On Monday, after long discussions with Sam about her experience with Precision Nutrition’s Lean Eating Program, I started my one-year commitment to the program. If you’re not familiar with it, see Sam’s detailed review here.
I’ve been doing and enjoying Intuitive Eating for a year. When I started the Intuitive Eating approach, I was obsessed with food and weight, weighing myself daily, gaining instead of losing, and generally feeling crappy about myself after years and years of the diet roller coaster. I didn’t think I could handle one more climb to the top of that hill even if the “wheeeeee!” of going down felt great.
The Intuitive Eating solution was to stop focusing on weight–no more weigh-ins (read about that here). It felt very nurturing to me, and much more in line with my feminist principles than the obsessive focus on seeing a certain number on the scale. The central principles of honoring my hunger and respecting my body really altered my attitude and refocused my attention. Self-awareness increased.
And yet, over the course of that same year, I’ve become more interested in triathlon. I’m training harder to prep for the summer season, with regular swimming workouts, three-times a week running, and on-going resistance training in addition to my yoga practice. And that’s not even fitting cycling into the equation (it’ll be back in the spring). And though I have gone on record saying that to me, sports nutrition counseling is like dieting in disguise, I feel as if it’s time for me to make some changes.
One of the principles of Intuitive Eating–the last principle, in fact, because it is so loaded for so many chronic dieters–is “Honor your health with gentle nutrition.” I don’t want to exaggerate. It’s not as if I’m living on junk food and soda pop or anything like that. But I do feel as if I’ve not quite mastered nutrition since I became vegan just over three years ago. And while I’ve been focusing on a more intuitive approach to eating, nutrition hasn’t been the main guiding principle in my choices.
And truth be told, I’m ready for a change. From what Sam has told me about the Lean Eating program and from everything I’ve read, it’s not a diet and it can be compatible with an intuitive eating approach to food. So let’s just say that this year, I’m honoring my health with the re-introduction of gentle nutrition. Nothing extreme will work for me.
One of the things I like most about the Precision Nutrition approach is the focus on healthy habits. In week one, we’re not even changing anything about eating. We’re just committing to a schedule of working out and active recovery, and adding one “five-minute action” to our day. It can be anything. Mine is at least five minutes of meditation before I sit down to work each day.
Sam has blogged about habits. Habits work well because they’re things you can do without having to think too much. At first you need to be hyper-conscious, but after a time, they become a part of life. This kind of approach strikes me as entirely compatible and consistent with Intuitive Eating.
I like the sense of community, support, and camaraderie I’m experiencing already on the PN Lean Eating forums. So far, I’m liking my coach (Janet) a lot too, as well as the mentors in my group, who are helping to orient us newbies.
What am I most worried about? Though we haven’t started yet, I know that tracking progress is an important element of the program. They want weekly weight. body fat, and body measurements, and I think it’s monthly photos.
After a year of staying away from this kind of tracking, I’m going in with a new attitude: that it’s just information. If I can maintain a neutral attitude to that information, I’ll be happy about that.
Of course, I could skip that part. But I have made a commitment to do the program “as directed” for at least the first three months. If I’m struggling with any aspect of it, I’ll approach the coach, the mentors, or the group through the forums. There are quite a few women (over a hundred) in my group, so I’m sure I’ll be able to find some like-minded people along the way.
I’m also kind of excited this time about learning to eat in a way that supports my activities better, and also, to be perfectly honest, about the prospect of getting leaner and stronger as I go into the home stretch of the fittest by fifty challenge and prep for a summer of triathlons and 10K races.
For me, it marks the end of my year with the Lean Eating program at Precision Nutrition. (See my assessment here, Precision Nutrition’s Lean Eating Program: A Year in Review.) Tracy is trying it this year so I’m sure you’ll hear more about it from her.
I waffled for awhile about what next. To continue with the program? At $99-$149 a month, that wasn’t seriously in the cards. But I’ve learned a lot and found a pretty supportive community there and a group of us have stuck together through social networking. We’re working at finding the tools we need to further entrench lean eating habits on our own.
The habits aren’t anything rocket science like. Eat slowly, mindfully, to 80% full. Eat lots of protein and veggies with each meal. Pay attention to hunger and plan lean eating compliant meals.
