Almost daily I get a question along the lines of ‘Help! I don’t need to lose any more weight, but I’ve got this (belly/thigh/butt/arm/back) fat that just won’t budge!’.

We all have that ‘last’ bit of stubborn fat that just won’t respond to dieting. The first thing I want you to consider is that maybe it’s not as bad as you think. Our bodies need a little bit of fat reserve to function optimally, and for most of us that last little bit is all in one stubborn spot. For many people it’s the belly. For me, and lots of other women, it’s the hip and thigh area. For some people it’s the arms or upper back. Everyone has ‘that’ spot, and it annoys us, but the reality is that in the vast majority of cases it’s not a health threat, so from a health perspective you can let go of the pressure to lose it.

Doesn’t make it much better from the aesthetics perspective though, right? I hear ya. So today I’m going to talk about body recomposition. Here is exhibit A. Two pictures of me at the same weight, but dramatically different body compositions:

There's 2+ years between these pics. This is not a fast process! Patience and consistency is key.

I was actually in pretty good shape in the first picture, I was competing in triathlons and eating a nutrient rich diet and had recently begun weight lifting. But I had just come off 18 months of losing weight, so while my fitness had improved, the calorie deficit I’d been maintaining had prevented me from adding any appreciable muscle mass (you need a calorie surplus to build muscle mass). So the result was a healthy weight but a higher fat-to-lean mass ratio (I have no idea what my body fat percentage was but it was probably in the 22-27% range). I was not unhealthy in any way, so hopefully no one will interpret these images as casting aspersions on my less-lean self, or on anyone who looks like my less-lean self. I had a healthy beautiful body then, as I do now.

In any case, there I was at 160 pounds, a weight that I’m comfortable at, so I stopped losing weight and turned my focus to body recomposition. Building muscle requires a different dietary approach than losing fat does, so I changed the way I was eating. I ate more, lots more. Instead of eating at a calorie deficit with the goal of losing weight, I began eating at maintenance, or even a small calorie surplus. As always, I made sure I was getting plenty of protein (I aim for about 1 gram per pound of body weight per day) and adequate fat, so it was really carbs that I increased to bump up my calorie load (note: I’m not saying that my way is the best or only way (find what works for you), but there a popular mythology that carbs make you fat, and as you can see from looking at the second picture, eating more carbs definitely did NOT make me fatter, in fact, it made me leaner). My weight fluctuated about 5 pounds either way over time, so I wasn’t exactly 160 on the nose every day in between the two photos, and what was probably happening was that my body was very organically cycling between building muscle and burning fat, but the end result was that over time my body mass shifted from fatter to leaner. Fat cells don’t turn into muscle cells, what happens is that as muscles get bigger, fat cells get smaller as your body burns off the fat inside them.

You can see from the pictures that I carry/carried a lot of my fat on my thighs. As I built muscle all over my body, the fat on my thighs burned off, because that is where the fat was. So building up my arm, back and core muscles was just as much a part of making my legs leaner as working my leg muscles was. The message I’m attempting to convey here (however inelegantly) is that you need to work your whole body, not just the body part that bothers you. Bigger biceps means less belly fat. It’s true! Add a pound of muscle to your shoulders, and assuming your weight stays the same, that means there’s a pound less of fat on you, and if your fat is on your belly, that’s where it will come off of.

So how do you know it’s time to stop trying to lose weight and focus instead on body recomposition? Here’s my tips:

1. You’re at, or close to, a healthy weight, even if it’s higher than you wish
2. Your weight loss has stalled and simply won’t budge no matter what you do
3. Your eating habits are solid, you’re getting accurate hunger and satiety signals from your body, and you’re able to eat to your appetite without gaining weight
4. All of your health markers are normal and you feel good

Alternately, here’s some signs you may be at a weight that’s simply unsustainably low, and gaining some lean mass may be of benefit:
1. you’re able to maintain a low weight, but must be overly restrictive with diet
2. you need to do lots of cardio to keep from gaining weight
3. you frequently feel hungry and struggle with compulsive eating
4. you struggle with fatigue
5. you recover slowly from workouts

In both of the above scenarios, shifting your focus away from fat loss, and toward increasing lean mass, may be what your body needs in order to continue making progress.

