Relatively light people trying to get leaner

stroutman81 · September 2012

One of the threads on the main forum that really brought me to a lot of people's attention was titled 'relatively light people trying to get leaner.' I started it in response to a slew of questions I was receiving in my inbox from light people who were at wits end and looking for some guidance. This thread is going to highlight some of the important points discussed in the original thread. Each mini-topic will have it's own post within the thread.

ChitownFoodie · September 2012

Nice. Bumped it to read later!

stroutman81 · September 2012

POINT 1: SHRINKING MARGINS OF ERROR

Being light yet looking for better leanness can be a ****ty place to be. I suppose you could argue that it's better than being really fat. At the same time though, it's a point along the journey that a lot of people struggle with. Their bodies have caught onto the act of being energy deficient and have responded accordingly by possibly slowing metabolic rate a bit. Since they're now light, their daily energy expenditures, and thus their calorie allotments, are now much lower, which makes the room for error that much tinier. And no matter how you slice it, even when things are progressing, the rate of progress is going to be much slower than most people expect.

The principle of diminishing returns at it's finest!

Let's tough on that lower calorie allotment bit in more detail. Being light, you don't have a lot of room to wiggle, calorically speaking. Twelve calories per pound is typically where I'll start my clients who are interested in fat loss. That's assuming a maintenance of around 14-15 calories per pound and frequent exercise. Your mileage may vary based on how long you've been dieting, your metabolic health, your activity levels, etc.

For example, let's assume we have a 122 lb female.

In this case, 12 x 122 = 1500ish calories per day.

Keep in mind that mostly everyone under-reports actual calorie intakes. Humans are just very poor at doing this accurately. I have papers showing dietitians significantly under-reporting their true intake, believe it or not.

That 1500 intake would put her at a very slight deficit. Remember, maintenance tends to be somewhere around 14 calories per pound for most. So in this case, we're assuming maintenance is 14 x 122 = 1700. The net (deficit) is a whopping 200 cal/day.

Given that there are 3500 cals in one pound of fat, assuming all you lost was fat (which isn't the case), it would take this individual 17-18 days just to lose one pound.

And even with that, smaller women who are trying to diet invariably deal with all sorts of water balance issues. Part of it is glycogen. Each gram of glycogen that is stored carries along 3 grams of water. But it also has loads to do with hormone balances that tend to get wonky in lighter, dieting females.

So your fat loss could be happening at this excruciatingly slow pace and even then, you won't realize it on the scale as it can be masked by 2-5 lbs of water weight.

I see it all the time... women in similar shoes heading in the "right" direction but they never stick with things long enough to realize it. They solely use the scale to measure progress so they never actually realize they're losing fat. This is coupled with short-term perceptions/expectations. They never stick to the plan b/c they allow water weight to dominate their emotional well-being. More often then not they cave, binge, and try again next week or month or whatever. It's a viscous cycle.

More often than not, managing expectation along with tracking weight/body comp over many weeks and plotting a trend is what's called for. Or to put it differently, it's a matter of patience, assuming you have your nutrition and exercise dialed in correctly.

I'm just finishing working with a woman who's a fitness competitor. Over the course of a 2 month cut she averaged under .5 lbs of fat loss per week. And her weight remained the same throughout much of that time. Think about that.

Also, keep in mind that your maintenance may very well be under 14 calories per pound. Say it's 13. That puts maintenance at 1600 and if you're consuming 1500 cals/day, that gives you an average daily deficit of only 100 cals. At that rate, again assuming you lose nothing but fat, it would take you 35 days to lose one pound of fat.

See where I'm going with this? These numbers aren't hard science. Your metabolic rate and energy expenditure changes day by day. Your accuracy of energy intake and expenditure is likely a bit 'off.' When you're dealing with such small margins of error, it can be very easy to be eating maintenance when you, in fact, believe you're in a deficit. And, as noted, it can also be very easy to be in a deficit and losing fat that's undetectable on the scale in a ~ months time.

LOVEsummer · September 2012

Good stuff

It's always tough to read. I don't know what your take on my 2 cents is but, I started focusing on strength instead of cardio. Now, I do a 20 min strength routine at least 5 days a week, and cardio at least 5 days a week as well. However, if my schedule means I have to skip one, it's always cardio. I've noticed I'm sculpted and slimmer than I was with just cardio (running/biking).