So my lean eating group, using our second home on Facebook, is using the Lift app to continue working on lean eating habits. Lift is reviewed here on Lifehacker.
Fans of Seinfeld’s Productivity Method, also known as “Don’t Break the Chain,” know that the key to building good habits is to just do the things you want to do every day. Lift is a simple iOS app that keeps you motivated and shows you how well you’ve been sticking to your goals. Lift relies on psychology and the satisfaction you get of crossing off a day where you accomplished a task. It’s all gray, and the only colors are the green boxes and checkmarks that appear when you log your activity or look at your activity report. Enter the habits or to-dos you want to do each day, and check in to that activity in Lift when you do them. You can then review your weekly report and see a progress bar based on how many days per week you completed the task. Work out every day all week? You’ll see a bright, satisfying green full status bar. Miss a day and you’ll see four of five boxes filled.
I’ve long been a believer in establishing healthy habits as the way to go. But one interesting question is how long it takes to establish new habits. Almost all web sites on habits assume 21 days but it appears that’s for no good reason other than that it’s catchy.
“The simple answer is that, on average, across the participants who provided enough data, it took 66 days until a habit was formed. As you might imagine, there was considerable variation in how long habits took to form depending on what people tried to do. People who resolved to drink a glass of water after breakfast were up to maximum automaticity after about 20 days, while those trying to eat a piece of fruit with lunch took at least twice as long to turn it into a habit. The exercise habit proved most tricky with “50 sit-ups after morning coffee,” still not a habit after 84 days for one participant. “Walking for 10 minutes after breakfast,” though, was turned into a habit after 50 days for another participant.”
Think I’ll read the book. I’m also looking forward to Gretchen Rubin’s new book on habits. She writes about it here.
First, I too have noticed that weirdly, it’s often easier to do something practically every day than to do it once in a while or four times a week. The more you do something, the more it becomes a part of your ordinary day. It doesn’t make you nervous, it doesn’t feel intimidating, it doesn’t feel like a special burden or extra credit. Also, one of my habit strategies is the Strategy of Starting, and I’ve noticed that while starting is hard, starting over is often much harder. Once we’ve started down a positive path, it’s very, very valuable not to let ourselves stop. Because starting over is hard. Another strategy used here is the Strategy of Scheduling. Whether daily, weekly, or whatever, just putting a task into your schedule–finding an exact place for it in your calendar–makes it easier to get it done. There’s an odd power to the schedule.
I’ll check in from time to time and let you know how we’re making out on our own, without a formal coach. If I do find myself in need of extra help, I’ll likely find a sports nutritionist locally. I blogged a bit about sports nutritionists here. In the meantime, wish me luck.
For a more recent account of the PN experience, see Tracy’s 2014 review here.
Since January 2013, I’ve been enrolled in the Lean Eating for women program run by Precision Nutrition. Many people have asked how it’s going and whether I’d recommend the program.
I’ve had a lot of email about this aspect of the “fittest by fifty” challenge. More than anything else, actually. Since this is feedback I’m sharing with the people at Precision Nutrition I’m happy to share it here too and not just to the people who reach out and ask.
That’s one life lesson from teaching. If three or four people ask me something, I know dozens more want to know too but are too shy to ask. I also try, as a professor, to be fair. Some people ask for what they want, extensions, usually, but I try not to privilege the bold and brave.
It actually fascinates me the extent to which posts about weight, body image issues, and dieting out perform posts on fitness and athletic performance here on the blog. That says something, I think.
Would I recommend Lean Eating? That depends on your goals and your background, I think. Read on and decide for yourself.
We’ve helped thousands of women get in the best shape of their lives; scroll down to view some of the photos and read their stories. Most were so focused on caring for others that they stopped taking time to care for themselves. And that’s where we come in. Our coaches are part nutritionist, part scientist, part caring friend. With a little personal trainer and personal concierge built in. Together, we find what works for you, and then hold you accountable and help you be consistent. You work with a coach for 12 months, entirely online, and we ensure you get healthier, fitter and happier with your body than you ever thought possible.