So how do you do that, you ask? Well, here’s some jumping off points:

1. Eat at LEAST maintenance calories. Finding that target will take some trial and error, but the calculators in my Calorie Primer post can give you a good target window. Keep in mind that if you’ve been undereating or eating at a deficit for a while, you’ll see an initial ~5 pound bump in weight almost immediately when you increase your calorie intake, as your body replenishes it’s glycogen and water stores. IT’S NOT FAT, so don’t panic.
2. It’s ok to go over maintenance calories by a few hundred, especially on days after workouts, your body needs the extra calories to build muscle mass.
3. A healthy female body can gain about 2 pounds of lean mass a month under optimal conditions, so if you keep any weight gain around this level you can be confident that you’re gaining mostly lean mass. If you gain more than that, IT’S OK, but more of it will be fat. Again, IT’S OK. Gaining a little fat along with muscle won’t kill you, you can always lose it later (if you want. You may be surprised at how nice that extra fat looks when it’s over a foundation of added muscle!).
4. Get plenty of protein! I generally recommend aiming for 1 gram per pound of body weight. Getting protein from real foods is best, but an occasional protein supplement isn’t going to derail you and can help bump up your intake if you’re having trouble getting enough from food alone.
5. Carbs are great! Unless you have an active metabolic condition that necessitates a specific diet, in which case you should be working with a medical professional and not getting your nutrition information from blogs, don’t restrict carbs. They give you energy for workouts, and nutrients and calories your body needs to create new muscle mass. As always, get them from real, whole foods for the most part, but IT’S OK TO HAVE A TREAT now and then.
6. Don’t restrict fat either. Most people do well getting 20-35% of their calories from fat. As with carbs, get it from real, whole foods.
7. EAT EAT EAT, and don’t feel guilty about it. Your body NEEDS fuel to meet your daily obligations, to recover from workouts, and to build new muscle mass. Some days you will feel like all you do is eat. IT’S OK. If you’re feeling piggish, just tell yourself ‘Go Kaleo eats like a linebacker and is lean and healthy’. Enjoy!
8. Experiment until you find what works best for you. I do great on tons of fruit, others go for sweet potatoes or bacon or coconut. There isn’t one right way, and trying to do it someone else’s way will ultimately not be as effective and sustainable as finding YOUR best way. You don’t have to ‘get it right’ on the first day. Pay attention to how your body feels and functions in response to what you eat. Keep a log so you can start to see patterns.
9. LIFT. Do a full body resistance routine at least twice, preferably 3 times a week. Alternately, some people prefer to follow a body part split routine, which is effective as well, but I’ve found to be a little more time consuming. It really is up to you what you prefer. Both styles will give you good results.
10. Take regular rest days. Your body needs rest to recover properly. Cardio is fine on off days, but take at least one, preferably two, full rest days a week.
11. Say no to guilt, shame and restriction. Has it worked for you in the past? No? Then you don’t need it.

And last but not least, know that most people are too busy focusing on their own ‘problem areas’ to focus on yours. So don’t kill yourself trying to perfect them. It’s not worth it, you’re valuable and lovable just the way you are.

I never really have defined my mission here. I’ve been thinking about it lately, as my facebook page has been evolving quickly and it’s come up a couple times.

I started my little blog about 4 years ago simply to document my weight loss journey, share recipes, and highlight stories and people that inspired me. It had a different name then, ‘My Inner Hillbilly’. I later changed it to ‘Couch to 70.3′, and then finally to ‘Go Kaleo’ about a year ago. You can find those early posts still on my blog, as you go ‘back in time’ you will see how my diet and philosophy evolved over time. In the beginning a lot of what I did and said was fairly stereotypical, run-of-the-mill stuff that people new to ‘real food’ do and say.

As I grew and learned more I started to see how similar the different fitness and dietary dogmas actually are, and started to recognize the predatory tactics of the fitness and diet gurus. I realized I’d been had. And that people I care about are being had. And that a lot of the dogma out there isn’t simply a money-making scam: it undermines a person’s self-confidence and sets up a mentality of powerlessness. In some people, quite a LOT of people, it can lead to very disordered and self-destructive thought processes and behaviors. I’m not calling out any specific dogma here. MOST dogmas are like this, including the one I bought into early on in my journey.

When I started this blog, and later my facebbok page, I didn’t have a vision for it. It was simply a way to stop spamming my personal FB friends with info they weren’t interested in. It’s not an income stream and I have no plans to make it one. What’s it’s growing into is my attempt to call out the BS in the fitness/weight loss/diet industry, teach people to recognize those predatory (and often downright emotionally abusive, really) tactics, to encourage them to recognize their body’s inner wisdom and confidently grow forward into a life that supports their own unique goals, needs and JOY.

I have several posts on calories, how they work, how many one should consume, what kinds should we eat, how to figure out how many we’re burning. I realized they’re spread out all over my blog, so decided to cobble them together in one post to make it a little easier to get the whole picture. There are two main themes: how much should we eat (how many calories), and WHAT should we eat (what KIND of calories). I attempt to simplify it for the folks who don’t want to spend all their free time reading scientific studies. So without further ado…

How Much Should I Eat?

There’s a lot of confusion out there, so in the name of clarity, I’ll give you the basics on calorie intake, as simply as possible. A calorie is a unit of energy. Your body uses energy to fuel your daily activity. If you take in more energy than your body uses, it stores the excess, usually as fat, but if you’re lifting heavy and using your muscles it can and will use that excess energy to build muscle too. That’s what we want.

