Why I stopped coaching weight loss for a few years there.

This was originally posted under another title on the old blog. A title that is no longer accurate since I'm now offering weight loss strategies again. Read on and it will all make sense, hopefully.

This is more complicated than you probably think.

People tend to want everything broken down into just one slogan or soundbite that either suits their biases or that they find easy to argue against. The reality is, there are a lot of angles to cover here. I'll do my best to cover them all within a reasonable word count, but I make no promises on that last part.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get started.

For reasons that will hopefully become apparent, I'm actually going to start with the conclusion, and the conclusion is actually a paragraph borrowed from something I posted on instagram the other day, as follows:

More than ever, the longer I do this and the more people I work with as a professional coach, the more I truly believe that our focus needs to be on simply enjoying the physical challenge of productive training, and enjoying the intellectual challenge of working to a productive fueling strategy, as well as assessing your physiological and psychological responses to each as you learn to do more of what keeps you strong, healthy & happy, and to reject whatever doesn't.

That sounds great, but what's the problem with wanting to lose weight?

Well I'm glad you asked. First of all though, that headline at the top of the page doesn't translate to "I don't want to coach fat people" or anything silly like that. Also, I always object to anything that gives anyone a message to the tune of "you might as well not bother trying, just accept that where you are is where you're supposed to be", so that's definitely not my point either.

Obviously I've helped people to lose weight successfully in the past. Clients, other people who follow my pages and put the pieces together for themselves. Some with medical conditions such as autoimmune diseases. Some who got on top of a restrict, binge & purge type eating disorder and lost weight. Some who rather generously credit me with facilitating a "life saving" level of weight loss.

A handful of fast facts about diets and weight loss:

1. All diets work for the same reason; they create a caloric deficit.
   Whether people are aware of the amount of calories or whether due to restriction of food choices, any changes in dietary habits that result in weight loss infer a caloric deficit.
2. Different named diets, low carb approaches, balanced approaches... when the energy and protein provision is matched, the clinical evidence suggests there is little if any difference in the results of different approaches. So there is not just "one correct" or "one best" set of eating habits we should all adopt.
3. Regardless, the statistics are that over the long term there is no approach that has a high success rate. People tend to regain the weight.
4. In fact, according to the International Journal Of Obesity; "it is now well established that the more people engage in dieting, the more they gain weight in the long-term."

So, what is the problem then?

Well that depends.

In theory, you make changes in dietary habits resulting in a caloric deficit. You lose weight, and so long as you do not revert back to habits resulting in a caloric surplus you should not regain the weight. Therefore the simple explanation is that the problem is down to continuance of adherence. Or so it would seem.

As an example, here's how it is supposed to work, and for that matter actually does work.

Imagine I have a new personal training client who is a younger woman and let's say 5, 10 or 15kg overweight due to not being in the habit of being active, and perhaps in the habit of over indulging a little too often. As a competent and responsible trainer, I get her started with a decent, strength based training program, and the appropriate energy targets at a suitable level of deficit and with a reasonable margin for error. If she follows my instructions with some level of consistency she'll certainly lose weight as she develops a more athletic condition.

Assuming she then maintains her interest in training and does not revert to an excessive energy intake, she should not regain any weight. That's how it works in theory anyway. I want to move on but first let's just acknowledge that what I've described is not really a "weight loss approach" the way most people would go about it.

So, whether it is working to a caloric deficit, whether it is sticking to this particular diet and this particular set of foods... if the people continue to do it, it would continue to work, right? You'd like to think so. So why don't people just keep doing it?

Reasons for non-continuance of adherence:

There could be any number of reasons and I'm not forgetting that mere complacency or even delusion are two of them, but it would be a flagrant cop-out to pretend that those are the only reasons and therefore absolve trainers & health coaches from their obligation to provide approaches that are feasible and efficacious over the long haul.

In simpler terms, I'm asking you just humour me and consider entertaining the mere possibility that people sometimes lose motivation because the approach has stopped producing results, or simply because the approach is impractical and any expectation of continued, long term adherence was entirely unreasonable.

