Becoming the Superior Species: Dieting myths and truths

So you've been on that certain diet for about six weeks, and all of a sudden your buddy that's been reading up on more and more dieting information just figured out what he was eating that was preventing him from losing weight. Oh my, it's a miracle (Sarcasm)! She's just found out about the next big supplement on the industry (Them old ladies just love Dr Oz) and that couple down the road new to dieting just recently switched up their meal frequency to six times a day! Their metabolisms will be consistent throughout the day now! Or will they? In this chapter, I am going to debunk many different myths provided by many fitness and nutrition industries today. Like I said before, take it how you will. Dogma is overrated after all.

Common Dieting Myths

Six Meals a day is the only way for fat loss

Like just about everyone else, I was susceptible to this myth for awhile. Oh no! If I don’t eat every three to four hours, my body will go into starvation mode and my metabolism will slow to a crawl and my life will be ruined forever!

C’mon now. Our ancestors weren’t provided with food and they sure as hell had to work to earn their food, and where did that get them? If I remember correctly, they never died of starvation or any other modern day disease for that matter. They were nearly almost killed on the hunt. Although I may just be blowing smoke out of my ass, and you’re probably wanting the studies right about now (Getting to that), the very first of our species (Who knows, maybe they’re not after all. Maybe Darwin was right and we all started off as tadpoles. Please Creationists, hold yourself back), to debunk any “Paleo” style of eater out there, the first actually consumed all their foods from plants, since back then they had not developed the cognitive skills to make sharp weapons yet (No, that does not mean you have to go vegan).

As for the studies, there are a couple supporting no significant difference correlating between meal frequency and variation in weight loss (Bellisle, McDevitt, & Prentice, 1997).(Cameron, 2010) . There was also one study that actually showed higher meal frequency resulted in lower appetite(Speechly, 1999). However, you need to understand that the people in this study who were given less meal frequency were not adapted to this pattern of eating yet. Everything needs adaption time.

Do you want to know where the whole six meals a day thing came from? Back when bodybuilders had to eat above maintenance, it was difficult to take in such a surplus in only 2 to 3 meals, so they resorted to 5 or 6. This is what happens when we rely on word-of-mouth epidemics. They get blown way out of proportion. While I will say six meals a day is a good way to eat for fat loss or bulking, there is no requirement to do so. I will address my recommendation of meals in Chapter 7.

Carbs are evil. Less insulin, more fat loss

So you’ve been on a low carb diet for about a week (Or a ketogenic diet, depending on daily intake) and you have been checking yourself out in the mirror because you lost like 5 lbs this week! You have not lost that much weight in such a short time in years! This is obviously the way to go for fat loss! Or is it?

As with many other people, I have also followed a low carbohydrate diet, simply because at one point, everyone else said how efficient it is for weight loss, and as humans, we all want the easiest, quickest way out. It’s in our nature. You know it, I know it, and yes… even Yoda knows, and he doesn’t even exist (Or does he?). When it comes to certain medical conditions, such as epilepsy or maybe diabetic, or in certain cases if you’re about to take a photo shoot and you need to look sleeker in a week, then yes, maybe, however, while you may have lost 5 lbs in that week (Unless you’re really obese), 3-4 lbs of that were probably water weight, while 1-2 lbs were the fat lost (And maybe a small amount of muscle).

Studies show there is nothing significantly better about low carb when it comes to fat loss in comparison to a low fat diet(Johnston, 2006; Nordmann, 2006), and in another study that was conducted, subjects who had varying levels of insulin resistance displayed no correlation of greater or lesser fat loss than others in the group(McLaughlin, 1999). In addition to that, there are a few studies out there that state ketogenic diets may lead to negative cognitive effects if used for long enough, but I’ll just list one.(Wing, 1995) I will explain the hormone insulin more in depth in Chapter 10 if you are not familiar with the term. Hopefully this clears things up. Now stop feeling so guilty and go eat your rice.

Fat will make me fat, especially saturated fat.

Back when I was on the high fat, low carb kick, my roommate would always give me crap because I was eating all this food with higher fat in it. Sure, he believed in the calories in calories out philosophy (He said he did at least), but was a little hypocritical about it since he drank a lot, ate out a lot (It’s appropriate occasionally, not every other day when you have fitness goals in my opinion), and believed that less fat was healthier, and that meant any fats whatsoever. Granted, he was trying to get bigger rather than lose weight, so I let him go his own way (He was also on the Gallon of Milk a day diet. Seemed to work for him. I’ll talk about that later).