If you’re at a healthy weight and your goal is body recomposition, you need to eat AT LEAST as many calories as your body burns, preferably a little bit more. Your body needs raw materials to build muscle, and if it’s using all the calories you eat to fuel your activity there will not be any left to build muscle with. If you’re undereating at a healthy weight, your body will do whatever it can to burn fewer calories, so will slow down your metabolic processes and start burning muscle for fuel, because muscle requires more calories to maintain than fat. If you’re undereating, that muscle is taking up energy (calories) that your body would rather use to fuel your heartbeat and brain activity.

If you’re obese or overweight, you need to burn more calories than you consume to lose weight. Not too many more, I generally recommend keeping a 500 calorie deficit to keep your metabolism healthy. Alternately, you can use a calorie calculator to figure out how many calories your body will need to maintain your goal weight (including your activity), and eat that many calories. Your body will take care of the rest (that’s how I did it). If you keep your deficit relatively small and lift weights and get regular exercise, your body will tag your muscles as ‘in use’ and preserve them, burning stored fat to make up the deficit in energy in vs energy out. If you’re sedentary, your body will burn lean mass as well as fat to make up for that deficit.

NONE of this means that diets that don’t require calorie counting don’t work. It just means that, for some people, those diets help them to naturally and instinctively consume the number of calories that will support their goals. Different people can experience this with different diets. Some people (like me) don’t ever experience it (or at least I haven’t yet, and I’ve tried all the diets) and need to be at least somewhat aware of our energy requirements. And we need to eat enough to fuel our activity and support our goals. Restricting calories below that level is counterproductive and will ultimately lead to failure. For most people, including women over about 100 pounds, that means eating at least 2000 calories a day, much more for most of us (I eat about 3000 most days). Even to lose weight, very few of us will need to drop below that, and if we do we are setting ourselves up for a damaged metabolism and fat storage.

Here are two calorie calculators that I find realistic and helpful, neither of them will give you an unsustainably low calorie target, in fact you will likely be surprised by just how much you need to eat to stay healthy and support your goals.

Calculator 1

Calculator 2

What Should I Eat?

Invariably, every time I say that weight is a product of energy balance (ie, calories in vs. calories out) I get at least one person arguing ‘calories don’t matter! different kinds of calories affect the body differently!’.

I can’t really blame people for the confusion. There are a shit ton of diet gurus out there muddying up the waters with claims that combining foods ‘properly’ or cutting out certain foods or macronutrient groups is really the key to weight loss and that all you have to do is eat the ‘right’ foods and you’ll be able to eat all you want and still lose weight. Oh, and conveniently they just happen to be selling a list of those approved foods. Calories DON’T matter they claim, it’s the KIND of calories you eat that matters. “Those people who tell you to just eat less have got it all wrong” they say. “‘They’ have been misleading you, I’m telling you the TRUTH.”

All that black and white thinking has got people believing a false dilemma: It’s EITHER ‘calories in vs. calories out‘ OR ‘the kind of calories you eat‘ that matters! It’s a big ole’ moneymaker. They tell you they have the secret diet that will allow you to eat all you want and still lose weight, and you open up your wallet and buy it.

Here’s the truth, and I’m not going to charge you for it: weight is a product of energy balance, AND the kinds of calories you eat.

Lets start with the basic equation X +/- Y = Z, where X is calories in, Y is calories out and Z is total weight. The KINDS of calories you choose can affect the values of X and Y (Y moreso than X), but here’s where the diet gurus are misleading you: changing the values of X and Y doesn’t change the basic equation.

Some foods cause your body to burn more calories than others. Protein and fiber rich foods require your body to do more work to digest. It’s called the ‘Thermic Effect of Food‘. Eating foods with a high thermic effect makes your body burn more calories (Y), sometimes a LOT more calories. That’s why the list of approved foods your guru sells you will be comprised primarily of protein-rich foods and fiber-rich vegetables. Both are highly thermic. There’s also some evidence that whole, minimally processed foods are more highly thermic than equivalent processed foods (Y). Eating good quality nutritious foods can increase your energy level, which can lead to more spontaneous activity, which leads to a higher calorie expenditure (Y). Eating highly satiating foods can also cause a spontaneous reduction in total calorie intake (X). Protein and fiber, again, are highly satiating. As our understanding of the ways food affects our bodies grows, I suspect we will discover other ways that the kind of calories we choose can change the values of X and Y.

