How to start or restart stalled fat loss....

Today's Post:  Friday, 9-21-2012

Jillian Michaels sends out emails that I get with her take on many topics related to fat loss.

She sent one recently about a woman who was doing a good bit of work each week on an elliptical trainer, 50 minutes for 3 to 7 days a week for two months and she said she was keeping her calories per day intake down to 1200 to 1300 calories a day.

Meanwhile she lost no weight on the scale in that two months.

She wanted to know what to do to get more results on the scale.

Apparently she sent or replied to Jillian some other information.

She had not gained anything on the scale either and had asked if she might have lost some fat and gained some muscle.

Jillian offered 3 kinds of advice.

1.  How to be sure she was really keeping her calories that low.

2.  How to exercise in a way that burned more calories.

3.  And, what kind of medical check to get to be sure she had no medical problems preventing her fat loss.

Each of these 3 strategies can be effective for some people.  But it depends on some things not in her answer as well.  And, the information to know that was not in the question posted.

Here’s my take on it step by step.

1.  It’s incomplete to know to cut calories for many, many reasons.  But it’s also common to do many other things that help fat loss and NOT really cut calories at all with zero fat loss as a result.  It’s not enough by itself and tricky to do right.  But cutting net calories IS essential

I should know.  When I finally found out how to add cutting calories to eating healthy and exercising, I also finally lost fat and weight on the scale!

Jillian points out that the woman who wrote in may have been estimating calories and really been eating a lot more because she may have eaten larger portions than the calories per portion listed said she was.  Learning how to do that accurately and keeping a log to ensure no forgotten portions that Jillian suggested can help.

For example, my wife used to work with women who were trying to lose weight who would eat tiny salads for lunch but with no effect.  Meanwhile they were drinking huge soft drinks or snacking on candies every few minutes all day long.  Oops!  Their uncounted snacks and drinks were over half their whole daily calorie intake.

And, I gained back some of the fat I lost by kidding myself I could control the amount of almond butter I ate as an after dinner snack.  When I stopped bringing it home at all, I was able to restart my fat loss.

So Jillian has a good point for many people to be sure there is really some calorie cut back.

This one however is trickier than it looks which I’ll come back to later in this post. Some ways of cutting calories work MUCH better than others!

2.  She is also correct in her comment that finding ways to burn more calories with the exercise the woman does would help.

For example, Jillian recommended adding strength training to the woman’s exercise program.  She also recommended increasing the intensity of the woman’s cardio or trying new kinds of cardio every few weeks.

This is perhaps her best advice of the 3 parts, particularly adding strength training and making her effort gradually go up progressively in her cardio.

If you do strength training where you are beginning to work hard in the sets you do or are doing interval cardio with bursts of gradually more intense effort  during the cardio (interval cardio) AND particularly if you do some of each kind of exercise most days of every week, you get a wonderful fat loss benefit!

You get an incredible double effect. The more intense effort burns more calories during the exercise.  But you also burn extra calories for up to a few hours AFTER the exercise!

For example, if in her 50 minute elliptical trainer sessions, if she can get a clock she can see and do 60 second bursts as fast as she can make it go – or even 20 second ones at first a few times, she will rapidly gain real heart fitness and create this afterburn effect too!  It’s a good idea to get going for a few minutes before the first one and then do one every 10 minutes after that for example.

Another example would be to do a 20 minute session on a day when she doesn’t have time to do 50 minutes but do the fast intervals every 4 minutes so she does. 

I also like a point that Jillian makes elsewhere that you can begin strength training at home with no equipment at all!

You can start with as little as making 3 good faith efforts at doing a push up from your knees to doing 10 of them to 20 of them to 30 of them to 30 of them and one good faith effort at a regular push up from the toes to 5 regular pushups followed by a rest and then 15 half pushups to 25 regular push ups and a rest and 20 half push ups.

You can do the same starting with 2 or 3 quarter squats holding something solid for balance and wind up being able to do 30 full freehand squats.

That routine can be done in less than 10 minutes at home.  It may only take 5 minutes once you can use 45 second rests between the parts instead of 2 minute rests!

3.  There are some medical conditions and drugs that can stall fat loss.

So for some people and particularly for some women, the doctor check up she suggests can help.

For many drugs that tend to fatten or stop fat loss there are drugs for that condition that do not or natural methods you can use or both.

And, you can turn off some of the medical conditions that stall fat loss but ONLY if you know you have them and get effective help stopping them. 

Jillian suggests seeing a competent and board certified endocrinologist to get this checked out.

Such a doctor can review the drugs you take to see if any are on the fattening list and what can be changed.

They can test if you have insulin resistance.  (That one I’ll add some comments on below.)

She also suggests getting checked for PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) and low thyroid levels.

(I’ll also add this:

Some doctors can also help with personalized bioidentical hormone replacement plans for women past menopause.

This plus the health oriented lifestyle you need for permanent fat loss can help you lose more fat plus likely avoid increasing your health risks. 

But you do have to have some time and money and make regular visits to the doctor until you get your program individualized to you.  Plus you have to have such a doctor you can find and afford to visit.

The good news is that if you can, you not only will likely lose more fat and weight, you may dramatically improve your sex life.) 

4.  Cutting calories too much or for too long or both  or doing it without cutting back fattening foods or cutting calories without keeping all the protein foods and nonstarchy vegetables or cutting back a lot to many days a week are all effective ways to slam the door shut on fat loss1

This is the tricky part.

If you get these things wrong, your body thinks you are in a famine and stops you in your tracks.

It holds onto fat even when you lower your calories effectively, it makes you feel less energetic and lazy. You become much hungrier and your metabolism goes down enough to burn that many fewer calories!

This is a total train wreck for fat loss and weight loss.

a)  Some foods make this far more likely. So one great way to lose fat at all and an essential for people with no success or stalled weight loss is to prune them out of your life.

This includes all soft drinks both regular and diet.  It includes any food containing high fructose corn syrup or refined grains.  Whole grains and real sugar also need to be cut back to much less often.

b)  The three food groups that make this LESS likely are health OK protein foods, nonstarchy vegetables, and more moderate amounts of health OK fats and oils.

Protein is essential to prevent the famine response and avoid excess hunger.  Getting enough protein plus strength training tends to prevent the lower metabolism that all people losing fat otherwise get. Protein also turns down your appetite with zero rebound hunger.  (The fattening foods ALL do cause rebound hunger including the diet soft drinks.)

Nonstarchy vegetables have many dramatic health benefits and help you feel full and enable you to NOT eat the fattening foods or eat far less of them.

Lastly, studies found that people losing fat who kept in modest amounts of nuts or avocadoes and extra virgin olive oil lost MORE weight and fat and were far more able to stay on a health supporting eating style that works for fat loss.

c)  People who eat modestly every day but only go super low carb or cut extra two or three days a week lost MORE fat and weight than people who cut back a lot every single day.  Needless to say they also tended to be far better able to keep it up!

So this woman could also do things like stop drinking diet soft drinks and eat more like 1500 calories a day most days but two days a week only eat 1,000 and have that only be protein foods and nonstarchy vegetables.  (Note:  By eating enough of those she won’t be too hungry to do it or keep doing it.  Both kinds of food are filling.  And doing something a bit challenging two days a week that aren’t back to back is dramatically easier than doing harder work all seven days a week plus it’s far easier to keep doing.)

Her net calories avoided per week would be less. But her metabolism would stay up more than enough to counter that and she will find it dramatically easier to keep doing it.

This has been studied and proven to work!