One day, I decided to go to a farmer’s market and try some raw milk. Anyone knows who’s tried raw milk knows it tastes so much better than pasteurized milk (And it has all the cultures and enzymes in it still). A couple days after I brought up the fact I had tried some to him, and he asked “You mean the full fat stuff?”. I told him “Yeah.” This is another time where he told me fat was going to make me fat, but I had asked him previous times before “I thought you said it was all about calories in, calories out?” He said “Yeah, but fat…”

Well, you know the rest of the story for people like this. Easily convinced by nutritional dogma. Your outlook on it conflicts with something else you believe in. Do you have this problem too? Everyone who does typically lacks doing their homework and looking into the science. So, why is it people harp about fat being bad? Again, this is a misinformed subject among the general population. The reason fat gets such a bad rep (Particularly Saturated Fat) is because of the past studies that have claimed it contributing to Cardiovascular disease and increases in Cholesterol.

As I say to many people that blow smoke out of their ass: Show me the studies where it shows a high fat diet with moderate calorie restriction from a reliable source says that saturated fat directly contributes to Cardiovascular disease. Although there does seem to be a correlation between a high fat diet and an unfavorable change in low density lipoprotein (LDL) and the fact LDL and HDL regulation is key in maintaining a healthy cholesterol (Supposedly), this is debatable as I will explain later in Chapter 5.

When it comes to a high fat diet, there’s more than one study that shows no correlation between a high fat diet and increased risk in cardiovascular disease (Siri-Tarino, Sun, Hu, & Krauss, 2010),while another shows that reducing consumption of high glycemic carbohydrates in conjunction with high fat foods is your way to CVD prevention. (Kuipers et al., 2011)There is another study that displays restricting calories and consuming a high fat diet will alleviate effects of CVD(Kim, Yang, Kim, Lee, & Kim, 2009). Hell, there’s even one that shows high fat consumption can reduce blood pressure (Bosse et al., 2013)!Do you have a neighbor that has a relative that has a major issue with epilepsy? Well, did you know that putting someone with such a condition on a ketogenic diet can actually reduce the tempo of the seizures that occur? (Neal et al., 2008) There’s more to fat than you think!

Take what you will from this, there is nothing wrong with saturated fat consumption. Although I do not recommend a diet that nearly excludes carbohydrates, I do advise that you take your fats. There are many benefits (Especially in fish oil) that I will address later. Again, another thing people focus on in the industry that is irrelevant to achieving your ideal body. I will be talking more about fat metabolism in Chapter 5 to explain how.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is evil

I remember one of the first times I got into the whole fat loss community, everyone ranted about how much worse HFCS was for you. Before I begin my rant on this subject, I want to clarify that I will still say that I am not going to be explaining how good HFCS is for you, because it isn’t. What I will be explaining is that HFCS, in comparison to traditional fructose, is not any worse when it comes to fat loss.

Anyone who has done some research into the different types of carbohydrates and looked into fructose will learn that it is metabolized differently than other sweeteners i.e. dextrose, maltodextrin, starches, etc. For those who don’t know, fructose can only be metabolized as glycogen in the liver so your brain has what it needs for brain power primarily. The liver can only hold about 50g of glycogen at one time, and while 50g of fructose sounds like a lot, take into account that more than just carbohydrates can be broken down into the glucose when the liver needs it.

In this study, it is apparent that HFCS contributes to increased body fat levels and higher triglyceride counts in the subjects (Bocarsly, Powell, Avena, & Hoebel, 2010).We already know this. There is no doubt that excess consumption of HFCS will contribute to obesity, and of course, beverages sweetened with it are a part of the reason America is becoming fatter (It has very high caloric content and the only satiation comes from the water and carbonation) (Bray, Nielsen, & Popkin, 2004).

Now, let’s look at something more interesting here: In 2007, there was a study published that showed, and I quote from the study, “Based on the currently available evidence, the expert panel concluded that HFCS does not appear to contribute to overweight and obesity any differently than do other energy sources.” (Forshee et al., 2007). So folks, there you have it. Regardless if your soft drinks have HFCS, sucrose, or even if your milk has lactose for that matter, you’re still getting the same results as if you were drinking a milkshake with normal fructose or table sugar. Solution: Stop drinking your calories (Or at least cut down).

Eating late at night makes you fat

Yet another piece of dogma I initially believed. It’s logical, right? If I eat more during the day and less at night, I’ll lose more weight! I will burn all the energy off during the day and so the less calories I eat at night, the less fat that will be stored, right? Let’s look into that idea…

First off, if you’re one of those people who believe in calories in, calories out, how is it that this argument is feasible with having that philosophy? Well, young paduwan (Star Wars anyone?), I’m going to get more specific for a moment since I hear people say eating carbs at night is bad more so than I hear eating at night in general. Interestingly enough, a study done a couple of years ago showed people actually lost more weight at over a 6 month period when consuming most of their carbs at dinner (Sofer et al., 2011). So stop worrying and eat your carbs if you haven’t met your macros for the day. In addition, if you work out in the evening, it is critical that you eat carbs (Starches preferably) post-workout in conjunction with your protein to ensure glycogen re-synthesis for maximal performance your next workout (van Loon, Saris, Kruijshoop, & Wagenmakers, 2000).