Eating a rich and varied diet full of whole, protein- and fiber-rich foods can absolutely change the way your body functions! In the end, however, it is still subject to the laws of thermodynamics. In an energy surplus it will store that surplus as mass (either muscle or fat depending on your activity level), and in an energy deficit it will burn stored energy reserves to fuel activity. Your task is to eat (and move) in a way that increases your energy expenditure to a level that exceeds your energy intake, if weight loss is your goal. Eating less isn’t the whole story, and sometimes eating MORE will produce a higher Y variable and weight loss will ensue, but optimizing your individual X and Y variables IS the way to get the Z you desire.

Creating your ideal diet: Macros and Micros

Build your diet on a base of vegetables and protein. Whether you go with plant or animal protein, make sure it's quality. Organic, sprouted (in the case of legumes), pastured (in the case of meat, dairy and eggs), wild caught (in the case of fish). Reduce your consumption of refined grains, I don't believe they're poison, but they're very calorie dense for the nutrition they provide. Carbs are not the devil, but get them from real whole foods like fruits and starchy vegetables, good quality grains and legumes, etc. Fat is your friend, it fills you up and makes food taste good, and your body needs it for proper nutrient absorption and hormonal function. Try to avoid absolutism: it is perfectly fine to include ‘less than ideal’ foods in your diet if you have generally good habits! Make a habit of tracking your diet on a website like caloriecount.com, sparkpeople.com or fitday.com (there are many others as well). It's not just about calories, regular tracking will help you learn to meet your energy requirements with foods that also provide the vitamins, minerals and adequate amounts of fat and protein to support good health and weight management. It can be a pain at first, but over time it helps build good eating habits and gives you control over your weight and health. Calories DO matter, but most of us can eat a lot more than we think we can if we're making good food choices and getting regular exercise. Tracking calories is NOT about restriction, and reaching/maintaining a healthy weight is NOT about being hungry and denying ourselves proper nutrition. Quite the contrary, it is about feeding ourselves adequate amounts of nutritious foods that support health, energy and vitality. Here is a tool that will help you determine how many calories your body needs to function properly (I've found that the calorie tracking websites, while good for tracking, tend to give a calorie target that is too low for most active people I've worked with). Many of you will be surprised at how high the number is. Mine is 3500 a day. Hardly restrictive. Aim for, at minimum, .5 ' 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight a day. Fat should make up at roughly 20-35% of your calories (some people do well on lower or higher fat percentages, but 20-35% is a healthy range for most of us). The rest of your calories can come from whatever macronutrient you prefer (macronutrients = protein, fat and carbs). If you're doing a lot of endurance exercise, go for more carb dense foods. More and more it’s looking like the only true dietary bad guys are man-made, refined fats: trans and seed oils, and by reducing processed food consumption you will be reducing your intake of those.

**A note to the nutrition nerds: yes, I’ve simplified things. That’s what I do here on my blog. This post isn’t for you, it’s for non-nutrition-nerds who don’t want to spend all their free time reading diet blogs and scientific abstracts.**

Click on picture to see full size image.

This is what happened to my body when I stopped dieting, when I stopped listening to the messages from the media about how my body was supposed to look, when I stopped hating myself, when I stopped trying to please anyone else.

This is what happened to my body when I started respecting myself, when I started eating in a way that nurtured my health, when I started living in a way that nurtured my spirit, and when I started trusting my instincts about what was right for my body.

The physical changes you see are only a reflection of the far more profound changes that happened internally. My health improved, and even more importantly, the way that I feel and think about myself changed. It was not an overnight transformation. As the way I treated myself changed, my daily habits changed, and those new habits changed my body, slowly, gradually, but dramatically, and permanently. Changing my body wasn’t my goal. Changing my habits, and the way I treat myself, was the goal. My body just came along for the ride.

Today’s theme is one I revisit with nauseating frequency. Patience. I think it’s the one thing that makes the difference between success and failure, where lifestyle change is concerned.

When I started this whole thing, I had 3 decades and 80 pounds worth of bad habits to reverse. The pounds weren’t the problem, they were just a reflection of the habits. Again, 3 decades worth of habits. It took 3 decades for those habits to produce the body I had at 35. 3 decades. Why do I keep repeating 3 decades? To really drive home the point I want to make here. It takes time and patience not only to reverse those habits, but for the new habits you make to change your body.

It was a good 6 months before I had new, healthy habits firmly in place. It was a FULL YEAR before my body really started showing the effects of those new habits. 4 YEARS IN I still have vestiges of the old habits evident in my body and my appearance.

This is not an overnight process. It takes time. It can take YEARS, depending on how many years your old habits were in place, creating the body you had when you started changing things.

Be patient. Focus on how you feel and what you can do. Those changes happen much sooner than aesthetic changes, and are the signal from your body that you’re on the right track and making progress. If you feel stronger, more energetic; if you can lift heavier weights or run a little longer; if you have more patience; if you start to crave fruit instead of cake: these, and other subtle changes, are the ways your body communicates that you are making progress, long before you start to see changes in the mirror and on the scale. Progress is progress. Stay the course and take the long view. It is WORTH IT to keep going. If you keep going you will ‘get there’, even if it takes longer than you hope. If you give up, you will stay right where you are.