I knew going in that the program wasn’t a perfect fit. I take my athletic performance goals more seriously than body composition goals. I do want to get leaner (see Fat, fit, and why I want to be leaner anyway) even though I’m not focused on my appearance. By and large, I’m happy with the way I look now. (See Loving the body you’ve got: Body positivity and queer community.) I care much more about getting to the right weight for the race wheels on my road bike (under 170 lbs, for what it’s worth) and not getting dropped on hills than I care about fitting into the latest fashions (die skinny jeans, die) or about looking good in a bikini, according to standards I explicitly reject. I know this makes me not your typical candidate for a fat loss program.
My reaction to my first set of bikini photos, front, back, and side view? (Lean Eating has you take monthly photos.) Wow, I look pretty good in a two piece bathing suit for a nearly fifty year old professor with 3 kids! I’m smiling in the first set and smiling in the last and frankly, I don’t look that different. Yes, I have thick thighs (no thigh gap here, never was, never will be) and solid calves and yes, I have belly rolls and stretch marks. But I tend to see my history written on my body through those marks and scars and think about my wonderful kids and my years spent riding a bike and feel good even about what others see as imperfections. That fits in with my general life view, the glass is always half full.
I look like me, and I like me, so it’s all good.
I do look different in the photos a professional photographer took, but hey, she’s a pro. And she’s not using my smart phone propped up on a bookshelf in timer mode. Besides the pricey real camera, she’s also got on her side: make up, talent, good lighting, flattering poses and postures, and a great attitude. See Nat’s take on our experience, On boudoir photos and plastic guitars (Guest post). So much fun. I highly recommend it as a body affirming experience. Don’t wait til you’re thin. (In fact, don’t ever put things off til you’re thin. You might never be thin, so what? Is that so scary? Go now.)
1. It’s online. I’m an online kinda person, as you might have guessed. I’m introverted and quiet in person but I’m pretty free and open on the internet. Make of that what you will, this aspect of the program worked well for me. It’s no great effort for me to check in with the website everyday and keep up with forums and the unofficial Facebook group. It’s just part of what I do. I’m comfortable meeting people this way and I can point them to various resources (like this blog!) to get to know me better. For example, want to hear my experience with Weight Watchers? Read I hate you Weight Watchers.
2. The coaches. Super timely one on one interaction when that’s required and lots of engagement. I felt I was understood by my coach and that I didn’t have to keep explaining things. Now, I like coaching and I respond well to it and I knew that going in. Not everyone does. I know that the experience of nutrition counseling differs. Your mileage may vary, YMMV, as they say. (See my pro nutrition counseling post here and Tracy’s post on why sports nutrition counseling isn’t for her here.) I’ve done nutrition counseling before and I can’t tell you the number of times I’d have to repeat that I don’t drink alcohol, don’t eat meat and don’t eat fast food. This coach remembered. Now she might have the info in front of her and outsourced that memory to a computer but that’s fine by me. I also felt like my history and my values made sense to her. I’m a teacher too and I notice when I make connections with students, and coach Krista and I connected.
3. Facebook group: The group of women in my cohort in the same coaching group, Team Switch, who were active on Facebook started a Facebook group. That group more than anything felt like my peer group in this experience. We were geographically separate, some in the US, in Canada, in the UK, in Germany….but I loved the interaction. We shared photos of food, recipes, sought advice from one another, and generally had a good time. I even met my lean eating buddy from Germany when she visited Ontario and we bonded over what we’d learned. Unlike the forums, this worked well on my phone and so while the forums are the official PN communication tool, the Facebook group worked better for me.
4. Supported my goal of slow sustainable weight loss: I didn’t want to lose weight fast. Been there, done that. I was much more interested in slow, sustainable changes and I got lots of support for that goal. There was lots of reassurance that baby steps were still steps in the right direction. I didn’t feel pushed at all. (Read Why slow and steady wns the weight loss race at Livestrong.) I lost about 12 lbs over the course of the year but I also have gained a bunch of new muscle so I’m pretty sure my fat/lean ratio looks better than it did. I’ll measure that in the bod pod sometime soon to confirm.
5. The materials. The daily readings were helpful, informative with just the right amount of research and footnotes and things to think about. I loved the emphasis on habits, rather than outcomes. I talk about Lean Eating’s habit based approach here and another blogger talks about Precision Nutrition’s five habits for eating here.
