When visiting T-Nation, a former bodybuilding web magazine that emerged in the late 1990’s and unsuccessfully tried to compete with my IronMag Online during 1999 to 2002 and that of lately have turned into a supplement advertisement website averages about 2,000 views per article, almost what some of my less popular articles average here on bartoll.se. However, one of their recent articles has got close to 22,000 views, and of course, it’s about “dieting” — something that always seems to attract fitness-wannabes.
Well, once upon a time, I too was obsessed with fat loss and muscle building, as in body transformations and stage-ready physiques, as that was one of several things I worked with as a bodybuilding and fitness coach, nutritionist, researcher, writer, author, and speaker. However, how you look on the outside has nothing to do with your health or how your body is doing on the inside, and personally, while I do want to look as good as possible, my health and longevity is far more important and will always come first. And guess what, if you do it right, as in following our species-appropriate, species-specific and natural diet, you can easily do both.
So, let’s see what these supplement-pushers have found this time…
“Is it possible to lose a pound of fat per day without losing muscle? Yes, but the plan is absolutely crazy-pants. Take a look.”
Actually, if you’re metabolically healthy, you can use up one pound of body fat a day without much hassle, but we’ll get to that later. Let’s see what kind of retarded approach these morons want to share with us.
“What’s the most effective way to lose fat? Knock roughly 300-500 calories off your maintenance intake, eat about a gram of protein per pound of body weight, and lift weights. It works every time, you probably won’t gain the fat back, and it’s actually not that terribly difficult.”
No, that approach is terrible. Never set yourself up for starvation and the risk of developing nutrient deficiencies by consuming less food for extended periods of time. That’s just retarded.
Simply make sure you follow our natural human diet of animal-based foods, eat as you always do to maintain your weight and be fully nourished, then slowly work up to two days a week of fasting by removing meals from two separate days a week. I’ve covered this super simple approach in several articles, for example in my “Fat Loss Made Simple – Forget About Calories and Cardio” and “The World’s Easiest Fat Loss Strategy Is The Carnivore Diet With Scheduled Fasting.”
“But forget all that. Let’s talk about rapid fat loss – like a pound per day – using an insane diet and a totally bonkers amount of exercise that you can’t even do, nor should you even try.”
Why would you even consider that? Not only will it be difficult, it will be an enormous stress to the body causing extreme tissue damage that will take a long time to repair, even more so if your diet is not sufficient in all essential nutrients. And you can only be fully nourished if you follow a real carnivore diet, which most people do not, especially not the average deceived and dumbed-down reader of T-Nation.
The Study: 4 Days of Dieting, 35 Hours of Exercise
“Researchers wanted to see if they could kill some dudes with starvation and extreme exercise. Okay, not exactly, but kinda. Here’s what they did:
- Researchers recruited 15 fat guys with 40-inch plus waists, all around age 40.
- The participants consumed only 320 calories per day for four days. Some got their measly 320 calories from whey protein; others got their calories from a sucrose drink (table sugar). This liquid diet was divided into three highly unsatisfying “meals.”
- On all four days, the subjects did 45 minutes of a hand-cranking exercise (pedaling with their hands) and then walked on a treadmill for 8 hours. Yes, 8 hours, totaling 22 miles a day.”
Well, at least you guys acknowledge that the approach is stupid beyond words. Not only stupid, but extremely unhealthy and it does not provide anything of value to the scientific community, as anyone working in this field should already be well-versed in physiology and biochemistry (although 99% are not) and would be able to predict the outcomes.
But Did They Die?
“They did not. Here’s what did happen:
- Subjects lost an average of 11 pounds of total body weight in four days.
- About 5 pounds of that body weight was fat, so yes, they lost about a pound of fat per day.
- The rest of that lost weight was water. This is typically what happens with any diet plan: the body responds by dumping some water weight (muscle is around 73% water; fat is around 13% water). Your body stabilizes soon after, though.
- Surprisingly, they didn’t lose any muscle in the four-day period! Now, if you dig up the full study, you’ll think the subjects lost muscle because the researchers said participants lost more “lean mass” than body fat. But that lean mass number includes body water. Luckily, the researchers were as smart as they were sadistic and used both DEXA and bioelectrical impedance to measure water weight.
- Whether they got their 320 calories from whey protein or sugar didn’t make a difference between the two groups, probably because it’s really hard to lose actual muscle in just four days, even with this nutty plan.
- Fat loss was maintained after the four-day diet/exercise plan for at least a year (when researchers retested everyone). There was no “fat overshoot” – regaining all the fat lost during dieting. Subjects kept most of the fat off, though their body weight increased because of natural water-weight stabilization.”
It’s funny that you guys said “surprisingly, they didn’t lose any muscle in the four-day period!,” with an exclamation mark, only to present the somewhat correct answer in your next bullet point with “it’s really hard to lose actual muscle in just four days, even with this nutty plan.”
Yes, it is, even if you’re metabolically unhealthy and used to a glucose metabolism because you have a lot of glycogen stored in your liver and muscle cells, and unless your fat metabolism is almost completely shut down, you’ll manage for a few days with very little food. However, if you continue this approach for a few more days, your body would be forced to start breaking down muscle mass and other cells to keep up with not only energy demands, but also the demand of other nutrients.
Still, the approach with starvation, as in eating a little every day, instead of fasting which is protective, and a lot of stupid exercise is indeed nutty, as in extremely unhealthy.
What Can We Learn From This?
“Although it takes an extreme, almost-undoable approach, it is possible to lose a pound of pure fat per day, at least in the laboratory. So, um, now we know.”
Actually, if you guys ever where to study some real physiology and biochemistry, you would already know that you can use up about a pound of body fat a day during dry fasting, and without any exercise at all, especially if you’re metabolically healthy, as in being used to run on our natural fat metabolism and being in ketosis.