Muscle Milk, AdvoCare, Isagenix, Shakeology, Body By Vi, MetRX, MetaboLife, HerbaLife, Slim Fast, EAS…every fitness professional seems to either have their own line of meal replacement products, or be part of a supplement and meal replacement Multi-Level Marketing company. Type the term ‘weight loss’ into google and you’ll be served hundreds of websites hawking all kinds of shakes and potions promising quick weight loss, faster muscle building, improved health and even income opportunities. It’s obviously a HUGE industry, and people are buying it up to the tune of billions of dollars a year in the US alone.

The first thing everyone needs to understand about meal replacement products and other supplements is that they are the big moneymakers in the fitness/weight loss industry. That’s why everyone is selling them. They’re inexpensive to make, require very little time and energy investment by the seller, and appeal to human nature’s desire for immediate gratification. In other words, they’re an easy sell, especially to a demographic that is desperate for a magic pill.

There’s very little difference from brand to brand. Some make claims of using higher quality or ‘natural’ ingredients (the term ‘natural’ is totally unregulated and can mean pretty much anything the marketer decides they want it to mean), others cite studies that show their product outperformed similar products (generally funded by the manufacturer of the product), there are minor differences in macro and micronutrient profiles from brand to brand. Overall however, most meal replacement products are more alike than they are different.

So what’s my opinion? It’s no secret that I believe we should be getting our nutrition from real, whole foods. However, meal replacement products DO offer a measure of convenience that can’t be denied. Running around all day and don’t have the time to sit down to a full meal? A meal replacement shake or bar can come in handy here, to give you the calories and macronutrients of a full meal in a convenient and portable package. Maybe you’re having trouble getting enough protein through food alone. A protein shake can help you meet your protein requirements while you’re working on getting your diet dialed in. So meal replacement products can be useful tools to take advantage of when you can’t get what you need from food for one reason or another.

HOWEVER. Meal replacement products are not superior to real food. There is not a single nutrient in any meal replacement product that can’t be better utilized by your body when it comes in the form of a whole food. These products, by their very nature, are refined and processed, and usually shipped long distances and stored for months or years before being consumed. A rich and varied diet of real whole foods, especially ones sourced locally so as to be at their peak of freshness, is exponentially better for your body. Most of these products are marketed as the ‘foundation of a healthy lifestyle’ which implies that you will be using them for the rest of your life. In my opinion, the foundation of a healthy lifestyle isn’t any specific product, or nutrient, or diet. It is the ability to think critically about where you food is coming from and how it affects your body, and the ability to create balanced meals that meet your goals and nutrition requirements, using foods that are relatively easy and cost effective for you to acquire. Meal replacement products do not support either of those goals, rather, when used as the manufacturers WANT you to use them, they create dependence and inflexibility.

I am not against the use of meal replacement products. In fact, I use them myself. The key, though, is to view them as a tool, a useful backup, NOT as the foundation of your lifestyle. If you would like to include a meal replacement product in your ‘toolbox’, here are my tips for choosing one.

1. Read the ingredients! Don’t take the front of the package, or even the person selling the product, at face value.
2. Find an organic one, if possible. Buying an organic product will help ensure that you’re not getting your nutrients from Genetically Modified Organisms. If the product contains animal foods, it will help ensure that you’re not getting artificial hormones, antibiotics, and other nasties that are ubiquitous in our food supply.
3. Look for one that is either unsweetened, or sweetened with stevia. Caloric sweeteners (even agave, dehydrated cane juice and ‘fancy’ sugars) add empty calories, and artificial sweeteners bring their own set of issues.
4. Look at it’s fat sources and fat profile. Does it contain refined seed oils like soybean, corn or safflower? Skip it. Those poor quality fats do nothing for your health, and emergent research is beginning to suggest they may be harmful. They’re cheap and almost always GMO. Better fat sources: hemp, chia, flax, and coconut.
5. Look at the protein source. Is it derived from something you’d eat ‘in real life’? Whey is the most common protein source, but it’s frequently sourced from industrially produced milk: not the most healthy choice. Some brands use organic whey, which is better. A few select brands even use whey from pastured, grass fed cows. That’s the best. If the product uses soy, is it organic? If not it’s almost certianly GMO. There are plenty of other non-soy plant based proteins, look for organic to avoid GMO, and sprouted to increase digestibility.

Finally, and most importantly, just think critically about the claims the product, and/or the person selling it is making. Humans thrived for millions of years before supplements and meal replacement products were invented. If they were necessary for muscle development, increased strength, weight loss, or optimal health we would have died out a million years ago. These products are convenient and practical, but not necessary or optimal.