6. Strong emphasis on internal change: There was a lot of emphasis on changing your mind, and as much focus on your attitudes as there was a changing your body. This is kind of an exercise in meeting in the middle. Change attitudes to food and the way you look, change your body a bit, and that’s the transformation. You hear this in the words of the coaches when they praise lean eating clients for increased self confidence and getting to know and love their true selves. Pictures are praised not just for outcomes in terms of size and shape but also for the new attitude they portray. So there are few movie star bodies at the end of lean eating, mostly modest changes, but there’s lots of counseling about body acceptance and loving the body you have. And it’s true that many of the women seem like very different people the inside and out.
Is this bait and switch? Advertise weight and fat loss and offer up a program that’s big on not judging? I’ve thought lots about this and I think that change and acceptance go together.
Here’s six things I could do without:
1. For a program, that’s all online I was surprised there wasn’t a smart phone app for the lean eating forums. I’m on the run lots of the day and I often wanted to check in but needed to wait until I got back to a full size grown up computer, but that’s when I work for real. I have a habit of saving the real computers for actual work, research and writing, and using my phone for Facebook etc and normally I’d slot LE into the latter but without a phone app, it had to compete for work time. Sometimes that meant I was disciplined about work and skipped a day and I kept thinking, since I’ve got lots of down time with my smart phone, waiting for kids, that it didn’t have to be that way.
2. The price. Advance registration is $99 to register and then $99 a month thereafter. That’s a lot out of my personal wellness budget! It’s more if you don’t get on the pre-sale list.
3. Weekly weigh ins and measurements, and monthly photos. Again, there’s lots of counseling around weighing and measuring (“you are more than just a number”) but still, it felt a bit much. Personally I would have done better without all the weighing and measuring.
4. I signed up for the nutrition counseling but there were also planned workouts. Instead, I stuck with the physical activities I love. I wasn’t going. to swap rowing, riding, Aikido, CrossFit for workouts on my own. The fitness stuff was not useful to me and as a result I felt that I was paying for stuff I didn’t use. It also meant I couldn’t connect with others about the workouts. I knew that going in but it bothered me more than i thought it would.
5. Very mixed crowd. Different places, different goals. The idea was one habit at a time but some people were already on pretty restrictive diet plans, following rules that weren’t lean eating habits. Others were second or third time through the lean eating program and they were still following all the advanced habits while reconnecting with the beginning ones. And still others had disordered eating habits from years ago. Some were new to exercise, others were aspiring fitness models.
6. Competition at the end. I don’t like before and after pics and judging the best transformation. Some people came to enjoy it but I’m really not a fan of thinking of life in terms of “before” and “after.” See here for this year’s contest finalists.
Oh a bonus beef, the lean eating materials aren’t searchable. Some people printed up each day’s reading and assignment and put them in binders. That’s not my usual thing but I wish I’d done that too. The only option is manually scrolling back through a day at a time on the calendar.
And I missed the big precision nutrition get together. By the time the dates were announced I was committed to an academic conference that conflicted. That’s my life.
I’d also love it if they had an alumni program for graduates
Where am I now?
I’m keen to try continuing the habits without the coaching. But I’d like a book, or an electronic version of the materials, to help me along. Given that I could have printed up the materials at the time it seems a reasonable request. I understand that they have proprietary interests in the coaching materials but the program wasn’t inexpensive and I could been organized and saved them as I went, if I’d known. (If you’re a LE alumni who was organized, and did save them, let me know!)
Other people in my group are going to continue on to a second year. Some people are going it alone and staying active in our Facebook group.
“You may not need the carbs and calories from that Gatorade until mile 25, but sipping a sports drink with carbohydrate, rather than plain water, from the start of a long ride can help spare your precious muscle glycogen stores by about 50 percent in the first hour alone, according to a study published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. This means you’ll have more energy for the long haul.”
Interestingly, some of the performance enhancing effects come even if you just “swish and spit” the stuff. I blogged about that here, a post in which I also talk about my struggles intuitive eating on the bike.
Talking about the Precision Nutrition zero calorie beverage habit, I wrote: “I have one exception. I do drink sports drink while cycling. Not on rides under 80 km but on hot days, after a 100 km, I need something more than water on my bike. I keep two bottles with me on the bike, one with plain water and the other filled with a water/sports drink combo. And I’m experimenting with other options. We’ll see. I’m a lousy intuitive eater on the bike. When I ride hard my appetite disappears and I can crash for lack of fuel. After long slower rides, I’m hungry for days and keep eating long after fuel is needed.”
