If you’re new to me and my website, I worked daily in the Fitness-, Bodybuilding-, Gym-, and Competitive Sports industry for almost 22-years with nutrition, supplementation, and training — and was involved in it for a total of more than 26 years. Most of that time, I too was trapped in the pseudo-science of “nutrition science” and was fooled by the synthetic toxic crap of the pharmaceutical and supplement industry. My outlook and understanding took a sharp turn as I became severely ill in late 2017 with several tumors, liver and kidney damage and my thyroid shutting down. In a last effort I turned it around in a matter of a few weeks by adopting our natural species appropriate diet of the raw flesh and fat of animals and by following up with regular water-fasting combined with days of dry fasting. You can read more about that here:
My Journey – Why I do what I do…
https://bartoll.se/2021/03/my-journey-and-battle-with-death/
And yes, I did not have time to do a write-up for week 48. Too much other interesting stuff was going on, and in all honesty, except for a few websites like T-Nation, most online magazines only updates once a month, or thereabouts. Well, with that being said, for week 49, we’re going back to ‘Muscle & Fitness,’ one of the most mainstream magazines who publishes a mixture of the fake accepted “science” with a lot of “bro-science,” that is, stupid ideas that have become accepted by many within the fitness community. Among the more recent articles, I found an entertaining article on ‘losing fat’ called, “How to Cut Calories With Zero Counting,” written by Scott Felstead based on an interview with some “fitness coach” named Joe Wicks. Allegedly, this Wicks guy is called the “Body Coach,” which just goes to show how easily impressed some of the sheeple are with charlatans just repeating the same old dogma and trying to look smart and clever by complicating just about everything.
Well, as you should know by now, “calories” is a measurement of heat as related to physics and has absolutely nothing to do with our body’s energy demands or expenditure. However, for the sake of the article, let’s humor them and use “calories” as a synonym for “energy units.”
1. CALORIE REQUIREMENTS ARE AN INDIVIDUAL THING
They start off by stating that ‘calorie requirements are an individual thing,’ and yes, ‘energy requirement’ is very individual and fluctuates all the time. Even if we had a perfect measurement in units of energy for the macronutrients found within food stuffs, considering your fluctuating metabolic rate, the food’s impact on hormones and spontaneous activity, your daily activity levels outside of your training, your level of stress, your quality of sleep, and so on; any calculations would still be at least 10 to 25% off.
Reducing your intake of food and switching to more nutrient-dense foods and cutting out junk foods will per definition reduce your input of energy and thus force your body to tap into its energy reserves, i.e., your body fat stores. So, in the end, even if you do the most time-consuming calculations or let a coach do them for you, simply eating a bit less and a bit better than previous will make you lose body fat.
With that being said, the problems with these approaches usually sneaks up on you gradually over the span of weeks or months. Your body will adapt to a lower energy intake, even if you cycle it or have “cheat days.” And if you have been fooled to consume carbohydrates, or any plant food like vegetables, nuts or seeds, you will run into nutrition deficiencies rather quickly, as these foods are both toxic, void of bio-available nutrition, and actually depletes you of nutrients through their anti-nutrients. A sure-fire way to slow down or even halt many of your body’s functions. You will still lose the fat, eventually, but the cost is a totally screwed up hormonal system, a great loss of muscle mass, and overtaxed organs with a lot of toxic buildup. We see this in fitness competitors and bodybuilders all the time who become fat pigs within weeks after their competition and then they have trouble with diseases, lack of energy, and to keep body fat in check for months on end, sometime years. I know, I’ve helped hundreds in that situation.
So, instead of focusing on “calorie counting,” the author encourages people to think differently about food, making better choices and adhere to sensible portion sizes.
Yes, that might work if you actually consume our species appropriate and species-specific diet of the flesh and fat of animals with the occasional organ meats. Animal-based food is the only food that contain all the bio-available nutrients we need, and if we get the nutrition we need, feelings such as cravings and hunger disappear. These feelings are a result of nutrition deficiencies, something that shows its ugly head on a mixed “balanced” diet, or even worse, on a dangerous and extremely unhealthy nutrient-deficient vegetarian- or vegan diet. That is why it is so popular with a high meal frequency, eating every 2 to 3 hours, because you are always hungry as your body tries to get the nutrients it actually needs!
So, sure, if you have a sound nutritional base in animal foods, you will most likely get satisfied even when ‘energy/calories’ are restricted, and can thus adhere to smaller “sensible” portion sizes. But if you follow a typical fitness- or bodybuilding diet, you will get hungry, you will get cravings, and most of you will cheat or develop eating disorders (and those portion sizes will get less and less ‘sensible’ as time moves on.)