Weight loss dieting tends to be of an extreme variety, either with strict low calories, strict food exclusions, or both. Strict adherence would prohibit ever going out to eat socially, visiting your parents for a home cooked meal, having a takeaway night or ordering home delivery. These approaches tend to be temporary by design, and as discussed, the long term consequence is greater weight gain.

With that in mind and getting back to my hypothetical client we described earlier, if we focus on developing an interest in a productive approach to training, we can expect weight loss. However if we focus on weight loss and my instruction is a low carb, low cal, clean eating style of extreme and restrictive diet, as well as high intensity activity "to burn calories"... any expectation of continued long term adherence is overly optimistic at best, any weight loss is temporary at best, and the long term consequence would be weight gain, a worsened relationship with food, and likely a decrease in enthusiasm for exercise as well.

In the case of a second new client of a higher and more excessive weight, it is very likely that their current weight is actually the consequence of previous attempts at weight loss perhaps over a period of years or even decades, and this is the outcome we wanted to avoid with the first hypothetical client. For this reason, it would make no sense at all to give them more of the same now. It would make no sense to take an attitude of "we need to lose weight first" via the same restrictive and unproductive approaches.

There are benefits to any amount of activity over being inactive, and benefits to getting out of restrictive dieting and developing more consistent, structured and appropriate eating habits and a healthier relationship with food. When the type of activity resembles some form of what we might describe as "productive training", in a more overweight or obese client we can expect significant decreases in measurements as the body begins to better ultilise energy and resources in support of lean mass at the expense of fat mass, as well as numerous other health benefits.

Here's the curious thing. While seeing significant results in fat loss you'd expect to see confirmation of this when weighing in on the scales, but the reality seems to be that this is not always the case right away. What a pity it would be to fail to value or appreciate the good results in fat loss, strength and performance at training, improved health markers and the rejection of restrictive dieting, just because the scales do not confirm these results with the corresponding loss of body weight.

There's more though. 

To wrap up and reiterate, by developing an interest in productive training and with suitable sports nutrition guidance there will be certain client profiles where weight loss is very likely, certain client profiles where weight loss could be expected but cannot be guaranteed, and let's not forget there will be some for whom weight loss should not be seen as an acceptable outcome at all.

My observation is that when people are focused on and overly concerned with weight loss per se, even when given a good and productive approach to training and the appropriate instruction, the tendency will be to sacrifice the efficacy of the training strategy by falling back into weight loss type behaviours and mindsets as previously described. For example, making changes or additions to the training program "to burn more calories", and to skip meals or otherwise fall short of the prescribed levels of fueling that are required to facilitate any sort of results.

Ironically, it will be the very things that people feel compelled to do because they "are trying to lose weight" which ultimately prevent them from reaping the many benefits of a sensible and productive approach to training.

While there's absolutely nothing wrong with having body composition and condition related goals, we must pursue them with sensible, effective and productive approaches and attitudes, and resist the social conditioning that sees us more inclined towards the extreme, destructive and ultimately futile methods typically associated with trying to lose weight.

Come and let me know what you thought of this post, on my facebook page.

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Contrary to popular belief, a caloric deficit does not guarantee fat loss.

I know, I know; I'm like a broken record at the moment and I have written more posts on this exact topic over the past few years than I can even keep track of.

Good though, sometimes you need hear things a few times before they really sink in. Especially when it's different to what you're used to hearing.

IIFYM = "if it fits your macros".

An approach to sports nutrition about calculating and then planning to meet your requirements for energy, protein, carbohydrate & dietary fats. Treat fibre as an additional macro too in my opinion.

I reiterate and emphasise this point: it is SUPPOSED TO BE about calculating your ACTUAL requirements. When people just say "if you're in deficit you'll see results in fat loss" or whatever, all that infers is that you're not exceeding your requirements. It doesn't suggest that you're getting what you need. In most cases it's just some arbitrary level of restricting on the basis that it can't possibly be enough, therefore tough it out, be accountable, distract yourself from hunger, etc.

Seeing fat loss DOES mean you are in deficit but not seeing fat loss DOES NOT necessarily mean that you are not in deficit, and the solution to a plateau or stall in progress is not necessarily to slash intake further into deficit.

