The three pyramids of fat loss

My passion is helping clients lose body fat in the most efficient, stress free and sustainable way I can. I have spent the entirety of my career looking for the answer to the following question:

What is the best way to lose fat?

So far, I’ve taken thousands of measurements from clients and coached over 10,000 individual sessions. I’ve always asked the same question, what can we (the client and I) do to make the results better?

I’ve studied nutrition, movement, strength training, exercise physiology, exercise biochemistry, behavioural psychology, personal coaching, supplementation and countless other subjects surrounding fat loss and how best to encourage it; and what I present here is the abridged but most current version of my theory of optimal fat loss.

I define optimal fat loss as a plan which;

• -          Doesn’t require an acute life overhaul
• -          Makes the subject feel better immediately
• -          Maintains or even increases the speed of fat loss over time
• -          Educates the subject on how to maintain their new body themselves

To be clear I don’t describe an optimal fat loss plan as;

• -          Something where you can switch off the mind and follow
• -          A plan which makes the subject feel worse
• -          Anything which leaves the person reliant upon a system (which often costs money)
• -          The absolute fastest way to shift fat off the body

If you are looking for something different then I suggest you stop now, as you’ll only be frustrated.

The three pyramids:

There are three pyramids, which represent the three main areas that can influence your ability to lose fat successfully. Later on I will explore the three pyramids and present them in a way that gives you an overview on how to achieve optimal fat loss.

It must be stressed that there is and never will be a one size fits all plan for losing fat, and I don’t intend on finding one. What I do intend on finding is a method that can help anyone who is sincerely interested understand the fundamental truths of fat loss and then use in their own journey however they see fit.

There are three main areas in all of our lives which influence our ability to lose fat.

•       Nutrition
•       Activity
•       Lifestyle

When it comes to prioritising:

Nutrition > Activity > Lifestyle.

Nutrition

If I don’t feed you, you will lose weight. Even if you sit totally still and are totally Zen, if you don’t eat you will shift fat. It’s not optimal, but it would work.

You can control the food going in your mouth 100% (despite what people might say) but you can only influence your activity and energy burning. You cannot control it. For this reason, activity is second on the list.

Activity

It really helps a lot to do lots of intelligent exercise if you want to lose weight, but it’s not the only way you burn fat. You can burn fat when you digest food, when you fiddle with something and when you sleep too!

I regularly witness people doing tonnes of exercise and not losing any fat. How can this happen? Because they’re not eating in a way which supports their sweaty efforts. Activity is critical, it’s important and you will not be successful without it. However, it is lower down the pecking order and it’s essential that we all remember that.

Lifestyle

The final part of the picture is lifestyle. There are certain things that you can do to enhance or inhibit fat loss that have nothing to do with activity and food. Sleeping well helps a great deal, as does meditating and living a calm easy life.

However, as is demonstrated by a very content fat man. The Chinese depiction of the Buddha shows how this zen like happiness can pale into insignificance if you don’t address the most important things first.

Lifestyle matters, but despite what magazines might have you believe you cannot destress your way to a smaller dress size!

London 2012 legacy; Rio heroics and more obesity than ever

"Get serious about obesity or bankrupt the NHS"

Simon Stevens the Chief Exec of NHS England describes obesity as:

'The new smoking, and it represents a slow motion car crash in terms of avoidable illness and rising health care costs' 

But how big a problem is the obesity epidemic?

• Latest statistics say that two thirds of adults and a quarter of children between the age of 2-10 are overweight or obese.
• Last year the fire service had to rescue over 900 obese people from their own homes because they were stuck indoors
• The most recent and complete statistics suggest that obesity cost the UK economy £15billion in 2007, with £4.2billion of the bill being fronted by the NHS. 

Take it forward to this summer in Brazil;

• Team GB become the first country to increase its medal haul following hosting an Olympic Games
• With 1.03 medals per million people, GB massively outperform both the USA (0.38 per million) and China (0.05 per million) at the games.
• Britain also spends the least money per medal out of the top three nations. 