Before Russia was infiltrated by the inverted and evil Westernized Modern Medicine pushed by the Rockefellers, they used dry fasting to heal pretty much any ailment. Of course, their lack of really nutritious animal-based food sometimes limited the outcome, but the patients always improved and most were at least healed for the moment being (until they got home and continued with their deficient diets.)
With that said, old Russian literature is still the best resource on fasting, especially dry fasting, as they used it within their medical care system for more than 40 years — and that is also how we know that dry fasting is about three times more effective than fasting and drinking water, both when it comes to healing through autophagy, but also to using fat as fuel due to the body’s ability to manufacture up to three liters of metabolic water a day, which mostly comes from fat tissue and damaged cells (cleaning you of garbage) as functional muscle tissue is protected during real fasting (not to be confused with starvation, as when you eat something, no matter the quantity, pretty much every day.)
Actually, fasting was much more common during the early and mid- 1900’s, especially among the military and the police, as they were taught the secrets of staying healthy. I’ve had many interesting talks with my grandparents and other friends of the family about fasting who were in the military or the police during the 40’s, 50’s and early 60’s, before everything went to total sh*t.
Anyways, I’ve covered fasting and dry fasting in great detail in my “Dry Fasting – The Best Way to Fast? Part 1” and in “Dry fasting Part 2.”
So, no need for tearing down your body with exaggerated amounts of unhealthy exercise, nor to starve yourself. Simply consume nutritious food for maintenance of your body weight five days a week, and then do two days of dry fasting. That will be at least twice as effective than any “calorie reduction” diet plan in existence, and without the dangers of developing nutrient deficiencies, losing muscle mass, shutting down your hormones, or slowing down your metabolism. A win-win!
“We also learned that overweight/obese people can lose fat and keep muscle in the short term, even with a wacky diet and exercise plan. Although the subjects here were told to eat and exercise however they wanted after the study, they managed not to have any fat rebound.
Keep in mind, already lean folks dieting to get completely shredded are much more likely to lose muscle than overweight dieters. So, don’t try this at home. Of course, in real life, this “plan” is unrealistic and certainly not recommended. It was just a study.”
The more body fat you have, the more fatty acids can be released and used as energy. Once you start to get extremely lean, as in below 6% or so for a man, or 10% or so for a woman, and want to get even leaner, as in ready for a photo shoot or a bodybuilding- or fitness competition, your body fat is so low that you cannot release enough fatty acids to accommodate your energy needs for a full day, especially if you exercise and hit the weights, as the exercise causes muscle tissue damage, which requires even more energy and especially nutrients to heal.
This is why a lot of athletes lose muscle mass late in their diet as they approach really low levels of body fat. Not only because of energy demands, but because they are following a restrictive diet that does not supply them with enough nutrients — and then they exercise upon that. As long as you eat but you are in a deficit, your muscles are not protected like they are when you are fasting — and if you do not solely consume the most nutrient-dense animal foods and plenty of animal fats and cholesterol, you will lose muscle — because you will be deficient in one or several nutrients.
So, a better approach when you are really lean would be to follow my previous advice to consume animal-based foods for maintenance and do fasting twice or three times a week. For example, you have your last meal at 4 p.m. on a Sunday, you fast during Monday, and break your fast on Tuesday morning, then you do the same between Thursday and Friday. And once you start to get really lean, you cut back a bit on the fasting windows. You simply start fasting at 4 p.m. and then you break it in the afternoon the next day instead of the morning the day after. Then a few weeks later you break it at lunch instead.
Instead of thinking strictly in terms of week days, think in terms of periods of feeding and periods of fasting during a full week. For example 72 hours of full feeding followed by 36 hours of fasting and then another 72 to 96 hours of full feeding, and so on.
Also, on the days you do fasting, you should have a day off from lifting weights, or simply do maintenance work for the most dominant muscle group, while focusing on any lacking body parts during the days you eat. Simple and logical.
“Also, remember that a high protein intake when dieting for longer periods unequivocally leads to more muscle retention. Please don’t do a table-sugar diet, kids.”
Yes, we know that you guys at T-Nation sell really shitty protein powders. While protein is important, and also impossible to get too little of if you follow our natural human and carnivorous diet, all other essential nutrients are just as important, if not even more so, especially animal fat, cholesterol, omega-3 and some vitamins. Without these nutrients your body will slow down and eventually crash and burn, as we very often see among dieters and even bodybuilders who for some reason consume plant-based crap, that is not only extremely toxic but totally void of nutrients. And it gets even worse if these imbeciles consume carbohydrates, which is also extremely toxic, but even worse, all sources of carbohydrates will provide zero other nutrients. They simply take up space in your diet. Animal fats on the other hand are loaded with vitamins, while they are also essential, not only as fuel, but for all cells and especially our hormone production.
“Finally, we learned what it actually takes to lose a pound of fat per day. Many diet plans make that claim, but the weight lost is mostly body water. What it really takes is over 9 hours of exercise every day and virtually no food. In other words, it ain’t gonna happen out in the real world.”
Again, if you guys at T-Nation actually were into physiology and science at all, you should know about dry fasting and also know about all the extreme health benefits of fasting beyond losing tons of body fat. But yes, you can’t plug your supplements if you recommend fasting.
After this, T-Nation plugged their protein-diets and their supplements for their approach to “fat loss,” which is laughable. Instead, I would recommend some common sense. Eat to nourish your body, and then use fasting to use some extra body fat as fuel while also reaping the healing and detoxification benefits of fasting. That is a win-win!
If you need help with any kind of health problems or transitioning from your current way of eating to our natural species-appropriate, species-specific way of eating, I’m available for both coaching and consultation.
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