For today’s blog we’re borrowing one from Olympic Lifter, Dan John, who is diving deeper into fat loss and what really effects it. We talk a lot about training here at J-Tab (obviously, it’s what we do!), but we also know the importance of diet, and how much it actually has to do with losing weight and fat (hint: pretty much everything!). So, if you feel like you’ve been struggling to cut the fat, read up on Dan’s take on what really impacts things, and how you can get yourself on the right track!
DAN JOHN: DO IT AND DIET
My good friend, Amy, was telling me something that bothered me: her nutritionist stated flatly that exercise has almost nothing to do with FAT loss. I tried to counter that argument and realized:
I have been wrong. A long time.
It’s true: FAT loss happens in the kitchen. FAT loss happens when you shop, chop, slice and dice.
If you are a personal trainer and you convince all your clients to eat protein and veggies at every meal and drink only water for the next two or three years, you will become the most important name in the fitness industry. Your clients will have unparalleled success in body composition.
And, the exercise we insist upon doing might have little value.
The British Journal of Sports Medicine says it clearly:
“ . . . (M)embers of the public are drowned by an unhelpful message about maintaining a ‘healthy weight’ through calorie counting, and many still wrongly believe that obesity is entirely due to lack of exercise. This false perception is rooted in the Food Industry’s Public Relations machinery, which uses tactics chillingly similar to those of big tobacco. The tobacco industry successfully stalled government intervention for 50 years starting from when the first links between smoking and lung cancer were published. This sabotage was achieved using a ‘corporate playbook’ of denial, doubt and confusing the public.
Coca Cola, who spent $3.3 billion on advertising in 2013, pushes a message that ‘all calories count’; they associate their products with sport, suggesting it is ok to consume their drinks as long as you exercise. However, science tells us this is misleading and wrong. It is where the calories come from that is crucial. Sugar calories promote fat storage and hunger.”
Even when you smash the evidence in my face, I still think exercise has a role. But, I have the same blinders everyone else has: I KNOW exercise is “good for you,” so it must help in FAT loss.
But, maybe it doesn’t.
Certainly, we have gone too far claiming exercise incinerates FAT “right off your body.” Now, of course, with various cryotherapy and cold treatments, we use extreme cold to melt fat off the body, so we seem to be going in two directions at once.
At workshops, I spend quality time walking people through a system of approaching training to help people make better choices and save the precious drops of self-discipline so we can focus on better food choices.
Then, about half way through the talk . . .
The hands go up. I know what the question is going to be; it’s always the same question. It’s about FAT loss.
But first, let’s rewind and pick up at the beginning of the talk. I use a system that I discuss in Now What?, my attempt to teach people the keys to successful performance.