Category: sports nutrition

body image · diets · eating · fat · fitness · health · motivation · overeating · sports nutrition · training · weight loss

Can fit2fat2fit empathize with unfit2fit2unfit?

Tracy I5 Comments

Imagine setting out to gain weight and lose fitness. I’ve done the lose-gain yo-yo loads of times. But never on purpose.

Personal trainer Drew Manning was as buff as buff gets. In May 2011 he made a decision to stop exercising and stop eating smartly for six months. He wanted to get out of shape so he could better understand the struggles of some of his clients. He documents his journey from fit to fat and back to fit again on his blog, Fit2Fat2Fit. Recently he published a book about it. Drew gained 70 pounds and lost much of his physical fitness in six months. Six months later he’d returned to his previous level of uber-fitness and low body fat.

My question: how well would this venture help him to empathize with clients who struggle to make long-term changes in both fitness and fat percentage? My guess: not so well. Here’s why.

First let’s remember that fat and fit are not polar opposites. As we know, people can be overweight (by BMI and even body fat percentage standards) and still be fit on other measures.

Drew is different from the clients he’s trying to understand. His “yo-yo” is the opposite of theirs. Most people who struggle with weight and fitness go from unfit to fit to unfit, not the other way around. And the real challenge is long-term maintenance. This makes sense because, over time, people gravitate back towards old habits. Face it, permanent lifestyle changes are tough to make.

But Drew’s “old” habits are the habits of a super-fit, lean, muscle machine. He already eats right and gets plenty of exercise. He could get back to his original state of fitness with relative ease because he just had to re-adopt a lifestyle that he’d already internalized. But the clients he’s trying to relate to have to stay vigilant to retain the new habits. That’s harder to do than to revert to old patterns.

If you watch some of the amusing “food challenges” Drew videotaped on his website—like eating a one pound bacon cheese burger, bacon cheese fries, and a hot fudge brownie sundae with a large coke—he has a lot of trouble meeting them. He hates brownies and chocolate. Salt and grease “get to him,” which is why he found the KFC challenge so difficult. Drew is more in tune with his body than many of his clients might be.

Many yo-yo dieters can’t easily detect their hunger signals. They have difficulty knowing when they’re hungry and when to stop eating. They can’t tell when they’re full until they’re ready to burst. That’s why some people can eat a whole tub of ice cream or down an entire bag of cookies. They don’t realize it until the spoon hits the bottom or their hand reaches into an empty bag.

But in his food challenges, Drew reluctantly stuffs down more food. He knows he’s eaten more than he’s comfortable eating. If not for the challenge, he would stop way before the end of a dozen donuts or a bucket of fried chicken. His default setting is to eat reasonable portions of healthy food.

Drew started off very fit, with high quality muscle. That gave him an advantage. True, he had some health issues by the end (high cholesterol, a fatty and enlarged liver, compromised kidney functioning, to name a few). But while gaining 70 pounds he didn’t at the same time lose all of his muscle. Most of his struggling clients will start with far less muscle. Their road will be more difficult.

And it’s worth pointing out that if Drew works with women, especially older women, they just don’t change as quickly or easily as men. My husband and I started personal training at the same time last March. Within seven months, he’s lost about 20 pounds and looks fitter, leaner, and younger.

I dare say I’ve worked harder. But after seven months my weight has dropped by about five pounds and my body fat percentage feels like it’s not budging (maybe it’s changed a bit). When we went back to our regular yoga class after the summer, our teacher raved at how awesome Renald looked (and he does look great). His friends are always saying things to him about how much younger and fitter and leaner he looks (he does). Me—not so much.

I’m not trying to be negative about Drew’s story. It’s fascinating and Drew comes across as a sincere, likeable guy. He knows his stuff and freely shares printable food plans and workout plans on his website.

I’m just not convinced that fit2fat2fit can help Drew really know what it’s like to walk in the another’s shoes because he walked in the opposite direction.

Thanks to reader Daphne Gray-Grant for drawing Drew’s challenge to my attention.

body image · diets · sports nutrition

My Trip to the Bod Pod and the Sports Nutritionist

Tracy I4 Comments

Yesterday was my birthday, so I thought it would be a good idea to really begin this two-year commitment to being my fittest ever by the time I’m fifty with some hard data. I agree with Samantha that weight alone is not a good measure of where things stand with a person health-wise. Neither is BMI, for reasons Samantha has also explained really well. Body composition is a more important thing to know about. That’s the amount of lean body mass and the amount of fat the body is composed of. So with that in mind, I decided to go get the straight goods at the bod pod. It works by air displacement, so you need to change into a speedo-type of swimsuit or a some similarly tight spandex clothing.  Then, after having the science explained in lay terms (quite clearly, but I still can’t convey it to you here. You can check it on the link), you climb into this pod-like thing and sit down.  Then they close the door (there is a window, so that might help you if you are claustrophobic like I am — I had to close my eyes and practice deep breathing) and the test takes about 45 seconds. Partway through there is a knocking sound that you are told about in advance and asked to ignore.  Then they open the door for a few seconds so you can get some fresh air.By this time, I really did need the door to open. There is a panic button, but I honestly feel that if you need the button you will not remember that it’s there. They then close the door and repeat the test. In total, I sat through it three times. Then the results were in. I am officially in the “excess fat” category, meaning that my body fat percentage is between 31-40% (okay, it’s 34.5), with a margin of error of 1% possible.