2. EAT OUT LESS
His next ‘tip’ is to eat out less. Well, if you’re on a “diet” to lose body fat, you do not eat out at all. And if you have to, due to work or whatever, you simply order, for example, a nice cut of meat with some runny eggs. Simple.
3. DON’T LET NEGATIVE EMOTIONS DERAIL YOUR JUDGMENT
Next tip is, ‘don’t let negative emotions derail your judgment.’ And then he goes on and say that there will be occasions where you reach for the fridge and cheat – and that it’s normal and that you probably deserve it – just make sure it does not turn into a cheat day. What? Why would you have anything in your fridge that is seen as a “cheat food” to begin with?
Sure, during the first weeks on a new “diet” you body will fight it, even if you gradually switch to our species-appropriate diet of animal-based foods. This is simply from habits and your taste buds that needs to be reprogrammed, and from detoxification, and your body’s energy-system gradually going back to its normal state of fat metabolism. However, you do not make yourself any favors by reinforcing these mental bonds or halting these processes by cheating. Instead, make sure that you only have animal-based food in your home and then power through any cravings that might arise. Drink a glass of water, they usually only last for 15 minutes. And after three weeks or so, any cravings or hunger should be pretty much gone, and gone forever (unless you get coerced into going back to an inferior way of eating.)
4. EXERCISE TO CUT CALORIES
Then the author goes on and tell us to ‘exercise to cut calories,’ as in mitigating some of the damage from bad choices by expending that energy by performing extra workouts.
No, just no! As I explained above, you should never cheat to begin with. And if you still ‘fall of the wagon’ and cheat, reacting by doing more exercise will only make connections in your subconscious mind telling you that exercise is a punishment for failing. It will gradually take all the joy out of exercising and create really bad habits.
The author goes on and try to justify this idea by saying, “I might have eaten sh*t food all day, but I’ve done a 10-minute workout, or a 15-minute walk around the block, and I’ve done something for myself. That’s a positive message.”
No, it’s f**king not. It’s like saying, “I cheated by poisoning my body by eating crap, so I punished myself with more exercise.” Sorry, “Sh*t Coach,” that is not a positive message.
5. DON’T CUT CALORIES TOO MUCH, TOO SOON
Then they finish the article with the message not to cut “calories” too much, too soon. Well, if you for some reason is going to do a traditional “diet” by reducing your energy intake, the approach depends on your character and goals. The best way, that I used with my clients that didn’t want to have a day or two of fasting every week, was my reverse-diet that I’ve used since the early 2000, since it’s logical and simple. That is, you start the “diet” with a low energy intake made up of at least 80% animal-based foods, covering the nutritional bases. Most importantly, you make sure you get enough protein and vitamins. I.e., pretty lean cuts of meat and some organ meats, and a little bit of animal fat. Then, every other week or so, you add in some animal fat – and a tiny bit of protein. By doing this, you use up as much body fat as possible for your energy needs right from the start. Keep in mind that your body can only release fatty acids for energy in proportion to the amount of body fat available, and this release is limited. As you lose body fat, less and less fatty acids will be available for energy, especially when you’re getting lean (as in below 10% for men and 15% for women.)
So, it makes sense to slowly increase your energy intake as your body fat gets lower and lower to make sure that your metabolism is running optimal. If there’s not enough body fat to make up for the energy deficit, your body will turn to muscle mass and at the same time lower your metabolism to try to protect that muscle mass and your organs.
So, yes, on traditional diets it’s much better to do it in reverse. And you can also slowly step up your training regime. When you start and cut your energy intake you only do weight lifting and focus on a strength-phase to condition your nervous system and to tell your body to hold on to your muscle mass, since you’re lifting heavy. Then as you lose body fat and start to increase your energy intake, you switch to a more “hypertrophy” muscle building training of higher reps and slightly more sets. This training modality increases your energy demands compared to the strength-oriented heavy low-rep lifting. And then, a few weeks later when you once again eat a little more, you might add some interval running for 10 minutes or so. By doing it this way, you not only get leaner, but also stronger, fitter, and healthier during the “diet.” You do not lose any muscle mass, and you actually stimulate your metabolism and hormones. No crash at the end or after the diet. You come out on top!
Now, for those with a lot of body fat to lose and who only need to get in decent shape and to be healthy. I would still go with a slow transition into an animal-based carnivore diet, our species-specific diet over the span of 3-6 weeks. Once that is accomplished, we know that they have decent nutrient stores due to the highly bioavailable animal-foods and that they will not get any cravings. And at that stage, we simply introduce a few days of fasting, while maintaining with animal-based foods during the rest of the week. I’ve written tons about this. It’s the best way to cut body fat and simultaneously detoxify and repair the body, improving health markers all over the board.
Unfortunately, the author mentioned nothing about any of this. Only the old stupid and very illogical dogma. So, to be generous, that’s a D- because he almost got the first and second point right.