These two sets of statistics appear, at least to me, to be at ends with one another. On the one hand it would appear that we are a nation of obese people who are continuing to get less active and more obese. On the other hand, it would appear that by natural talent and sporting prowess we are able to produce more, better athletes with less money. 

There is an obvious disconnect which I can only put down to the nation's attitude when it comes to sports and fitness. There is an elitist culture in sport which is deeply ingrained; those who have been chosen to do well get the help they need and those who are judged not to be capable don't receive any help and give up young.

It's precisely this issue which had resulted in us having a combination of a 'slow car crash' healthcare system and a team of the best athletes in the world. 

We get taught about physical education in school, but how does this set us up for life? How does this apply to us as adults?

Adults in the UK don't play a lot of sport. People are averse to exercise generally. I know this sounds a bit general but I hear it a lot. 'I can't play sport, I hate exercise', As someone who plays rugby I know too well how difficult it can be for a new person to start a new hobby in sport, especially if you weren't into it as a child.

I've moved a few times in the last few years and as such have played for a number of new rugby teams. The entry process is pretty much the same. It's a new team, with a bunch of people you don't know and to begin with you get put in as a sub on the third team. 

You aren't coached you're just expected to pick it up and learn by doing. Nobody explains the rules; you're just expected to know. Nobody explains the calls, you just get put into the mix and are expected to go. 

Now imagine you're in the same situation and you aren't confident. Perhaps you're overweight and out of shape. Perhaps you used to play but haven't picked up a ball in a decade.

Imagine the guts it takes to turn up to a rugby team, with only a vague idea of the sport and being expected to just get on with it. 

Imagine how tempting it would be to not show up when you're training with a bunch of strangers who are going to make almost no effort to help you out. It's raining, it's December and it's freezing. The alternative is a night in, in front of the TV. 

I have never ending respect for people who show up as newbies, and stick with it throughout the season as the obstacles up front to getting into it are enormous. 

This personal example translates to gyms too. If you don't know what you're doing you have a choice of going to a big group class (hoping not to injure yourself), or you can choose slogging it out at rush hour trying to piece a workout between groups of guys hovering around equipment and congratulating each other while they plan their night out. 

It all looks unappealing. I can see why people put it off. 

Then there's the food aspect. We don't get taught about good nutrition at school. Instead we learn how to bake cakes in Food Tech and are left to our own devices. We have to rely upon our parents, friends and magazines to tell us how to eat.

YouTube bloggers come up with horrendously unbalanced and uneducated diets just because it works for them. Glossy magazines come up with the same useless tips every month, promising the quick fix answers that we crave. But what alternative is there?

The government comes up with health initiatives, which are certainly better than nothing, but appear from the trenches to have very little penetration into the daily habits of the population. I can’t remember anyone bringing up the five a day mantra when talking about food. It just hasn’t worked.

Even doctors are woefully under educated about food. I might ruffle some feathers here but doctors (GP’s included) are not given anything like enough good education to help people actually make the necessary changes in their lives to improve their health and fitness.

I know this because I have helped a disproportionately large number of people in healthcare industry regain their health and fitness over my years as a trainer, and they all agree with that judgement. Plus, they don’t need another job to do. Let them deal with the medical bit and leave the preventative healthcare to the fitness industry.

Here’s what I think needs to be done. The fitness industry needs to be regulated

Sure capitalist values bring out the best in the best, just like out sporting industry. But it doesn’t work out as the best solution for the masses.

The professions of Personal Trainer and Nutritionist are not closed professions. This means that anyone can do it without being regulated. This is why it’s messed up, any Tom, Dick and Harry can turn up and give you nonsense advice about health.

I get tonnes of clients who have experiences nothing other than super harsh, totalitarian dietary advice from PT’s who want nothing other than another transformation photo. It messes people up. It creates eating disorders and it reinforces the idea that fitness is something only for the elite.