Back to the subject of eating late at night in general, there was a study in ’92 the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition did a study on the effectiveness of breakfast and its role in treating obesity (Schlundt, Hill, Sbrocco, Pope-Cordle, & Sharp, 1992). The breakfast-skippers that continued skipping breakfast in this trial had the worst results. This may be due to the fact that people who tend to skip breakfast tend to lack self-control. Of course, the ones that began eating breakfast (Who had previously skipped it) got even better results. What made it most interesting though was the group that went from eating breakfast to skipping breakfast on this study were the ones that received the greatest results when it came to fat loss, and they consumed 60% of their calories at dinner! Still think breakfast is the most important meal of the day?

Lastly, there was another study that showed while weight loss was greater when the subjects ate a large breakfast, the people who ate a big evening meal had much greater retention of LBM (Keim, Van Loan, Horn, Barbieri, & Mayclin, 1997). So when should you eat your food then, and should you eat more in the morning or the evening? As long as you meet your caloric requirements for the day, timing is irrelevant (Although you should save some for post-workout. I will explain that later on).

Intermittent Fasting will make you shrivel up and die of starvation

IF has become a very popular outlet among some people these days, and I can see why due to certain benefits it can offer, both in the short term and some in the long. Although it is a great thing to try out, as long as you’re in the proper condition, people that explain it around the fitness community tend to blow it out of proportion a little bit.

Firstly, one of everyone’s first thought when it comes to Intermittent Fasting is “Bro, that’s going to mess up your metabolism and you’re going to go into starvation mode!” Well, let’s see how that logic fares: There was a study done by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2000 that actually showed, over an 84 hour fast (Yes, that is three and a half days) actually increased their resting metabolic rate (Due to an increase in norepinephrine, which I will discuss in a little more depth in the Chapter on hormones) (Knapik, Jones, Meredith, & Evans, 1987). I know it’s hard to believe, but when does broscience ever trump an organized study? All the time these days, unsurprisingly. Some people are so easy; then again, if you watch the average news station these days, you’re probably set in the “your way is the only way” mindset. I don’t blame you. Influence is so simple yet so complex for others. The more money, the more say. You know the drill…

Straying away from my rant of talking smack about the media, you might ask wouldn’t not eating all day create the mentality for binge eating? While I don’t disagree participating in fasting long term could lead to eating issues, in the short term, it does not seem to have that effect. There was a study conducted where one group of subjects were given a 3 meals per day protocol while the experimental group was given one, with no calorie restriction (14). Over that six month period, both of the groups maintained their weight, however consuming one meal per day had subjects with a significant increase in hunger, reduction in body fat, decrease in cortisol, and unfavorably, blood pressure and LDL/HDL concentrations. What they ate could’ve been why they had bigger issues with the blood pressure, however, point made, IF still had the same results and a little advantage over the standard 3 meals per day. This study also shows that there was no significant muscle loss in the 1 meal/day subject, which makes it obvious fasting over certain periods will not make you shrivel up into a raisin.

Let’s assume you decide to fast all day, do some training, and then eat all your food post-workout, within a 4 hour period (Similar to Ori Hofmekler’s Warrior Diet without the grazing). I know some people can’t eat that much in such a short period of time, but if you can, there is a couple of benefits to it, one including increased glucose uptake post-exercise (Dela et al., 1994).

Now we come to another dogma of fasting: It’s harder to exercise when you fast. Various studies have disproven this assumption (Chaouachi et al., 2009; Knapik et al., 1987; Van Proeyen et al., 2010). In fact, exercising fasted has even showed improved lipid breakdown (Fat burning) and glycogen re-synthesis (glucose for your muscles and liver) (De Bock et al., 2005). In addition to those benefits, growth hormone secretion has been shown to drastically increase in the fasted state (Vendelbo et al., 2010), and decreases in cortisol have been shown when fasting short term (Stote et al., 2007).

Lastly, if you were wondering how fasting affects cognition and sleep, the American Journal of Clinic Nutrition conducted a study in 2008 with a 2 day fast. There was no significant difference in when compared with the control group (Lieberman et al., 2008)

While I do recommend you fully utilize the benefits of IF, it is not recommended for everyone. I will cover IF a little more later in Chapter 6

Supplements Give me Superpowers

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people trying to rant about the “next greatest” fat burning pill or super test booster that would give you ridiculous results in short periods of time and with no consequences. *Insert bullshit advertising scheme here*.