I gave up the scale over 2 years ago and it was the best thing I ever did. Seriously though, weighing my food, wearing a HRM and trying to be as diligent as possible helped keep that margin of error in check since like you said, we are working with a pretty small deficit to start.

It can be done though.

stroutman81 · September 2012

POINT 2: MANAGING STRESS AND PRESERVING MUSCLE

In very general terms, 2-3 30-60 minute weight training sessions are all that's necessary for muscle maintenance while dieting. Of course this assumes the sessions are structured properly which is beyond the scope of this thread.

more often than not, especially with women who are lean trying to get leaner, they tend to take the "beat my body into submission" route. They feel that by depriving it of adequate nutrition and jacking up energy output, they're going to mold the body they're after.

Evolutionarily speaking, unfortunately, our bodies don't want to be lean. Especially female bodies. It opposes survival from long ago.

These same people come to me claiming they've been in a plateau for nearly a year, feel like crap, have nagging injuries, zero motivation, etc. Turns out that if they'd just sit down, stay out of the damn gym, and eat some food... things would be much better.

It turns out that we have a finite capacity to deal with stress. Stress comes in many forms - calorie deficits, exercise, work, family, etc. When we're dieting, this capacity is actually reduced, meaning our ability to handle stress diminishes. And this why the jackhammer approach mentioned above doesn't typically work.

This is why I always tell people that getting a "hot body" isn't the same as just going out and running yourself into the ground. You have to consider both diet *and* training needs, and adjust accordingly.

The kind of activity you do will depend on your goals, where you are at the moment, and your diet.

Heavy lifting's always going to be the core in my opinion. That's assuming you're interested in being lean.

And in regards to stress again...

I'm sure this will come across as overly blunt but it seems many dieters today go bat crap crazy about this stuff. They only see things in binary terms - particular foods are either healthy or horrible, their behavior is either good or bad, they're either successful or they failed, etc, etc. And all this sort of reasoning and perspective does is ramp up anxiety like crazy. All they're accomplishing is piling the stress on top of an already compromised system.

People are flipping out over 10 calories. And ya know what? I think it hurts them.

The stress response they're generating by being as anal retentive and psychotic as they are bites them in the *kitten*. Which is why I always recommend people read the book written by Robert Sapolsky called "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers." He's a great author and a genius when it comes to the stress response of the body. Humans unfortunately can work themselves up into such a psychological mess about the future by thinking about catastrophic thoughts and building psychological hurdles that are simply impossible to clear and thus, our biology that's really in place to keep us alive winds up going in overdrive in chronic terms.

Like I've said in numerous places on this forum now - our ability to manage stress is finite. In our body's mind, stress is stress have it be psychological, physical, real, imagined, etc. And when you've relatively small people eating like birds, doing copious amounts of exercise, stressing about work and family which is typical in this culture, and then topping it off with psychotic analysis and concern over diet and exercise - well - things tend to get messed up.

It's no wonder people are constantly stalling out, really. Granted, I believe more often than not it's a miscalculation on energy intake and expenditure, but still, this is very real.

Fat loss, sex drive, immune function, you name it and chronic stress will affect it, usually negatively.

People just need to relax, set realistic expectations, avoid perfectionism, and be patient.

aymetcalf · September 2012

bump - :flowerforyou:

stroutman81 · September 2012

POINT 3: GET STRONG, BE STRONG, LOOK STRONG

I have those words plastered on the white board in my gym. While it can be applied to anyone, it's there primarily for my female clients. I can't tell you how many women I've worked with who came to be beyond thin crying about their lack of definition/leanness. After a bit of digging, I'm never surprised to learn that a majority of their focus has been on cardio and low calorie dieting. I mean, why wouldn't that be the case... that's pretty much the sole method that has been crammed down our throats since the cardio craze of the 70s and 80s.

Let's put this real simply though.

Having good definition is rooted in a solid base of muscle under a low level of subcutaneous fat. Our culture has the fat loss down packed. It's freaking easy. Make a deficit. Keep the deficit long enough. And presto! The body makes up for that deficit by tapping into its stores.

What many people overlook is the process of establishing that solid base of muscle. Consider that a prerequisite to be lean. It's foundational. Without it, you're living in a stack of cards waiting for the wind to blow you over. And because of this, progressive resistance training pretty much always needs to be prioritized over cardio when it comes to light people getting leaner.

Remember, I don't know how many ways I can say it, but I feel this needs to be beat into peoples' heads... being lean is a function of maximizing muscle and minimizing fat.

