Dead-On Weight Loss Advice From an Unusual Source

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/1D5aV)
The other day on some social networking site (Twitter, Facebook, I don't remember exactly) someone made a post.  It post was titled "The Public Humiliation Diet." I had to read it. How could you not?

So I clicked the link.Where does it take me?

Deadspin.com (not necessarily a site I would tell my mother to read)

I read on.

The article was by one of the sites editors, Drew Magary, who has lost 60lbs in the last 5 months. Here's brief excerpt that describes his story and rationale for his diet.

I've struggled with my weight for my entire life. I went to hospital fat camp in seventh grade. I have stretch marks all along my sides and gut (fire belly!). I spend the majority of my day thinking about food, and that's unlikely to change anytime soon, even now. I love eating and have a hard time controlling myself when presented with cakes and pies and bags of Doritos. Oh, Doritos. Oh God, how I adore you. You hear about alcoholics who can't stop drinking until they're blackout drunk. I'm that way with food. I can't stop eating until I'm blackout fat.

So I needed to set some ground rules for myself to lose weight, ground rules that I felt were reasonable to follow for the rest of my adult life.

Here are 2  key strategies that Drew used to lose 2.5 toddlers worth of weight from his midsection (with my comments).

4. I never ate after dinner. 6 p.m., to be precise, because I eat with my kids. That may not be realistic for you. But there are plenty of people out there who advocate not eating too much at night. For me, it used to be that dinner was the start of my nightly eating. There'd be dessert. Then the after-dessert dessert. Then a bowl of cereal. Then shots of ranch dressing...This rule...I really stuck to. The only times I ate dinner late were when I was out with friends or whatever and had no choice.

This is great. I've written before about not eating after a certain time at night, not because of some magical fat burning property but because of the exact reason that Drew illustrated above - post dinner snacking. Drew was able to identify that for him, a huge caloric load was being consumed after he ate dinner. A simple way to curb that was to allow no wiggle room and just make the 'rule' that he wasn't going to eat after dinner.

Oftentimes, identifying a particular bad habit and making a hard and fast 'life rule' to stop it is a great way to instantly change your behavior for the best.

10. I made sure everything I ate was AWESOME. If I'm only getting three legit meals a day, they better be good. So I made sure of that. Did you know two slices of bacon only have 70 calories? Combine that with a fried egg and you've got a breakfast of less than 200 calories, far less than a bowl of granola. So I went the bacon route. I also learned to braise short ribs,  make my own pulled pork, make Thai steak sauces, and all this other crazy stuff because I wanted to lose weight and still enjoy what I was eating. None of this grilled-chicken-breast-every-night crap that NFL players do. I still love food and I LIKE it that way. (Note: This is not an exact quote as I editted out the f-bombs)

Diet foods or the foods that you eat when on a diet do not often conjure up images that make your mouth water. For whatever reason many people feel that the only way to eat healthy is by consuming the same bland food day in and day out. It does not have to be that way. You just need to learn to eat less of certain things that you love (like Drew did with Bacon) and cook differently (also like Drew did with homemade BBQ sauce) so the food that you do eat fits in with your plan.

I personally love cheese. There is no way that I'm cutting cheese out of my diet, even if my calories are low because I'm dieting down. A year or so ago I was teaching a nutrition course and got into a conversation with the class about this exact topic. They were surprised that I didn't recommend you eat low fat cheese,instead just less full fat cheese. Let's be real here, low fat cheese is disgusting. Maybe (let me repeat...Maybe) I'll use a low fat shredded cheddar cheese in a recipe but as a general rule reduced fat cheeses taste like rubber.

Why would you want to eat that? Wouldn't you much rather eat 1/2 an oz of delicious full fat Vermont Cabot Cheddar Cheese than suffer through a full ounce of fat free Kraft Cheddar cheese?

Losing weight needs to involve a calorie deficit, which will require you to eat less calories. It does not require that you deprive yourself of food that tastes good.

Take a look at your diet. Are you suffering through any meals? How can you make them better?

Here is the link to the  original article (again, there is a bunch of 'colorful' language in the post so if that bothers you then I wouldn't recommend clicking the link).

Post a comment and let me know your favorite delicious diet food or recipe.

Top 5 Most Popular Posts

(My Original Blog Post: http://nakednutritionnetwork.com/top-5-most-popular-posts/)
I recently went back and looked at all the past Naked Nutrition past posts to see what has been the most popular. I was surprised to see certain posts there (namely that the most popular post has nothing to do with nutrition) and certain posts NOT there. Here are the top 5 most popular posts of all time with some key nutrition (or exercise) nuggets from each of them

1. Tabata Protocol – Complete Exercise Guide

[caption id="attachment_2724" align="alignleft" width="446" caption="The Tabata Protocol was originally tested on Speed Skaters"][/caption]

It was surprising that my most popular post has been exercise related but understandable as the Tabata Protocol has reached such mainstream appeal that distance runners are even using it to improve their fitness levels. Here are 3 Key excerpts:

"A Tabata workout is a timed workout that is only 4 minutes long. It consists of 20 seconds of hard (intense) exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest, and then you repeat this 8 times. Seems simple but it is really tough."