The purpose of supplements is very self explanatory (It’s in the title). They are to supplement the vitamins or macronutrients that you could not get from your food because you either have a lack of quality food, or your food just doesn’t contain an important vitamin in general.

Let’s take protein powder for example: It is essentially another liquid calorie. Like I said earlier, it is advisable that you limit those and try getting your nutrients from more real whole foods, like meat or eggs, (Unless you’re building muscle and it’s hard to eat above maintenance, then go for it). What began as a way to supplement became people’s outlet to become lazy. As we know, this is one of man’s greatest abilities (To be lazy).

Let’s take fat burning pills for example. People expect to take hydroxycut these days without participation in some kind of exercise program and a continuation of bad eating habits. This is probably one of the stupidest things I have ever seen. Wouldn’t you think if man found a miracle fat loss drug, we would’ve all been lean as ever already? Exactly!

I am not saying that fat burners do not work. With an appropriate diet and exercise program, they can help in fat loss, if it’s through appetite suppression, thermogenics, or a chemical that helps with releasing free fatty acids into the bloodstream in general, all of them work to some point (Even diuretics, even though all the weight you lose with them is water, which is irrelevant).

And, of course, the oh so special testosterone boosters (Natural ones at least). Complete waste of money. Almost. If you are looking for an increase in testosterone, just increase your good fat intake and stop being an anti-saturated fat Nazi. Or you could take steroids, since they seem to work (The appropriate ones for your situation that is). Just don’t get caught, because I never said they were legal.

I will be making a little more of an analysis on supplements later in Chapter 9, so bear with me.

Combining Carbs with Fat will make me fat

Yet another common nutrition “fact” that I hear about all the time. Again, how does the calories in, calories out mentality compliment this? What people say when they’re using fancy scientific terms is when insulin is elevated the body will store any fats consumed within the meal as triglycerides in the body. While I do agree that if there is an excess in caloric maintenance this will happen, this analogy is overblown, and this is another reason high fat fanatics and high carbohydrate fanatics are so allocated to their ways.

Several studies were conducted on this subject, varying the different macronutrients (Protein, carbohydrates, and fats). If it were high fat/low carb, low fat/high carb, moderate carb/moderate fat, and they even decided to vary the protein consumption in all of these studies(de Souza et al., 2012; Golay et al., 2000; Noakes et al., 2006; Sacks et al., 2009; Seip et al., 2008). What is it that they displayed? There was no significant difference between the rates of weight loss any of the subjects experienced. Everyone, as long as they were all presented with the same caloric intake, had no significant difference in any of the different groups.

So at this point you must be asking “What would the ideal macro breakdown be for me to maximize my performance, fat loss, and preserve the most muscle mass?” Or “I’m trying to gain muscle as quick as possible. What are the macros I need for that?” This will be addressed later when I explain what I recommend for eating, meal frequency, macros, etc.

You don’t have to count calories

Well technically, you don’t have to count calories. Then again, you don’t have to go to the gym everyday either. You don’t have to wake up to go to work. You don’t have to abide by the city speed limit. You don’t have to pay your rent. In the end though, where will you be in the long term when you omit these actions? Well, I think we’ve all tried doing one of these before, and unless we have good connections, it always ends bad.

The whole no calorie counting required, in my opinion, in the long term, is logically ineffective. Granted, I know many people who have not counted calories when they begin losing fat and had great success over a certain period of time… until they get to a certain point. Eating more whole foods tends to be much more satiating than having a bagel, cream cheese, coffee with liberally added cream and sugar, and a pop tart for breakfast. You’re most likely going to be buying pointless other garbage food on the side due to the dopamine-inducing effect all that sugar has on your brain.

The no calorie counting required kick I think has become most popular among high fat dieters, and the paleo community in addition to that. Considering that most paleo advocates I can think of are high fat, moderate protein, low carbohydrate approach, it makes sense that they don’t count calories and lose weight, as, even though fat is the most caloric dense macronutrient of them all (9 calories per gram) is shown in some studies, in conjunction with a good amount of protein, is good for long-term satiation (Lomenick, Melguizo, Mitchell, Summar, & Anderson, 2009). However, this is debatable, as there are people who fare better with higher carbohydrate diets(Westerterp-Plantenga, Rolland, Wilson, & Westerterp, 1999). It really varies from person to person, but in the end we all need to consider that protein has a very powerful satiating effect to appetite itself (Weigle et al., 2005).

