Fat loss - not weight loss: what my trainer said :O
I'm trying to lose a little jiggly fat as you may have seen in my other recent post. I spoke to my trainer about it yesterday, and he gave me some advice that I'm not so sure about. I'd like to know what you think, what you've read, and/or your experiences with a similar plan.
Basically, he said it doesn't have much to do with how many calories I eat. I almost started laughing when he said that, but I was luckily able to control myself.
He continued to say that what I need to do is keep carbs and proteins separate, i.e. don't eat them at the same meal. The theory, he said, was that the body needs dif things at dif times of the day. He even gave me a rough meal plan:
breaky: fruit (apples, bananas, etc)
snack: protein + bread (yogurt, milk, boiled eggs...)
lunch: lean meat + potatoes, rice, pasta, or veggies
snack: fruit
dinner: same as lunch
snack: protein (not carbs under any circumstances)
It's generally the same things I always eat, but the idea to split them seems a bit ridiculous to me. What say you?
one vote for ridiculous here.
I've heard about food separation diets, and believe they're b.s. What about foods that have both? Basically, my non-expert thought is that it works because it severely limits the types of food you can eat.
Wait a second, doesn't your meal plan include protein & carbs in the same meal anyway?
Original Post by jenningermany:
keep carbs and proteins separate, i.e. don't eat them at the same meal.
......
snack: protein + bread (yogurt, milk, boiled eggs...)
lunch: lean meat + potatoes, rice, pasta, or veggies
dinner: same as lunch
How do these meals separate protein and carbs?
My understanding has always been that it's best to get some fat, protein, and carbs in each meal.
There are usually two takes about weight loss. One is very straightforward - calories eaten < calories burn = weight loss. The other is a bit more complex and has to do with the nutition types, food combinations, etc. This has more to do with how the body responds to what you are eating. 100 calories is 100 calories, but the body's insulin and fat producing response will be different if 100 calories of vegetables are eaten vs 100 calories of highly absorbable sugar like candy.
Keeping track of total calories eaten vs total calories burned is easier and in the long run it does produce results. Perhaps when you get to a point where you are near your goal you will need to pay more attention to the types of calories, proteins vs carbs, etc. The meal plan you posted doesn't seem to follow the advice, though. Why would you eat protein with bread, or meat with potatoes, rice, pasta? Wouldn't that be eating protein and carbs in the same meal?
When it doubt, keep things simple. Eat low on the food chain. Avoid highly processed foods. Exercise regularly. You can't really target weight loss and it might be a lot more slowly for the last few pounds but if you stick with it you will see results over time.
Good luck :)
Slunicka and amethystgirl - that's another point I forgot to mention. He didn't exactly do what he said needed to be done.
It seems like all he did in this meal plan was keep carbs out of dinner.
For my part, a breakfast of just fruit would make me feel worse than not eating anything at all.
I know that there are a lot of people who buy into nutrient timing (I'm sure there's a better "buzz word" for it, I just don't know what it is). And it probably does make some amount of difference. But the original statement - that it doesn't matter how many calories you eat, but when you eat them - doesn't work for me.
How much you lose is a factor of how much you burn and how much you eat. When and what you eat might affect how much you burn (TEF), but that's just one side of the equation. It doesn't negate the importance of the other side (how much you are actually eating).
I tried just eating fruit this morning as opposed to my normal bowl of fruit/muesli/yogurt. I was so hungry after the 30 minute drive to work that I ate my snack as soon as I arrived!
Also sounds like bs to me. I think there are very few "trainers" who know what they are talking about exercise and nutrition wise.
I once tried eating just fruit for breakfast based on some other plan - not for me either.
In my experience there are some foods that make me feel hungrier. They tend to be ones that are higher on the "glycemic index" but not always & it has taken alot of monitoring and tweaking. For ex: the less carbs(even otameal/ whole grains) I eat in the am the less hungry I am all day.
