Do Fat People Really Eat More?

I can remember at summer camp at Georgetown University (right here in DC) when my “friends” took it upon themselves to inform me that I was the fattest kid at the camp.  I protested!  I said that this other kid (whose name I forget) was fatter than me and that I was only the 2nd fattest kid at camp.  They called that kid over in the locker room, looked at us both and said, “its close, but Josef is definitely the fattest.”

Shit!

That was not exactly my best day at camp.

It always seemed ridiculously unfair that I would get made fun of because I was not some gluttonous monster who went around eating everything in site.  I really did eat the same or less vs. my skinny friends.

It turns out that I was right.

“The energy intake of the obese boys was significantly less than that of the non-obese controls. Little difference was noted in the amount of time scheduled for light, moderate, and very active exercise.” (my emphasis)

STEFANIK, P.A., et al. Caloric Intake in Relation to Energy Output of Obese and Non-Obese Adolescent Boys. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 7, 55-62, 1959

One study does not make anything so.  However there are LOTS and LOTS of studies that find the same thing over and over again.  Gary Taubes called it “one of the most consistently reproducible findings in obesity research.”

If it was just a matter of eating less no fat child on Earth would remain fat.  It’s such a horrible experience that no one would do it voluntarily.  The only people that say such absurd nonsense are people who have never experienced it themselves and simply cannot fathom what it is like to live a different kind of body.  If you have not been called “blubber thing” at summer camp then you cannot possibly understand.  You cannot have any more motivation to eat less and exercise more.

This is like saying that someone would choose to be black in the American South at the turn of the 20th century.  Or that someone would choose to be gay.

There is a very good reason why 98% of all people on weight loss programs regain everything they lose within a few years – because they’re relying on the “eat less and exercise more” theory.  It really doesn’t seem to work, especially not over the long haul.  Of course the people running these kinds of programs blame the participants.  The message goes, “98% of you are fat, lazy slobs without an once of self control!”

The opposite idea – that if something fails 98% of the time, maybe it’s a horrible plan – never occurs to any of these so called experts.

What I am NOT Saying

This is not at all to remove personal responsibility from the equation.  If you are overweight, then you’ve got to do something about or nothing will change.  This is just to point out that the premise upon which ALL of you past failures were based on is utter BS.  You’ve got to get a better plan.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s #1 fat-loss expert for busy people.  He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have.  To find out more click here.

Is The Celebrity Fit Club BS?

I’m probably going to get my Blog shut down over this, but I was up doing my market research for my new book (tentatively titled “The Booty You Want”).  I’m scoping out the top selling competition on the bookshelves – what’s the hook? What did people like?  What would people change?

I ran across the 4 Day Diet by Dr. Ian K. Smith.  Then I went to his site and found a page with the results from Season 3 of the Celebrity Fit Club.

#1.  Was Young MC (remember “Bust A Move”?) he dropped 38 pounds, but his body-fat % only went down by 8%.

Let’s do the math on that:

He started at 278lbs, so he lost 14% of his bodyweight.

So, 43% of what he lost was actually lean body mass (LBM), NOT FAT.

That is damn near half.

He dropped OVER 16lbs of LBM.  Your metabolism is largely a function of how much LBM you have.  If his metabolism slows down that much what are the odds that Young MC is going to keep that weight off?

Hmmm…  Maybe that whole eat less and exercise more thing doesn’t really work all that well for most people?

If I get a 41 year old male client (Young MC was born in May 1967) he’s going to gain muscle while he drops body-fat.

NO, I did not cherry pick my data.  Let’s look at all of the 100-Day Results:

#2.  Bizarre: no data on body-fat % change

#3.  Kelly LeBrock:  did improve overall body composition (the ONLY one)

#4.  Chastity Bono:  77% of the weight lost was LBM!

#5.  Bruce Vilanch:  64% of the weight lost was LBM!

#6.  Tempest Bledsoe:  55% of the weight lost was LBM!

#7.  Countess Vaughn:  just got fatter

Countess’ results beg the question:  If you have someone motivated enough to embarrass themselves on National TV, and they GAIN weight on your 100 day program is what you teach of any value whatsoever?  Are you just on TV because you are camera friendly and yelling at people makes for TV drama?

ONLY ONE PERSON in SEVEN made any meaningful progress. You can’t get any more motivated than someone being on TV.  If motivation isn’t the problem, maybe your program sucks?

If you fall back on the “they didn’t follow through” excuse, then I say again:  Maybe its your program that sucks?  If people who are being embarrassed on TV can’t follow through on your program, who else will?  If a program can’t be followed, then its sucks right?

