Warning! This article might contain some harsh and foul language. Unfortunately, it is very needed.
One of the worst pseudo-science and bro-science websites on the internet, ‘bodybuilding.com,’ recently posted a new article on weight loss. Now, ‘weight loss,’ is quite the muddy terminology as it does not define what you actually lose in order to reduce your body weight. You could just cut of an arm or a leg as illustrated in some cartoons, or as in the case of this author, cutting of the head would most likely be of greater service to humanity and especially the bodybuilding and fitness crowd.
The author, Jake Stewart, sets the tone right from the start by stating how lovely it is to pig out like some pre-contender to the show ‘Biggest Loser’ and “bulk up,” eating just about anything to be in a “calorie” surplus to gain weight, and how dreadful it is to then have to cut “calories” and do extra “cardio.”
Well, gaining weight and some muscle mass by eating whatever you want is a “great” way to build up toxicity and destroying your health by flooding your blood with glucose and trans-unsaturated fatty acids 24/7, laying the groundwork for pretty much any “modern disease” you can think of, and cutting decades of your lifespan. While that is stupid beyond reasoning, let’s see how he tackle this “dreaded” weigh loss.
“Basics of Weigh Loss”
Here he starts off with a disclaimer, stating that; “we condone consuming a healthy diet in order to promote healthy weight loss and wellness,” without a word of how he/they define such a “healthy diet.” Perhaps we’re better off not knowing.
Then he states that, “the only real requirement to losing weight is to maintain a calorie deficit over the course of several days or weeks.”
Well, “calories” are a concept of physics, not of physiology, but I guess that terminology is so ingrained in most people that we’ll let that slip for this time. I’ve explained all that in detail here: https://bartoll.se/2020/02/tdde-explained/
And while reducing your intake of food, or energy, will force your body to tap into it’s own fat- and nutrient stores, there is much more to it than simply eating less. Consuming less food for several weeks or months will only put your body in starvation mode, and it will adapt by lowering your energy needs. Eating less also means that you get less essential nutrients, especially if you know shit about nutrition, which leaves you malnourished and with one or several nutrient deficiencies. That in turn will downregulate metabolic processes and hormone production, reduce your healing and detoxification abilities, and on it goes. A total clusterfuck that usually ends with regaining most of that “weight” lost.
You might go around this problem if you really understand nutrient density and also have days where you eat more to signal your body that you are not starving. However, that approach is slow and tedious. A better approach, the one I recommend, is to follow a nutrient dense animal-based way of eating as you normally would year-round, and instead have days of fasting or simply one meal. I have written a lot about this approach on this website, for example here: https://bartoll.se/2022/06/fat-loss-made-simple/
Now, this Jake, then goes on and tell us to consume a lot of lean protein to shed our body weight and achieving our “weight loss” goals without too much of that “dreaded hunger.” Well, you only get hungry if you have nutrition deficiencies. If you get hungry, or if you get cravings, then your “diet” is complete shit. If you got said “diet” from a coach that you actually pay for his or her services, then fire that idiot immediately.
Let’s continue to the next part of this article.
“Essential Foods for Healthy Eating“
Now, Jake tells us to pick foods high in protein as well as high in volume, as protein preserves muscle mass and maintains satiety. Well, that might be true, but then he goes on and call out chicken, lean ground beef, and low-fat greek yogurt as great sources of “craving-controlling” proteins. Well, chicken has almost zero nutrients, it’s mostly protein and thus a complete waste on a diet. Lean ground beef is slightly better, but what you want is fatty nutrient dense cuts of beef or fatty cuts of any ruminant animal, as well as egg yolks and some organ meats! The more fat, the more essential nutrients – and that is the only way to eliminate these ‘cravings.’
If you only pick lean meat, then you run the risk of developing nutrient deficiencies, especially if you do not “supplement” with a lot of organ meats – and developing nutrition deficiencies equals hunger and cravings.
Then he actually mentions some plant-based alternatives, but that is so extremely retarded that it’s not worth commenting.
Then he goes on about “larger volume foods.” These supposedly are low “calorie” foods with tons of harmful fiber that plug you up and totally destroys your gut and intestines, not to mention all the antinutrients and toxic defence chemicals and pesticides these “foods” contain — such as most veggies, leafy greens, low-calorie fruits, or things like popcorn. This is actually beyond retarded, but unfortunately very common. And this “strategy” is also a result of people getting hungry. And you already know why they get hungry. Yes, their diet is total shit and their coaches are total clueless morons.
For more on the idiocy of consuming fiber, please read this article: https://bartoll.se/2019/02/fiber-is-not-needed/
Then he serves us his final recommendation, and that is to consume foods that take a while to eat. His reasoning is that the slower you eat, the better your body is able to avoid overeating.
Sure, it’s good to take your time, but mostly because meal time should be peaceful and not something stressed. And again, we come back to this lunacy of trying to lessen feelings of hunger and cravings. If you actually need to do that, you are doing this “weight loss” thing totally wrong!
Then he finishes the article with the headline “Superfoods in Action,” where he once again tells us that it all just comes down to “calories” in and “calories” out. Then he adds, “listen to your body and just stay aware of how the food you’re eating makes you feel. Eat what makes you happy and what gets you closer to your goals.”
What the hell did that have to do with “superfoods” or with anything to be honest? Again, that “calories in and out” bullshit is the quickest way to fuck-up your physiology with nutrient deficiencies. And “eat what makes you happy?” That is not really good advice to someone that is overweight and most likely have atrocious food habits.
This might very well be the most nonsensical “weight loss” article published in a long time, especially considering that ‘bodybuilding.com’ is supposed to be a health & fitness website. This Jake Stewart should immediately stop everything he is doing within this field as he’s obviously totally clueless. Please Jake, go and sign-up for some community service instead. Perhaps you can help school children cross the street or something. At least that way you would be doing something good instead of hurting people with your idiotic fitness advice.