eating less and moving more works.. right?

Disclaimer: Insert the usual one in here.. I'm not a scientist and I'm not going to site anything because this is all stuff that I have picked up over the years and I am writing this free form. No books in front of me. If you want to call me out on it, call me out, but either way, I suggest you go check out the facts for yourself. You'd be amazed at what happens when you think critically and figure shit out for yourself.

"If I eat less and move more, then I'll lose weight!" Unfortunately, no. That's what we'd all like to believe though. That's great on paper, but the human body is a lot more complicated than that. The laws of thermodynamics don't apply 100% when it comes to calories and "burning more than you consume" I know some fucking physics nerd is going to call me out, so let me explain. There are 4 different macro nutrients that our body can use as fuel. Each one consisting of a different make up of Hydrogen, Oxygen and Carbon atoms. The four macro nutrients are alcohol, fat, protein and carbohydrates. (Believe it or not, alcohol is the preferred source for energy in the human body, but I'll explain later.) Each of these macro nutrients takes a certain amount of energy to break down because each one had a different chemical structure. Also, except for carbs and protein, which are both 4 calories per gram, they all have different energy expenditures, fat being about 9 calories per gram and alcohol being 7 calories per gram. (I say about 9 for fats because it can be different, for example, medium chain triglycerides can be about 5-7 calories per gram.)

Now, lets talk about alcohol briefly before I get into the main 3. You're body actually prefers to burn alcohol for energy. I don't remember exactly why, but I do know that to be the truth (check it out for yourself if you don't believe me, I'll wait). My guess, its just easier to break down. I mean, the rate at which the body metabolises alcohol is pretty quick. This is why people get beer guts though. This is why I became a 315lb tub of goo. When you drink, especially in mass quantity, your body pretty much stops metabolizing everything but alcohol. So if you're going on an all night bender and then eating disco fries (french fries with cheese and gravy for all my non-Jersey friends) then your body is going to store that until it stops metabolising the alcohol, and then , it'll probably do a shitty job of metabolizing that. If you're anything like me, after a bender, whether you had a huge meal before bed or not, you want something greasy for breakfast before you go back to bed and become useless for the next 24-48 hours. So all those calories are just stored while your body is still burning the midnight oil, or alcohol. Case in point, if you're going to be an athlete or someone dedicated to an awesome physique, keep the booze to a minimum... if you can drink and still maintain an awesome body, well then fuck you because I'm jealous.

Ok, now on to the other three macros. The next one I'm going to talk about is protein. I know, this all seems like a repeat of my food guide pyramid rant, but I want to get into a little more depth. Protein is the end all be all of awesomeness. It builds bodies to be strong, fast and.... awesome. It is used for millions of functions in the human body. I'm not even going to write a list of things it does because, it'll just take forever. Protein only has a caloric value of 4 calories per gram, but it takes a lot of energy for the body to digest and use protein. This is why all of us stupid meatheads eat tons of it. Not only does it build us up, but a high protein meal actually takes more energy to digest, leaving us feeling fuller, longer, or what we like to call "satiated". This is where the laws of thermodynamics begin to get sketchy in the human body, but lets move onto the other 2 macro nutrients before we bring everything together.

Next up, is carbohydrates... the evil villain... well, not really. As much as I may seem to hate these little fuckers, I don't. I hate the way that our government and "nutrition experts" have lied to us about their importance and benefits. I mean, I can't believe that they are still preaching the same diet they have been for the last 40 years in college nutrition classes, when any 101 level biochemistry student should be able to tell you that it just doesn't make any sense scientifically. Any who, carbohydrates are an important macro nutrient for people who are VERY active. For the common man, not so much. Like I said in the food guide pyramid rant, despite popular belief, carbohydrates are virtually an unnecessary macro nutrient. We don't need them to live day to day. Am I saying to not eat any? Not at all, but if you're not an athlete training to perform optimally, your carbs shouldn't come from anything but fruits and veggies (and dairy if you can handle it). That doesn't mean you can't indulge in some pastries every once in a while, but the idea that if you eat a bagel with nothing on it is taking a right step in the direction toward being a healthy human is fucking stupid. The idea that eating whole grains, a food that we can not eat in its raw form and must be milled and processed for us to eat, is stupid. Carbohydrates are made up of sugars, starches and cellulose and as a whole are what can be referred to as saccharides, or "sugars". There are different types of saccharides, and if you haven't been living in a cave for the past couple years, you've probably heard about the difference between simple sugars and complex carbohydrates. Really, I look at these as marketing ploys more than anything else. Sure, there are complex carbohydrates which take longer to digest and empty into the intestines, but any of them will spike insulin, it all becomes glucose once broken down and they're all bad in abundance, so in my eyes, its all the same, Anyway, carbs have an caloric make up of 4 calories per gram, just like protein, but here's the thing. When you ingest carbs, which virtually require no energy to digest, you're body releases insulin. Insulin's job is to shuttle carbs out of the blood stream and into either muscles or fat cells. When you eat an abundance of carbs, like we've been told to do our whole lives, you're body keeps releasing more and more insulin, especially if you eat them without fat or protein. After a while, your body becomes insulin resistant, meaning that it can no longer do its job of utilizing carbs correctly. This is when people have an elevated level of sugar in the bloodstream (which is extremely dangerous) and they start storing the sugar as fat. That's when we get into adult onset diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, etc. So to sum up, if you're not pushing your body to the limits, an abundance of carbs is about as smart as filling your gas tank with sugar.

