The Scales Can Lie – How You Can Be Normal Weight, Yet Obese

After 40 years, medical research has finally caught up with the fitness industry (well, the few competent folks in the fitness industry) when it comes to scale weight.  The “shocking” new news made it a big splash in The Wall Street Journal is that “you can be normal weight and fat at the same time.”  The “amazing” discovery is that, low and behold, scale weight is not the be all and end all after all.

However the people that did this study caution that “the findings [that body fat % is as important or more important than scale weight] need to be validated with additional research.”

Well, while they take 10 years and $100 million to do additional research here’s how you can apply this NOW for FREE.

#1.  Ignore traditional advice

It takes a lot of time to do and it sucks when it comes to results.  Case in point – the Women’s Health Initiative 2006:  The experimental group reduced their saturated fat and cholesterol intake and cut their overall caloric intake by an average of 360 calories per day for 8 whole years.

Let’s do the math on that to see how many pounds that they should have lost if the whole “calories in vs. calories out” thing worked in the human body:

360calories/day x 7days/week x 52 weeks/yr = 131,040 calories (food calories, so, technically, that’s kilocalories).

A pound of fat has 3,500 calories.  So, they should have lost 37.4 pounds per year.

However, on average they lost about 2 pounds.  BUT, and this is particularly apropos to the article, they GAINED in waist circumference!  In other words they got fatter at a slightly lower weight.

#2.  Measure what matters

What matters most is what your body is composed of – body composition.  How much of you is fat and how much of you is lean?  This determines how you look naked.

It is entirely possible for a woman to drop 2 sizes (i.e. 8 to a 4) but to only drop 5lbs on the scale.  If she were to just go by the scale, then the 3 months that it took to achieve this would seem like a waste – only 5 pounds in 3 months!  But, if she looked at herself in the mirror she would say, “wow!  No more cellulite!”  And if she looked at how her clothes fit, she’d notice that her pants don’t stay up.  (By that I mean that her pants are too big for her now.  What were you thinking?)

It’s possible for a man to gain weight while loses body-fat.  If you just went by the scale, you would say that he failed – he gained weight.  But if you looked at him in the mirror, you’d see exactly what most men want – more muscle and less fat at the same time.

Traditional weight loss programs emphasize the number on the scale, and have people on low-fat, low calorie diet doing lots of aerobic exercise.  On this type of program 25-50% of what you’ll lose will be lean body mass.  So, if you drop 10 pounds, up to 5 could be lean body mass.

In body composition, losing fat and gaining muscle are both positives.  On the scale the above person would be a success.  But, in terms of body composition, they made no progress at all – 5lbs of lean lost, and 5lbs of fat lost = 0lbs net progress.

The most practical way for most people to measure their body composition is with a tape measure.  It is simple, fast, reliable (if you get spring-loaded tape measure so you always use the same amount of tension) and does not require you to be dunked underwater with no air in your lungs or to be exposed to radiation.

Most health clubs offer skin fold caliper readings, BUT, these are neither accurate nor precise (reliable) unless you happen to get somebody who has done several thousand skin fold measurements in a research setting.  That is unlikely with the low pay and high turnover at health clubs.

The electric scales and hand held devices for measuring body fat (bioelectrical impedance) are horrible in my opinion.  I’ve measured myself twice in a day and been 9% mid day and 13% in the evening.  I don’t even think that they’re useful to measure change with.

If you really, really want a very accurate, direct reading of your body composition there are 3 options:

•    DEXA – a machine that uses x-rays to measure both bone density and body composition.  (The draw back is that you have to be exposed to radiation, so you can’t do this very often.)

•    Hydrostatic weighing – underwater weighing.  This is a way to get your density – body composition.  Just unpleasant, but no radiation.

•    Bod Pod – uses a chamber of pressurized air instead of water and a scale to get your density.  This seems to be less accurate the leaner you are.

If you’d like a fool-proof, time efficient program to optimize your body composition for life, check this out.

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC  Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, The DC Fitness Advisor and the Fitness Expert for the PCOS Challenge TV Show. 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 about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a FREE copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

What’s Up With Red Meat? (More Crap “Science”)

It seems like one of the media’s most cherished pastimes is to run around promoting crap science as some kind of new breakthrough.  It really doesn’t look like anyone reporting on this stuff can take 5min to ask themselves thing like, “does this even make any sense? Is this even well done science?” before they go around blabbering about new “facts.”

Case in point, there is a new study out claiming to prove that “eating red meat increases the chances of dying prematurely.”  This is another piece of junk science.  The authors should be ashamed of themselves for the claims that they are making, but instead they are on CNN.

Major Issues That I See:

#1. NO CAUSE AND EFFECT WHATSOEVER: If you read the interviews of people associated with this study they say thing like, “This is a slam-dunk to say that, ‘Yes, indeed, if people want to be healthy and live longer, consume less red and processed meat’ ” as Barry M. Popkin did.  In other words they are saying that this study establishes a cause and effect – eating red meat causes bad stuff.

REALLY!?

In science there is this rule that says, association (especially with low quality data) is NOT causation.  Here’s an ice cream metaphor:

In the summer ice cream consumption goes up.  In the summer time murder also goes up.  So there IS a positive association between ice cream consumption and murder to be sure.  However, do you think that it makes any sense to go around claiming that ice cream causes the murder rate to go up in the summer time?

This is EXACTLY what the authors of this study did, and they are on CNN.

If you want to establish cause and effect then you need to do an intervention study – you need to intervene in people’s lives and see what happens.  In the ice cream scenario you would need to feed people extra ice cream and see if they then go on shooting sprees.  BUT, you actually have to do that research BEFORE you go around claiming that ice cream is a killer and recommending that people avoid ice cream and the people who eat it.

In the case of red meat and mortality, then you need to take a bunch of people and intervene in their diets and see what happens before you can go around making cause and effect claims

Oh, and we’ve  done the intervention studies MANY times.  We’ve had people eat less saturated fat and cholesterol and MORTALITY GOES UP, not down!

#2. Relying on memory: This study used something called a “food frequency questionnaire” (FFQ) to determine people’s intake of red meat.  We worked with FFQ’s in my nutrition classes last semester at UMD.  They suck!

Here’s why:  An FFQ is a VERY long (so boring) questionnaire about what you eat, how often and in what quantities over the past 6-12 MONTHS!  I am in my late 20’s and pay more attention to what I eat on a daily basis than almost anyone I know, and I could not answer the questions on the FFQ accurately.  (The people in this study were between 50 and 71.)  On most of the questions of my FFQ I was just guessing – I have no idea how many ounces of cantaloupe I ate per week over the past 12 months.  The questions are completely ridiculous.

I don’t know how the researchers could take the info from a bunch of FFQ’s seriously – its just 545,000 guesses.

Consider this another installment of “don’t trust the media to check scientific facts for you!”

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 about the 7-Day Free Trial click here.

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.