Here's the thing, just as an example:

At let's say 700 calories per day into deficit, progress stalls.
For one of my clients who comes to me in this circumstance, I'd actually do some maths, predict what level of energy intake I'd expect to produce best results, and work with the client on a strategy to increase towards that amount.
I don't do maths based on "calculating a deficit" but for argument's sake let's say we're going to increase until we're only 150 calories per day in deficit.
Higher TEF, RMR & NEAT no longer compromised, resources actually available to recover & benefit from training. We will see better results.

Others argue "if you're in deficit you see fat loss and if you're not seeing fat loss you're not in deficit" and therefore the approach is just "whatever you're doing now, subtract a few hundred calories and that's your new target". That's garbage. Enforced anorexia is all that it is.

The issue in most cases that I see isn't that "you're no longer in deficit" but rather "you're too far into deficit and have been so for far too long". Over restricting. Excessive levels of restriction, and often excessive & unproductive levels of expenditure.

Now, I had a stupid idiot argue the other day that (paraphrasing) "if you're not seeing fat loss then you ARE at maintenance and NOT in deficit", but if we can facilitate fat loss at a HIGHER intake... then the LOWER amount that had ceased to result in fat loss due to compromised NEAT & RMR is clearly also in deficit.

Now... it's simple and correct enough to just say "you require enough, but not too much" or "you require a deficit, but an appropriate level of deficit and not an excessive level of deficit". You require that resources such as carbohydrate & protein are available to produce improvements in condition as an adaptation and benefit from training.

To me that is simple enough but it seems to be too complex for most of these chumps to grasp with their primitive intellect and myopic application. Being in deficit does NOT guarantee results, and slashing further and further into deficit recklessly and indefinitely is a dead end. LITERALLY.

Want more? See also: Ending The Unhealthy Obsession With Calorie Deficits

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Calories In, Calories Out; Maintenance or plateau?

A little infographic I whipped up, talking about Calories In / Calories Out, "maintenance" calories and weight loss plateaus.

It is a lot more complicated than people seem to think, too complicated to cover all the basis in a simple infographic but I tried my best.

Conventional thinking seems to be that if your weight is neither increasing nor decreasing, then whatever you happen to be doing now is "your maintenance" level of calorie intake. Whether that is working to / restricting to a particular calorie limit, or otherwise. If you're not losing & not gaining weight you're "at maintenance".

This can be problematic in cases where you have active people who are working to calorie limits and not seeing progress. Whether that is "weight loss progress" per se or whether they are already at around an appropriate goal weight but perhaps not at goal condition. The conventional (lack of) wisdom dictates that if you're not seeing fat loss progress, you're "at maintenance" and need to cut lower to get back into deficit.

Not necessarily so, and in my opinion, observations & experience not even the most likely explanation.

In actual fact, "maintenance" is not some pin point specific amount above which you'd gain weight and below which you'd lose fat. In actual fact there may be quite a wide margin between where (at the higher end of the spectrum) your intake is not high enough to gain weight, but is too high to draw from fat stores, and (at the lower end of the spectrum) your intake is insufficient to facilitate improvements in condition via prioritisation of lean mass, and your productivity & performance at training as well as your Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis is sacrificed in preference to drawing from fat stores.

Somewhere in between is an optimal range of calories where you can expect improvements in performance, energy & resources to be used to support increases in lean mass (at best) at the expense of fat stores or at least while not adding to them.

TL;DR it's like I've been saying for YEARS now and a few other people are starting to catch up to; you require an adequate but not excessive amount relative to your requirements as primarily determined by your amount of & level of proficiency at training, amongst other things. When you cease to see progress you must assess the situation accordingly rather than just assume that you need to eat less. And you do have options other than "bulk w/ fat gain via calorie surplus" & "cut w/ lean mass loss via increased calorie deficit".

You're invited to come and discuss this on facebook, here.

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What can we learn from fad dieting cults?

If there's one thing I'll say about the fad diet cultists on the internet, it's that they're annoying and stupid.

