1) How much should I eat?

There have been many formulas designed to figure out how many calories we need everyday.  I actually tried to do the math on one of these equations that took into account more factors than I can even remember.  Luckily, before I got too far involved in making mathematical errors, it dawned on me that all I had to do was look to the almighty internet to find someone to do these calculations for me.  Sure enough within 30 seconds I had a website with a calculator  that did all the work.  The only problem was I had to decide how many hour per day I did activity that was resting, very light, light, moderate, and heavy.  After guessing the best I could at how many hours per day I spent in each of these zones, I finally hit the calculate button and it spit me out a number. 3500 calories.  This is the number deemed to be how many calories I needed to consume per day to maintain my current weight based on all factors and energy expenditure.  It is accepted practice that a mild deficit of 250-500 calories below this number should provide you with pretty steady weight loss.  So that would put me at between 3250 and 3000 calories per day to lose weight.

Pardon me for being skeptical here but something seems amiss.  I have been competing in natural bodybuilding for over 20 years and I can say with great certainty that I personally would not be able to shed much weight at that calorie level.  Not to mention it seems like a very complicated method of getting to a number that I feel is not overly helpful for most people.  Sometimes people assume the more complicated the method to reach a result, the more accurate the result.  I disagree.

I am going to share with you my ultra simple equation for finding starting dieting calorie levels that I have used for the past 20 years.  I have also used these formulas with hundreds of other people with great success.  I should say first though that this equation assumes approx. an hour per day of exercise; weight training 4-5 days per week with cardio vascular work the other 2-3.

First you must know your weight in pounds. Now take that number and if you are a man, multiply it by 15.  If you are a woman multiply it by 14. Now subtract 250 from that number.  Ok your done.  I hope that was not too painful.  Although these method seems over-simplistic I have seen it work for nearly anyone who has given it a try.  The success of this calculation depends on two things though.

1)  You know how many calories you are eating.

2) You don’t lie about how many calories you are eating.

I know it has been said many times to not worry about weighing or tracking your food. It only over-complicates things.  Well maybe that’s true.  Know what else it does though?  It makes people lose fat.  If you need to lose fat and you do not know how much you are eating everyday, you will fail. It has been shown in many studies that people who estimated their consumption typically under estimated (or under-report) by 40-50 percent or more. If your serious about losing fat you will track your calories accurately.  Maintaining your current weight is not hard and probably does not require you to track your food intake.  Coaxing your body to make changes takes a little more effort.   Sorry, but this is titled fat loss realities.

Next post,  what should I eat?

Want me to design a custom eating plan for you? I would be happy to.

The two words “natural” and “organic” are probably some of the biggest marketing buzzwords over the last few years.  If those two words appear anywhere on a label, the consumer has been taught to automatically assume “Healthy”.  So with these two words plastered across cereal boxes and granola bar packages the consumer leads the charge to the cash register confident in the knowledge that the extra money they are doling out is well worth it for their increased health. Most of these products contain 3 or 4 different “natural sweetners” but no actual sugar appears on the label.  If fact the claim “no sugar added” is often emblazoned  across the box.  True, no actual sugar was added. None was needed.  The natural cane extracts and fruit nectars are more than sweet enough, and no less damaging to your waistline than pure white sugar.

One of the latest natural sweeteners to make its appearance  on supposed health food is pure Agave nectar or Agave syrup.  This sweet elixir comes from the blue agave plant, the same plant used to make tequila.  Extracts from the blue agave plant have shown to have anti-inflammatory properties and contain many anti oxidants.  There is no evidence that these health benefits are carried on to the commercially made syrups. Of course that does not stop the syrup from being marketed like it is a proven scientific fact. Since we are speaking of facts, lets look at what we actually know about Agave syrup.

Agave syrup is an amber colored liquid that is thinner than honey and much sweeter than sugar. Many companies promote it as health food because it is gluten free and also is suitable for vegan diets.  The biggest hype about agave is that it scores very low on the glycemic index. This allows it to be marketed as a diabetic friendly sweetener.  This is no small advantage as diabetes is one of the fastest growing diseases in the western world.  Everything here seems to look pretty good.  Like most things, if it looks too good to be true it probably is.

