Fat Loss Diary — Day 9
The bike in the picture is stationary. It’s going nowhere. You can get on the bike and pedal as hard as you like. You’ll just be spinning wheels.
I’ve just been spinning wheels with my fat loss. I started last week, and I am only 1kg lighter. I got off to a really good start. There were a few bumps, but I’ve kept going. Now I’m cruising, stuck at the same weight.
Yesterday I went to the gym and got on the treadmill. After 20 minutes I’d broken a sweat and annoyed my wife. She was annoyed because I’d found it easy, despite never really doing any cardio in the gym. I found it easy because the way I perform my weight lifiting workouts keeps my heart in good shape, so doing cardio is redundant. I say that because I think using exercise as a means of losing weight is idiotic, just going by the numbers.
I think using exercise as a means of losing weight is idiotic, just going by the numbers.
Let me elaborate. Consuming more calories than you need is so easy it’s almost inevitable. It is the case that eating more than you need makes you fat. Therefore it is unsurprising that the vast majority of people eat far more than they need, and rates of obesity continue to rise. Fat gain can happen in infinitesimally small increments, like dust gathering on an unused table. One day you run your finger along the table and you’re surprised by how thick the layer of dust has become. It’s the same with fat gain. Even if you eat a few extra calories a day, one day you’ll be amazed by how fat you’ve become. Given that the recommended calorie intakes for men and women in the United Kingdom are 2,500 and 2,000 calories a day, it’s no surprise that people are getting fatter rather rapidly. Not even male world champion bodybuilders who lifted weights for hours each day ate 2,000 calories a day in the 1970s, so why are women being told that 2,000 calories a day is healthy?
Our bodies did not evolve in a world where calories were plentiful. It is only since industrialization and mass agriculture in the last century or so that finding enough calories to survive has become easy. Our bodies are designed to store energy which will keep us alive during lean times. In the developed world, lean times are a thing of the past, except where starvation is used a weapon of war.
In simple terms, the human body was not designed in a world where food is plentiful. The human body is like an incredibly efficient engine. It only needs a little food to perform a great deal of work. Conversely, it takes an enormous amount of work to burn off the energy provided by a very small amount of food. The calories in a latte for example, vary between 150 and 300. Running burns around 10 calories per minute. So you’d have to run for fifteen to thirty minutes to burn off one latte.
I chose a latte because most people will not see that as a bad food or a source of bad calories. When it comes to weight loss, all calories are the same regardless of where they come from. If you have too many you’re going to get fatter.
Trying to lose fat by doing a lot of cardio is like trying to stop sea levels rising with a teaspoon and a bucket.
Cardio also has diminishing returns. Doing enough to burn fat will probably make you so tired, that you’ll shoot yourself in the foot by becoming lazy when you’re not in the gym. You’ll be lazy because you’ll be tired, and you’ll be tired because you did so much cardio. As a consequence of your well earned and completely justifiable laziness, your daily maintenance calorie requirement will fall, and your job will get even harder.
Use exercise for fitness, not fat loss. For fat loss, use food. Eat less. Bikes, treadmills, and anything else you want to use are fantastic for keeping your heart and lungs healthy. So is weight lifting. Exercise is a must for feeling good and living well. But don’t fool yourself by thinking it will stop you from getting fat. Or that it will reverse your fat gain.
The one thing that will stop you from getting fat, or make you slim if you’re already fat (like most people) is eating less. Don’t try to deny the fuel efficiency of the human body. You’ll lose.
Let me repeat that,put it in bold, and set it as a sub heading.
Use exercise for fitness, not fat loss. For fat loss, use food. Eat less.
That brings me back to my own fat loss. As I’m stuck on 74kg and I want to be less than 70kg, I know I have to eat less than I have been eating. I haven’t stuck to my three meal replacement milkshakes a day. I’ve been going with breakfast and an evening meal. Today I didn’t feel hungry for a few hours after I got out of bed and I have been toying with the idea of just eating one meal a day, in the evenings. Not having breakfast would save me time in the mornings as well. I imagine it will be rather challenging. But I still want to give it a try.
I’ll let you know how I get on. Thanks for reading.