After experimenting I’ve decided to stick with sports drink, not Gatorade but another brand, while riding, especially for long rides. I also found that if I keep eating throughout the ride at regular intervals I avoid that feeling of being famished and ready to eat whole pies for the day after. Progress.
On Sunday morning I kept looking at the weather report and out the window, almost (well, okay, REALLY) hoping for rain. It was cloudy with a low probability of precipitation, but both the forecast and the trees outside said: WINDY. Winds of about 40km, gusting to 60 km. And kind of chilly (6 degrees C)–I had to duct tape the vents in my shoes to keep my feet from freezing (didn’t quite work).
So why was I hoping for rain? Because Sam said that if it was raining we wouldn’t go for our bike ride. I wanted an out. (See here for more on excuses.) But no such luck. We went, which prompted Sam to post about the “which is worse? wind or hills?” debate among cyclists.
We went with two cycling friends, Eaton and David. They all ride all the time. They’re fast. I’m new at this. And slow. When I got to the meeting spot at the Forks of the Thames, Sam asked if I’d seen Eaton. I was already late (because of road construction and poor planning) and he’d gone to look for me. The theme of Sam, Eaton, and David waiting for Tracy had thereby established itself before we even started.
We biked the Belmont “short” route. I’m really glad that no one told me ahead of time that “short” meant 50 km because I am pretty sure that I might have bailed. Our trek out of town gave me a sense of the wind. It was mostly coming from the side and I still felt pretty fresh, so not too bad.
Then at one point, for a short time (maybe about 10 km or less?) we had a glorious tail wind. That is something from heaven, truly. It’s totally calm, you ride along side one another chatting and laughing. The blazing fall colors take your mind off your cold feet.
When David told me that this feeling of lightness and wonder (we were zipping along effortlessly at about 30 km an hour!) is an actual thing in the bike world, a thing called a “tail wind,” it did occur to me, if only in a fleeting way, that it wouldn’t be like this forever. That home was the other way. That there must be something opposite to a tail wind.
Yes there is. It’s called a “head wind.” And the wind is not the only opposite. Take that light, zippy, effortless feeling of a tail wind and reverse it. The result: a heavy feeling, like you’re putting in maximum effort and getting nowhere. I’m not sure about anyone else, but my mind started to really want to defeat me right then and there, when we turned into that fierce and freezing wind, and everyone else was waiting for me up ahead (and I was conscious of the fact that they’d be much closer to home if not for me), and I was running out of fuel.
In a word, I was suffering. And suffer I would, all the way home. David, Eaton, and Samantha took turns trying to help me out by drafting. It did help a bit but I had trouble keeping up sometimes. Eaton, also small (cycling is the only context in which I have repeatedly been referred to as small and light), explained that I probably needed food. So I downed some of his home made electrolyte replacement drink (thank you, Eaton!) and a fig bar, and suffered on (trying to smile).
Hills (which apparently we don’t even have around here–something else I am assured I will change my perception of in time) started to appear like mountains in the distance. At one point, as we approached a hill that Sam was already over the crest of, I said to David, “I don’t think I can do it.” He said, “Just try and see how far you get.”
The hill was short but (to me) fairly steep. On my right, along the side of road, a bank covered in fall leaves sloped upwards. The leaves looked soft and inviting. I hit my gear shifter to switch to an easier gear. Nothing left to go to. I picked my spot and let myself fall to the side, both feet still clipped in, and landed on the leaves, which by then felt like a warm blanket. My thighs seized up (Eaton tells me that’s my VMO muscle and that once I improve my technique it won’t happen quite as easily). I lay there for a couple of minutes before clipping out, dragging myself to my feet, and then staggering up the hill with my bike beside me (Sam and David couldn’t even see me; Eaton had already said his good-byes because he had to be somewhere that he’d never get to if he went at my pace!).
My next source of defeat came with a second hill, more gradual but longer, and without the cushy option at the side. I had a small victory this time: I ran out of steam, yes, but I clipped out without having to topple over. My thighs cramped up again, and I threw myself down on my back onto someone’s front lawn for a couple of minutes to gather my energy for the rest of the ride.