The reason for agave syrups low glycemic index is because it is almost completely fructose (up to 90%). Fructose does not have much effect on blood sugar but  has been shown to have some very metabolically damaging effects on the body when used in high concentrations as a sweetener.  Fructose causes insulin resistance and raises blood triglycerides.  In studies fructose was also linked to increases in belly fat.  All of these factors can lead to the onset of diabetes and heart disease.

If you have read my previous blogs you might be a little confused.  I even wrote a blog titled In defense of fructose. Have I flip flopped on this sweet substance?  No not at all.  As stated in the previous post, fructose in its natural state (fruit) is just fine. The reason for this is the concentration of fructose in fruit is actually quite low. An apple for example is about 7% fructose.  The rest of the apple is made up vitamins, fiber, antioxidants, and probably hundreds of other healthful compounds that we don’t even know about yet.  All of this is put together in perfect combination to make a nutritious healthy food.  When fructose is commercially extracted from fruit (or agave) all of these compounds are stripped away and all that remains in a very high concentration of fructose.  This high concentration is what causes the metabolic problem.  Agave syrup can be up to 90% fructose. Even high fructose corn syrup cannot match that coming in at 55% fructose.

The take home message here is don’t fall for marketing that claims just because something is natural it is healthy.  To be fair a small amount of agave syrup once in a while probably will not do you any harm.  Just don’t convince  yourself that it is healthier than plain old sugar.  if you really want a quilt free sugar fix, grab some fresh fruit.  That is something you can feel good about, no marketing required.

kevin@kevinweiss.com

1) Kevin loves coffee

2) Coffee has no downside

OK I admit it, I am stretching it a little with #2.  Lets revise that statement and say coffee has fewer downsides than many people have been lead to believe by previous studies.  Yes dear reader, I have put coffee in bold letters for a reason. You see many people who swill sweet java by the bucket assume that coffee and caffeine go hand in hand down the merry path to health benefits.  This may not be the case. It seems many of the studies that found positive effects from drinking regular coffee found similar benefit when  decaf was used. To quote Mr. smarty pants professor Rob van Dam from Harvard “Most of the benefits associated with coffee are not attributed to caffeine.” It seems the beverage, regular or decaf, contains antioxidants and quite a number of vitamins and mineral.

So lets review.  Coffee good, caffeine bad.  Well its not quite that black and white.  In my over 25 years of bodybuilding caffeine remains near the top of my list of substances that I believe  actually does something.  Although it will contribute very little to your bulging biceps and six pack abs directly, the mood boosting effects alone make it worth the minuscule price. Muscle is built and fat is lost by long term intensity and effort in the gym.  If a double espresso helps you haul your carcass into the gym at 5 am or after a mind numbing 10 hour day  of  working for the man (I am either too old or too young to know what that even means) I say bottoms up, As long as you are not going to get overly sensitive on me.  Follow me a little further down this rabbit hole Alice.

Some people should never or rarely have caffeine.  I am not talking about the obvious candidates like pregnant women, people with anxiety disorders, or high blood pressure issues. I am talking about normal healthy people who have one cup of coffee in the afternoon and can’t sleep until Halley’s comet makes it next appearance. Even researchers that came out very pro coffee recommended people monitor intake and evaluate how they react to the stimulant.  If you experience symptoms of jitteriness, anxiety, tremor, or difficulty sleeping, even with small amounts, caffeine is not for you. Some people are so sensitive that they can experience migraine like symptoms from the smallest amounts. NO COFFEE FOR YOU!  Unless its decaf of course.

Another group that should limit or avoid caffeine is children and teenagers. Somewhat surprising is the fact that this age group is one of the largest consumers of the stimulant.  With the massive consumption of soft drinks, frappuccinos, and energy drinks among todays younger generation, the amount of caffeine that can be ingested in a day is staggering. Daniel Evatt of the department of psychiatry  at John Hopkins University School of Medicine had this to say about young people high intake of caffeine. “They already have enough ups and downs with emotions as it is; when you add caffeine into the mix, its a problem. Their bodies are just not equipped to handle it.” He also notes that energy drinks are regulated as supplements. This means unlike soft drinks there is no limit on how much caffeine they can contain. Many of these drinks can contain 2-3x the amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee, and because they taste sweet this only ups the consumption. You would think with all this extra energy these drinks are suppose to provide they  would have enough energy to pull their pants ups!  Scene shoots to me, sitting on the porch, shaking my fist at the young whippersnappers in the neighborhood.