"...in order complete a full Tabata, really complete it like in the study, you need to be in decent shape. Fortunately, you can work your way up to the full 20 seconds on/10 seconds off protocol by using different time variations.

• 10 seconds on, 20 seconds off x 8


• 15 seconds on, 15 seconds off x 8


• 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off x 8"

"Coach Robert Dos Remedios a.k.a. The Tabata Master also emphasizes the importance of intensity when completing a Tabata session. He jokes that if you can do 2 Tabatas after your workout then your training session isn’t tough enough or you aren’t hitting your first Tabata hard enough. He recommends adding a Tabata to the end of your workout as a great way of ‘finishing your body off.’"

You can read the rest of this post here.

2. Fast Safe Weight Loss – How To Lose 3-6 Pounds of Fat Per Week

With the popularity of the Warp Speed Fat Loss program it is no surprise that one of this site's most popular post centered around the the concept that it IS possible to safely lose more than 2lbs per week. Here are a couple key points about metabolic exercise.

"Since you aren’t on the Biggest Loser and probably can’t workout 5-7 hrs/day tweaking your metabolism so that you burn calories when you aren’t exercising is key."

"Go for time. Metabolic circuits are ’self regulating’ in that you do as much work as you can. Do as many sets as you can within a give time frame. 10 minutes is a good place to start."

"Do better each time. While there isn’t a target number of a sets that you should do, strive to do more sets/reps each workout. Push yourself to burn more calories each workout and you will be greatly rewarded by burning more calories after each workout."

You can read the rest of this post here.

3. Whey Protein Isolate vs. Whey Protein Concentrate

The popularity of this post really speaks to the lack of educational information there is surrounding protein powders. The Concentrate vs. Isolate question is evergreen and I"m glad that I could clarify it here for people. The difference between concentrates and isolates is really important for people from a digestive perspective. I recently helped a friend relief a good deal of digestive discomfort from switching protein powders.

"Protein concentrates. Protein concentrates are created by pushing the protein source (milk, whey, etc.) through a very small filter that allows water, minerals, and other organic materials to pass though. The proteins, which are too big to pass through the filter, are collected, resulting in protein powder. When this process is used to make whey protein concentrate, it yields a protein powder that is 70-80% protein and up to 5% lactose. People with lactose intolerance will have trouble consuming large amounts of whey protein concentrate."

"Protein isolates. This is the next step up in purification; the protein is purified again using more filtration or a technique called ion-exchange or cross-flow microfiltration. Protein isolates have very low levels of carbohydrates and fat and are almost exclusively pure protein. People with lactose intolerance usually don’t have trouble with whey protein isolates. Many companies that make whey protein isolates will certify that their product is lactose free or they add lactase (the enzyme that breaks down lactose) to the protein powder to help with digestion."

You can read the rest of this post here.

4. Female Body Breakthrough – Rachel Cosgrove’s New Book

I was not surprised to see that out of all the different books and resources that I have written about, Rachel Cosgrove's book 'The Female Body Breakthrough' is in the top 5. Why? Because it is easily the best training book for women written to date. Rachel is a great advocate for the proper way to women to develop the bodies that they desire. Her book is very comprehensive and she doesn't pull any punches about the hard work that is required to get the body you desire. My favorite quote beings "In order to look like a fox you need to sweat like a pig." Here is an excerpt from the post in which Rachel outlines what weight loss program for women SHOULD DO (weight loss programs for men should also do these things"

• "Metabolically demanding full body strength training program lifting challenging weights. This should be their priority workouts 2-4 days a week.


• Boost their intensity and drop the duration on their cardio sessions performing interval style workouts for no more than 30 minutes at a time.


• Fuel their body with healthy food every couple hours getting their metabolism revving.


• Focus on how her clothes fit and how she looks and feels and not on a number on the scale. Focus on Fat Loss, not Weight Loss"

You can read the rest of this post here.

5. How To Lose Body Fat Without Losing Muscle

When dieting the number concern that people have, aside from 'how fast can I lose weight' usually centers on preventing muscle loss. To do this you really need to reconcile the the differences between your body's objectives/problems and yours when your calories are low.

"First let’s look at why your body would breakdown muscle to use as fuel when dieting. There are three main reason.

• Body’s Problem: Needs energy.


• Body’s Problem: Needs enough amino acids to maintain important bodily functions.


• Body’s Problem: Energy is low thus needs to only keep around essential parts that require calories.

You have your own set of problems in regards to how your body acts when it comes to functioning on low calories.

• Your Problem: You want it to specifically use store fat to fill the energy void.


• Your Problem: You want the body to get amino acids from places other than hard earned muscle.


• Your Problem: Need to convince your body that lean muscle is essential."

You can read the rest of this post here.

Is there a post that isn't is the top 5 but it is your favorite? Let me know and I'll put together a 'reader' favorites list.