Invariably, every time I say that weight is a product of energy balance (ie, calories in vs. calories out) I get at least one person arguing ‘calories don’t matter! different kinds of calories affect the body differently!’.

I can’t really blame people for the confusion. There are a shit ton of diet gurus out there muddying up the waters with claims that combining foods ‘properly’ or cutting out certain foods or macronutrient groups is really the key to weight loss and that all you have to do is eat the ‘right’ foods and you’ll be able to eat all you want and still lose weight. Oh, and conveniently they just happen to be selling a list of those approved foods. Calories DON’T matter they claim, it’s the KIND of calories you eat that matters. “Those people who tell you to just eat less have got it all wrong” they say. “‘They’ have been misleading you, I’m telling you the TRUTH.”

All that black and white thinking has got people believing a false dilemma: It’s EITHER ‘calories in vs. calories out‘ OR ‘the kind of calories you eat‘ that matters! It’s a big ole’ moneymaker. They tell you they have the secret diet that will allow you to eat all you want and still lose weight, and you open up your wallet and buy it.

Here’s the truth, and I’m not going to charge you for it: weight is a product of energy balance, AND the kinds of calories you eat.

Lets start with the basic equation X +/- Y = Z, where X is calories in, Y is calories out and Z is total weight. The KINDS of calories you choose can affect the values of X and Y (Y moreso than X), but here’s where the diet gurus are misleading you: changing the values of X and Y doesn’t change the basic equation.

Some foods cause your body to burn more calories than others. Protein and fiber rich foods require your body to do more work to digest. It’s called the ‘Thermic Effect of Food‘. Eating foods with a high thermic effect makes your body burn more calories (Y), sometimes a LOT more calories. That’s why the list of approved foods your guru sells you will be comprised primarily of protein-rich foods and fiber-rich vegetables. Both are highly thermic. There’s also some evidence that whole, minimally processed foods are more highly thermic than equivalent processed foods (Y). Eating good quality nutritious foods can increase your energy level, which can lead to more spontaneous activity, which leads to a higher calorie expenditure (Y). Eating highly satiating foods can also cause a spontaneous reduction in total calorie intake (X). Protein and fiber, again, are highly satiating. As our understanding of the ways food affects our bodies grows, I suspect we will discover other ways that the kind of calories we choose can change the values of X and Y.

Eating a rich and varied diet full of whole, protein- and fiber-rich foods can absolutely change the way your body functions! In the end, however, it is still subject to the laws of thermodynamics. In an energy surplus it will store that surplus as mass (either muscle or fat depending on your activity level), and in an energy deficit it will burn stored energy reserves to fuel activity. Your task is to eat (and move) in a way that increases your energy expenditure to a level that exceeds your energy intake, if weight loss is your goal. Eating less isn’t the whole story, and sometimes eating MORE will produce a higher Y variable and weight loss will ensue, but optimizing your individual X and Y variables IS the way to get the Z you desire.

**A note to the nutrition nerds: yes, I’ve simplified things. That’s what I do here on my blog. This post isn’t for you, it’s for non-nutrition-nerds who don’t want to spend all their free time reading diet blogs and scientific abstracts.**

I am a self-taught powerlifter. I didn’t know I was teaching myself to powerlift until I was well into it, I just knew I was doing the form of exercise I enjoyed the most and that gave me the best results. One day I stumbled across a blog post about the differences between powerlifting and bodybuilding and learned that I had turned myself into a quintessential powerlifter: focused on low-rep heavy compound lifts, a cardio program centered on high-intensity, short duration intervals, and with a primary goal of increased strength and functionality rather than aesthetics. I did it all on my own, no trainer, no guru, no dogma, just a few youtube videos and common sense.

I think the great benefit of teaching myself is that I didn’t have anyone else’s philosophy cluttering up my learning process. Not that other people’s philosophies aren’t valuable! But not being exposed to someone else’s allowed me to create my own. After I’d been lifting for about a year and a half and had become competent in the Big 3, I started moving on to the Olympic lifts and adding in some kettlebell and sandbag work, and things really started to click. I started to recognize the motor pathways that are fundamental to ALL the compound exercises, and began to understand the physics of how our bodies create and harness momentum.

Our capacity to ‘do work’ is a product of our ability to move optimally, to utilize our bodies in the most efficient and effective way. Learning to move optimally begins with understanding where our power is centered: the hips. The glutes and thigh muscles are the biggest and strongest in the body, and capable of creating the most force and momentum. Once that momentum is built, we use our core to stabilize and our upper body to provide directional force, but it’s all reliant on that initial burst of power from the hips. The deadlift is the tool for training the body in the motor pathway that creates that power.