OK lets wrap this up.  My stance on coffee has not changed. I sip on one while I write this. I should say, like everything else in life, moderation is key. I am one of those individuals who has really no sensitivity to caffeine. I can drink coffee a couple hour before bed and sleep just fine. Some say this is because I have become immune to the effects of caffeine.  Maybe that is true.  My point is I have no noticeable negative side effects.  Also I almost never drink soda or energy drinks. My caffeine comes from black coffee. No studies have ever found any health benefit from where a large percent of the caffeine is consumed.  So if you enjoy a cup or two in the morning or one before your workout, good for you. Continue on quilt free.  If you are some one who does not tolerate caffeine, its OK.  We can still be friends. I will order you a decaf. If you want a frappaccino I might have to rethink our friendship though.

kevin@kevinweiss.com

I have always enjoyed dark, strong coffee. I have never drank it any other way but black and the blacker the better.  I believe it is properly referred to as “bold”. I don’t really care what it is called, all I know is I like it, I want it, got to have it.

This type of talk about a substance seems to border almost on obsession or addiction to some and I guess I would have to agree. If you have to have something everyday to be happy you are probably addicted to it.  I can accept that.  I am not sure it warrants a room full of my friends and family telling me how it has negatively affect my relationships with them, but it is an addiction all the same.

Like most addicts I have always been able to justify to myself why I needed coffee and how it was not that big of a deal.  I turned a blind eye to any study that shone a negative light on coffee  or caffeine and always held steadfastly to the belief that it was not a harmful as it was made out to be.  I even preached to people about how coffee was not the problem, it in fact was the sweeteners and coffee whitener or cream that was doing all the harm.  This of course is a very convenient stand for some who only drinks black coffee to take. It was also based on nothing more than my own self serving imagination.

While I pay no heed to any studies that find negative effects from coffee,  I embrace the studies that show the positive.  There has been quite a few of them lately actually so I want to hurry up top my soapbox and shout them to the masses before the new batch of studies comes out that disproves everything the last study established.

It seems all this time coffee has gotten a bad rap because of the crowd it keeps. Regular coffee drinkers generally seemed to be people who did not get enough sleep, smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol, and overall led a less health conscious lifestyle. Rob van Dam, an assistant professor at the Harvard School Of Public Health, claims early studies that linked coffee with such conditions as heart disease and cancer did not take into account these other lifestyle factors. When larger more long term studies were conducted, no evidence was found that coffee had any effect on mortality rates from any cause including cardiovascular disease and cancer. Some of the subjects in the long term studies drank up to 6 cups per day (lightweights).

Van Dams research also found that coffee drinkers had reduced risk of liver disease and Type 2 diabetes. A recent study published in the Archives Of Internal Medicine suggested that 3-4 cups of coffee per day might reduce the chances of Type 2 diabetes by roughly 25 percent.

Harvard researchers found that drinking coffee might lower mens risk of developing aggressive prostate cancer by up to 60%.  The men who drank the most coffee seemed to receive the most benefit. Other studies have also shown coffee consumption can reduce your risk of ailments like Alzheimers, Parkinsons, dementia,colon and endometrial cancer and gallstones. Coffee has also been shown to improve mental and aerobic performance,endurance and mood, while decreasing depressive symptoms.

Sweet vindication!!  This black gold is nothing short of a miracle elixir!  I knew I was right all along and there is only one thing I like more than coffee and thats being right.  Ok back to reality.  Although the benefits of coffee have been well established just like anything else there is two sides to this story.  In my next blog I will discuss the other side to this coin and show why some people should avoid coffee all together, or at least some types of coffee. Until then enjoy that cup of coffee. I know I will.

kevin@kevinweiss.com

Being in the business of fat loss, this could be a very lucrative time for me.  I know with a little marketing, I could sell dozens of 8 and 12 week “quick and easy” fat loss programs.  I could even put a 100% money back guarantee on it to sweeten the deal.  How could people resist!  ” I can be in shape by spring and if not I get my money back?  How can I lose?  Where do I sign?”