We rode through an industrial area on the east side of town where Sam gave me a quick tutorial about what to do if I got chased by a junk yard dog. Sprint. If you can’t sprint away fast enough, keep the bike between you and the dog. But, she assured me, most of these yards have electronic fences around them. Several demolition yards later we were in the clear. Dog encounters gratefully averted.
I haven’t mentioned the wind for awhile. It continued to howl at 40 km or more as we rode dead into it. I know the northwestern wind well from sailing. It’s the one that brings with it the more serious storms and high seas as it builds from the north corner of Lake Huron, gathering force as it roars down the lake.
Anyway, I split from David and Samantha when we approached downtown on the bike path because I wanted the shortest route home. After I waved good-bye to them I leaned my bike up against a guard rail and foraged deep into my pocket for the last fig bar. I took a sip of water. With about 15 minutes of riding left, I clipped in and headed home. To a bowl of cereal, a handful of nuts (I couldn’t muster the energy for more), a hot bath with mineral salts, and a delicious and satisfying afternoon nap.
Okay, so now to the question: Suffering may not be fun, but is it good? I can attest for sure to the first part. It wasn’t fun. Not at all (other than the tail wind). In lots of ways, it was humbling. But there were a few things good about it.
For one thing, I did it. Part way through I began to reflect on people who climb Mount Everest (I know, I was being a bit melodramatic) and how the people you’re with–whether aiming for the Everest summit or trying to finish the Belmont short loop on a cold windy day–can only help you so much. When the rubber hits the road (or the sleet starts to fall on your new bike and the wind screams in your face and it feels like someone dropped ice cubes in your shoes), you’ve got to finish what you started. Yes, there was one point (on the second hill) when I felt like packing it up and calling a cab, but I didn’t do that.
I have a cycling war story already, and I’ve really only been out for two rides! I think this has a lot to do with what’s good about suffering. We love to talk about it when it’s all over.
I learned a few things: about what I need to eat (something along the way), what I need to wear (my cold weather gear is great except I definitely need those shoe covers!), that I have some technique to work on, that my more experienced riding friends really will not leave me even when they’re cold and probably wish they could just blast on home (thank you!), that I can suffer, give up, and then get right back on the bike and keep going.
It’s hard to imagine worse conditions. Sam said that it’s the windiest day she’s ever been out for a ride. So that’s good to know. It’s only going to get better from there.
It’s bolstered my enthusiasm for my winter commute. Twenty minutes? No problem! I can suffer for twenty minutes.
So there is some good that comes of suffering, though I hesitate to say that it’s good in itself. When we teach about the theory of value called hedonism in our ethics and value theory classes, the students always say stuff like, “no one can truly appreciate what’s so great about pleasure without also experiencing what’s awful about pain.” They offer this as a way of countering the claim that pain is always a bad thing–an assumption that a simple hedonistic theory (which says that pleasure is the only thing with intrinsic value and pain has intrinsic disvalue) embraces.
They’re questioning whether we would want a world free of pain (as some hedonists claim we should want) because might that not deprive us of certain pleasures–like those “wins” I just listed that came from my Sunday ride of suffering? It’s true–the bath, the nap, both felt more wonderful and luxurious than any bath or nap I’ve had in recent memory.
So I think the real question is, I feel good about having made it through, but would I feel as good if I hadn’t suffered as much?
Sam has written a couple of times about suffering and painful workouts. See here and here. I think I have to disagree with her idea that painful workouts are “fun.” In my case, I really only feel good about them in retrospect, not at the time. I know there is quite a bit of research that shows that it’s the mental battle that usually gets the better of us. The body can actually withstand a lot more than we allow it to, most of the time.
And there is a certain kind of bonding that occurs among communities of athletes, much of it having to do with suffering. In Michael Atkinson’s research paper, “Triathlon, Suffering, and Exciting Significance,” he identifies triathletes as members of a “pain community” and interviews 62 of them, documenting their narratives of pain and suffering.
Chances are, and Sam has noted this, athletes wouldn’t do a lot of what they (we?) do if there wasn’t some suffering involved. Pushing ourselves beyond our comfort zone is a huge part of the attraction. It’s what motivates us to do more, try harder, go further, hang in there a little bit longer.
It snowed yesterday. That prompted Sam to say, “looking at the snow on the ground now I’m still glad we got out! That’s the thing, you rarely regret the decision to ride.”
So for all the agony on Sunday, do I regret the decision to ride? No, not at all.
