Lean, Mean, And A Few Things In Between…

One’s health and fitness has many moving pieces and sometimes it can be difficult to navigate the vast plethora of bullshit that you can find online nowadays. I say this with the firm understating that I’m reaching you now through an online medium, but I stand by my statement. Even if you set aside all the misinformation or pseudo-science that can be found online, it’s important to remember that what works for one person may not work for another. What’s more is, doing things wrong may cause more harm than good.

This seems like a good time to remind everyone that I’m not a medical practitioner, dietitian or have many formal training. This post is intended solely as my opinion, based on my own experiences. talk to your own doctor before contemplating anything mentioned here. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let’s talk diets and fitness. For most people, dieting generally means either cutting the amount of food you eat or eliminating certain food groups that one may have read contributes to overall weight gain.

The problem with the former, is many people believe that cutting the amount of food they eat will automatically make them lose weight. Although this can occur in some situations, it can also have the opposite effect. Because the human body is programmed to keep you alive no matter what, eliminating your food intake or starving yourself, will usually result in your body hoarding away what you DO eat as fat, which it will then use to sustain you should there be another long period without food. Depending on your metabolism, one should rather examine HOW one eats as opposed to trying to eliminate HOW MUCH they eat.

Another big problem is depending on the almighty scale. People tend to measure progress on the number staring back at them from a scale, but that can be deceiving, as well. The problem includes the fact that if you’re building mass as a result of exercising more frequently, that scale may not be your friend. The whole “muscle weighs more than fat” concept is total bullshit! A pound of fat or a pound of muscle is still one fucking pound. I will die on THAT hill.

But even if you’re waistline is slowly getting smaller, your muscle mass may be getting bigger, which could be why you aren’t seeing the results you want. It’s important to remember that you need to incorporate ALL factors into your fitness journey, including what comes in, what comes out, your weight, your diet and your exercise routine. Each person is unique and even though your neighbour has lost tons of weight from fasting doesn’t mean that will work (or is safe) for you.

I happen to be dealing with my own weight-loss journey at the moment, where I’m dealing with that very scenario. A certain change that one of my martial arts counterparts has tried showed great success and seems to be working for me, as well. More on that in the near future but the important thing to rememher is if you’re dieting, be sure to control aspects such as portion size, frequency of meals and HOW you consume your food. People don’t seem to recognize the amount of damage one can cause by simply trying NOT to eat in order to lose weight.

For example, there’s a reason you need to consume food. Carbohydrates provide a primary source of energy for the body. You know, energy? That thing you need to stay alive and do ANYTHING??? Completely cutting carbs prevents that. Other aspects, like include proper levels of finer and protein, to help with the proper growth and repair of muscle tissue and the normalization of your elimination systems. This means that if you do something du,b like eat nothing but protein, you’ll stop yourself up like a loaded subway car during peak hours in Tokyo. Not pretty…

The key to it all, is balance. Just like you should be taking regular breaks from fitness to allow the body to heal, you also need to find the means to control your portion sizes and still get all the food groups and nutrients you need in order to stay healthy. Fad diets are usually just that; a fad. The complete elimination of entire food groups should be avoided, unless done on the advice and guidance of a medical professional. And for light’s sake… Don’t STOP eating in order to lose weight. To somewhat quote The Mandalorian, this is NOT the way…