The thing is some people would lose weight.  Some would not.  The only thing I can can guarantee is I would not be giving any money back.  Not because I am a shady SOB but because any short term weight loss program with a 100% money back guarantee has one requirement.  The program must be followed exactly as laid out for as long as specified.  Miss one meal, one workout, eat 2 green beans more than specified, “Sorry  you did not follow the program, thats why you did not lose weight, not my fault”.

The same goes for weight loss supplements.  Many have money back guarantees  but in the fine print you will see that a specific diet and training program must be followed. If not, too bad, your fault not mine. Next please.

This may seem like a very glum message for the beginning of a new year but it is not meant to be.  Here is the brighter side.  You don’t need New Years resolutions to set you on track.  You don’t need quick and easy diet and training programs or magic weight loss supplements.  Everything you need to lose fat, gain muscle, or improve your performance is already in you.  That “secret” ingredient is desire for change.  I am not just talking about wanting to make a change. I am talking about a deep burning desire to change your current physical situation. If you simply would like to make a change, the first slip up or tough situation will surely derail your efforts and put your right back on the path you have already been on for so long.  If you truly desire change, little slip ups and roadblocks still happen, but they become obstacles to overcome, not excuses to fail.

I would like to end with this one simple thought.  Anybody that has ever attempted  a goal or tried to conquered a demon has slipped and fallen.  Success belongs to the ones who keep getting up.

P.S.

Happy New Year Everyone

Kevin

kevin@kevinweiss.com

If your goal is to lose fat in the most time efficient way possible  you need to do something that expends maximum calories in minimum time. Makes sense right?  Well then why are most people that are trying to lose fat doing things that they are very efficient at. Remember if you are efficient at an exercise you will burn less calories per unit of time. It does not take long to get efficient at walking or running. If it  did  golfer would be some of the leanest athletes around. This is usually not the case.

The golfer that are lean do not get that way from all the walking and swinging they do. They usually  1) are young  2) workout with weights. The PGA actually has a workout trailer at all of their events and most of the players that are in shape have trainers they work with on a regular basis.

I am sure we have all seen the people that occupy the treadmills and spin bikes at the gyms day in and day out. Many of them religiously put in their 1-2 hours everyday but look no different than they did a year ago. They have become very efficient at that movement. Their body no longer needs to adapt so it doesn’t.

If I wanted to expend a huge chunk of calories over a given period of time a great exercise for me would be swimming. Now before you jump all over me and say that swimming is a endurance activity that is all about efficiency, trust me I know that.  I also know I am about as efficient in the water as a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. I don’t so much swim as try not to drown really. Someone that is a excellent swimmer could do dozens of laps in the time it takes me to do 2 lengths. They would be fresh as a daisy, I would be on the verge of cardiac arrest.  If I took swim lessons and practiced every day soon I would be able to do lap after lap as well.  This would be ideal if I wanted to be a swimmer. Since I am interested in body composition, becoming efficient at swimming would mean I am doing too much of it and need to do something else. That or tie a rock around my neck and proceed to fight for my life once again.

Practice makes perfect and that is what you are doing when you are doing a repetitive activity for a long time. You are practicing.  If you hit 1000 golf balls, you are practicing to become a better golfer, If you run 10 hours a week you are practicing to become a better runner. If that is your goal great.  If your goal is to look your best, try practicing something you are not good at, and change it often.  Have a great day.

kevin@kevinweiss.com

If we cannot count on the people and companies who produce the foods we eat to watch out for our waistlines and health, who can we count on?  Where does the responsibility lie for making sure what we are consuming on a daily basis is serving our ultimate well being?  Is it the government agencies who have established the RDA’s?  No I don’t think so.  The fact is they have as much interest in your health as the food producers. Their interests lie more in making sure you consume lots of the products that are subsidized by government like corn, wheat, and soy. How you consume these products and in what form is secondary to the fact that you consume them, a lot of them.

If we can’t count on big business or government to make unbiased healthy food choices for us, who do we turn to? Who should make the final decisions on what goes into our mouths and how it is going to affect our “bottom line”? Guess what? It is that person staring back at you in the mirror.

Maybe nobody wants to hear it but if you are overweight or unhealthy it is  mostly if not completely your fault. Nothing affects your bodyfat levels and your health more than what you eat. Exercise is a close second but without proper eating on a consistent basis you will ultimately gain weight and lose your health.

