Here’s an intro to the type of info you can expect to learn in the 8 wk challenge………..
By Darren Bain
Misconception 1 – Counting Calories.
Calories in Vs Calories out Model?
How often do you hear “if you want to lose weight it’s very simple, eat less move more”. Unfortunately the world we live in today it is not that simple in a lot of cases, often addressing our hormones through nutrition and lifestyle practices is often overlooked for the calories in vs calories out model, or some radical fat loss method.
We now live in an era of unavoidable daily toxin exposure, our bodies have natural mechanisms to cleanse & detoxify but our rapidly changing world has outpaced these mechanisms. As a result we have varying degrees of toxic burden leading to a variety of inflammatory symptoms, common diseases, fat gain and the struggle to oxidize excess fat. Yes even if you eat healthy and exercise toxins are unavoidable, of course a healthy diet and exercise will help to decrease the amount of toxins coming in and increase the amount of toxins leaving the body…. But the point is every day, every hour, even every minute you can encourage your body to store fat, or utilize it for energy by the way you train, eat, live and the supplements you use to manipulate your hormones.
Fat loss and health improvement in today’s world particularly for females can be a chemistry project to get the body back in balance and restore health. For the majority of people it is more complicated and challenging than eat less, move more! (A great book to read for you ladies on this topic is the Ultimate You – By Joe Dowdell)
Let’s look at the calories in vs. calories out model. With this model, to approach the full picture we must bring training methods into the equation…as you’ll learn in the Optimal Training Methods for Physique Enhancement Manual when looking at improving body composition the goal with training needs to be to select methods that are going to produce the greatest RMR (resting metabolic rate) & EPOC (exercise post oxygen consumption) response. No workout will burn more calories than your RMR.
A lot of calorie in vs. calorie out models don’t take into consideration the type of training that is conducted, often promoting aerobic type activity that has a minimal effect on RMR & EPOC, rather than recommending weight training which has the greatest effect on EPOC & RMR and overall fat loss… not to mention a better looking physique.
Let’s say you went for a 30min jog and burnt 400 calories, then after your run you had 2 cups of pasta which is about 420 calories. Automatically you haven’t created a calorie deficit?. Does this mean the run was a waste of time, of course not, but what needs to be taken into consideration are optimal training methods that focuses on EPOC & RMR and understanding that not all calories are created equal, we must understand where these calories come from, how they affect us hormonally and how the body metabolizes them.
From a training perspective I’m not a fan of the calories in vs. calories out model but also from a nutrition intake stand point it makes no sense to have a nutrition plan solely focused on calories.
Let’s look at another calorie example; a chocolate muffin that is 230 calories compared to 2 large handfuls of almonds which is about 230 calories – the almonds contains protein, healthy monounsaturated fat, calcium, magnesium minerals and fibre. The muffin contains empty calories in terms of nutritional value, is high in sugar which generates a big insulin response and ultimately fat storage. Same amount of calories totally different response.
I could have 2 people both training the same, weigh the same, are both the same age – All factors are the same including having them both on a 2000 calorie a day diet. However what is different is the 2000 calories that those foods are derived from. Meaning one is on a high protein, low carb diet while the other is on a high carb, low protein diet…What I’ll get at the end of the experiment is 2 totally different body composition results, even though they both consumed 2000 calories per day.
And besides who has the time to count every calorie they consume? It is by no means time efficient and for the majority will not produce the best result. If you are going to count calories you must use an equation that takes into consideration your RMR and have a solid understanding of nutrition to know that the calories you are getting in are from the right sources, not thinking you can eat whatever you like as long as it doesn’t go over your ‘x’ amount of calories total per day.
Yes calories are important but they are no means the whole picture.
Finally another key factor to take into consideration is the thermic effect of food TEF, . For example by adding greens to your diet, the leaner you will get due to the thermogenic effect of these foods. Whole proteins such as meat and fish are also very thermogenic and will result in rapid fat loss when eaten consistently even though they potentially are high in calories.
Red more about the thermic effect of food TEF, here.
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