P90X

by | Jan 11, 2013 | Exercise, Fat Loss, Low carb diet, Weight Loss | 0 comments

Below is a copy of the post at Jimmy Moore’s where I commented on regarding exercise while on a low carb diet

 

Here’s what greggers19 said:

Has anyone tried to do the P90X workouts while on a low carb, high fat diet? I am starting it today but wanted to know if someone on here has done it before and what to expect. I’ve done P90X before but it was when I wasn’t low carb, and I saw mild results, I wonder why ha. 

Thanks, Greg

 

My comment:

Hi greggers19,

I have to tell you, you’ll find some seriousrly brilliant resulsts if you do any type of exercise when you’re on a low carb diet. I remember when I first started low carb, I used to be a body builder and I would spend anything up to an hour and half, 4 or 5 times a week doing a number of sets. Now the concensus of opinion among many in the bodybuilding arena is that you can’t do low carb when you’re doing weight training. They says it zaps your energy.

Well, after a  few, maybe 6 weeks on low carb, the most amusing thing was is that towards the end of my time at the last gym I was at, the trainer used to follow me around and he couldn’t believe that I was doing the same sort of weights in the time I was doing them in, mind you, at that time, neither could I. So as ecocarnivore has said,  any exercise program works on low carb, I would change it, just slightly, any exercise program works better on low carb.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Lifetime of dieting is the new weight loss plan

by | Jan 9, 2013 | Fat Loss | 0 comments

Here is a copy of my comment on a recent post on Jimmy Moore’s about low carb diet

Jimmy Moore Wrote:

The sooner people seek out and find the lifestyle change that is right for them, the sooner they will shed the pounds, get healthy and stay that way forever. That’s not to say there won’t be bumps along the way, but you can put yourself in a much better position when you’re educated and aware of what is happening to YOU!

My Response:

I would, not unusually of course, agree with Jimmy on this. You can indeed put yourself in a much better position when you’re educated, aware and take responsibility for what is happening to you. So many times, people put the responsibility for what goes on with their physical bodies in the hands of other people; oftentimes using the excuse that “they’re the professionals, they should know what’s best for me”, whilst it may be nice to think that, that is unfortunately, not the reality. While they may be professionals, most of the time, the people that we see about our health are generalists and many of them don’t have the time or even the information to find out about the specialized things that we are actually seeing them about, on a day to day basis. They won’t have the time to research such things as low carb diet, a low carb way of eating or even a low carb lifestyle. They won’t be aware of the changes that go on in the body and the way the body works when we eat a low carb type of diet. They will only, really, be aware that a low carb diet is so different from what is considered to be a normal diet that it must be wrong.

As LLL has said, everybody does indeed need to figure out what works for them but in order to figure that out, people need to be educated. Now, obviously, the responsibility of being educated or to become educated rests with those people but the responsibility to make sure that good knowledge, good understanding about a sustainable way of eating is available, rest entirely upon our shoulders.  It’s beholden to us to make sure that we ourselves continue to educate ourselves so that we in turn can give a consistent and sound, helpful amount of education to those who are just starting out along the path that we are already a fairway along.

After over a decade of being fit and healthy, and once I was a big blob, it still takes me off when people I’ve known for a long time say to me, “Oh you’re still on that diet? Still, it must be doing you good?” I respond with restrained note in my voice, “No, I’m not on a diet. I’ve never been on a diet. I just found out how to eat properly and look after my body in a responsible manner.”

Mark

Questions Concerning The Zone Diet – So Confused

by | Jan 9, 2013 | Fat Loss, Low carb diet, Weight Loss | 0 comments

This is a copy of a certain post on forum.lowcarber.org  that I have replied to about Zone Diet

Rick said:

First, I know you do not have to count calories on The Zone as long as you follow the blocks. But, I checked for how many blocks I am supposed to have and it is 19 blocks. I am a male 5’11” and weigh 441.2. So, according to the block calculation (since the calculator won’t do it for me), I am to assume 50% body fat and 50% lean which means that I have 220.6 lean body mass. I multiply that by .6 which gives me 132.36 grams of protein. When I divide that by 7, I end up with 18.9 blocks. So, 19 blocks. 