The deadlift begins by driving the hips back and loading the weight onto the muscles of the hips and thighs. The core engages to stablize, and then the work begins. The glutes and hamstrings contract to bring the hips forward and the weight begins to move upward, building power and momentum. Down the road, as you advance to more complicated full body lifts, the rest of the body can harness that momentum to move heavy loads upward, forward or backward, but the deadlift is the fundamental movement to create that momentum. That is why it’s so important. It trains the body to move optimally to create power. It translates to real-life improved functionality. You will find you can do more work with less effort when you take advantage of physics, and having a body that’s trained in the proper motor pathways will reduce the risk of injury and dysfunction as you age. Even the simple acts of standing and climbing stairs can be made more comfortable and less tiring when you learn to load your weight onto your hip and thigh muscles, as it takes a tremendous amount of strain off your lower back and the joints of the hips and knees. The deadlift makes you aware of that muscle chain, it’s proper function, and it’s profound potential. The deadlift is the fundamental movement not only for moving weight in the gym, but for moving your body through life.

Plus, it gives you a nice ass. So do it! Learn how here.

Look! My self-discipline is showing! At least that’s the message I got from a fitspo image I recently saw, an image of a headless female torso with visible abs and the words ‘Careful, Your Self-Discipline is Showing’. I of course thought of this picture I took of myself 3 months ago, with my self-discipline showing. So I’m posting it, so all of you can see my self-discipline too! Aren’t I self-disciplined? Don’t you like the way my self-discipline looks in that lighting? I especially like the way my sports bra and low rise yoga pants highlight my self-discipline.

Do you want to know what my self-discipline entailed? You can read about it here, but the jist is that I had to be relentlessly diligent with my diet. My nutrition was pristine, but keeping it that way while also maintaining the calorie deficit necessary to shed body fat to this degree and keep it off required an extraordinary degree of mental, and ultimately emotional, energy. We don’t have an unlimited supply of energy, folks. The energy I applied to my diet, and to resisting temptation, cravings and compulsions to eat, had to come from somewhere else, and it came from my creative endeavors, my job performance, my patience for my kids and my sex life (sorry honey).

Maybe if I were filthy rich with a maid and a nanny and a chauffer for my kids, or single and childless, or just devoid of ambition to excel at anything other than having low body fat, it would have been different. But as it was, my ‘self-discipline’ came at the cost of all the things that made life rich and joyful and worth waking up in the morning for.

Today I weigh about 10 pounds more than I did in that picture. My butt is bigger, and while you can see that I have abs, they are not sharply defined. And if I wear tight enough pants and slouch just right, I can even sort of give myself a little muffin top. But I like hanging out with my kids again, and I don’t have to weigh and measure every morsel of food I put in my mouth, and I have mental and emotional energy for taking on new projects at work, and for writing blog posts, and yes, even for my husband.

So lets talk a little bit about ‘self-discipline’. You don’t have an unlimited supply of it. Are visible abs (or whatever aesthetic ideal you hold yourself to) really where you want to spend yours? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, there are more important things in this world you can use your valuable mental and emotional energy to produce? Imagine how powerful we women could be if we freed ourselves from self-loathing and used all that mental energy to produce something tangible that actually benefited…well, anyone.

Eat well, eat for health, eat to nourish your body and fuel your activity. Exercise often and hard, for it makes you stronger and healthier and more confident. And all that ‘self-discipline’ you’ve been focusing on shedding that last few pounds of body fat? Use it to write a book, or move up the ranks at your job, or travel, or teach your kids something new (something other than how to hate their bodies), or start an urban garden, or run for public office, or start a charity, or get to know your neighbors and create a safe community for your children, or tutor kids who need a helping hand, or clean up the local park, or…' Really, there’s no limit to what you can do if you can harness all that energy that’s been funneled into obsessing over your body and your diet. Your life ISN’T going to be better when your abs show. It really isn’t. I can tell you this from experience. The marketers want you to think it will be, so you buy their supplements and diet plans and workout routines and drugs and potions. But it won’t actually be better, and for a lot of you it might even be worse. But your life may be better if you build something worthwhile that makes this a better world to live in. Invest your energy where it can do good, not just look good. People that matter, people who do good things in the world, people who will add richness to your life, those people don’t care about your abs anyway.

Like what you’ve read? Join the conversation on facebook.

I’ve read about taking free-form aminos (BCA’s) before a strength workout & drinking a protein shake after. What are your thoughts on BCA’s, and mainly: how are they any different from simply eating or drinking some natural protein pre-workout?

The Branch Chain Amino Acids are isoleucine, leucine, and valine. They are plentiful in food sources, so there’s no reason to supplement other than to make supplement manufacturers rich. Click on each amino acid name to see what food sources you can derive them from (note that all three are plentiful in both plant and animal foods).

