7 Reasons Your Weight Loss Diet Isn’t Working

So, you’ve started a new workout routine like many Americans do every New Year to try and lose some weight. You’ve cleaned up the way you eat so that you are eating “healthy” and you are working out 4-5 days a week. Great! But wait a second, the weight isn’t coming off, and you are starting to get discouraged. What could be going wrong? Why aren’t you losing a few pounds a week? I’ll give you 7 reasons why, and chances are more than 1 of these reasons applies to you.

1) Your “healthy” eating isn’t actually healthy

What most people consider to be eating healthy really isn’t all that healthy. How much butter and sour cream are you eating? If you say “not very much” chances are it’s too much. How about carbs? At what meal do you eat the most carbs? I’d be willing to bet it’s at dinner. Bad move. How much saturated fat is in your diet? Probably too much. Sodium? Let’s not even go there. Can you see where this is going? Most people’s idea of “eating healthy” involves cutting out fast food, soda pop and sugary items like candy, which is great! The problem is there are still large amounts of foods that are not going to help you lose any weight. Here’s the rule I’m going to throw out to you: Eat more meat and vegetables. This leads to #2.

2) You aren’t eating enough vegetables

Veggies are a key part of any healthy diet program. I usually don’t like the word diet because it makes me think of fad diets like Atkins and other crazy things that you just shouldn’t do, but the way we eat is considered our “diet”. Vegetables are actually a great source of vitamins, minerals and fiber. The great thing about green vegetables is that they are low in carbs, meaning they have very little effect on blood sugar, and they are high in fiber. Fiber plays a key role in digestion and helps keep you regular. Vegetables also make you feel full even though they are not packed with a lot of calories. This is why something like a chicken salad is great for lunch if you are trying to be health conscious and lose weight. The chicken provides quality protein while the vegetables give you plenty of nutrients all while being low in calories.

3) Your meal portion sizes are backwards

More often than not the largest meal of the day is dinner and the smallest meal of the day is breakfast. This is completely wrong! Here’s the problem: when your largest meal is dinner you have the least amount of time to burn off what you ate. For example, if you eat dinner around 7pm and go to bed around 9 or 10 you probably think that it’s fine since you have 2-3 hours before bed. However, what are you doing for those 2-3 hours? Probably sitting on the couch watching TV and burning very little calories. Not to mention your body is winding down for the night and your metabolism is slowing down. So why would you eat a calorie packed meal? It really makes no sense. Your largest meal should be breakfast, followed by lunch and then dinner. After breakfast you have all day to burn off those calories and even after lunch you have most of the day left. After dinner you have very little time. Your dinner should mostly be meat and vegetables with very little carbs. The last thing you need if you are trying to lose weight is a spike in blood sugar before you go to sleep.

4) You are over eating

Just because the food is healthier than it was before doesn’t mean you can eat more. Calories are still calories no matter what the source of food is. Over eating will lead to weight gain. Period. Your body can only process a certain amount of calories within a given amount of time. This is a big reason why it is recommended that you eat 5-6 small meals every day. Eating 3 meals of 800-1000 calories each is simply too much at one time. Your body will not use all of that energy and will store some of it as fat. I’ll use myself as an example. I need about 3200 calories per day based on my height, weight and level of activity. If I ate only 3 times per day I would need just over 1000 calories at each meal. That’s more than my body could process from 1 meal which means it would store the excess as fat. Instead I break my meals up to 5 meals per day at about 600 calories each. This is much more manageable and also helps keep my body going throughout the day as I am consuming energy every 2 ½ -3 hours.

5) Too many processed foods

The problem with processed food is this: there is little to no nutritional value. The calories are there but the vitamins and minerals are not. What is the point of eating something if there is no real benefit to eating it? You shouldn’t eat food that has no nutritional value. At that point you are consuming what we call “empty calories”. The calories are there but the nutritional value is not. Examples are bread, pasta, chips, tortillas, hamburger buns, soda pop, candy, alcohol and anything else that fits in with these items.