Back to what I was saying, I know you’ve heard of people going on some pretty crazy diets (i.e. Juice Diet, Twinky Diet, HCG Diet), and sure they worked for some people. You know why? Two words: Calorie deficit. Now, if all the pounds lost off of these diets were all from fat is highly unlikely, as there are certain requirements to retain lean body mass.

There is no doubt that your buddies that have gone through their diets to lose weight (Keyword weight, not fat) will all tell you that you require a proper calorie deficit, whether it be through eating at a deficit or creating one through aerobics or strength training. Obviously, it’s apparent in the science too. I will explain more about Calories in the “Truths” section.

Red Meat is the Devil

I have noticed this dogma comes from women a little more than men (Or gay guys. Not to be sexist. Take it how you will). Or maybe it’s because one of your distant relatives has Chronic Heart Disease or some kind of Cardiovascular disease issue, and people will even tell you that it causes an increase in mortality. Now, while there have been plenty of observations and scientific data that show enough red meat consumption can cause colon cancer (Sesink, Termont, Kleibeuker, & Van der Meer, 1999), that is never what the media or commonly known “Bad” of red meat is. Many studies you’ll find on red meat state red meat and processed meat both contribute towards increased mortality rates (Pan et al., 2012), however, if you examine the study, there is a problem or two, but I’ll just list one: The people who were on the diet with red meat had less people doing exercise and more people smoking. Again, this is debatable, but funny enough, another study shows us that white meat also contributes to these numbers (Sinha, Cross, Graubard, Leitzmann, & Schatzkin, 2009).

Some people will go as far to tell you that eating red meat is healthy, as long as the fat is trimmed off (Mann, 2000). This basically is another “Anti-saturated fat” scheme. I told you earlier there is nothing wrong with saturated fat. However, I will say that grain-fed meat may be one of the reasons for this “conclusion”. I will get more into grain-fed vs grass-fed later. Back to the story, take this information how you will. I am not advocating you to eat red meat, however, as you can see, it is irrelevant what kind of meat you eat (As long as it’s not processed, and highly recommended it’s not grain-fed). Red meat has been shown to not increase inflammation(Hodgson, Ward, Burke, Beilin, & Puddey, 2007), lowers blood pressure(Hodgson, Burke, Beilin, & Puddey, 2006), and may add favorable changes in lipid concentrations(Cordain, Eaton, Brand Miller, Mann, & Hill, 2002).

Low Glycemic Index=Greater Weight Loss

I will be brief on this subject as I do not believe in much consumption of high GI foods myself (With the exception of Post-Workout for maximum glycogen resynthesis). The common belief among the general population today is that if you consume less high GI food (i.e. White Bread) in comparison to low GI food (i.e. Apple or Black Kidney Beans) that you will lose more weight consuming MORE of these low GI foods. There are also studies that even show issues with a high GI diet and how this may inhibit the secretion of the hormone Cholecystokinin, which essentially is one reason for appetite suppression and slowing of gastric emptying.(Pi-Sunyer, 2002) In addition, unrelated to weight loss, a lower GI diet tends to have better on cognitive performance long term. (Benton et al., 2003)

However, as you know, with every study supporting something, there is almost always another study counteracting that study. A few years after the above study was published in regards of energy restriction, the Journal of Nutrition released their own version of the high vs low GI debate. (Raatz et al., 2005)As you will observe in this study, all food intake consumed by all subjects, varying between a high GI diet, low GI diet, and high fat diet with varying GI and macro composition, were prepared by the Metabolic Kitchen of the General Clinical Research Center, and these foods provided were the only ones allowed. As you can see, about 42 people participated initially while 13 withdrew (Probably due to weak willpower and compliance/lack of support).

Aside from a much smaller count of fasting triglycerides from the High Fat diet (Why is a high fat diet bad again?), the characteristics were similar. Now, take from this what you will, but this is my input: Glycemic index does play a minimal significant role in fat loss; however, it is a little more important when it comes to satiation. Sure, whole wheat bread is much lower glycemic than white bread (Even though I think both are crap. More on that later), but I can guarantee you, even though a sweet potato has a higher glycemic index than some whole wheat bread and brown rice, I can almost guarantee you that the sweet potato will make you feel more satisfied than a couple measly pieces of whole wheat bread. My prescription? Stick with the unrefined, sugar condensed foods. Of course, you probably already considered that before starting to read this book.

Dieting Truths (In my opinion)

It’s all about the Calories

Some of you people have already come to the acceptance that calories are relevant, and anyone who tells you that is right. If there is one piece of information out there that I can tell anyone to help them lose weight, this would be it. Studies say it, your mother says it, the doctor says it, and Chuck Norris says it (Just look at him. He’s a beast) (Strasser, Spreitzer, & Haber, 2007)Unfortunately, because we are only human, and we want the easy way out, and we expect to hear some secretive, revolutionary answer that has not been promoted by either the public or your local doctor, well I will tell you that you already have that answer. You just have to implement the practice from that knowledge.

