Misinformed Part 1

By David Modderman, B.S., NASM-CPT, ACE- CPT, NESTA-CFNC

Many people try different diets and weight loss methods and most are unsuccessful in maintaining a long-term healthy lifestyle. The main reason these people are unsuccessful is because they are misinformed. We will be taking an in depth look at these unsuccessful weight loss methods, fad diets, and how they promote misinformation.

Eat less and lose weight
This is a very popular diet. Many people assume if they stop eating, or go on a diet they will automatically lose weight. Almost every time someone goes "on a diet" they deprive themselves of some nutritional value. If you look up the word "diet" in the dictionary one of the actually definitions is "deprivation". When our body is deprived of some nutritional value it needs, it falls out of a healthy balance. When a person burns as many calories as they take in, they have what we call an "energy balance." These people will not gain nor lose weight. So, because of this most assume to lose weight they must eat less than what their body burns each day. They will lose weight but usually it is water loss, and some very important tissue called muscle. Some people even try to cut out calories, fat, and the newest one carbohydrates! They do not realize these three things are so important in not only in an effective nutrition plan, but also to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Calories are very important in order for the body to function. Calories provide energy for our body and we receive more energy by burning calories. So if calories are reduced too low, then what will we be burning to provide energy? Most of us assume we will be burning fat for energy on a low calorie diet, when in fact we are burning MUSCLE! What's the reason for this? The reason is our body wants to keep our fat stores for emergencies, and feed on our precious muscle first before anything else. By losing muscle we can actually store more body fat! How is this? By depriving our body of nutritional value, our body stops functioning normally. So, we need to eat a nice balance of calories. This includes lean protein, fibrous carbohydrates, and healthy fats to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

If I get help from a diet Clinic, I will lose weight no problem.
Maybe this has happened to you are someone you know. Your goal is to lose weight. You browse through the newspaper and see this nice commercial on T.V that promises you can lose 10 lbs in 10 days! Your interested, so you call the toll free number and you are invited to a meeting. You arrive at this meeting and are introduced to a small group of people who have the same weight loss goals as you. A person with a title of a "weight loss counselor" is then introduced to your small group. After sitting down with this so-called expert, you both realize you are eating too many calories. So, you must decrease your calories to lose the weight you want. You return to the small group after a week of reducing your calories and you are weighed. (Not always the best way to measure results). The scale tells you that you have lost 5 pounds!! Wow! You feel great, and become even more excited when you think of the weeks to come. Another week passes and go to the clinic to be weighed for a second time and you have lost another 3 pounds! You're overwhelmed with excitement. The third week of your diet arrives and you go in again for a weigh in. Your weight loss has come to a screeching halt. You are horrified! You consult with your weight loss counselor and they tell you to decrease your calories once again. As unbearable as it seems, you stick with it for another week. You come back for your fourth weigh in and yes; it worked! You lost another 2 lbs! You now you have reached your goal of losing 10 lbs! You can now go back to eating normal again. So, you eat normal again for sometime, only to find the next time you weigh yourself you have gained back the 10 lbs you suffered to lose and even a few pounds more! You now decide go back on the program again determined to lose the weight and keep it off this time. But you continue this viscous cycle of gaining and losing weight and never really making progress.

So what happened? Why didn't this low calorie diet work?? It's a trick of most diet clinics. The 10 lbs you lost was made up of 3 different things, water, a little fat and mostly muscle. When we lose muscle we slow down our metabolism, because muscle is the location where fat is burned. When you lower calories you put your body in a mode of starvation. Now that your metabolism has slowed down your body will start to store more fat as a survival mechanism, and feed on muscle tissue as a source of energy. Since the majority of the weight you lost was muscle, you lost the ability to use that muscle to burn more calories at rest. When you resumed your normal eating habits those calories were now stored as fat. So, instead of going out and following these yo-yo diets, you need to be educated how to prevent this, and learn how to eat correctly. I will show you how to do this.

Now that you understand calorie deprivation you will see how calorie deprivation is all around us. You will also notice that it is the basis for most of the popular "weight loss" programs. Look for Part 2 in next month's newsletter.

The author of this tip David Modderman has a degree in Exercise Science, and is a Certified Personal Trainer/Lifestyle and Nutrition Coach. He is a Personal Trainer/Health and Nutrition Coach located in the Rockford/Cedar Springs area. He is also the creator of Real Results Fitness Company and the 17 Week Real Results Body Transformation Program. If you would like to learn how to burn fat, build muscle and create a faster metabolism, you need to schedule an exercise or nutrition session with him at one his locations or in your home. Or you may sign up for one of his Supermarket Tours or Fat Loss and Nutrition Seminars. You can reach him with any questions at: support@davidmodderman.com or 616-824-8311.