH about weight loss and dieting.

Ohhh, I know, you don't have a lot of time for research. Because I had a feeling you'd say that and just so you know that I'm not just throwing out some crackpot theory at you, check out this research I've included just for you, because I firmly believe this is "stuff you should know", especially if you truly want RESULTS.

A recent research study published in the American Journal of Physiology, Endocrinology and Metabolism followed 9 young, normal-weight men over a 21 day period.

Over this three week period, the men were fed 40% fewer calories than their bodies needed to maintain body weight. Over the three weeks they had an average weight loss of 3.8 pounds...

BUT GET THIS... Unfortunately 2 pounds of the weight loss came from lean muscle mass, and the subjects metabolic rate dropped approximately 12%. (Friedlander et al., 2005)

There are NUMEROUS other studies which show that people who skip breakfast and eat fewer times during the day tend to be heavier than people who eat a healthy breakfast and eat four or five times a day. Check into it if you have some time. You will be amazed by the TRUTH that scientific research is proving, and you will hopefully be less inclined to fall for all the lies and propoganda that is bandied about everywhere you go.

So if dieting doesn't work what does then?

What works is a very basic formula, an old paradigm of less calories in and more calories out...

Another words, don't just focus on reducing the energy you consume in (as important as that may be), but more on increasing the energy out part of the equation. This is not to say that eating a sensible meal plan is not vitally important, but rather than severely restricting caloric intake like so many diet guru's and diet books tell you, eat 5+ HEALTHY & BALANCED meals to fully supply all of your bodies nutritional needs so that it keeps your metabolism turned "ON" and never gets turned "OFF" into 'starvation mode'.

When you eat an abundance of healthy food, it causes the body to react in the OPPOSITE manor than the lack of food mode. The metabolism speeds up, less energy is stored, and the energy out part of the equation starts to fire up.

Now that you've got your metabolism all fired up with the proper fueling technique, what works next in the quest for safe, natural weight loss is to stimulate your metabolism even further with good old fashioned 'resistance training'.

That's right... spend less time on the treadmill and more time doing some type of weight training. Weight training doesn't mean you have to become a body builder, it means that in order for you to make your metabolism even more effecient in burning energy, you need more muscle tisse, which is your body's main contributor to an increased metabolic rate. While cardiovascular exercise is vital to good health in general and a integral part of a balanced weight loss program, it simply doesn't stimulate your metabolism like a properly designed strength training program does. However, when cardio is mixed with strength training, PLUS a healthy nutrition plan, now you have a very powerful formula to not only shed the weight but get lasting results.

So...stop reading up on the latest diet idea in your magazines... get off the hamster wheel, stop listening to all the LIES that prevail in our popular media, get yourself in to see your doctor, (to get the "A-OK" to start exercising), then make an appointment with your local nutritionist and/or fitness professional. Not only will you be glad you did, but your body will thank you too!