Why then, are there people telling you that they are counting calories, but not losing any weight, or even gaining it? Two words: Calorie over calculation. There are so many people that over count their calories these days, it’s ridiculous. Let me give an example: Let’s say you decide to have a couple of sweet potatoes for lunch (Along with your chicken breast). The chicken breast is easy to count, because they were individually wrapped 4 oz with serving size calories and macronutrients per 4 oz. No problem with that. However, when you go online to check the sweet potato calories, you log 103 Calories for each, totaling out to 206 calories for both sweet potatoes.

So, what’s the problem? Well, this is where you went wrong. This was for a potato that weighs about 114 grams, or in other words, about 4 oz each. However, the potatoes you have are 8 oz each. See where the problem comes up? That’s about 200 missed calories. Add those up over the whole day, and you’d be blown away by how off you are. So my point out of this is: Weigh your food.

In addition to that, people tend to use calculators that constitute in exercise, when not doing it, which further distorts their weight loss attempts. Then you have the people who do a “rough” guess. Until you are conditioned to exact calorie numbers in certain foods (And knowing the average size of them), I would highly recommend counting a little more intelligently. Don’t go all out food Nazi and measure your cucumbers to the gram. Just be sure you start learning the macronutrients and calories of foods you commonly eat.

Another issue that tends to occur is people undercounting their calories. I will address this issue later, but for now, don’t forget: Burn more than you eat, and your fat will see defeat.

Do some Exercise

Self explanatory: If you want to live longer, if you want to run faster, if you want to dodge flying ninja stars, or if you just want to bring Sexy back like Justin Timberlake (His movies aren’t too bad either), then simple enough: Do some exercise! It’s in the raw scientific facts, if you exercise consistently, and keep an appropriate energy expenditure(King, Hopkins, Caudwell, Stubbs, & Blundell, 2007) If you don’t now, start small and increase things gradually, especially if you’re over 300 pounds. If you exercise now, you are one of the following 1. Busting your ass and seeing results 2. “Busting your ass” and not seeing results 3. Going to the gym to flash your peacock feathers (AKA trying to get laid at the gym like Dom Mazzetti does) OR 4. Walking on the treadmill exclusively. If you’re part of the first group, then great! However if you’re one of the other three, and you don’t see results, there is obviously a reason why, and no, that does not mean extend your workout from one to two hours.

This means increasing intensity. This means pushing your weight up a little bit. This means doing sprints this week rather than doing some jogging. This means stop going to the gym and wasting precious time bullshitting for 30 minutes to your buddy about Charlie Sheen’s latest drug scandal. This means pushing yourself. This means stop taking 10 minutes between your 155 Barbell Bench Press sets. Lastly, this means you should not be in the gym if you’re not doing work (Especially the peacocks, male or female).

One more thing: If you are trying to lose fat rather than bulking up, or culking, I would highly recommend using both weight training (Yes, that means you ladies and scrawny guys) AND cardio (Yes, that means you meathead guys) to successfully meet your fat loss goals, while ensuring retention of lean body mass. Coupled with sufficient protein intake, you’d be on your way to a successful regiment.

Trans-Saturated Fats: My biggest nitpick aside from calories (And the usage of the acronym YOLO)

Some of you are familiar with this term, some of you may not be. Some of you may be of the type that lacked doing your research and can’t differentiate between Saturated and Trans-Saturated because you were too much of a stubborn ass on raising your fat intake above 10% because you were told it was bad for you. There is a fine line between natural fat and man-made fat (Or man-made anything for that matter. Aspartame is a perfect example).

Remember those Hebrew’s Hot Dogs you had at that company BBQ you had last month? Remember that Pizza Hut pizza you had when you were chillin’ with your bros on the weekend, drinking and cursing at each other? Remember that appetizer of mozzarella sticks you had with some wings when you went to your buddy’s birthday? Eating JIF with your celery? Yes. Unfortunately, all of those things have trans fats in them.

Trans fats are a semi-solid fat which is made by bubbling hydrogen through vegetable oil. This is why the chemical structure of trans fats is a little different than your other fats. Most common ingredients that indicates there is trans fats in a food item is usually labeled as “Hydrogenated oil”, “Partially Hydrogenated oil”, or any variation similar to that.