Don’t even get me started on The Biggest Loser…

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s #1 fat-loss expert for busy people.  He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have.  To find out more click here.

Are You Wasting Your Time and Money At The Gym?

This is from a press release I sent out this week about brnad new research (from the March’09 Journal of Exercise Physiology and Physical Fitness).

Joining a gym is one of the first things on people’s minds when fighting the battle of the bulge.  Unfortunately a new study reveals that a plain gym membership is actually a waste of time and money for most people.

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness just published a study looking at the difference in results between supervised and unsupervised exercise.  Group 1 met with a trainer twice-a-week in a small group (or semi-private) setting.  Group 2 was given basic advice and access to a fully equipped health club.

After 4 months researchers measured the results:

•    Group 1:  13.4lbs of fat-loss

•    Group 2:  3.7lbs of fat-loss

The supervised group lost 362% MORE fat than the unsupervised group in the exact same amount of time.  “It should also be noted that neither group was given any nutrition advice whatsoever.  These results only reflect the difference between trying to do it yourself and working with a qualified expert,” says Josef Brandenburg, and award-winning Washington, DC based personal trainer.

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I think that its pretty clear that if you are really serious about making a serious change in your body that you need to hire a coach.  I know I did.

Free For You

By the way, I am in the process of massively expanding my cleint base.  To speed up that process I have a special offer going on right now – a 7-Day Free Trail.  It includes:

• A thorough assessment that includes the Functional Movement Screen  $95 value
• A completely customized fitness program                                              $200 value (yes, I charge $200 all day to write programs for people on line right now, so that is a real number)
• Up to two (2) semi-private training session                                            $114 value

Total value $409, but it’s absolutely free while space lasts.

It really is Free and ther are no strings attached whatoever.  if you’re interested click here, but space will not last forever.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s #1 fat-loss expert for busy people.  He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have.  To find out more click here.

The Truth About Splenda – Part II

If you missed part I of The Truth About Splenda with who makes the money off of both sides of the Splenda debate, and the facts about the long term research on Splenda click here.  Otherwise it’s time to get nerdy.

More Verdicts

3.  Sucralose is stored in our fat and builds up over time.

You know how oil and water don’t mix?  Well in chemistry terms they don’t mix because water is polar and oil is non-polar.

Polar means that the molecule has a charge – that parts of it are either (-) or (+).  Non-polar is exactly the opposite, it’s a molecule with no charge.

Like dissolves like.  So if something is going to build up in your fat then it would have to be polar, otherwise its like oil and water – it just won’t mix.

This is what a molecule of sucralose (Splenda) looks like (don’t worry, this is very simple):

The image is actually color-coded:
*Grey = carbon (neutral) = non-polar stuff
*Green & Red = chlorine (-) and oxygen(-) = SUPER polar stuff
*White = hydrogen (partial +) = somewhat polar here

All of the green and red in sucralose mean that the molecule as a whole is polar.  Also, water is polar, and Splenda dissolves in water.  Since like dissolves like, Splenda is polar and will not be accumulating in your fat cells anytime soon.

I see this kind of stuff on the web sites of Medical Doctors.  To become and MD you have to take a LOT of chemistry courses, and the whole polar/non-polar thing is about as basic as you can get.  To get into med school you had to get A’s in most of your chemistry classes, so that is a deliberately false information.

4.  Sucralose is chemically similar to DDT.

This is like saying that a chicken is similar to a moose.  Well, they’re both alive and they’re both animals, but beyond that they’re pretty different – bird vs. mammal, big vs. little, beak vs. lips, etc.

This is another one of those things that I have seen on the webs sites of several medical doctors that is absolute garbage.  These people know that most people never made it to organic chemistry, so they can say anything they want and people will believe them because of their position of authority.

At its base, DDT has two very special properties – 2 aromatic rings (the six sided rings with the 3 extra lines on the insides of them).  Aromatic rings are these super-special, almost magically stable structures in chemistry.  Sucralose has two, regular-old NON-aromatic rings.

One is a chicken and one is a moose.  No one who took organic chemistry could EVER mistake an aromatic compound for a non-aromatic one.  Anyone with an MD after their name got and A or a B in organic chemistry and knows better.

If for some strange reason you want to learn more about aromaticity, here’s the wikipedia page.