I’m starting heavy lifting after this semester is over, and I’m eating in a calorie deficit because I want to lose around 60 pounds. I don’t understand cutting and bulking, and what specifically I should do for body re comp. do I have to eat more to gain muscle? What happens to the fat? It just sits and waits? Or can I eat in a deficit and gain muscle?

When you’re overweight, there’s no reason to worry about cutting and bulking, those techniques are useful for bodybuilders who wish to optimize body composition. At this stage of the game it’s all about getting to a healthy weight while keeping your metabolism healthy! To do that, maintain a small calorie deficit (not more than 1000 calories a day, preferably closer to 500) and continue to lift weights or do some other form of resistance exercise. While in a calorie deficit you won’t build appreciable muscle mass, but resistance exercise will minimize the loss of lean mass as you lose fat, and help keep your metabolism running healthy and strong. Once you are at a healthy weight, then you can begin the process of building mass through a calorie surplus. I wrote more on the subject here.
Thoughts on wine, chocolate, cheese; essentially anything not geared to health and optimal body composition- how often? How structured?

It all depends on your goals. If maintaining ultra-low body fat is a high priority for you, then treats will need to be rare. I prefer to carry a little more body fat and have the freedom to go out to eat, enjoy a glass of wine, have a bit of chocolate with some regularity. My philosophy is: meet your nutritional requirements first (macro and micronutrient needs), and then if you have some room left in your calorie allotment, eat what you want! Your calorie allotment will be partially dictated by how lean you wish to be. For the sake of sanity, I encourage my clients to chose a level of leanness that will support some dietary flexibilty.

I want to eat less processed but not sure where to even start. It seems like everything is processed these days. Any thoughts for side dishes, snacks?

Start slow, change one thing at a time, so you don’t get overwhelmed! For instance, focus on one meal of the day for a week or two, like breakfast. Spend a few minutes jotting down ideas for breakfast foods you enjoy that aren’t processed, then head to the store/farmer’s market and get what you need so you’re prepared. Stop buying the processed stuff and you’ll be forced to eat real food. For snacks I rely on fruit and nuts more than anything. If there’s one book everyone making this change should read, it’s The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters. Also check out my Getting Started post for more ideas.

How can someone who eats a ton of fruits and vegetables every single day have some vitamin levels that are deficient?

Lots of things could be going on here. Absorption issues, too little fat in the diet (many vitamins are fat soluble and require some fat to be properly absorbed), lack of variety (some vitamins are better absorbed in the presence of other nutrients), plain old undereating…I’d recommend working with a professional dietician on this one.

I spend a good 8-10 hours a day sitting on my bum so I have no idea how to calculate the correct caloric needs for my body.

This calculator allows you to plug in your activity level to give you an approximate idea of your calorie needs, then it’s a matter of trial and error to find the sweet spot. I encourage my desk-bound clients to look into a standing station, and if that’s not a possibility, get up 2-3 times and hour and do something active. A few burpees will spike your heart rate and improve your insulin sensetivity, helping to mitigate the negative effects of spending so much time sitting down.

I know you have an active career life- did you ever have a desk job? If so, how did you make the change?

I’ve never had a desk job, but in the past I’ve spent much more time sitting than I do now. I make a conscious effort to stay off my butt, either by standing to perform stationary tasks, or getting up periodically and doing something to get my heart rate up (see my answer to the previous question).

Lifting heavy, do u still do 3×8 or do u do more sets w fewer reps?

For beginners I recommend the standard 3 x 8 format for the sake of simplicity. Once a client has some basic strength, stability and knowledge of form and mechanics, I begin to mix up the reps and sets. For my own training, I do it all, high rep low weight, moderate reps moderate weight, and low rep high weight.

I know carbs are not the root of all evil. Even when eating all whole foods should you stay within a reasonable “range” of how many carbs you consume a day?

I don’t really count my carbs. I do stay within a rough calorie target, and I count protein to make sure I’m getting a minimum requirement, but otherwise I let my carbs fall where they may. A person’s carb intake should be a reflection of their protein, fat and total calorie intake, IMO. Meet protein and fat requirements and stay within your energy requirements, and your carbs will sort themselves out. The only exception would be someone with an active metabolic issue that involves insulin resistance. Then presumably they would be working with a doctor or dietician to optimize their carb intake specific to their condition.

How did you deal with going from not exercising at all to exercising every day

Slowly. I started out with a goal of 20 minutes 2-3 times a week. I fell off the wagon a few times in those early months, but I always managed to get back on before stagnation set in. I think not demanding too much of myself was key. There were days when all I could do was get to the gym, and I’d end up sitting in the jacuzzi rather than exercising, but I was creating a habit of making time for exercise. I realized about 6-8 months in that I had started planning my days around exercise rather than trying to fit exercise into my day, and it was at that point that it had become a habit. Up until then, making the habit was the priority, not the actual exercise I did.