Why is it so bad? Aside from causing inflammation and endothelial dysfunction (Lopez-Garcia et al., 2005), trans fats have also been linked to insulin resistance, increase LDL (“Bad” Cholesterol), decrease LDL (“Good” Cholesterol), increased risk of Coronary Heart Disease, and even weight gain during times of caloric restriction (Kavanagh et al., 2007; Kummerow, 2009). This isn’t even a full list of all the potential effects of trans fats. If you’re a little more medically literate, you can read through the cited articles and see a few other issues these fats may cause. Moral of the story? Minimize consumption of trans fats, live a healthier life. “Does that mean I can’t have pizza?” Nope. Just do your research first before either making your own or check out what local pizza places don’t cook with trans fats. Pretty easy to do if you ask me.

Get your Sleep

Your mom always told you to go to bed at a specified time (Or maybe your parents didn’t care and now you lack motivation in life. Sorry, buddy. There’s always room for improvement). Well, even though you may have not liked going to bed “early” at the time. Let me tell you I don’t regret my parents putting me to bed early so I could get my 8 hours of sleep (At least).

I know you will hear this time and time again from many doctors, trainers, etc. While some people completely listen and abide by this advice, there are still plenty of people that don’t, and I’m warning you, if you continue to deprive yourself of sleep over the long-term, especially if you train, you are going to run into a lot of problems in the future.

Our bodies are accustomed to something called a circadian rhythm, which is really a conditioned instinctive response our bodies have to when we go to bed, when we eat, etc. When you start affecting that, not only are your cortisol (Your “stress” hormone in summary) levels going to go out of wack, but you will also have other problems such as food cravings more consistently.

No, this isn’t just the only symptom. Sleep deprivation has many consequences, including weight gain, insulin resistance (Which is a primer for Type II diabetes in the future), increased appetite (most likely due to the increase in ghrelin), increased blood pressure, decreases in leptin, and who knows what else (Gangwisch, 2009; Spiegel, Knutson, Leproult, Tasali, & Van Cauter, 2005).

You are your own success

No one is making you lose weight (Unless you are joining the military, then you don’t really have a choice). You could wake up every day for the rest of your life and never have to account for what you eat. If you want to make this change (Or any other significant change for that matter, such as starting your own company, finishing your dissertation for your P.H.D, or even make the decision to start your own budget to save up for a new vehicle), then you have to set the short and long term goals to succeed in this feat.

My next thing I would like to address is something that not many trainers will address to you. Sure they account in diet and exercise, but when it comes to conditioning mentally, most of them could care less. They’ll just tell you to “Stress less” about things. Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Mental reconditioning is one of the best things you can do for yourself (Especially if you were raised in a pessimistic, unsupportive environment).

When you don’t have self respect, willpower, and confidence in yourself, how do you expect to carry out any significant goals in the long term? Well, if you have wealthy parents or just hit the jackpot by pulling a Kim Kardashian, then congratulations: You don’t need any of those when you’re already supported financially, and granted, you can buy a special mental therapist for something like that.

I guarantee you though, that there have been plenty of days that you have felt down and a little stressed out over work, your friends giving you excessive shit, your boss harping on you for the small things, etc. I will address later in my book some mental conditioning techniques. If there is one thing to essentials after nutrition and training, it’s mental conditioning.

Support and Accountability are your friends

Remember in high school, when you had your group of friends, and there was that one thing that you supported each other on like it was your religion almost? It doesn’t matter if it was sports, band, school spirit, LAN parties, your local church group, or even your own special cult (I don’t wanna know). Do you remember how motivated and enthusiastic you always felt about those things? Even if you were tired at the end of the day or feeling down, that one thing kept you going and kept you dedicated to following through with it, especially because you had so much support.

Then you had those other independent interests. If it were the genre of music you listened to, the car you drove, the obsession you had over your studying in Calculus, or even if you got into private street fights in the back alley. They were the interests you had that none of your friends really cared about. They were the few things that made you unique in comparison to everyone else. Those were the things that you eventually either dropped off the spectrum, or you continued to express these hobbies, and eventually you were separated from your old groups and had to find new ones.

This is how social groups work. You cannot control this power. It is out of your reach. Choosing these interests is not your fault. Like I said, these are what make you stand out. People just want to be accepted after all. A good ratio of people who experience this usually give it up just so they can stay with their group. We all know we don’t want to be alone all the time.

That is why my next biggest thing after mental conditioning: support and accountability. We all have groups of friends, regardless if we are introverted or extroverted, we all have some people that we hang out with. That we laugh with. That we bullshit with. That we like having around in a no homo sort of way (Unless you’re a chick. Then the more appropriate term is BFF (Or if you’re a gay guy or a lesbian, the situation may be a little different (Or if you’re a tranny. Then I don’t even know what kinds of shenanigans are happening))). The big question I want to ask you though is this: How much support do these people give you when you are engaged in your passions? If you got in a car accident and had to get to the hospital in a jiffy, as long as they weren’t across the country or something, would this friend allocate their time to helping you out? If not, you may need to start assessing ridding yourself of these people, because the only thing they’re probably doing is wasting your energy in that case. Social support not only decreases stress, but it also makes you feel much more motivated and driven to your passions (Heinrichs, Baumgartner, Kirschbaum, & Ehlert, 2003). On to accountability and goal setting.