If nothing in your regimen has you doing high force output stuff (think lilting weights that are heavy relative to your current strength levels), you're just not going to get stronger. Why's that important?

FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION.

Form = how you look. Function = how you perform.

If you increase performance through strength, your body will follow suit. And it just so happens that the body most women are shooting for is based on a strong body. Get strong, be strong, look strong.

stroutman81 · September 2012

POINT 4: SOMETIMES YOU SIMPLY HAVE TO SHIFT GEARS.

Given that your goals involves two separate tissues - fat and muscle - it makes sense that you have to manage both sides of the coin. Both variables roll to the beats of their own drums. They respond to different stressors. Therefore, progress toward your goal can't always and only be measured in pounds/inches loss.

Where am I going with this?

The last things some of the people I encounter need is more dieting and weight loss. I know it's all the rave to assume a calorie deficit leads to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.... but it's not always the case. These folks I'm talking about are already skin and bones. And/or they've been in a calorie deficit for so damn long that their bodies forget what it's like to be fed.

Often times loosing more would more than likely lead to looking sickly.

Would your abs eventually expose themselves? Of course. But at what price? Survivors of concentration camps could see their abs. They also looked like walking skeletons.

Here's a link to one of the participants of a famous metabolism study known as the Minnesota Starvation Experiment:

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t264/stroutman81/Forum/minnesotastavation.jpg

Even then there's a chance you won't see your abs depending on genetic proclivities.

I also don't believe this is the result anyone is after, man or woman. Yet, some of the dieting and exercise programming I come across would suggest otherwise.

Bottom line. Switch things up every now and again. Especially if your labor isn't baring any fruit. If you're confident that you're going about things in an intelligent manner yet not seeing any real progress (assuming your expectations are realistic), maybe throw a different kind of stressor at your body.

I've made some of my female clients bring their scales to the gym so they couldn't weigh at home. I'd jack up their calorie into maintenance and even surplus territory. Then we'd focus on getting stronger. Some of the times they'd wind up leaner. Heavier. But leaner. Other times they added a little fat. But they also added muscle as well. And in doing so, they also gave their bodies a break from the endless energy deprivation. Now, the next phase of fat loss will be more fruitful. Their bodies won't be so stingy about giving up fat. They'll have a bigger base of muscle to expose, thus making leanness easier to achieve. And above all else, they chipped away at the dieter's mindset that seems to trap so many light people who are trying to get leaner.

Ge0rgiana · September 2012

*bump*

saverys_gal · September 2012

bump to read when I get home!!

amysj303 · September 2012

I just had a question, because scales lie, what ways do you find work best to measure fat loss, or body fat %? I am ok with not losing weight, but how can I know if I am losing fat?

stroutman81 · September 2012

I just had a question, because scales lie, what ways do you find work best to measure fat loss, or body fat %? I am ok with not losing weight, but how can I know if I am losing fat?

I rely predominantly on pictures. Same light. Same time of day. Same distance from the camera. Same clothes. Every 2-4 weeks depending on how much fat there is to lose.

I don't measure anything directly. Margin for error is too high in most methods for picking up such minor changes.

awyler · September 2012

thanks! this is a great read.

stroutman81 · September 2012

POINT 5: KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID. AT LEAST UNTIL SIMPLE STOPS WORKING.

I'm bombarded on a daily basis by emails asking me questions about exotic exercise and diet plans. People's minds and focus tend to gravitate toward the intricate nuances. I suppose complexity seems sexy and special and this conjures up beliefs of supernatural progress.

Pardon me while I cough.... <coughbull****cough>

Most folks butt in line. What I mean is, they don't wait their turn on the spectrum of complexity when it comes to dietary and exercise programming. Because the marketers tend to focus on the advanced stuff, the average consumer tends to believe that's what they need.

"Should I be doing 5 reps per set or 10?" Who gives a hoot given the fact that you've never hoisted anything heavier than an empty olympic barbell. Just zip your trap and go pick stuff up that feels heavy. Do this again and again and again adding weight to the bar when things feel easier.

"Should I be using BCAAs and creatine?" Totally brah. Why don't you throw some thermogenics into the mix too on top of that awesome diet you're rocking where you have trouble controlling calories and the most natural thing you put in your mouth if fruit juice.

You need to crawl before you can walk. That's something to really think about here. Why? Well, let's just say that jumping to advanced strategies before you've engrained the tried and true fundamental... literally milking them for everything they've got... is a recipe for wheel spinning. You earn the right to use advanced techniques for a reason. Namely it doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense to use most of them without the prerequisite foundation in place first.