Making healthy food choices can seem like a pretty daunting task in todays world. Everywhere we turn there are foods of convenience that, lets face it, everybody knows are not good food choices. You don’t need a degree in nutritional science to figure out french fries and ding dongs for dinner is not a good call.  But what about all the products that are have the words “natural” and “healthy” and “organic”  screaming across the packaging. Surely these must be good choices.  These term are really meaningless and are far more about getting you to buy the product than contributing to your health. The very fact that these products are in a package nearly guarantees they are not all they are cracked up to be. “Organic” or “whole grain” ding dongs are still crap and they will still make you fat. End of story.

Here is a simple way to evaluate foods. Test the food against these 3 rules and if it passes, its in your basket, if it fails its out.

1) Is it a food or a food product.

Most of the contents of any grocery store is not food but rather food products. Taking a whole food and processing it into another product typically removes any goodness the original food contained. As an example lets use oats. Oats on its own is a highly nutritious food with lots of fiber, vitamins, minerals, and a good source of slowing digesting carbohydrate.  All things conducive to a lean and healthy body.  Take those whole large flakes of oats and grind it into a flour, remove the fiber so you have a nice fine consistency,  bleach it so it is all the same color, add sugar, salt and a host of other preservatives, form it into a shape appealing to the eye and put it in a box. Now you have a whole grain oat cereal. Because studies have shown that oats can reduce cholesterol and reducing cholesterol may prevent heart disease lets put a government approved heart healthy badge on it just for good measure. It should be easy to see although these foods both contain oats, that is where the similarities end. This actually leads right into the next rule.

2)Does it have more than 5 ingredients.

The more processed a food is the worse it is going to be for your health and your waistline.  The more processed the food the more ingredients will be added to ensure that product can stay on the shelf longer without spoiling. The longer it can stay on the shelf, the more profit is made because of factors like central manufacturing,shipping, and storage facilities. A loaf of wonderbread can be shipped across the country, sit on the shelf in a warehouse or in the store for days or weeks, and still be sold as soft and white as the day it was made. It also has over 20 ingredients, most of which no one but a chemical scientist would even know what they were, that ensure it will remain soft and white for a long time. Try leaving a loaf of homemade whole grain bread on your counter for a week and see what happens. Hope you are not allergic to penicillin.

Ideally it would be nice to pick foods that only have one ingredient.  A whole apple contains apple, a steak contains steak for example. This is not always possible though.  If you make a effort to fill your cart with as little “ingredients” as possible and stick to food, you will be way ahead of the game. No need to count calories or gram of protein or carbs. Try counting ingredients. Its easier and it works.

3)Could I pick it, dig it from the ground, or chase it down.

This is the simplest rule of all but it is also very effective.  You can put any food to this test and if it passes you are pretty much guaranteed a wise choice.  You can pick apples, dig potatoes or carrots from the ground, or chase down a chicken.  There is no Apple Cinnamon Cheerio tree, no french fries in the garden, and no chicken nuggets, or tofurkey running around in the barnyard.  All of these products started out as whole foods but after processing they are now products.  See rule 1.

Using these guidelines to chose your food takes out most of the guess work and make counting calories a thing of the past. No eliminating foods based on macro-nutrient profile but instead eliminating “non nutrient food”.  Give it a try. Your health and your waistline will thank you.

Have a custom diet designed for you

kevin@kevinweiss.com

Essentially what was trying to be achieved by all of these indexes was 3 things:

1. control insulin secretion and stabilize blood sugar levels.
2. control calories
3. control hunger

These are 3 important things in my opinion if dropping bodyfat is your goal.  All 3 of these factors go hand in hand as well. Keeping your blood sugar stable throughout the day will control your hunger so you eat less calories overall. If you eat fewer calories than your body burns you will be in a deficit and will lose fat. Sounds pretty simple, and it actually is.  You just have to chose foods (or eliminate foods) based on one single question.

• How processed is this food?

Processing food essentially prechews, predigests, and preserves it.  Processing also removes water from a food and replaces it with fat, usually a saturated or trans fat so it will keep on the shelf longer.  Processing usually strips most if not all of the fiber out of the food, and adds salt and other “spices” (MSG is classified as a spice).  All of these things make the food taste better.  Unfortunately all of the processes cause a food have a greater impact on insulin secretion, allow us to eat more before we realize we are full, and cause use to be hungry again soon after eating.

