Fat Loss Ideas

Weight loss is a popular focus at this time of year. Some want to improve their physiques before hitting the beach or going for summer vacation. In general, spring is a time known for rejuvenation and renewal, so it makes sense that people simply want to address areas that they feel need to be improved.

"In other words, be proactive instead of reactive."

The following are a few past posts that contain fat loss ideas. Each idea is supported by personal experiences of my clients, myself, or by multiple studies. Enjoy...and best wishes on your journey.

1. The Experiments Behind My 30 lb Weight Loss (with Photos). Two major lessons people should take from this post: if you're not losing weight, you have to make changes to your regular diet. Second, continue to tweak what you are doing along the way. In other words, be proactive instead of reactive.
2. Increase Protein Intake. If you regularly achieve the amount recommended in the daily protein table, then this does not apply to you. However, if you fall short, increasing your intake will help your physique change in several positive ways.
3. Add Fiber. Adding fiber-dense foods or a fiber supplement can increase satiety and blunt blood glucose responses to food. 
4. Intermittent Fasting. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, and just weeks of intermittent fasting have provided pounds of weight loss.

Underlying Reasons for Weight Loss from The Fast Diet and Intermittent Fasting

I discussed research and my thoughts on intermittent fasting, such as The Fast Diet, two weeks ago. In the post, I pointed out two alternate-day fasting (ADF) studies resulted in weight loss for the fasting participants. The studies covered populations that ranged from a "healthy" weight to obese. While ADF features three to four fasted or semi-fasted days, The Fast Diet requires only two semi-fasted days per week (their semi-fast days consist of 500-600 calories consumed).

The line graph shows the percent of body weight loss during each day of a 22-day ADF study with healthy to overweight individuals. The bar graph shows the amount of fat and fat free weight, in kilograms, at the start and end of the study. The participants lost 3 lbs, with 1.8 being fat tissue.

How can The Fast Diet and other intermittent fasting programs provide weight loss? Here are two explanations:

• We don't compensate for food deprivation periods. A three-week study at Cornell University examined intake following a fasted day [1]. The study participants spent Tuesday through Friday in a metabolic ward, eating as they please (a metabolic ward is a research-based section of a hospital that is not completely controlled, but fairly well monitored). Mondays rotated between eating as they please, eating a maximum of 1,200 calories, or fasting for the entire day. Every participant partook in all three scenarios. For Monday through Friday, all food was measured to determine total intake before and after meals. The researchers were interested to see if semi-fasted or completely fasted Mondays would lead to a greater intake over the rest of the week. As you can see in the graph below, despite the varying intakes on Mondays, the average daily intake from Tuesday through Friday of each week was no different.

 

 

• Insulin levels change. Research shows that the rate of fat breakdown during a fast increases greatly after roughly 12 hours [2]. I believe insulin is a major underlying factor. As you may know, insulin is a hormone produced by your pancreas to taxi glucose from your blood to your liver and muscle cells. When insulin is abundant in your blood, your body is in an anabolic, or building, state. Therefore, if insulin is abundant, your fat stores will only increase. During a fast, blood insulin levels decrease because there is no major increase in blood glucose levels. Therefore, your body reaches a state favorable to tissue breakdown, specifically with your fat tissue.

In a nutshell, fasting or semi-starvation for one day each week likely won't trigger a full compensation over the rest of the week. With The Fast Diet, followers are experiencing two semi-starvation days per week. Unless they are taking extreme measures on other days (i.e. eating dessert or going out for dinner on all non-fasting days), it's very unlikely that followers will atone for the lack of food consumed on the fasting days. Also, long food droughts lead to lower levels of circulating insulin, allowing the body to enter a state favorable for fat breakdown.

These are not all of the underlying reasons, but just two ways to explain why intermittent fasting routines, such as The Fast Diet, are often successful in producing weight loss.

The Freshman Fifteen, Getting Married, and Other Weight and Diet Influences

"The Freshman 15" does not exist, at least at Cornell University. Researchers at Cornell studied 68 freshmen over their first 12 weeks of college. While the students did not gain 15, the did suffer from a "freshmen four," adding an average of 4.2 lbs [1].

Instead of going in-depth into a specific topic this week, I decided to keep matters light. Here are highlights from intriguing weight and diet-related studies:

• Snacking at least 1.5 hours before a meal does not reduce food intake at the meal [2]. Researchers at Johns Hopkins fed men and women 30, 90, and 180 minutes before allowing them to eat ad libitum at a meal. The snack was the same size in all three pre-feedings. Only when fed 30 minutes before did the participants adjust how much they consumed during the meal. Essentially, if you're going to eat in an effort to limit your hunger at a following meal, have the snack as close to the meal as possible.

• If you're trying to lose weight, eating with large groups of people should be avoided...at least that's the take-home message from researchers in the department of psychology at Georgia State University [3]. People were observed eating meals by themselves and then in groups of differing quantities. A meal eaten alone averaged about 400 calories. With a group of four people, the average intake per person was 700 calories. The peak consumption was 800 calories per person, achieved with a group of eight or more people.

• Your marriage and your weight have tied the knot. A two-year study at the University of Minnesota looked at weight changes in over 2,500 men and women [4]. Weight changes of the participants were strongly correlated with their spouses: if one gained or lost weight, the other was likely to do the same.  

• In the same study, men and women who became married over the course of the two-year period gained weight. On the other hand, men and women who divorced during the study lost weight, with an especially large change noticed in women.