I think it has more to do with the kind of food you are eating and calorie control. Carbs, your body handles simple and complex carbs differently and you body reacts differently to them. Simple carbs spike your blood sugar rapidly and then you crash rapidly and most don't have much fiber where complex carbs generally have more fiber and keep your blood sugar at an even keel.
If you eat clean and balanced and watch your calories you will loose fat. But until you cleanup your diet you won't.
a) by his theory you should be able to eat 7 million calories a day and not gain weight right? Since calories don't mater....
b) if calories don't matter why did he give you a meal plan that would barely keep a 90 year old sedentary grandma alive?
c) if that was all I ate in a day I would starve to death even with no exercise at all... seriously, one piece of fruit for breakfast? I'd be hungry in 30 minutes too.
Original Post by sugarshocked:
a) by his theory you should be able to eat 7 million calories a day and not gain weight right? Since calories don't mater....
b) if calories don't matter why did he give you a meal plan that would barely keep a 90 year old sedentary grandma alive?
c) if that was all I ate in a day I would starve to death even with no exercise at all... seriously, one piece of fruit for breakfast? I'd be hungry in 30 minutes too.
Well, he didn't say to just eat one piece of fruit or one piece of chicken.
Either way, I just don't buy it.
yeah i often don't listen to "trainers" regarding medical advice. these are usually people who have always been in good shape, giving advice that they themselves don't really follow. besides, it's not like they are getting this info out of medical journals. it's usually rumors they've heard or something they read in "men's health." If you want to loose fat but keep muscle, just make sure you maintain a calorie deficit by counting calories, make sure you're meeting your protein requirements, and stick to your strength training (important). your body can break down both muscle and fat when on a diet, so it is important that you are building new muscle and protecting your muscles by making sure they have the protein they need, so only that fat is the one getting burned up.
NEVER take nutritional advice from a trainer. The perfect case for a little information is dangerous in the wrong hands.
Keep carbs and PROTEIN separate?
Heh, no. Fire your trainer.
There is reason to keep carbs and FAT seperate, that's a different story. Protein is needed and useful at all times of the day.
Original Post by neanderthin:
NEVER take nutritional advice from a trainer. The perfect case for a little information is dangerous in the wrong hands.
Honestly, try not to take it from these forums either. A lot of layman advice here. Best to do your own research from lots of different sources.
Yeah definitely eat protein and carbs together...its way better than eating carbs alone...and a lot of trainers do give good nutrional advice (mine for example; although I agree that some are quite bad) so you just need to find someone who is knowledgeable (this is true for everyone...whether you are getting advice from a friend, someone on here (and there are a lot of super knowledgeable people here that have helped me a ton!!, or a trainer) and knows what they are doing since you are paying them hard-earned money and most don't come cheap, but yeah you will feel fuller and more stable longer if you eat some protein with your carbs...just carbs will make you crash way sooner
tell him to stick to showing people how to use the treadmill
and leave the rest to registered dieticians
Original Post by ibez:
Keep carbs and PROTEIN separate?
Heh, no. Fire your trainer.
There is reason to keep carbs and FAT seperate, that's a different story. Protein is needed and useful at all times of the day.
Original Post by neanderthin:
NEVER take nutritional advice from a trainer. The perfect case for a little information is dangerous in the wrong hands.
Honestly, try not to take it from these forums either. A lot of layman advice here. Best to do your own research from lots of different sources.
Well, I don't ever take anything said anywhere verbatim and I do try and read as much as I possibly have time for.
That said, consuming foods in any combination, which includes the carb and fat scenario is still about energy balance. A person can consume any combination of carb and fat and throw in my old sweater for fiber and we will not gain body fat in a caloric deficit. Also it only takes a tiny amount of insulin to activate fat storage and considering protein facilitates an insulin response anything is going to get stored by those rules of food combining. Nutrient timing will drive a person crazy considering the metabolic pathway combinations that are actively going on in the body at one time. Of course this is only my opinion, which like you said should be taken with a grain of salt and scepticism. 
Original Post by neanderthin:
Original Post by ibez:
Keep carbs and PROTEIN separate?