Stay tuned for the verdict on Splenda Claim # 5 & 6 later this week #6 should surprise you.
Josef Brandenburg is a Washington, DC based 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year nominee and author of The Body You Want.  Visit www.thebodyyouwant.com to find out about our 7-Day Free Trial.  Space is limited so act quickly.

Join Jessica Simpson

In case you haven’t heard, Jessica Simpson has publicly commited to dropping 20lbs in 8 weeks.  I wrote a press release on how you can join Jessica Simpson.

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and an award winning personal trainer in Washington DC.  Visit www.thebodyyouwant.com to find out about our 7-Day Free Trial.  Space is limited so act quickly.

The Truth About Splenda – Part I

Some people say Splenda is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and other people say that it’s the spawn of Satan.  Who’s right?  Who’s wrong?  What is the truth about Splenda?

It’s hard to know who to believe because there is a LOT of money to be made on both sides.  Case in point:

*Visit www.thetruthaboutsplenda.com and you will come away thinking that Splenda is the most deadly chemical known to man, and that if you eat it while pregnant your baby will have 18 toes and resemble a lizard.

BUT, if you take a look at the bottom of the site, you will see these words:

“This website is part of an effort to educate consumers about the chemical artificial sweetener Splenda and is provided by The Sugar Association, which represents sugar beet and sugar cane farmers across America…”

It is very difficult to believe anything that the Sugar Industry has to say about one of their biggest competitors.

*Visit www.splenda.com and you will come away thinking that this is THE cure for diabetes and obesity.  It’s obvious who paid for that.

Claims About Splenda

On both sides of the fence there are 6 basic claims made about Splenda:

1.  There have never been any long term studies on humans.

2.  Some of Splenda (sucralose) is metabolized into chemicals that have never been studied and are dangerous.

3.  Sucralose is stored in our fat and builds up over time.

4.  Sucralose is chemically similar to DDT.

5.  Splenda has chlorine in it, and since chlorine is poisonous, Splenda must be poisonous.

6.  Splenda is a no calorie sweetener and will not raise blood sugar or insulin levels.  (You’ll be surprised about the REAL answer to this one.)

The Verdicts

#1.  Is actually an outright lie.  There were 20 years of research on the safety of sucralose (Splenda) before it was released in the US.  The FDA reviewed 110 human and animal studies – there were long term studies done on both.  So, there really is no grey area on #1.  Either it was or it wasn’t.

If you’d like to bore yourself with the details (and it is really boring) check out the federal register on it.

#2.  Is also an outright lie.  98.5% is excreted within 6 hours of ingestion.  Some of the remaining 1.5% is broken down into two metabolites, BUT these metabolites have been studied for:

• Carcinogenic toxicity (do they cause cancer?)
• Genoticity
• Neurotoxicity (do they pose a threat to your nervous system?)
• Reproductive toxicity

No problems in either the short or the long term studies with ridiculously high doses.

Splenda also seems to be really stable, so very, very little ends up being metabolized.

“After ONE YEAR at 25ºC, there would be LESS than 1% hydrolysis at pH 3, and… no detectable loss of sucralose at pH 4 and 6.”
(emphasis added; Grice, “Sucralose – An Overview of the Toxicity Data,” Food and Chemical Toxicity)

Translation: At room temp (25ºC), and at a very acidic pH (3 is low and low is more acid) less than 1% of sucralose broke down over the course of an entire year.  We could not detect any breakdown of sucralose at a higher (more alkaline pH) if left in water for an entire year.  The human body is slightly alkaline (7.4 pH).

This will not be completely one sided.  Splenda is not perfect.

Tune in next week for parts 2 & 3 next week.

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and an award winning personal trainer in Washington DC.  Visit www.thebodyyouwant.com to find out about our 7-Day Free Trial.  Space is limited so act quickly.

Good Calories, Bad Calories

Gary Taubes probably knows more about the science of nutrition and fat-loss than almost anyone on planet earth.  He spent 5 years reading almost EVERY piece of research on the topics of diet and weight loss from the past 125 years and he distilled it into his masterpiece (in my opinion) Good Calories, Bad Calories.

I was so impressed with Gary that I said to myself, “I gotta interview that guy!”

Gary has the honor of being the very first person that I interviewed for my brand new Body Club Monthly Membership program.  Where he destroys almost every single sacred cow that there is in nutrition and public health such as:
•    Saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease
•    Weight loss is just calories in vs. calories out
•    Eating more fiber will prevent colon cancer
•    Aerobic exercise helps people lose weight
•    And a whole lot more!