No I'm just kidding. I mean... some of them apparently do very well with whatever approach they're taking, but even the others will show up on pages run by people who've had more success than them, who's clients are seeing better results than them, or who are just plain happier doing something else...and they'll insist "no, you need to do your research and get up to date. This thing that I like is the only thing anyone should be doing and the only thing that anyone should be advocating, promoting or instructing".

Now... what we KNOW is that any approach will work if it involves a change in eating habits (and perhaps activity levels) which results in total energy intake going from excessive to not excessive. For SUSTAINABLE results, that change in habits needs to also be sustainable, and it is important that the new energy intake is "adequate". Going from excessive to insufficient won't be sustainable and is counter productive.

No matter WHAT the approach, that's what it comes back to.

However, diet cultists will insist "no, it is NOT about calories it is these specific food choices and you couldn't be successful any other way". Or the more moderate variety might say "well sure, it does come down to non excessive calorie intake but with any other set of choices or schedule you'd inevitably end up over eating" because fructose or insulin or whatever else. Which... as 9 times out of 10 they'll be arguing with someone who's actually doing several of the things they're saying can't be done, with a greater level of sustained success... it's really demonstrably ridiculous.

"Just try it though" they'll still insist. Even though you say you're happy and enjoying what you're doing now AND seeing great results... "just try the thing I like instead" as if you owe it to them to validate their opinion or something.

People are FANATICAL about these approaches and while my personal observation is that most of them don't seem to have a much better level of success than your average crash dieter of the conventional variety... there are some notable exceptions.

So... is it possible, could it be conceivable that there IS something more to it than just "more appropriate energy intake"? And if so what can we take from that and how can we apply it to what we do, promoting and practising non restrictive approaches? 

Here are the things:

1. although the reasons are false, people have reason to believe "this really is the best way and the only way I'm likely to succeed". And you might even add "the only way anyone else deserves to succeed" as well according to some of them. 
2. people become heavily invested in and identify with the approach. They join "the tribe". 
3. at least in some cases, the people seem to believe that eating a certain way makes them better than everyone else. 

So in short, it has less to do with the specifics of the diet or the accuracy of the beliefs people have about the diet, and it is more to do with how they FEEL about & identify with the diet and the collective of other people following it, and how that may be conducive to consistent and enthusiastic adherence. Or perhaps in some case "strict and disciplined adherence by force of will". Screw that though in my opinion.

While we practice evidence based, individualised approaches to sports and general nutrition, the main thing we can take from the above is the importance of being heavily invested in the approach and the process, and beginning to identify with it. Not in the sense of being a conformist with a "tribe" mentality, but in the sense of people who are successful with a training goal or some other passion in life. It is just a part of who and what they are, to show up and train, to practice their instrument or their forms, to spend time in the workshop or the art studio. At a certain point training becomes a part of your identity and your nutritional habits while not being obsessive, restrictive or anxiety inducing are habits you have structured and developed in much the same way that you have structured and developed your training strategies. 

So, you're heavily invested in, you identify with, and you have solid reasons to believe "this is what will work best for me in meeting my needs to pursue my goals". And why? Because you set it up with that purpose in mind.

To most consistently meet your requirements, it needs to be on the schedule that best suits you, with more of the foods that most appeal to you. Which is not to say that this can't evolve or needs to be rigid and unchanging, but why would you even consider trying something other than "what best suits my schedule to meet my needs with more of the foods that most appeal to me"? 

Crucially though is point #3.

Rather than doing something with the deluded notion that it makes us better than everyone else, our motivation should simply be to enjoy working to a strategy with a goal of being the best version of ourselves, according to whatever we've decided for ourselves that this would mean. 

Self development is the goal. Not to fit in and conform, not the approval or appeasement of others at the expense of your own ideas and individuality. Self development and self determination.

That's what I think, anyway.

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Perform, Refuel, Recover, Adapt

You might have noticed this slogan on the new line of tanks & tees that me and some of the guys and girls who I coach have been showing off online and in the gym lately.

Perform, Refuel, Recover & Adapt. These are the things that Sports Nutrition facilitates, and which "dieting" only hinders.

When we talk about "dieting", the inference is on calorie restriction, or an arbitrary list of restrictions on the choices of foods you're allowed to have. What's rarely involved is any sort of system of estimating or determining your actual energy requirements; it is just arbitrary restriction and deprivation to ensure that you fall short of those requirements, usually with the misguided belief that fat loss will be the outcome.