This was kind of demoralizing, especially on my birthday. But they are not judgmental about it at all. And I am trying not to be. It’s just that I really do a lot of training type things. I weight train, run, cycle, do yoga, tai chi, even the elliptical machine. Every day I include anywhere from 60-120 minutes of activity. I’ve been active like this for at least 6 months and though I do not know whether I started out with an even higher body composition reading, but I would have thought that by now it would at least be in the “moderately lean” category (that’s the next one down from mine, 23-30%). So I have a new goal, which is to get down into the moderately lean category, to 25% body fat.  Having just established this goal today, it’s not clear to me whether this type of goal is just weight loss in disguise (disguised as “fat loss”) and so therefore comes with all the trappings and pitfalls and oppressive features of the regular old weight loss game. I hope not but will monitor that as I go along.

I followed my body composition test with an appointment today with sports nutritionist, Jennifer Broxterman (same one Samantha has mentioned a few times). To prepare for this visit, I tracked my food for three days (two weekdays and a weekend day).  As some of you may know, I am not a big fan of tracking.  What I learned is that I do not in fact eat too much.  I eat the right amount over a day but I just need to spread it out a bit more with shorter periods of not eating.  We also had a bit of a chat about protein, which is always helpful for me as a vegan. I’m going to work with Jennifer’s suggestions over the next three weeks and see I do. They’re quite reasonable even though they involve less chocolate cake and fewer clif bars. If you have not seen a sports nutritionist and have concerns about eating enough of the right kinds of foods to support your training needs, I recommend it. If you’re local (London, Ontario), Jennifer is very good.

I figure it’s realistic to think that by my next birthday I can get down to 25% body fat without losing any lean mass.

diets · sports nutrition

Another perspective on tracking

Sam B10 Comments

My co-blogger Tracy explained why she despises tracking food and doesn’t do it these days. When we first talked about this blog we agreed that it might be fun to share some of our differences in approach to fitness. I offer up my different perspective on tracking not to counter Tracy’s experiences of finding it oppressive but rather to share my own experiences with food/exercise tracking. This isn’t a for/against kind of thing. Rather it’s different experiences of the same phenomena. Unlike my co-blogger, I do track what I eat.  Most days anyway. But I don’t do it because I’m concerned with writing down every morsel I consume with an eye  focused only on eating less and getting smaller. I try to do from the viewpoint of ‘sports nutrition’ not ‘dieting’ though like Tracy I recognize that’s a fine line. I’m much more concerned with seeing that I get enough to eat and that I eat the right foods to support my very active lifestyle.  At different times in my life I’ve tracked different things, usually for my own purposes though I’ve sought feedback from some excellent sports nutritionists over the years. (Right now it’s Jennifer Broxterman but in the past I’ve worked with Tim and Deb at Synergy Wellness and Precision Nutrition’s Krista Scott Dixon .) These days I mostly track with an eye on protein, healthy fats, and veggie intake. I also care about calories and sometimes even count them. But again my focus is usually both on making sure I’m eating enough on my active days and on scaling back when I’m not so active. Hunger has never been a very reliable guide for me.

Here’s another take on why calories matter and why we should track food from one of my favourite fitness blogs Go Kaleo: “Calories DO matter, but most of us can eat a lot more than we think we can if we’re making good food choices and getting regular exercise. Tracking calories is NOT about restriction, and reaching/maintaining a healthy weight is NOT about being hungry and denying ourselves proper nutrition. Quite the contrary, it is about feeding ourselves adequate amounts of nutritious foods that support health, energy and vitality. Here is a tool that will help you determine how many calories your body needs to function properly (I’ve found that the calorie tracking websites, while good for tracking, tend to give a calorie target that is too low for most active people I’ve worked with). Many of you will be surprised at how high the number is. Mine is 3500 a day. Hardly restrictive.”

While I like the idea of listening to my body and eating what I feel like eating but I’m afraid  our natural impulses get it wrong in both directions. Mine do anyway. Our urges to eat were developed in times of feast or famine, when stocking up on high calorie foods was a requirement of survival, so often what we want to eat isn’t good for us and the portions we want to eat are too large. But also I often don’t feel like eating as much as I need to do when I’m training hard.  Without calories you can’t win races, build muscles. or recover  well. So I plan meals, I count grams of protein, and I track. Mostly it feels liberating. Sometimes it feels like a chore.  But in a hectic busy family with lots of meals, snacks, and groceries on the go my food log often serves as a way to remind me that what I eat matters. For me, it’s much more about making sure I take care of myself.