I guarantee you if you keep a journal of your food intake, workouts, body progression (i.e. body weight, body fat, waist composition, and any other you feel necessary if trying to build muscle), especially if you’re a person that runs better off of structure (You tend to do much better by annotating appointments in a calendar, you write out your budget, etc), I can guarantee you if you keep this for a couple of months, it will go from being a routine thing you have to remember to an unconscious habit. If you can accomplish this, everything you do for this routine will be intuitive and you most likely will develop a much better sense of portion control (Bargh, Lee-Chai, Barndollar, Gollwitzer, & Trötschel, 2001). Or actually going to the gym. This doesn’t just encompass fitness and nutrition. This covers every part of your life. After all, the title of this book is titled “The Superior Species”, not “From couch potato to athlete”. Now, at this point, this may sound a little scary for some to become so organized. Consistency, however, is your short and long term path to good habits and success in life. I will give you methods for creating yourself a journal of all the stuff you’ll need later to make your success easier in beginning a layout of long term success in goal setting and social support.

Special Conditions

I will try to be brief in this part, as there are special conditions quite a bit of the time when it comes to people that have conflict to going on a diet or exercising due to allergies or medical conditions. This list includes but is not limited to:

· Food Intolerance

o Gluten

o Eggs

o Peanuts

o Dairy

o Shellfish

· Anemia

· Asthma

· Vitamin Deficiencies

· Insulin Resistance (Including Diabetes)

· Hypoglycemia

· Metabolic Syndrome

· Kidney Issues

These are just a few issues I commonly see. While I cannot elaborate how to eliminate most of these issues, I can make recommendations on how to mitigate them and certain alternatives you can use to get around these issues. This will be explained later in Chapter 12.

Overcompliance= Long Term Failure

As you know, you may have seen someone before, if you’ve worked with them, hung out with them, see them at the gym, or see them working at the grocery store, you may notice one day that this person has lost quite a bit of weight in the last couple of months (Assuming you’ve known this person for awhile). After another few months, you continue to see this person almost routinely somewhere, and you will either notice one of three things. They have lost more weight, they have maintained all the weight that they lost, or, strangely enough, they will be back up to that weight or possibly even bigger than before.

When it comes to every human being out there, we are more inclined to convenience rather than patience, especially in the long term. When people initially start on diets and lack the medical and physiological education about themselves, they tend to over exert themselves. I’m talking about men and women that will either lower their calories below 800 a day and/or will do cardio 6 days a week for hours on end. In the short term, it may be efficient, but when it comes to looking good, are you just trying to do it for a few months, or do you want to maintain your end weight long term? Before beginning your journey into dieting and exercise, do some research on popular diets (The ones that have plenty of claims to work). Get a baseline for what kinds of calorie ranges and the frequency of exercise.

After you have done that (Or maybe you are already familiar with every other diet and trying to see what my information has to offer), ask yourself these questions:

· Can I maintain this as a lifestyle rather than a quick fix?

· Am I being completely honest with myself on how many calories I eat?

· Am I strict all the time, or do I have some flexibility a couple times out of the week?

If you’re answering yes to the first two questions, great! You’re on your way to a successful way of living. How about the third? Are you flexible with your eating schedule, or are you spot on with no deviation all week whatsoever? Although I do agree that a strict mindset short term is a great way to successfully lose weight, doing so long term is not of the smartest decisions. Why is this?

It is great that you’re strict on your diet, but prolonged restriction like this has been shown to increase the likeliness of increased BMI and/or binge eating episodes in the future (Westenhoefer, Stunkard, & Pudel, 1999). Strict dieters tend to have an issue that flexible dieters don’t: Let’s say you go to a wedding, take the leftover cake home that was given to you, and decide to have a piece of the cake. At this point, you might get the feeling that you’ve failed your diet, so you eat six more pieces. After that, you probably feel like shit and experience drowsiness. This is the example of a strict dieter after a certain period.

Firstly, you should have never taken the cake home. Have a piece at the party and call it good. Secondly, rather than getting that negative feeling after one piece, if you were a little more flexible, you would’ve just told yourself “One piece is not gonna kill my diet.” That’s why I recommend cheat meals to everyone. It helps you satisfy that craving you had this week. More on cheat meals later. In addition, don’t limit yourself to chicken, rice and broccoli every meal daily. Give yourself a variety of foods each time you go shopping. More on that later.