Lets use the simple potato as an example of how processing affects a food and how that affects you.  A baked russet potato has next to no processing. It has been washed (it better be anyway) poked a few times and baked.  A 7.5oz potato has 168 calories, 0.2 g of fat and 4 g of fiber. If we go to the extreme end of processing,  potato chips,  a 7.5 oz serving has 1123 calories, 67.5 g of fat and 7.5 g of fiber.  Nearly all of the additional calories in the chips are from fat. That is because the water in the potato that has zero calories has been replaced with fat that contains 9 calories per gram.  This is a very extreme example, but lets compare baked french fries that you buy and prepare at home.  They are just cut up potato that is frozen right?  What’s the difference between that and a whole potato?  Well all you have to do is flip them both over and read the ingredients.  I had a hard time finding the ingredients label on the potato but I am going to go out on a limb and say it contains “potato”.   The bagged frozen potato contained  not less than 10 ingredients, Potatoes, Sunflower Oil, Batter (Wheat Flour, Modified Starch (Maize, Tapioca), Rice Flour, Salt, Corn Starch, Natural Colours (Turmeric Extract, Paprika Extract))  A 7.5 oz serving of these potatoes was 365 calories. More than double what an actual potato is.  This of course does not include any oil you use in the cooking process and anything you add afterwards.  Also of note, if you cooked and broke one of these fries open, it was obvious that the rough, starchy, consistency of a potato was not there. It was more like it had been mashed to almost a liquid and then pressed into its current shape. Your body has to do very little to break these “potatoes” down, they almost melt in your mouth. Like they had already been pre chewed. This makes it very easy for you to eat a tremendous amount of calories in no time. A high intake of easily digested food spikes your blood glucose and causes a insulin spike to deal with the sugar in the blood steam. Once the insulin has dealt with the glucose you become hungry again.  The less food you eat and the longer it takes to digest the more stable your blood sugar remains and the lower the insulin response.

There are many other factors I consider when I design a fat loss diet for a client, like individual lifestyle factors, macronutrient breakdown, and portion size, but people can make tremendous progress just by eliminating processed foods as much from their diets as possible.  We need to worry about the elephant in the living room crapping on the floor instead of the dust on the blinds. Try this the next time you go grocery shopping. Try to buy as many things as possible with no label.  The things you do buy with labels, try the limit the ingredient list to 3 or less.  You might be surprised how different you cart looks going through the checkout. In a short time you might be surprised how you look to.

kevin@kevinweiss.com

The Satiety Index

“The Satiety Index of Common Foods”, was published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, September 1995. In this study, the researchers fed human test subjects fixed-Calorie portions of thirty-eight different foods, and then recorded the subjects’ perceived hunger following each feeding.
The results of this study clearly indicated that certain foods are much better than others for satisfying hunger. The researchers used white bread as their reference point, and arbitrarily assigned it a “Satiety Index” of 100. Foods that did a better job of satisfying hunger were given proportionately higher values, and foods that were less satisfying were assigned lower values. Among the most satisfying foods they tested were plain boiled potatoes, raw fruits, fish, and lean meats. Subjects that consumed the prescribed portion of these foods were less likely to feel hungry immediately afterward. Foods that did the poorest job of satisfying hunger included croissants, donuts, candy bars, and peanuts.

It is interesting to note that the food that scored by far the best for satisfying hunger was boiled white potato (a high GI food). It scored a whopping 323!  Now Don’t use this as an excuse to gobble down french fries.  They only scored 116. Also some of the foods that scored the worst for satisfying hunger, like peanuts (84 SI), are low GI (14 GI).

It is very easy to see that comparing foods across these various indexes gives very different results.  Many foods that would be shunned because of their high GI look not so bad under the GL scale and even better under the SI. The opposite is also true.

Choosing foods that satisfy you faster is certainly a step in the right direction when it comes to dropping bodyfat, but it is not the only factor. Relying on indexes to tell you what foods to eat can be tedious and quite honestly a pain in the ass.   In the next post I will finally bring this all together and show how you can choose foods that will get you going towards your fat loss goals, no index required.