6) Alcohol

Think that vodka and orange juice is ok? How about that beer or glass of wine? You’re wrong. Alcohol has 3 effects on your body that cause you to gain weight. First, alcohol has calories. Every drink you have is putting calories in your body. Did you know that just 1 vodka and orange juice packs about 174 calories!? Even the typical light beer is 110 calories and a 5oz glass of wine is around 100-105. That’s not all though. Alcohol also has an immediate effect on your blood sugar levels which in turn spikes your insulin. Let the weight gaining begin! To cap it off alcohol is processed through your liver. You know what else is processed through your liver? Fat. So guess what? If your liver is busy processing alcohol it’s not metabolizing any body fat, which means you aren’t losing any weight. Still think it’s ok to have a drink or 2 a few times a week? Not if you want to lose weight.

7) Too many carbohydrates

I know the FDA recommends about 60% of the diet be made up of carbohydrates, but let’s be real here. That’s just ridiculous. That means that for a 2000 calorie diet a person should be consuming 1200 calories just in carbs! That’s 300 grams of carbohydrates every day. That’s 50-60 grams of carbs per meal! Just 1 large sweet potato has about 40 grams of carbs in it. Yet by the FDA guidelines I should be consuming even more than that each time I eat! No wonder the obesity rate in the United States is skyrocketing. Here’s my recommendation: 40% carbs (800 calories), 30-40% (600-800 calories) protein, and the remaining 20-30% (400-600 calories) fat. The decrease in carbs and increase in protein and fat will yield outstanding results, plus you won’t feel the “crash” associated with a low carb diet because this really isn’t a low carb diet. It’s just not a high carb diet.

If you really want my opinion on what the best diet is to follow for weight loss I would say Paleo. It’s not a zero carb diet like people say it is. Rather, it’s an all-natural diet. Basically you eat fruits, vegetables and meat. No processed foods. I’ve done this and I’ll tell you it works. The meal options can get a little boring sometimes so you have to be creative. Overall though it is a great diet plan to follow and is one that you can stick to long-term and reap the benefits. Give it a try and see how you like it. Otherwise, consider everything outlined above and start losing that weight!

Basic Nutrition: Part 3 – Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates. The so-called “enemy” of weight loss. The “evil” food responsible for weight gain and bad health. Or so people say. What do you really know about carbohydrates? Do you know that there are primarily two types of carbs: simple and complex? Do you know about the glycemic index versus glycemic load? How about the effects of carbohydrates in your body? If you unfamiliar with any of this I have some good news! I’m about to explain it all to you right now.

Let’s start with the very basics. Carbohydrates are sugars. No matter what kind of carbs you eat it gets broken down in the body as sugar. Plain and simple. In your blood stream this sugar is known as glucose (blood sugar). When stored in your liver it is known as glycogen. Whether you consume simple or complex carbs determines how fast your glucose levels rise. Simple carbs are just that, simple. Their chemical structure is usually only 1 type of sugar which is very easy for the body to break down and convert to glucose. These are things like candy, soda pop, cake, doughnuts, and regular sugar. Simple carbs typically have little to no nutritional value for the human body as they lack vitamins and minerals, plus they cause dramatic increases in glucose levels, so consumption should be limited.

Complex carbs are the healthy carbs. These have a more complex chemical structure than simple carbs as they are composed of 3 or more sugars, making it more difficult for the body to break down. This means that your glucose levels do not rise as quickly and you get a longer duration of energy from these food sources. They are typically higher in fiber, vitamins and minerals as well, making them a good choice for consumption. Examples of complex carbohydrates are fruits, vegetables, beans and whole grains.

So now that we got that covered I’ll talk about how carbs work within the human body. Basically, carbohydrates are the bodies easiest source of energy to use. They digest quickly making them a faster source of energy than protein or fat and they are the main energy source for our brain! Carbohydrates are really just an energy source for our body. This is why a person who tries a low carb diet or a zero carb diet feels a “crash” and has no energy. They are not supplying their body with the amount of carbs that it is used too. Their body then has to figure out what else to use to keep itself functioning which ends up being fat and protein (muscle). So why are carbs thought to be so bad if they are our primary energy source? The answer is insulin.