Here is my concern. When I did low carb a few years back, I had trouble losing weight. I found out that I wasn’t eating enough. I was eating around 1500 calories and I needed to be eating close to 3000 calories. I have also heard this even after I quit low carbing. So, that got me to calculating. 19 blocks of protein is 7 grams per block (133 grams). Since each gram of protein is 4 calories, then that means the calories for protein is approx. 532. Carbs are 9 grams per block making 19 blocks 171 grams. Since each gram is 4 calories, that calculates to 684 calories. Fat contains 19 blocks with 1.5 grams per block making the total grams 28.5 grams. Since fat is 9 calories per gram, this equals 256.5 calories.

When I add the calories for each, I get a total of 1,472.5 calories. This is less than half of what I was told before I needed and what I am being told that I need now. On top of that, I am being told (and was told when I was on low carb before) that I at least need to eat my BMR which is 2550. But, it is recommended I eat 20% less than my TDEE which would be 3,775 calories. I know the story about the I think it was 1700 pancakes and that your body gets its extra calories from the excess fat. I agree it will do that. But, I also have experienced my body stalling because I wasn’t eating enough.

What also concerns me is the protein amount. Even all the other low carb programs tell me I need at least 1 gram per pound of lean body mass which would be around 221 grams. That is 60% more than The Zone is telling me I need. I am being told that if I don’t each enough protein, that I will lose muscle mass which I don’t want to do. 

So, here is what my question boils down to. Has anyone who was morbidly obese and had to lose over 100 pounds ever monitored your lean body mass while on The Zone? Did you follow the guidelines provided or did you increase your intake? Did you lose lean body mass while doing this? 

I need something that is going to sustain me for life and I am concerned that this may not be sustainable for me since the calories are so low and I may not be able to keep up with it. In other words, I am so confused because I really don’t know what the truth is.

I replied:

Hi Rick,

Yeah, I do know where you’re coming from. I was quite a big lad before I decided to lose weight. The thing that most people tend to forget is that, the bigger we are, the more our body needs to keep going. As Seejay had said below, the Zone diet was developed for people, who are in no way, is as big as you and I are, or were in my case.

The other thing I’ve discovered about the Zone diet is that it’s very complicated when compared to other diets such as Atkins. Having lost weight myself, a considerable amount of weight, I should add, with a much simpler diet, I can unreservedly recommend that you change the diet that you’re on now. As Nancy LC had said below, that the Zone diet is, at heart, a low calorie diet, I think you’d b pleasantly surprised if you do change. Not just that you will feel more satisfied by what you eat, but also, you will feel what you’re body feels as the pleasure of being a slim and  fit person becomes more and more a reality.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Ladies and Gentlemen over 60 Continued

by | Jan 9, 2013 | Carbs, Fat Loss, Food Choices | 0 comments

This is a post from Pam, a 62-year-old lady, about carbs which I have replied to over at forum.lowcarber.org

Pam’s post:

I will soon be 62 and still find my weight struggles continue. I have done LC over and over for the past 20 years. I am successful when I limit my carbs to 30 or less/day, but I find it difficult not to give in to the carbs when I’m stressed or happy or when the wind is blowing…I need some support and encouagement as I’m sure many of us do. The older I get the easier it is to resign myself to being overweight. But I know for the sake of my health it is more important than ever.

***************

My advice:

Hi Pam!

Yes, I know exactly how you feel. I find it hard to keep away from the carbs as well and have done, really, ever since I started low carbing myself, but after a while, I realized this was as much down to habits as anything else so I started to have a look at what these habits of mine were and how I could break them.

 I believe the answer is actually quite simple, if I didn’t have carbs in the house then I couldn’t eat them. So what I did was in effect, was change the way I shopped. I no longer bought any items that had high carb to them thinking “I can resist, and anyway other people in the household would like to eat them”; instead I left them in the shop which is exactly where they should be rather than in my cupboard only later to be in my stomach.