While debate exists about how many people regain weight they’ve lost (let’s just say most, or lots), how much weight they regain (all of it or more) and how long it typically takes to regain weight (certainly within five years pretty much everyone will have gained it back), no one denies that keeping weight off is much, much harder than losing it in the first place.
When people talk about weight regain one thing they often say, which I think is mistaken, is that people regain weight because they give up the restrictions and go back to their old habits. As Ragen Chastain says, “The myth goes that almost everyone fails at weight loss because almost everyone quits their diet and goes back to their old habits/doesn’t have the willpower to keep dieting/doesn’t do it “right”” But that’s not what the evidence says. People have a hard time keeping the weight off because their bodies have changed.”
Read the rest of her post on why dieters regain weight here.
This mistaken way of thinking suggests that if the people who lost weight stuck to the restrictions they’d be fine but in fact, in my experience, you start to regain weight while still dieting. Your metabolism slows down and what was once little enough food that you lose weight becomes too much and you start to gain.
How does this happen?
First, you now weigh less and so need fewer calories to support the new lower weight.
Third, your hormones change making it much harder to stay at the new, lower weight. Read Gina Kolata on the studies that demonstrate this here. See also Tara Parker Pope’s The Fat Trap.
Fourth, exercise no longer has the same effect. That’s just what getting in shape means. Consider running. The first time you run 5 km, it’s hard and you burn a lot of calories. Later, when you’re fit, running 5 km is easier but you also burn fewer calories. Now you need to run further or faster, at the same effort as you did as a beginner, to keep burning that many calories. Few of us keep pushing ourselves the way we need to.
My story: I’ve lost a lot of weight in my life. I’ve weighed everything from 155 lbs to 235 lbs with stops at just about every station along the way. I’ve gone from the top of that range to near the bottom twice. This last time on my way back up I stopped about halfway and so I didn’t regain the full amount. Phew. So for now at least I’m one of the rare people who has lost weight and kept lots of it off. The big weight loss was ten years ago now so that’s a pretty significant period of time not to have regained all or more of the weight, just half of it.
These days I’m focusing my energy on getting leaner, improving my muscle to fat ratio and you can read about my motivation for that here, here, and here.
Speaking of changes in body composition, I was fascinated to read recently that there’s also an interesting difference between the weight you lose and the weight you regain. It’s differently composed. When losing weight you typically lose in about equal amounts fat and muscle. But sadly when you regain weight it’s almost all fat.
“When individuals lose a reasonable amount of weight, the majority of the weight they lose is usually in the form of fat. But weight loss can be contributed by other things too, notably muscle. Generally speaking, about one sixth to one quarter of weight loss is actually ‘lean’ mass (mainly muscle).The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition recently published a study in which followed up post-menopausal women after they had spent 5 months losing weight on a calorie-controlled diet, with or without aerobic exercise [1]. The average weight loss was about 11.5 kg during this time (exercise, by the way, did not improve weight loss over dietary change).This follow-up found that the average overall weight loss a year after the weight loss intervention stopped was still about 8 kg. Of course, some women did better than others, with some maintaining their weight loss well and others regaining a significant proportion of lost weight.The interesting thing about this study is that the authors monitored not only weight, but the body composition. This allowed to calculated the relative amounts of fat and muscle lose and regain by the women. Here, in summary was what they found:For each 1 kg of fat lost during the weight loss phase, women lost an average of 0.32 in lean body mass.For each 1 kg of fat regained subsequently, women regain only an average of 0.08 kg of lean mass.Putting this in percentage terms, 76 per cent of weight lost originally came in the form of fat.When weight was regained, about 93 per cent of this was fat.The problem here is not just that the body is getting proportionally fatter. The loss of muscle is a concern too, as muscle mass has some bearing on metabolic rate, and it also can determine functionality. It’s not good to lose muscle, particularly as we age, as it can leave us weak, frail, incapacitated and prone to falls and injury.”
I’m doing the Precision Nutrition Lean Eating program and we’re at the stage in the program where we get to choose the habits we think we need to work on. It can be one that we’ve worked on through the program or one of our own choosing.
I posted a tool to help create new habits on our Facebook page recently and I think it’s fun to create a game of establishing habits, whatever those habits may be.