Insulin is secreted by the pancreas. When sugar enters the blood stream as glucose the pancreas is signaled to release insulin. The insulin is then responsible for transporting that glucose to cells in the body for energy. However, when there is a lot of glucose or a dramatic rise in glucose, such as when you eat simple carbohydrates, the insulin actually prevents your body from using fats and proteins for energy. These fats and proteins are then transported to your fat cells for storage, causing the fat cells to grow and as a result you gain weight. When you limit carb consumption or do not eat them you do not have insulin blocking the fats and proteins from being used by your body as energy. This is why low carb and zero carb diets are so effective. However, the results are temporary. What happens is that you become insulin sensitive. So when you begin to introduce carbs back into your diet your insulin levels shoot through the roof which causes you to rapidly gain the weight back that you had just lost. Make sense?

Ultimately carbohydrates are not your enemy. You need them. Athletes need them even more than non-athletes because of their high amount of activity. Their bodies need carbohydrates to continuously perform at a high level. The key is to intake complex carbs rather than simple carbs. There is 1 exception though. After a vigorous workout when your glucose levels are depleted you should consume simple carbs such as Gatorade. This will replenish your glucose levels and help your body absorb your post-workout protein. This is also why you see NFL players drinking Gatorade on the sideline. They need to keep their glucose levels up during the game so that they can continuously perform their best. For the average person though I would not recommend drinking a lot of Gatorade or other sports drinks. Stick to complex carbs. Fruits, vegetables, beans and whole grains should make up most, if not all, of your carbohydrate intake. I recommend about 40-50% of your daily caloric intake be composed of carbohydrates, which is a little lower than the FDA recommended 60%. I hope this all makes sense to you. If it doesn’t, please comment with a question and I will be happy to answer!

Basic Nutrition: Part 1 – Water, Vitamins and Minerals

I decided to do this Basic Nutrition series to educate everyone on the basic aspects of nutrition. Please keep in mind when reading this that I could go into much greater detail and outline the specifics of nutrition, but that is not the goal. The goal here is to give readers a general understanding of nutrition in terms of what the basic nutritional elements are and how they work with the human body. I intend to break things down in this series as simple as possible. At the end of this series, which will be 5 parts long, you will have a basic understanding of nutrition. Not so basic that you still won’t know much, but basic in a sense that you could give a general explanation of how nutrition works to somebody who has no clue. So here we go. Read, take notes and learn as much as you can because these articles are going to help you understand how your body works and how nutrition is a key factor in achieving your desired fitness goals.

Let’s begin with H2O. Water is the most basic and most important aspect of nutrition. It has zero calories so you cannot consume too much and gain permanent weight from it. Actually, 70% of the human body is composed of water. Water is a part of every single cell in the body, which is why it is so important to drink plenty of it on a daily basis. I personally strive for a gallon a day. Granted I am a 6 foot tall, 200 pound man who works out daily, but that really doesn’t matter. Half of my water consumption is usually during my workouts. Keep in mind that water consumption counts when it comes from fruits and vegetables as well. Some people just cannot consume a lot of water. Eating green vegetables and plenty of fruits will help keep your body hydrated throughout the day. Ultimately I recommend a minimum daily water consumption of 60% of your body weight in ounces of water. To figure that out take your weight x 0.60 and the answer is how many ounces you should be drinking daily at a minimum.

In knowing that 70% of our bodies are made up of water, let’s take a look at some of the health benefits that water has for us. Take a look at this picture below by Seth Larson.

Water is a pretty amazing thing huh? I think so. Without it we cannot survive. You can literally go weeks without food but only days without water. Whether you are at work, at the gym or on the go you should always have a bottle of water with you. In fact, before you drink your coffee in the morning you should take your vitamins with a tall glass of water to help hydrate your cells and flush the toxins from your body that have built up during the night. That brings me to the next topic: vitamins and minerals.

Vitamins and minerals are another very basic and key aspect of nutrition. Many foods contain vitamins and minerals. However, not all foods do. Processed foods contain little to no vitamins or minerals. This is why items like cookies, crackers, candy and soda pop are often referred to as empty calories. The calories are there, but the vitamins and minerals are not, which means there is no nutritional value. Fruits, vegetables and different types of meat on the other hand are high in vitamins and minerals and should be your primary source of calories. Be aware though that when you cook these foods they lose some of their nutritional value. I do not recommend eating raw meat or sea food, but your fruits and vegetable should be eaten raw as often as possible in order to receive their full nutritional value.