These are the facts, whether people like them or not:

There are no "fat burning" or "fat storing" foods. Clean eating, paleo, low carb and other deprivation based approaches work because restricting food choices, and in particular the omission of energy dense choices, results in a "calorific deficit'.

If you've been in the habit of consuming an excessive amount of energy, you'll have gained weight. When you make dietary changes resulting in a less excessive energy consumption, you lose weight. Regardless of the choices of foods.

The exception to this rule appears to be when you have an extended history of extreme and erratic chances between excessive intake and overly restrictive, insufficient intake. Also known as "crash dieting", "yo-yo dieting", and so on. It seems apparent that at a certain point, the body just settles at a certain weight & condition and does not respond to short term changes in energy balance the way we would normally expect.

Regardless though, other than in the specific circumstance described above (and even then, not necessarily in every case of the above) it is generally correct to say that "any change in dietary habits resulting in a caloric deficit will result in weight loss, regardless of the choice of foods".

However... it goes without saying that we're not here to talk about "weight loss" dieting. While fat loss may be an aspect of our athletic performance, condition and related goals, a weight loss focused calorie restriction approach tends to end up in a that counter productive pattern of erratic shifts between excessive and overly restrictive dietary habits that we discussed earlier.

So while it is technically correct to say that a caloric deficit is required to ensure fat loss, a calorie deficit shouldn't be our only focus when determining our sports nutrition requirements, and contrary to popular belief, merely being in deficit does not ensure improvements in condition.

Perform, and Refuel.

It should go without saying that the human body requires fuel to be available in order to perform at training and sports. For some reason, many people seem to believe that it is necessary to restrict their energy intake to (or even below) their BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate in order to draw upon fat stores. Doing so actually ensures that NO energy is available to perform. Obviously the body finds a way to cope and you don't just instantly collapse in a heap upon exertion of energy... but this is far from an ideal situation.

When active people who have been chronic dieters or have otherwise been restricting to an insufficient level of energy intake begin to fuel more appropriately, they see rapid and significant improvements in sports performance benchmarks and increases in personal bests, simply because the energy is available in the muscles to facilitate such improvements.

An active person's energy intake can and in most cases should be significantly higher than their BMR, without becoming excessive or precluding fat loss. It stands to reason that we want to do this more than once, and having fueled adequately, performed at our best, we need to refuel in order to do it again.

Recover & Adapt.

You require energy in order to perform, and having put in your best effort at training, you need to refuel in order to do it again. Failing to do so is just running yourself into the ground, and has the effect of making training destructive rather than productive. For this reason a lot of people think "net your BMR", as in... keep track of the amount of calories burned at exercise, add this to your BMR, and then you have your calorie requirement. Also referred to as "eating back" the calories burned at exercise.

While this is better than falling short of your BMR, it is still insufficient. We need not to merely replace the energy we have expended while active, but we need to provide energy and resources in order to recover from the stress we have placed our body under, in order to make that a productive level of stress rather than a destructive level of stress. Recovery may have two meanings here as people often have a goal of recovering from eating disorder, recovering from years of dieting, recovering both psychologically and physiologically.

Further still though, our aim is not merely to expend and then replace energy. Our aim is to facilitate further improvements in performance, and to adapt to training with a stronger, leaner, more athletic physical condition. This can only occur when sufficient energy, protein, and other resources are available to support and maintain an increase in lean mass. Your level of activity and fueling can either put you into an anabolic state where your body is able to prioritise the creation of lean mass, or it can put you into a state where lean mass is squandered to make up a shortfall in energy provision. It is important not to make the mistake of believing that fat stores are always the only, or the preferred resource that your body will draw from to make up an energy short fall.

Sports Nutrition takes all of this into account. Conventional weight loss dieting and buzzwords like "eat clean", "calorie deficit" and so on do not.

If this sounds like an approach you'd be interested in, check out the Online Coaching or Personal Training pages for more information. You can order this or other designs on a tank, tee or hoodie via my webstore.

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