That said, things tend to be a bit different for the relatively light looking to get leaner. Their bodies are such that losing more fat goes against the grain. Against the grain to a degree that ignites counterproductive adaptations such as extreme hunger pangs, metabolic disturbances, fatigue, etc. Many folks who find themselves in this category have already laid their foundation of fundamentals.

Some of them will reach their goals without ever having to advance beyond said fundamentals. However, some people need to muddy the waters. Again, don't muddy them until you have to. But don't sit there spinning your wheels for months on end without any real progress to show for it either.

We won't delve into exercise in this post. But what about nutrition. The foundation is simple. Set calories according to your goals. Eat that level as consistently as possible. And hit your macronutrient targets. In the context of the fundamentals, as long as you're hitting your calorie and nutrient targets each day... there's likely nothing to concern yourselves with. For the most part, this is very true.

However, there does seem to be something with more deliberate eating patterns. I'm sure you've seen plenty of people say they "zig zag" their calories or whatever. They're trying to keep their bodies guessing. I think they believe it helps keep their metabolic rates humming along. That's a bunch of bologna.

However, I think that in some cases, there's something to more punctuated carbohydrate consumption. I'm sure some of you have heard of strategies such as cyclical ketogenic or targeted ketogenic dieting. I've found that especially in the relatively light female populations, using some sort of cyclic approach with carbs tends to do cool things. I'm not going to go into crazy detail here for a number of reasons.

Suffice it to say though... I'm an advocate (for some groups) to throw the vast majority of their carbohydrate intake around their strength training. The rest of the day would be low carb. Off days would be low carb.

I'm also a fan of refeeds, which are much more than simply upping calories. There's a deliberate way of going about them that's meant to do things to various hormones, such as Leptin. The degree to which refeeds can influence hormones over the longer term is questionable... but I'm telling you now that for some folks it just works. These refeeds can be part of the targeted or punctuated carb loading periods from above or they can be used separately. It all depends on the individual and their given set of circumstances.

Hopefully though you're realizing that this is much more than zig zagging calories. I'll likely retype some or all of this come tomorrow as I'm falling asleep, haha. I wanted to get some ideas down on paper though before I lose my mojo and never write this.

kevinlynch3 · September 2012

This is a FAN-tastic post..

CharityEaton · September 2012

This was exactly what I needed to read today!

soccerlady80 · September 2012

So true! My experience has been that the more simple the routine and diet, the easier it is to follow. Instead of over analyzing workouts and diets, trying to make healthy choices with food and making sure to exercise regularly will always be beneficial. I have never really tracked what I lift at the gym. I just lift what is heavy and if it feels too light, I lift heavier. I know that as long as I give it my all in every workout, positive things will come...whether I lose weight, gain muscle or just get healthier than the day before. Not saying that tracking weight and having a super strict diet is bad, but it shouldn't be the standard for everyone, as I think many have what they feel is a cheat meal and then criticize themselves instead of just trying to create a balance and moving forward.

mamareese · September 2012

So what is a 'relatively light person'.....how do we know if we fall into this category?!

stroutman81 · September 2012

So what is a 'relatively light person'.....how do we know if we fall into this category?!

If I was forced to throw out numbers, I'd say 15% and below for men and 22% and below for women. YMMV.

slyder432 · September 2012

bump

mamareese · September 2012

So what is a 'relatively light person'.....how do we know if we fall into this category?!

If I was forced to throw out numbers, I'd say 15% and below for men and 22% and below for women. YMMV.

Thanks...just a vague gauge helps put it in perspective!

teemarania · September 2012

bump

stroutman81 · October 2012

So what is a 'relatively light person'.....how do we know if we fall into this category?!

If I was forced to throw out numbers, I'd say 15% and below for men and 22% and below for women. YMMV.

Thanks...just a vague gauge helps put it in perspective!

You're welcome!

jacksonpt · October 2012

Good stuff as always, Steve. Thanks.

stroutman81 · October 2012

Good stuff as always, Steve. Thanks.

My pleasure. I'd like to get this info on the main forum... I should probably copy and paste.

reneelee · October 2012

I think this is the 4th time I have read this article. Its good for me to reread it and get the info into my head. I liked it so much I have saved it on my computer in a file and printed it out, just incase my computer crashes. Good stuff Steve!