Since we are on the topic of raw and cooked fruits and vegetables I want to clear up a common myth. Microwaving your food does not affect the nutritional content of food any more than cooking on a stove top or oven. Also, it does not mutate the cellular structure of the food. If it did you would see your food mutate into something else. A microwave heats food just the same as anything else, by causing the water molecules within the food to move faster, causing friction within the food itself, therefore it heats up. In fact, with some foods cooking in the microwave actually preserves more of the nutritional value than cooking on the stove. Take broccoli for example. When broccoli is boiled on the stove the surrounding water actually absorbs a large portion of the nutrients from the broccoli. However, if you were to cook it in the microwave this would not happen. So the next time somebody tries to tell you that microwaving your food is bad you can tell them it’s not any worse than cooking on the stove and you now know why.

So back to vitamins and minerals. You cannot actually consume all of the vitamins and minerals that your body needs for the day just by eating. For this reason I highly recommend taking a daily multi-vitamin. I have been taking them for years and if there is one nutritional supplement that I recommend to all of my clients, family and friends it is a multi-vitamin. Vitamins and minerals are critical for the proper function of your body. Iron for example plays a key role in oxygen delivery to cells and liver metabolism while many vitamins help support immune function and proper function of organs. Along with the increase in vitamin and mineral nutrients you will experience an increase in energy. This is because the body is now getting the required amount of vitamins and minerals that it needs to be able to function properly and does not have to work as hard to maintain energy levels. I actually notice a difference in energy if I go too long without taking multi-vitamins. I feel sluggish and tired whereas with my vitamins I feel more energized and healthy. Again, this is because when I am taking my vitamins my body is receiving all of the necessary nutrients for it to fully function the way it is supposed too rather than fighting to stay energized because the required nutrients are not there. Also, vitamins and nutrients play key roles in immune function, digestion, cell production, recovery from workouts and much more. Without vitamins and minerals our bodies could not perform all of the necessary functions to keep up healthy.

This wraps up part 1 of my Basic Nutrition series. I hope that you have learned about the importance of water and vitamins and minerals. The key takeaways here are that water is a part of every cell in the body and makes up about 70% of our structure, therefore it is crucial to keep your water intake up. Plus it plays a key role in metabolism which can help with weight and fat loss. I would recommend a minimum of 60% of your body weight in ounces of water each day. For a 150lb person that would be 90oz of water daily. Also, vitamins and minerals are key players in many bodily functions to include organ function, blood cell production, maintaining energy levels and much more. Without vitamins and minerals your body will not function properly and you will lack energy. So remember to drink your water, take a daily multivitamin and eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and you will be well on your way to a healthier, better functioning body! Check back soon for part 2 of this series: Amino Acids and Protein!

Why We Get Fat

Have you ever thought about why people get fat? I mean really think about it. We all know the theory that becoming overweight is a result of overeating and most of us know the “calories in vs calories out” theory that states if you burn more calories than you consume you will not gain weight. While this may be true to some extent I think that it is missing a large piece of the puzzle. How about the type of calories that you are putting in your body? Don’t you think that that is just as much of a factor as how much? I do. I think the types of calories you consume are just as important as how many calories you consume. I’ll explain why.

I want to start by talking about blood sugar and insulin. The relationship here is pretty simple. When you eat carbohydrates your blood glucose, or blood sugar, levels rise. This causes your body to secrete insulin which removes the sugar from your blood stream and gives it to your cells for energy. However, this process causes some things to happen that are not in our favor in terms of staying lean. The first thing is that the insulin can only pull out so much sugar from your blood stream to be used for immediate energy. Any excess sugar is moved to inactive cells, being your fat cells, for later use. The other thing that happens is if your blood sugar levels are high and your insulin is removing a lot of sugar your body is not able to use the fat and protein in your blood stream for energy. That, too, then gets transported to your fat cells for later use. This is why sugar is so frowned upon and blamed for rapid weight gain. Sugary drinks like soda pop or sugary foods like candy cause instant spikes in blood sugar and insulin which in turn causes weight gain because of the processes explained above.