Now, onto fat.. evil evil fat. If that were only true, we'd be a nation of slim and good looking people. Unfortunately, we're not.... well, I'm really good looking, but most of you aren't. Fat has had a bad rap for the past couple decades and its unfortunate. "Fat", much like carbs, has different substrates. In fancy terms, we call fats triglycerides or fatty acids. There are tons of different fatty acids and bond structures of fat. Their are long chained fatty acids, short chained fatty acids, medium chained fatty acids, etc. The general public probably knows most fats as Trans fatty acids, Mono-unsaturated fatty acids, Poly-unsaturated fatty acids and then of course, the "Evil" saturated fatty acids. Well, lets talk about how fat got a bad rap and why the people who told this bullshit are stupid idiots. I've mentioned in my food guide rant that some dickface named Ancel Keys did a study based upon fat consumption and heart disease in countries across the world. He found quite a few countries that ate very little to no fat and had low incidences of heart disease, great! He forgot to mention all the countries that ate a ton fat and had little to no heart disease, or the countries that ate very little fat and were rampant with heart disease. Its not lying if you just simply omit it, right? So, after countless studies linking fat to heart disease, they concluded that fat caused heart disease... wait a minute, there aren't any studies linking fat to heart disease. Nope, none. The simple fact of the matter is, the diet we've come to know and love, based on low fat, is based on complete nonsense and totally unfounded. Humans need fat for millions of things to occur in the body. We thrive on fat, its simple physiology. We especially thrive on animal fats... saturated fats! You know what happens when people eat low fat diets? They usually become depressed, sluggish and fat! Weird right? Also, the body utilizes fat as an energy source, unless there is an abundance of sugar in the bloodstream, then, and only then, does it store it. If you want more info on this, watch the movie "Fathead", read the book "Good Calorie, Bad Calorie" and then learn biochemistry. Anyway, fats can have different caloric values. Usually, we just count them as 9 calories per gram, but certain fats like MCT's (Medium chained triglycerides) can be anywhere from 5-7 grams. These are commonly found in coconut oil. Here is a little bit of info a friend shared with me yesterday, just to give you an idea of why they're good for us:

"Coconut represents a vegetarian-sourced saturated fat consisting of medium chain fatty acids (MCFA).

Scientists have long recognized MCFAs such as lauric and capric acid for their anti-viral and anti-microbial properties. The body utilizes MCFAs as energy instead of storing them as fat.

COCONUT HEALTH BENEFITS & FACTS
Here are just a few health benefits ascribed to coconut:
•Coconut consuming cultures around the world have lower incidence of heart disease than Americans.1
•Lauric acid exists abundantly in coconut and plays a fundamental role in building our body’s immune system. Once in our system it transforms into an antibacterial and antiviral substance called "monolaurin" which destroys viruses and diseases.2
•Lauric acid also occurs naturally in human breast milk and plays a vital role in nourishing and protecting babies from infections.3
•MCFAs promote weight maintenance without raising cholesterol levels. They work best for preventing weight gain if you’re not overweight or maintaining your new weight after a successful diet.4

In sum, coconut is a beneficial food with numerous attributes that help people thrive when made part of a well balanced diet."