I also see people going to PT's and being given programmes which are just wrong for them. Designing a good programme for someone isn't rocket science but there should be a limit on what you can and can't give someone if it's going to injure them. 

There needs to be a standard for PT’s, a system of best practice. Something which is sustainable and hold PT’s accountable for their behaviour rather than just scooping up their paycheck and moving on.

We need to make the fitness industry a part of the healthcare industry, the healthcare industry is stretched to the limit already and the fitness industry is just waiting to be taken on.

HOW TO LOSE FAT

All good fat loss plans work on addressing the four following issues before reducing the amount of food you're eating.

(BMR)
Your basal metabolic rate is the amount of energy you burn to keep alive, it doesn’t really vary that much between similar individuals, maybe 5% each way. It does vary between people who are bigger/smaller and have higher/lower body fat %.
TIP - Gain muscle, and exercise with weights

(TEF)
This is the thermic effect of food. When you digest food it costs some energy. Whole foods cost more energy than processed foods and protein dense foods cost more energy than fats, carbs and alcohol.
TIP - Eat lots of protein, and skip on the junk food

(EA)
Exercise activity is the number of calories you burn while doing formal exercise. This can be over 1000 kcals per hour if you’re very fit and a big person.
TIP - Go to the gym, and concentrate on getting fitter. The more weight you can shift the more kcals you will burn.

(NEAT)
This is non-exercise activity thermogenesis and this a BIG ONE. This encompasses all the movement that we do throughout the day which isn’t formal exercise. Walking to work, using the stairs, fidgeting etc.
TIP - Track your daily steps and improve them if you stagnate

SUGAR TAX ON FIZZY DRINKS

According to the BBC, the rationale behind this thinking is that sugar is addictive, people (specifically children) drink far too many fizzy drinks ad increasing taxation on these drinks will encourage people to drink less.

Firstly I don't believe sugar on it's own is addictive. Heroine is addictive. No-one goes out and buys a bag of sugar polishes it off on it's own.

Secondly how much would you actually have to increase the cost of a coke before people will stop buying it? In my humble opinion people who drink sugary drinks do it because of habit and branding. You see a coke, you pick it up and you buy it. It is already a premium product, a small increase in price will make no difference.

Ultimately people are going to eat and drink stuff which is not good for them if you tax it or not.

Have you ever spoken to a teenager before?

"Don't drink this it's bad for you"
---- then what happens?

We should be promoting the consumption of artificially sweetened drinks and making them more appealing instead of demonising the bad stuff. I understand they're not perfect but if you want to limit the effect of weight gain and stop people from overconsuming on sugary drinks offer a healthier alternative rather than just trying to get people to stop doing it.

It's basic stuff people....

For extra credit check this out
http://www.nature.com/…/journal/v40/n3/full/ijo2015177a.html

DO YOU EVER LOOK IN THE FRIDGE LATE AT NIGHT?

Looking for something good to eat and wondering why there's nothing good to eat?

Why do you do it? Are you hungry?

Usually people do this after they have just eaten a substantial meal, so they're not really hungry. For most it's just a habit which is not supportive of their goals.

All habits work on the same loop

CUE - Location/Time/Emotional State/Immediately Preceding Action/Other People

ROUTINE- The habit itself, Drinking/Eating/Watching TV

REWARD - Sugar rush/Distraction/Release/Satisfaction

This is called a Habit Loop and rule number one for altering it is that the cue and the reward must remain the same if you want to alter the routine.

To illustrate the method here is a simple example. I want to watch less TV so the first step is to identify what cues me to watch TV.

Every time I switch the TV I write down answers to the following questions:

- Where am I?
- What time is it?
- How do I feel?
- What just happened
- Who is here?

After time I realised that sitting on the sofa in the living room is the main cue for switching on the TV.

After you have isolated the cause then you need to start experimenting with the reward to isolate the exact feeling that you crave when you experience the cue.