 
Obviously the social eating and marriage studies looked at associations, not causation, so please don't shun your friends and spouse in an effort to lose weight. However, do be mindful of your intake when out with large groups of friends, family, or others. I do think peer pressure is a strong underlying factor in these situations, with people consuming more alcohol or food to please or "fit in" with others.

I do give credit to the pre-feeding study. I have noticed that I don't seem to respond when trying to pre-feed as a "damage control method." Instead of eating before a meal with the goal of controlling overall intake, a better approach is to simply make better choices when eating out. A good example is avoiding bread and liquid calories while feasting on vegetables and natural proteins.

The Fast Diet and the Effectiveness of Intermittent Fasting

What if you can eat whatever you want most days of the week...and still lose weight?

According to The Fast Diet, a diet book new to the United States, it's possible. Authors Dr. Michael Mosely and Mimi Spencer say that two fasting days per week can improve your health and physique while eating what you please during the other five days.

Specifically, the book advocates two non-consecutive days per week featuring a maximum intake of 600 calories for men and 500 calories for women. On the other five days, people should eat as they please. This is called a 5:2 approach to fasting. The two calorie-restricted days will lead to an overall calorie deficit for the week and the book claims to improve health as well.

Does this type of intermittent fasting (IF) really produce weight loss or improve health? In this post, I'll discuss different fasting methods, research on fasting, and my own experiences.

Types of Intermittent Fasting

IF features periods of minimal to no calorie consumption with periods of eating as desired. There are many way to perform IF. In addition to the 5:2 method used in The Fast Diet, here are some other ways to fast:

1. Alternate Day Fasting (ADF): alternating days of eating whatever you want with days of consuming just one meal, a specific minimal amount of food (i.e. 500 calories), or nothing at all.
2. Full-Day Fast (FDF): not eating any calories for one 24-hour period per week.
3. 16:8 Fast (16:8): eating during an eight hour period each day while fasting the other 16.

Fasting Studies

Researchers in Baton Rouge, LA used ADF with men and women who were considered at a healthy weight or overweight, according to body mass index, in a 22-day study [1]. The study subjects ranged from 23-53 years old and were a mix of sedentary, moderately active, and very active individuals. During the fasting days, the participants consumed only calorie-free beverages such as tea, coffee, and water, and were allowed to chew sugar-free gum. On the feasting days, they ate whatever they wanted.

The graphs above demonstrate the results. The line graph shows the percentage of weight loss per day. As you can see, weight fluctuates with each feasting and fasting day, but the overall trend favors weight loss and the study results in a four percent loss. The bar graph shows kilograms of weight in fat mass (FM) and fat-free mass (FFM). The participants lost 1.8 lbs of fat and 1.3 lbs of lean tissue (muscle, bone, etc.).

The results weren't just intriguing for the weight changes. The rate of fat breakdown nearly doubled while resting metabolism did not increase. The quantity of insulin in the blood decreased for men and women. High levels of circulating insulin are negative signs for people who want to lose fat or who are worried about developing diabetes. Blood glucose did not change.

What about ADF with obese individuals?

16 obese men and women in Chicago tried ADF for eight weeks [2]. The men and women were middle-aged and lightly active. In this study, the fasting day featured about 25-30% of their daily caloric needs. The feasting day allowed participants to eat as they please.

The average weight loss was 1.5 lbs per week. The overall fat loss average was 11.9 lbs and no lean mass was lost. Systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, low density lipoproteins, and triglycerides were all lower at the end of the study.

Finally, a shorter study looked at the rate of fat and protein breakdown in 13 men and women [3]. The participants alternated two-day periods of the 16:8 fasting protocol with a small and frequent meal approach. During the 16:8 days, they ate two meals in eight hours, then fasted for 16. In the comparison two-day period, participants ate seven meals over the course of the day. Both approaches featured basically the same amount of daily calories.

The fasting days demonstrated an accelerated rate of fat breakdown during the last few hours of the fast while protein breakdown was no different between two-day protocols. These results suggest a long term application of a 16:8 IF protocol would not decrease muscle mass but would provide additional fat loss.

My Thoughts and Experiences

In regards to fasting, I spent nine months on a 16:8 protocol in 2009 and documented my experience on this blog. Like the last study, I ate two meals between noon and 8 PM each day. Over the course of my experience, I lost nine lbs. despite having a host of social events where people typically gain weight. Two of my clients have tried similar approaches as well, skipping breakfasts while consuming 2-3 meals in an 8-10 hour period per day. Both lost weight while using this approach. 

However, there's a major caveat: muscle loss. I lost a noticeable amount of muscle during my trial, and one of my clients gained several pounds of muscle once her fasting period ended. The studies above showed mixed results with fat loss, which could be due to whether people eat at all during fasting days. 

As a whole, fasting is effective for weight loss in obese, overweight, and "healthy" weight individuals. Some markers for heart disease and diabetes are improved through fasting, and ADF was even associated with increased lifespan for men and women ages 65 and up [4].

I do not recommend fasting for people who are pregnant, have eating disorders, or demonstrate unstable blood glucose. On the other hand, fasting can be an effective tool for weight loss and health improvement. Based on the research above, I think fasting with days of absolutely no calorie intake should be avoided to prevent muscle loss. When using other fasting techniques, pay extra attention to your daily protein intake to prevent or minimize muscle loss.