Not sure where she got it from, but again, check it out for yourselves. The one thing that bothers me about it is the "doesn't raise cholesterol".... no fats raise cholesterol. Well, they might raise your HDL (which isn't cholesterol), but in order to raise those little guys, guess what you need to eat... Fat! Cholesterol is important for humans, WE NEED CHOLESTEROL! That's why our body produces its own cholesterol and is very good at regulating it. Eating a diet low in cholesterol is stupid. Why do you think that ALL vegans are idiots? (Sorry, but veganism may be the single most retarded thing to ever happen in human existence... I can understand loose vegetarianism from an ethical viewpoint of not wanting to kill animals to eat, but to eat absolutely zero animal products, which provide very important fatty acids and complete proteins, is just plain dumb. Especially since you can not get EFA's and DHA's from non animal sources, except a certain type of (the word isn't coming to me, but its kind of like seaweed) that you must grow and harvest, and even then, its minimal. Yet, vegetarians will argue that you can get ALA (alpha lipoic acid) from plant sources and that the body can convert it into DHA and EPA... well, its very very inefficient and it just ain't the same. (I can use "ain't" in a scientific argument, right?)

Ok, so we have a little overview of each of the macro nutrients, their caloric make up, and how the body utilizes them. Lets move on to my original statement. The idea is that if you move more and eat less will create a caloric deficit, causing weight loss. Sure, theoretically, this is great, but it all depends on what you're using as fuel. When you eat a meal full of fat and protein, the body uses a shit load (that's a viable means of measurement, so fuck off) more energy to digest that and put it to use. Not only that, but most of it will be used on the cellular level to rebuild muscle, solidify cell wall structure, fuel the brain, build strong and healthy bones and blah blah blah, while the rest of it is burned off to just fuel the body. So lets say that you eat a meal that's 500 calories. If its made up of fat and protein, you're going to use a good portion of that energy just digesting the food and it will keep you fuller longer, not to mention, the body needs the fat to help absorb vitamins and utilize the protein (Vitamin A is needed for proper protein utilization. Vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin) Also, when you eat a diet made up of protein and fat, guess what isn't secreted? Insulin. You're insulin levels don't spike, and they don't store anything into fat cells. Now, if you ate that same amount of calories coming from just carbs and protein (since we're assuming you're following the handy dandy awesome fat free diet) your body will spend some energy digesting the protein and little to no energy digesting the carbs (you start utilizing carbohydrates during the chewing process, but since it takes energy to chew, you're expending some energy) Now, the carbs are digested in the stomach, turned into chime, and shot out of your pyloric sphincter into the duodenum (small intestines.... haha, i said sphincter) After that, it is sent into the blood stream where it is brought to the liver and stored. Once the liver is full of glycogen, it will begin to store carbs elsewhere, ie, skeletal muscle. This is where insulin comes into play. Insulin spikes, frantically trying to get sugar out of the blood and into either muscle or fats cells, so it can fall back to normal levels. That's why we always here "the experts" talk about complex carbs which "maintain low insulin levels"... So each of those meals, even though they are equal in terms of calories, have very very different affects on the human body.

Now, the one thing that people like to confuse is losing weight vs. losing fat... ok, you lost 10 pounds, congratulations, you still look like shit. What the fuck is 10 pounds in the grand scheme of things? Hell, I poop and piss 10 pounds. Most of the time, when people go on these low calorie diets to lose weight, they lose a lot of muscle mass. That's a bad thing, and here's why. Lean skeletal muscle, the good stuff, uses a lot of energy to just maintain, let alone how much it uses when put to action. So the more muscle mass you have, the easier it is to stay strong and healthy, and, the more calories you can safely consume! "But Zach, I've been running all the time, isn't that good?" Look, I'm not going to ever tell someone who is fit and active to stop doing what they're doing, but if you're main goal is fat loss, then just running, or doing any type cardio for prolonged periods, isn't the answer. Weight training is the single greatest thing ever invented... it cures cancer and sexual depravity. It makes people want to bang you. Basically, when you do large bouts of cardio, your body looks for an easier fuel to use than fat. So, it uses stored glycogen and then, hopefully fat, but a lot of the time, especially on a low calorie diet, it will revert to muscle mass. Its easier to break down muscle mass into an amino acid than it is to break down fat, especially in an aerobic environment (when you use oxygen for fuel). When you lift weights, or do any anaerobic exercise, your body actually preserves muscle mass. Lifting weights and proper diet will preserve the hard earned muscle you've been working for, even in a caloric deficit. Think about it this way. Are we, as humans, meant to run long distances and chase down prey, or are we meant to throw rocks at animals and hunt them using our brains? (I stole that analogy from Charles Poliquin) I could get into a whole lengthy article about this, about how we're not meant to run long distances based on bone structure (especially women... not being sexist, just look at the way the pelvis is formed and how the femurs are more in a V shape than men) We're, by nature, a pretty docile animal. It doesn't mean that we can't push ourselves to those lengths it takes to become distance runners, but that's not what we're talking about. Now, as I've said before, if you an athlete, disregard, but if you're the average Tom or Jane and you're looking to lose weight and "tone up" (those words make me shutter), then adding weight training is your best bet. You don't have to do the shit that me and my fellow strongmen or powerlifters do, but resistance exercise is your best bet.