What’s the habit I need to work on? Mine is no surprise given my goals of gaining muscle and maintaining a vegetarian diet. It’s getting sufficient protein, always a challenge. I reread Tracy’s post on getting enough protein on a vegan diet.. Though I’m not a vegan, I lean in that direction (aim for 2 vegan meals a day) and it’s good from a health point of view not to rely on dairy as one’s main protein source.
“A new report appearing in the September issue of The FASEB Journal challenges the long-held adage that significant muscle loss is unavoidable when losing weight through exercise and diet. In the report, scientists show that consuming twice the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of protein while adhering to a diet and exercise plan prevents the loss of muscle mass and promotes fat loss. Tripling the RDA of protein, however, failed to provide additional benefits.”
What’s the RDA? .8g per kilo per day. 1.6 is double that and it’s the ratio I should use to calculate the amount I should be aiming for. So at 90 kilos, or thereabouts, that’s 144 grams of protein a day. A lot.
My protein shake this morning had 30g, my protein added cereal and yogurt had another 30. One tip I’ve taken from the coaches at Precision Nutrition is protein with every meal and I aim for at least 50 g with breakfast. Luckily I wake up hungry and I can happily eat a large breakfast.
My usual non vegan protein sources are eggs (free range), Greek yogurt, and whey protein. Vegan protein for me is tempeh, nuts, seeds, soy, chickpeas, hummus, and various kinds of veggie burgers. Yum.
These days protein consumption is the one thing I’m tracking. Wish me luck and suggestions, as always, welcome.
As part of the Lean Eating program which I’m doing through Precision Nutrition, we get various “homework” assignments. You can read about my decision to give that program a try here. I’ll do a full evaluation of the program at the end but short answer for now, I love it.
This week’s assignment was to draft a fitness mission statement, one that articulated our goals and values around food and fitness. Here’s my first try. Apologies for the font choice. I know some of you care about that but it was an online photo editor with limited choices.
If I were adding to it I think I’d say something about environmental values, “living lightly on the earth,” and something about friends, family, love, moving with others, and dancing, especially dancing.
What would your fitness mission statement look like?
In Stone Soup’s 6 Reasons to NOT Count Calories there’s one that really resonates for me:. Writes Stone Soup, “Counting calories encourages you to eat packaged processed food: I was talking to a friend recently who mentioned her teenage daughter has become very interested in nutrition and has started to keep an eye on her calories. But the sad part is she’s noticed that her daughter is more likely to choose food out of a packet than something fresh because she can easily tell how many calories she’s getting from the pack.”
I first noticed this same thing when I started using My Fitness Pal for tracking.
The mobile phone app comes with a nifty bar code scanner for adding foods to your diary. It’s fun just picking up the box or package your food comes in, scanning it with your phone’s camera, and then gleaning the relevant info. But note the words “box” and “package.” It then starts to seem burdensome to log real food. Hey, apple, where’s your bar code? Okay, apples aren’t that bad. But homemade casseroles with multiple ingredients? Tricky stuff.
Generally speaking, I’m a big fan of tracking. And I’m a data geek about fitness. I like my games. I’m not in principle adverse to counting calories. I find it challenging to match my needs for adequate energy and nutrition without paying some attention to the details of what I’m eating.
I’m a big fan of adding veggies to everything, sneaking them in where I can. Here’s some great hints here.
But I just got back from the weekly family grocery run with news to report on the added veggies front.
(So much work, all that moving food off shelves, into carts, into car, back home, into cupboards…sometimes I think I should just ring a bell in the driveway and teenagers could eat the food there. And yes, I feel incredibly privileged that my complaint about feeding teen athletes, not to mention two large dogs, is the work and not the expense.)
But what I noticed today was the ever-increasing range of products with added vegetables. Apple sauce with peach and carrots, bread with added spinach, fruit juice with celery and greens. I started to wonder what’s next, cookies with added vegetables.
The Country Harvest bread promises 1 serving of vegetables for 1 slice of bread. I preferred the red kind, with red and orange added veggies, to the green kind, hello spinach, but the kids preferred neither and feed their toast to the dog.
I think they’re holding out for the vegetable Oreos.
On Monday, after long discussions with Sam about her experience with Precision Nutrition’s Lean Eating Program, I started my one-year commitment to the program. If you’re not familiar with it, see Sam’s detailed review here.