So my advice would simply be “if you don’t buy it then you won’t have it at home to eat it”.

Hope that helps,

Mark

How To Avoid Regaining Your Lost Fat

by | Jan 8, 2013 | Cravings, Fat Loss, Sensible Eating | 0 comments

Here is a recent post at Foodblogforum.com that I have responded to regarding fat loss and how to avoid gaining it back again

Grace wrote:

How To Avoid Regaining Your Lost Fat Losing weight is one of the toughest tasks. You have to sweat out to lose a considerable amount of weight. In fact, sweating out is not the only thing you have to do, you may have to do many other things as well. If you managed to lose weight, then you should consider yourself lucky and you should thank yourself for putting the required effort and time.

However, you could not afford to relax after shedding your body weight. You should not consider the weight loss forever. After losing the weight, you may regain the same. The chance of regaining is very high as well. Then, is there any way out to avoid regaining the lost weight? Yes, if there are ways to lose weight then ways are there to stop regaining the lost weight.

***************

I responded:

Grace is right, we can’t afford to relax after we’ve lost a lot of weight. In fact, we should remain vigilant and still eat the same way that we ate in order to lose the weight in the first place. After all, like she says, the chance of regaining weight is quite high if we go back to the old ways of eating, that’s obviously given.

But frankly, there is something that we should all look at. That is simply, why did we gain weight in the first place. If that hasn’t been tackled then it will be far too simple for us to get back into old habits. Let me give you an example, I gained weight because I was in a bad relationship and I was simply comfort-eating. It wasn’t until I faced up to the fact that the lady I was with at that time was causing me more emotional turmoil than emotional gain and did something about it that I could go on to successfully change the way I was eating and therefore start to lose weight and keep the weight off.

So, in addition to what Grace has already said, I would encourage you to simply look at why you put on weight in the first place, deal with that and then you will find both weight loss and keeping fit and trim far more easy now and in the future.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Can’t eat “this much” meat? It’s not what you think

by | Jan 8, 2013 | Fat Loss, Food Choices, Portion Sizes | 0 comments

Here is a copy of the a post I replied to at Active Low-Carber Forums about eating meat

WereBear wrote: 

So often, new low carbers find themselves eating more meat than they have in years.

For many, this is simply permission to eat as they have always wanted. For others, especially those who have been avoiding meat for whatever reason, it becomes a wrenching transition. It’s very tempting to conclude that we are “natural” vegetarians, or that “they” were right, meat isn’t good for us! or that low carbing is not going to “work” for us.

But that might not be what is really going on. We embarked on low carbing because we wanted to change things; our weight, our health, our moods. More change, not less, is what we need to embrace.

**************

This was my reply:

Having just finished my delicious breakfast of eggs and bacon, I have to say I’m in a very good mood and totally agree with WereBear. Yes, she is right, portion size does play a huge part in retraining the way we eat and I find myself continually surprised at how little food satisfies me nowadays especially when I remember eating huge portions of pasta only to be hungry a few hours later and yes, I do love eating meat now. Yet even after I switched to the low diet way of eating, I too found I was still bloated on occasion and that did cause me some concern for quite a while. It was only when I  went back to basics that I really discovered that not only my enzymes were out of balanced but also my stomach bacteria was totally out of balanced  through years of eating pap and useless nutrition.

So being the studious chap that I am, I pulled out all of my notes on how the digestive system works and got stuck into finding the most effective cure for me; and I found it was simply a course of complete probiotics that not only brought my problem with bloating into a swift conclusion, as in the space of three to four days I had a normal stomach again and I have to say, felt much better within myself. I also supplemented for a while with enzymes and I do sometimes go back to those just to make sure that everything is talked up as it should be.

So for my experience, there you have it, if you deal with the enzymes, you deal with your bacteria and as WereBear had suggested, you take account of your stomach acid, you should find that your low carb journey is exactly as it should be, free of problems with your stomach and digestion and free to eat exactly what you know you should be eating.

Hope that helps,

Mark