Also, I don't like the idea of calorie counting and low calorie diets. Eat a diet high in protein and fats and LOW IN SUGAR! See, when you're not doing sports for competition and you don't need to push yourself to the limits that us meatheads do, you don't need all those carbs to fuel you. You don't need all that "fuel" to perform resistance exercises because they should be short and fast and should make your body say "hey, I've got to lift some heavy shit, so I need to adapt in case this ever happens again" If you just clean up your diet and focus on whole foods, you will more than likely be able to eat MORE food than you did on a lowfat/low calorie diet. Natural foods that aren't filled with sugar are designed by nature to fill you up and be nutrition dense. Think about it, a 4 oz fillet mignon is about 200 calories, now add a cup of broccoli (55 cals) and a serving of blueberries (39 calories).. that's a shit ton of food for the average person (I think.. is that a lot? sounds like snack to me although eating more than a cup of broccoli can be a chore) and what, like 300 calories? Now take one snickers bar (2.1 oz).. that's 280 cals and 30 grams of sugar, and guess what, you'll be hungry again in.. oh shit, you just unwrapped another one. So eat the first meal 6 times a day and then eat the snickers bar 6 times a day.. who's going to get leaner first? well, the first guy will, because A... he'll be pigging out and getting the same amount of calories, and B. He'll be getting good lean protein and animal fats and fiber from the veggies which will be utilized by the body efficiently and will actually do nothing but help his efforts. The second guy will be eating 180 grams of sugar a day (that's like what, 18 times the recommended amount?) will probably not be able to eat just the snickers, and I'll bet he won't have much progress.. he might lose weight, but it'll all be muscle, especially since he'll be eating way less protein than the first guy. He'll also be reaking havoc on his body, overworking his pancreas and just a myriad of other shit.

So, I've probably come sounding like I have a hate toward carbs, but again, thats not the case. I don't like the fact that for decades, we've been told to eat a low fat diet rich in whole grains. We shuoldn't be eating any whole grains and, barring coconut and olive oil (or any other plant that is naturally fatty, ie any nut oil, avacado oil, etc) we shouldn't be consuming vegetable oils... when the fuck have you ever squeezed the fat out of a piece of corn ? (Stole that from "Fathead".) If it takes a processing mill to make it edible, there is a good chance that we shouldn't be eating it. We haven't evolved as humans to eat whole grains and vegetable "oils", its just not in our genetic make up... why do you think that like 50% of the population has Ciliac disease and is allergic to gluten? I think its pretty easy to connect the dots, but then again, I'm awesome.

One last thing.. Stop eating soy.. you're fucking yourself by eating soy. Unless its fermented, than its no good, and I gaurentee you they aren't selling any fermented soy products in the grocery store.

So, to recap, not all foods are created equal. Just "getting up and moving around and eating less" won't make you lose weight and be healthy. It all depends on the foods we're eating and the type of activity we are participating in. Thats not to say to stop playing pick up basketball games or running or walking, but they may not be enough if you're tring to get rid of those man tits or muffin tops (gross).... Protein is good, Fat is our friend, carbohydrates that we get from fruits and veggies and other certain sources are good, but sugar=BAD!

Ok, I've ranted long enough, time to go eat. If I've said something that raised a red flag in your eyes, call me out on it, present me with some knowledge, call me an idiot. We can only learn from each other. And besides, what the fuck do I know? I'm just a big, dumb meathead.