By the way, you can go here for the best deal that I will ever be making on The Body Club.  There’s nothing to buy right now, its just raising your hand to say you’d be interested in being the first to find out about it and to save yourself a spot for the best deal ever on The Body Club.  There is an expiration date.

Oh, and clients, you will get ALL of the content of The Body Club absolutely FREE as part of your membership.  It will be going up in the member’s only section of thebodyyouwant.com. which is coming soon.

We’ve always known this

What I found really interesting about Gary’s work is the one of the fundamental facts of obesity – that starchy and sugary foods make people fat – used to be common knowledge, but is not somehow controversial.

For example in the novel Anna Karenina that was written by Tolstoy WAY back in the 1870’s make explicit reference to the power of low-carb diets.  Anna’s lover, Count Vronsky “avoided starchy foods and dessert” to lean out for a horse race he was going to participate.

I know, Tolstoy is not hard science, but there’s more.

In 1951 seven British clinicians published a text book called The Practice of Endocrinology where they give this advice for dealing with obesity:

“Foods to be avoided:

1.  Bread, and everything else made with flour…
2.  Cereals, including breakfast cereals and milk puddings
3.  Potatoes and all other white root vegetables
4.  Foods containing much sugar
5.  All sweets…

“You can eat as much as you like of the following foods:

1.  Meat, fish, birds
2.  All green vegetables
3.  Eggs, dried or fresh
4.  Cheese
5.  Fruit, if unsweetened… except bananas and grapes”

Gary has some 25 pages of references like this from the very early 1800’s to the early 1980’s.   To date, there are NO studies that show that a low fat diet beats a low carb diet for weight loss (or fat loss).  The low fat group is always hungrier, less successful and has a higher drop out rate.  Where is the controversy?

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and an award winning personal trainer in Washington DC.  Visit www.thebodyyouwant.com to find out about our 7-Day Free Trial.  Space is limited so act quickly.

Is Quinoa A Good Protein Source?

I get this one a lot:  “isn’t quinoa a good protein source?”

The short answer is “no”.  It’s a grain.  Grains are starchy foods.  Quinoa is probably the highest protein grain, but it’s still a grain, so it’s still a starch and will raise your insulin levels accordingly.  Which may or may not be a good idea for you.

It certainly beats white bread, but it can’t hold a candle to a chicken breast.

How To Tell If Something Is A Protein or A Starch

I definitely understand where that comes from – tons of magazines tout quinoa as a great source of protein.  But is actually?

Take a look at Quinoa’s nutrition info:

Nutrition Facts
Calories 127     (532 kJ)

Total Fat           2g
Total Carbs.      23.5g
Dietary Fiber     2g
Protein             4.5g     (1)

There are 4 calories per gram of protein and carbohydrate, so percentage-wise this works out to:

•    Starch:  23.5g x 4kcal/gram = 94kcal of starch (75% of the calories are from carbs)
•    Protein: 4.5g x 4kcal/gram = 18kcal of protein (14% of the calories are from protein)

Also, keep in mind that plant protein is roughly half as “complete” as animal protein.  So, you need about 2g of veggie protein to equal 1g of animal protein.  So the numbers for protein above should really be halved. (2)

On the other hand, lets check out the stats on a chicken breast:

Calories 142      (593 kJ)

Total Fat           3.1g
Total Carbs.      0g
Dietary Fiber     0g
Protein              26.7g      (3)

•    Starch: 0g x 4kcal/gram = 0kcal of starch (0% of the calories are from carbs)
•    Protein: 26.7g x 4kcal/gram = 107kcal of protein (75% of the calories are from protein)

References
1. www.calorieking.com

2.  Clark, Michael A. Corn, Rodney J. Parracino, Lenny A. Optimum Performance Training.  NASM. 2002. P.583

3. http://www.calorieking.com

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and an award winning personal trainer in Washington DC.

62sec To A Brighter Day

It could always be worse right?

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and an award winning personal trainer in Washington DC that was nominated several times for 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year from Personal Fitness Professional Magazine.  Oh, and check out his new web-site washingtondcpersonaltrainer.com

I’d love to hear your opinion

Hey, can you do me a 15sec favor?

I’m re-doing my site and I’m trying to pick between 3 header (the top graphic thingy) choices, and I’ve love to hear what you think.

Please just shoot an email to josef@thebodyyouwant.com with “1″, “2″ or “3″.

Thank you in advance.

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and an award winning personal trainer in Washington DC that was nominated several times for 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year from Personal Fitness Professional Magazine.  Oh, and check out his new web-site washingtondcpersonaltrainer.com