Now, it’s obvious that nutritional choices play a huge role in whether or not we stay lean. Unfortunately the “recommended” guidelines for food consumption favor a very carb-heavy diet. If you refer back to the previous paragraph you’ll understand why this is a bad thing. Also, with the popularity of fast food people will have an even harder time keeping the weight off because they are eating french fries which are spiking your blood sugar, a hamburger with a bun that is spiking your blood sugar even more as well as feeding your body high amounts of saturated fat, and washing it all down with a Dr. Pepper which is shooting your blood sugar levels through the roof. This is the main reason why I think the calories in vs calories out theory is flawed. You may only eat 2 meals per day and work out pretty regularly, but if those 2 meals are anything like the one I just described you are going to get fat even though you are burning more calories than you are consuming. I’ll give you the perfect example. I use to train a very large man. He was 6-5, 330lbs and a tow truck driver. I had him wear an arm band that estimated his caloric burn from the time he woke up to the time he went to bed. On average he was burning an incredible 6500-7000 calories per day! I worked his butt off 3 times per week burning around 700 calories every workout and it killed me because he did not lose 1 single pound. When talking to him about his nutrition he admitted that he was eating at McDonalds twice per day because they were playing the Monopoly game! Are you freaking kidding me!? I couldn’t believe it. I really didn’t know what to say to that. Still, we figured out how many calories he was taking in on a daily basis, including the McDonalds, and it was less than he was burning by about 500 calories per day. He should have been losing about a pound a week. It was very clear that his choices in food were the problem. Since his body was having to deal with so much blood sugar and saturated fat it had no time to process any body fat, therefore he could not lose any weight.

As a trainer these situations are extremely frustrating because I really pride myself on my service. When people listen they get outstanding results. When they don’t they get mediocre results at best. What a lot of people fail to understand about fitness in general is that nutrition plays a much larger role in your results that anything else does. Some people refer to the “80/20 rule” that basically says 80% nutrition, 20% exercise. It’s pretty much true. You can work your butt off every night, just like my tow truck driver did, and not achieve anything if you aren’t making the right food choices. The bottom line here is watch what you eat because no matter how hard you train you can’t out train a bad diet.

The Paleo Diet

I’m sure most of you have heard of the Paleo diet. If you haven’t it’s ok, you will soon find out what it is. The issue I would like to address here is whether or not Paleo is a fad diet, should you be doing it, and why. I can answer the first question now and the answer is no, Paleo is definitely not a fad diet. A fad diet is something like the “juice” diet that people do or the Atkins diet. They promise quick results that don’t last. Paleo does not fit that category.

Whenever I mention the Paleo diet to someone the answer I get is usually along the lines of “I can’t do zero carb diets”. Let’s clear this up right now. Paleo is not zero carb. You can eat plenty of carbs, they just have to be from natural sources such as vegetables and fruits. Paleo is an all natural diet, sometimes called the Cave Man diet, because if it doesn’t grow in nature you can’t eat it. This means that you can’t have pasta, cereal, muffins, bread, candy, or any other processed foods. You really shouldn’t be eating that stuff anyways, even if it says “whole grain”. The truth about “whole grain” is that it is still processed just the same as any other processed food, but the grains are left completely in tact. They are not broken down during processing. Our bodies are not designed to digest that stuff anyways, so don’t eat it! Anyhow, processed foods, carbs especially, are nothing but empty calories. There is little to no nutritional value to these foods, which means you are eating them just for the sake of calories.  You get to eat meat, fruits and vegetables with Paleo. Sound terrible? It’s not. It’s actually great! You will feel amazing and your body will begin to transform into something lean and mean! These natural sources of food such as sweet potatoes, broccoli, carrots, apples, oranges, etc are not only great sources of carbs but also vitamins and minerals. Now you are not eating just for the sake of calories, you are eating to nourish your body and give it the stuff it needs to function properly. So the answer to the third question of whether or not you  should be following a Paleo diet is YES! You most definitely should be following a Paleo diet! Your body will be much healthier, feel much better, and you will look a lot better. All of that hard work in the gym will pay off much faster and you will yield much greater results. For tips on how to cook for Paleo visit www.paleoplan.com. It’s a great site with tons of information and recipes!