The Art Of War On Weight Problems

In his famous book of strategy, Sun Tzu said:

• If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
• If you know yourself but not your enemy, for every victory gained you will also know defeat.
• If you know neither the enemy or yourself, you will sucumb to every battle.

We can apply this lesson to our weight loss and body conditioning goals, as follows:

If you know yourself and know your enemy.

In this case you could consider "your enemy" to refer either to your current body condition that you wish to change, or to the course of action required to achieve this result.

First, you must know yourself. What is your current condition, for example your starting weight? Now what is a suitable goal weight, that is neither unrealistic, unhealthy, and not too pessimistic either. A suitable weight one might expect an active, healthy person of your height, age and gender to be.

Now, what is the most suitable course of action for you to achieve this result? This would include a suitable activity, exercise or training plan, and suitable nutritional requirements. Simply put; how many calories to support this goal weight & enable adequate results from training?

If you know all of this, you'll find that what's required is quite simple and easy to adhere to. Even for more advanced or more ambitious goals, I believe that the effort to reward ratio is always proportionate. That is to say, so long as this is actually what you want, it is never more effort than it is worth. When your heart is not it in, it may be a different story.

If you know yourself but not your enemy.

OK, so you know where you are at, and where you'd like to get to. That's a start, but if you don't know how to get there... your chances are hit and miss at best. If you're not making progress, you can only guess at why and your guess is likely to be wrong.

Particularly in terms of intake levels, my observation is that people guess wrong consistently. Following misguided advice, they are likely to stress themselves out attempting to stick to restrictions that aren't even helpful or necessary, while oblivious to the much simpler actions that would ensure success.

If you know neither your self nor your enemy.

You don't really know where you're at, or where you want to be. You have not identified your goal, nor do you know what is required to get there. In this situation people are just doing some random activity, hoping that it will produce some result, and hoping that this result will make them happier.

To my mind, and example of this would be joining the gym just do do an hour on the Cross Trainer machine a few nights a week. Since you don't really know what you want, this seems as good an option as any, and hopefully it'll make some difference that you'll be satisfied with. Unfortunately, this won't happen.

Let's finish on a positive note though.

Back to the first point. If you know your goal, know that you have a suitable training program to achieve that goal, and know the nutritional guidelines required to enable that result, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

You are absolutely assured of success.

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Let's talk about training effectively.

My clients follow different versions of the same movement based program. There are certain movements that we want to cover, but the choice of exercise can vary depending on what equipment is available, or the client's confidence & ability level.

The way I've designed the program and the way I have set it up to be so versatile and customisable is a bit unique. But at the same time, it is just one example of how a competent and knowledgeable training might design an effective program.

There are probably unlimited options for designing an effective resistance training program, but for the most part they'll all have certain movements in common. Specifically we're talking about heavy ass compound lifts, and a suitable balance to recruit and exhaust all of the major muscle groups.

In addition to those, I like to include what I describe as "precision" movements that might target a more specific, smaller muscle, or which might be like an extra coat of polish after we've done the more utilitarian type stuff like grunting neanderthals.

Sometimes there are other movements that we might incorporate for very specific reason, for example to recruit and activate a very specific supporting muscle that doesn't seem to be doing it's job effectively while performing those major compound movements. These exercises aren't really going to make much of a difference to your body composition, but a trainer with a good eye and a good understanding of movement and anatomy will utilise them for the purpose of better preparing you for safe & effective execution of the important stuff that really does make a difference.

Now... click through pinterest for a while and have a look at some of these "cellulite banishing butt and thigh workouts" posted up, for example. What you'll find is a lot of very elegant and dignified looking calisthenic type exercises, precise movements that may target a specific muscle. You'll feel a burn while performing them, possibly some Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness the next day... but does this mean it is an effective training program consisting of suitable exercises to delivered the desired result? 

Nope.

You'll feel a burn because you're recruiting a small muscle in isolation, in a way that it is not used to being activated. This is something that a good trainer might proscribe to address an imbalance they perceive in your movement patterns, for example. Addressing that imbalance will allow you to perform the compound movements that will really change the shape of your body more safely and more effectively... but only performing these exercises while omitting the "big" stuff that really makes a difference will be mostly inconsequential.

If you want to change the shape of your body, you need to target the muscles that make up the greater part of it. Not just the smaller ones that are actually hidden deep within your anatomy.

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Two new weight loss articles published

A couple of articles you may have missed, posted on medium.

The first one is Dispelling The Weight Loss Myths, and it's just like the name suggests. There are no "fat burning" foods, there are no "foods you must never eat", you don't have to eat the way we might imagine primitive humanoid species might have at the dawn of time, or any of that nonsense.

That sort of talk sure does sell a lot of diet books, and gets you a lot of likes on facebook... but it's a lot like the saying goes, "the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it".

The truth is... you need to eat an amount that's appropriate. There are different diets you can try, but if they work it still comes down to having gained weight due to eating an excessive amount, and now losing weight by eating a less or non excessive amount. For continued results though, you really need to be consuming "the appropriate" amount, most of the time.

As far as I'm concerned, there's no point in hoping to fluke this by limiting your choices of foods, and especially if that means forcing yourself to eat stuff you don't particularly care for.

The new article posted this evening is called Why You Get Fat And What You Should Do About It. There's a book of a similar name, which is actually a load of garbage based on a flawed and misrepresented understanding of the science. What it really comes down to is appropriate intake, versus inappropriate intake.

As I describe in the article, if you are of a particular inactive lifestyle... you're almost certain to be eating in excess of your requirements. If you're in the habit of snacking on high calorie treats without really thinking about what you're doing, you're likely to be massively in excess. A more active person will have greater calorific requirements, and more room in the plan for some indulgence.

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