Heh, no. Fire your trainer.
There is reason to keep carbs and FAT seperate, that's a different story. Protein is needed and useful at all times of the day.
Original Post by neanderthin:
NEVER take nutritional advice from a trainer. The perfect case for a little information is dangerous in the wrong hands.
Honestly, try not to take it from these forums either. A lot of layman advice here. Best to do your own research from lots of different sources.
A person can consume any combination of carb and fat and throw in my old sweater for fiber and we will not gain body fat in a caloric deficit.
Here's where my opinion clashes with yours. I am not a scientist either, but here's an example, with my current understanding of things:
Let's say John Doe hears about the great new corn syrup diet. This diet tells him to drink 10 cans of soda per day and consume nothing else. (Ignoring that this would kill him in short order) Everytime John drinks the next can of soda, his liver is getting smashed with fructose that it can't use, and then storing it as fat.
And John goes about his day doing this, putting on some fat. Then he goes to sleep. While he's sleeping, liver glycogen drops, but he still needs fuel. He is now burning off some of the fat he added, but he's also burning off plenty of muscle.
Then he wakes up again tomorrow and starts adding more fat. The process repeats, and John actually gains fat while losing weight as muscle.
I believe there was a study done that showed rats gaining bodyfat on a fructose diet in caloric deficit, but I can't find it...
Ok, now let's say that John switches to a 50% fat/50% protein ketosis diet, at the same 1500 cals.
Now, his body is burning fat for energy due to the lack of carbs. The protein is muscle-sparing (Because it can be broken down in place of his own tissue), and so he's able to lose considerably less muscle. He's also not putting on much fat in the first place; he's eating slow-digesting foods that are more likely to be used up as energy before being stored (And less insulin is present).
He's losing a similar amount of weight, but this time it's almost all fat, whereas before it was almost all muscle.
Now, my scientific accuracy may not be extremely perfect, again I'm not a scientist nor an MD. But the basic principal that macronutrient intake affects what weight specifically is being lost is quite solid. And of course, don't need to take it from me. Research will reflect that.
ibez your right I meant to say "we will not gain body weight in a caloric defict" Absolutely our body composition will be effected by extreme shifting of macronutrients in a deficit, or surplus.
Consuming fat with a carb source will store that dietary fat as adipose tissue as well as raising blood lipid levels, both of which are geared for fat storage but only until insulin has come back to baseline. Fat at that point will be mobilized for not only metabolic function and repair but for energy as well and contributing to thermogenesis, and at the end of the day as we say, if we're in a deficit, we're not gaining weight. Add a workout like a heavy bout of weight lifting, HIIT or any anerobic activity just prior to that carb and fat meal will change how those carbs and fat are utilized. Some will be partitioned towards muscle glycogen or converted to triacylglycerol for adipose storage. As well depending on the fat that was consumed some will be immediately used for energy through saliva and stomach digestion of the medium chain saturated fats, stearic acid is mobilized to be elongated (desaturase) into a different fatty acid 18:1, some saturated and unsaturated fat is used for hormonal regulation, cell maintenance, myelin regulated protocall for vit's and mineral absorption, brain tissue maintenance and on and on........what's left over will get stored. Without getting into the hypothetical all carbs from pop consumption or the all chicken breast or all olive oil I believe that macro's can vary by a wide range, without incident. Worrying if our pwo drink had peanut butter in it or flax seed because it will blunt the insulin effect on protein sythesis and myscle gycogen replenishing, or it'll get stored as fat is a totally useless waste of brain power in a deficit imo.
But to get back to the OP's concern about some giggly fat and wanting to lower it. It would be more appropriate that calorie levels were optimized as not to be too low and to go with a higher protein consumption (not low carb) for 5 days in a deficit and then do 2 days of carb loading in a surplus of around 20 % with increased intensity in workouts for the carb loading days. jmo. Fat is fine to consume over all of those 7 days
Original Post by neanderthin:
But to get back to the OP's concern about some giggly fat ...
heehee
